Lies of P

This is the best non From Software souls-like I have played. It really holds up to them very well. If you like the more linear story style like Dark Souls then I can't recommend this enough. If you're coming from only Elden Ring, this game should still be very enjoyable to you, but it's not just open world. The story itself is engaging and the gameplay is fun. If you're a souls fan you should definitely play this one.

My favorite thing about Lies of P is it's potential for player expression. You're allowed to beat the game (mostly) however you want. You can 'Perfect Guard' every encounter, dodge every enemy attack, or do a mixture of both whenever you see fit. Typically, there are better approaches to every fight, but the game will meet you on your own terms and give you the freedom to choose how you tackle it. You're allowed to build any weapon you want by combining different blades with different handles or use any special boss weapon from the various fights throughout the game. If you want to stick a giant wrench to the end of a dagger handle, you can. If you want to put a greatsword blade on a rapier hilt, you can. This simple tweak to a standard weapon selection system adds so much variety between every playthrough and every person's experience with the game.
You'll encounter several boss fights over your 30-hour playthrough of the game. Most of them are good, if not great, while a few of them not so much. Bosses are incredibly aggressive, but readable and reactable, say for a few 'Fury Attacks' which require memorization in timing as opposed to testing of reactions. I was actually surprised to see how many fantastic fights this game offers. There are several bosses I would understand seeing at the top of someone's favorite Lies of P boss list. The game is also a lot harder than I was expecting with several bosses taking over an hour, sometimes up to 3, to beat.
Another thing to note is the game's story. I won't be giving any summary here, but I'm surprised at how invested I actually was in the characters and story surrounding them. It's a refreshing change to see a game in this genre with such a defined and explicit narrative. There were more than a few characters I grew to genuinely really like and feel for. Complementing the story is the great soundtrack through the game. This includes boss themes, as well as the vinyls you can obtain and play in the Hotel hub area. The songs used give the desolate and depressing world so much more life and context. The world of Lies of P is beautiful and feels lived-in and overrun by the puppets and corrupted roaming about. It could have done better with more impurities in the objects around the levels and architecture, but that's more of a nitpick than anything.
The game isn't perfect, however. It falters towards the end and stumbles in it's final act. After Laxasia , you feel like you're closing in on the finale, but then it sort of just continues for a bit too long before the actual end of the game. The reason I take issue with this area is because up until this point the game has done an incredible job at making every location feel fresh with new or remixed enemy types, level design, and area visuals. But this final stretch feels like a retread of the last few areas without enough of a difference to warrant being included. You could argue that this serves as a sort of down-time before the final fight, but the enemies here are just as aggressive as usual and you'll probably end up running past all of them at this point.
All in all, Lies of P is one of the biggest sleeper hits in recent memory and surpassed the expectations I had for it by a long shot. It's one of the best 'Soulslike' games I've had the privilege of playing, and I'm incredibly excited to see the upcoming DLC and whatever next game comes from this series.

I actually tried this game twice before on GamePass but due to a tragic affliction known as a 'skill issue' I really struggled with the perfect guard/block style of combat. However I decided to buy the game and stick at it and I am glad I did.

These devs clearly love FromSoft games as this is a pure souls-like through and through, though based loosely on the fable of Pinocchio which gives it a unique vibe all of its own. The setting of the fictional city of Krat is fantastic, particularly enjoyable (to me) are the early parts of the game where they really give you the sense of a world destroyed by a puppet uprising (robots really) and a deadly disease outbreak that wreaked havoc on the world.

The combat relies more on Sekiro like blocking than souls style rolling and parrying etc and while this can be great, it often is hard to read enemies and get the timing and rolling is not effective until you upgrade it and you won't have enough resources (Quartz) to upgrade rolling until at least a second playthrough. This is where I think Lies of P limits its audience to an extent - the combat is punishingly difficult at times and you pretty much have to master the perfect blocking style of combat or you're going to have a difficult time. Once you do however, you can stagger enemies for critical hits or backstabs and much like the Dark Souls games, satisfying backstabs on unaware enemies are perfectly implemented here and feel very familiar. Stamina management is also essential here and probably the most unforgiving of any souls game I have played so far.

I really enjoyed the early levels of this game but found the last levels starting to get tedious and on my second run through I found myself simply running past a lot of enemies just to get through areas where I didn't need any items to fully complete my run. Getting knocked off of thin platforms and having to fight tough mini boss level enemies while being ranged attack spammed is something I will never enjoy in souls-like games.

I did find some of the voice acting absolutely awful but it is something I notice a lot of these Asian/Korean games do. Like in Final Fantasy games (in my limited experience), where the characters talk in a weird way that is not at all how people actually talk to each other. Though overall it still is passable as it kinda adds to the unique vibe of the game and I don't primarily play souls-likes for the voice acting.

Worth mentioning the game runs incredibly well and (mostly) bug free, while not pushing the limits of graphics tech it still looks really nice for an Unreal 4 game and I had a constant 120 FPS without any stutter and I think this will be pretty unforgiving on even older systems. The sound was nice too and I actually decided to leave the music on (I usually mute music in games) and I liked the dreamy music that plays at the central hub of Hotel Krat - the games version of Firelink Shrine. Oh and thinking of Firelink, the game does some classic FromSoft level design things like linking levels back to the central hotel area, along with the obligatory shortcuts and secrets you expect in a souls game.

