The developers kind of went mad with power during the late game, which is frankly too hard. I've beaten Sekiro, Hollow Knight, Bloodborne, Elden Ring... none of those games are as hard as Lies of P.

The difficulty comes in that you can seriously make purchasing and upgrade mistakes that limits your endgame power substantially. I opted to go for an "all weapons" run with the boss ergo, and locked myself out of end-game amulets. Additionally, I switched which boss weapon I was using, and the game punishes you by not supplying enough upgrade material to facilitate switching weapons.

Additionally, after 40 points in your primary stat, any additional levels only give you 1 or 2 extra damage, which makes your power curve logarithmic. In other souls games this is fine because the inflection point of the curve is past the end-game material. In Lies of P, this happens about 2/3rds of the way through the game. The bosses get more health and hit harder, but you don't get substantially more powerful once you hit level 65-70.

There's just little design issues like this sprinkled throughout the game that add up to a "it could have been a masterpiece" kind of experience. Ultimately, I can't recommend to the average person who plays games.

That said, there is an Easy Mode built into the game by the devs, but you have to re-enable it via mods. I stand firmly that when I review a game I can't factor in mods that fix its shortcomings, but if you're like me and just want a game that respects your time, google it.

Unfortunately, another Remedy game that's just "OK". The graphics are spectacular, the writing is inspired, the setting is brilliant. However, the "game"—the ludo—is mired with dated late 2000's percentage-perk-tree-mania that interrupts any flow-state you might have with the story with tedium.

This is a shame, because the Saga sections are very good. I feel like a broken record with Remedy when I say this, but I wish they stuck to their strengths.

I think Immortality ends up being a better version of what this game is trying to do.

Now this is a VIDEO. GAME.

FromSoftware does it again. The combat is incredibly challenging, but once you engage with all of its systems it becomes very rewarding and satisfying. Almost everything has a counter, whether that is via play-style and/or changing up your mech's build. Boss has a big shield? Use vertical missile shoulder mounts. Boss is hounding you with homing missiles from a distance? Use a nimble reverse-jointed mech with a laser sword and don't let up on your unrelenting attack.

Also, the stagger system is just feels so damn good.

The only bad thing I can say about it is that Easy Anti-Cheat seems like a necessary evil for anything with competitive online multiplayer. As someone who doesn't play online, I wish I could disable it.

Aside from the Easy Anti-Cheat, AC6 marks FromSoft's first PC release that doesn't feel like a compromised version compared to consoles. 16:10 is supported, 120 FPS is supported, and the Mouse+Keyboard controls clearly got some love because they feel great (and I'm not one of those sickos who plays Dark Souls with M+KB).