Overall I highly rate Lies of P but the big problem it has that will put off a lot of people is the difficulty. For me personally, this game is the hardest souls-like I have tried other than Sekiro, which I just could not get to grips with (though I plan to try that again too). It is a shame too as these souls-likes are also great RPGs and I encourage anyone curious to look at mods to make these games easier if they want to play them, as they are well worth experiencing.

A flawed gem of a souls-like and the best non FromSoft souls game (I have tried) in my opinion.

---{ Graphics }---
☐ You forget what reality is
☑ Beautiful
☐ Good
☐ Decent
☐ Bad
☐ Don‘t look too long at it
☐ MS-DOS
---{ Gameplay }---
☑ Very good
☐ Good
☐ It's just gameplay
☐ Mehh
☐ Watch paint dry instead
☐ Just don't
---{ Audio }---
☑ Eargasm
☐ Very good
☐ Good
☐ Not too bad
☐ Bad
☐ I'm now deaf
---{ Audience }---
☐ Kids
☑ Teens
☑ Adults
☐ Grandma
---{ PC Requirements }---
☐ Check if you can run paint
☐ Potato
☐ Decent
☑ Fast
☐ Rich boi
☐ Ask NASA if they have a spare computer
---{ Game Size }---
☐ Floppy Disk
☐ Old Fashioned
☑ Workable
☐ Big
☐ Will eat 10% of your 1TB hard drive
☐ You will want an entire hard drive to hold it
☐ You will need to invest in a black hole to hold all the data
---{ Difficulty }---
☐ Just press 'W'
☐ Easy
☐ Easy to learn / Hard to master
☐ Significant brain usage
☐ Difficult
☑ Dark Souls
---{ Grind }---
☐ Nothing to grind
☐ Only if u care about leaderboards/ranks
☐ Isn't necessary to progress
☑ Average grind level
☐ Too much grind
☐ You'll need a second life for grinding
---{ Story }---
☐ No Story
☐ Some lore
☐ Average
☐ Good
☑ Lovely
☐ It'll replace your life
---{ Game Time }---
☐ Long enough for a cup of coffee
☐ Short
☑ Average
☐ Long
☐ To infinity and beyond
---{ Price }---
☐ It's free!
☑ Worth the price
☐ If it's on sale
☐ If u have some spare money left
☐ Not recommended
☐ You could also just burn your money
---{ Bugs }---
☑ Never heard of
☐ Minor bugs
☐ Can get annoying
☐ ARK: Survival Evolved
☐ The game itself is a big terrarium for bugs
---{ ? / 10 }---
☐ 1
☐ 2
☐ 3
☐ 4
☐ 5
☐ 6
☐ 7
☐ 8
☐ 9
☑ 10

if you waiting for Bloodborne to be released on PC (don't know when that will happen), this game would be a great alternative.
this game is quite difficult for me who has played various souls-like games. dodge doesn't seem to be made purely to avoid enemies and the range of movement is very small. the parry also annoying (at least for me). the parry/perfect guard window is very tight and it's hard to predict enemy movements. this makes the combat challenging, make you more masochistic.
the story in this game is presented implicitly (similar to Sekiro), no complaints, overall good.
conclusion: this game may not be for everyone. but if you're a fan of souls-like games, this game is a must play. 100% recommended
for the developer: you guys make a great game, good job!
im waiting for the DLC. Lies of P was a great start to the genre, and i look forward to you guys making more games like this in the future.

Just for perspective, I have over 1000 hours in the dark souls trilogy, and I am a huge fromsoft fan. I usually avoid most souls-likes because they can feel like cheap copies, but this game was special. I thoroughly enjoyed my three playthroughs of it, and for me, it had captured that magic feeling that so far, only fromsoft could. Special shout-out to the boss fights. Attacks are telegraphed well, no delayed attacks, and fights can be learnt and executed to perfection with enough tries. The OST is quite enjoyable too, which just adds to the souls experience since usually only fromsoft has nailed good music so far. Highly recommended to souls-fans, especially if you like the games for their fair challenge and the satisfaction that comes from overcoming them. Eagerly looking forward to more from this dev

I just spent ~140 hours playing though Elden Ring and it's DLC as my first foray into the Souls genre. I decided to try out this game next. Let me tell you, I enjoyed my time leagues more with this game! Here are a few reasons why:
- Has an intriguing story that I can actually follow.
- The QoL is so much better, such as graves being dropped right outside of boss arenas.
- A weapon and leveling system that seemed to just work without me needing to know all the soft caps and shit.
- I was never over/under leveled for enemies because the game is linear, so everything constantly felt challenging yet fair.
- The game has a solid runtime (~30-40h) and does not overstay it's welcome.
- I didn't have to use a wiki to play the game.

Overall I loved this game! So far, this is definitively the pinnacle of the genre for me.