Lies of P - DLC Shadow Dropped at Summer Game Fest

[Stevens]

I've played it for an hour, it's the real fucking deal.

If you're a fan of Bloodborne/Sekiro you skip this at your own peril. I say this as someone with over 1500 hours combined in both.

Lies of P - Overture
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=b-pBtuYX6zc

[Lander]

YO IT'S THE LIES OF P THREAD

I'm interested to hear more - there's been too much scuttlebutt around the wider internet to draw any worthy conclusions so far, but it's had my interest since hello.

[BIL]

Cheers 4 thread + impressions I've been interested since you first mentioned it, but I'm ducking DSIII/Sekiro/ER/AC6 spoilers, so didn't comment much. Excited to hear a fellow Church Pick appreciator is digging it!

[Stevens]

That's quite the backlog you have there BIL. Not that you asked - but if I had to pick two/skip two I would play Sekiro (biased) and AC6 (never played one). I don't know what it is with From's games and myself, but the sword and sorcery themed ones I play once and then never touch again.

Now all that said DSIII is great and everyone who likes From should play ER once.

[BIL]

Pretty much how I see it. Sekiro's my most-anticipated, easily; you and so many other trusted peeps who dig BB tend to favour it, too. Also that necro-feudal styling is my mahfuckin jam Soon as I saw TG16 Ninja Spirit in EGM, it was settled AC6 second, since i've always loved the series and JP mech aesthetics in general. DSIII feels like a fond encore, I was enjoying it thoroughly, but decided to hold off until i've got a 60fps platform. I'm not bothered about ER tbh; sounds like a great trip but I could easily put another three games in front of it without regrets. I'm mostly happy it did so well for Miyazaki and co. Also a hoot seeing all the grousing from certain quarters Waaa no HUD, etc etc. Sometimes I just wanna feel like I'm lost, I don't want a giant day-glo cock prodding me to the next waypoint, get enough of that shit IRL naw mean

I'm kinda the same WRT Souls; great games, but not as innately compelling to me as BB. I love the build potential - anything from an immovable juggernaut, to an untouchable ninja, to a hellcasting 90lb lich - but at the controls, I prefer BB's quasi-arcadey Samurai Gunslinger model. Gives everyone God Step, a jaw-jacking parry, and bestially ravenous regen, a triad of tactical/animalistic fury... then goes nuts on the weapons design, archetypes shattered left and right, preposterously cool aesthetics to match. Spectral assassinator and bone-juddering slugfest all in one, a smorgasbord of high-end gear for the administration of. Seeking the perfect kill in the mahfuckin jungle. Even ignoring the bottomless chalice of D5+FRC, I could easily put another +999hrs on the rest of the toybox (could only claim to know WTF I'm doing with the Saw, Pick, Axe, and Chikage... and two of those are starter Pokemon!).

[Lander]

Which is to say, the bar's bloody high innit!

And I'll endorse that ordering despite being on a complete mecha sperg-a-thon in the wake of AC6. Both excellent, but Sekiro is just such precise videogame no ken in context of From's design toolbox, not a single motion wasted. It's an historic event.

Speaking of BB, I wonder if P will have anything so philosophically challenging as murdering scrupulous yorkie lass Eileen for her Blade of Mercy, only to find that it's... Maybe not worth committing Sean Bean over
But then you embrace the mope, load up some Linkin Park, and use it as fuel for an impersonell brooding twinblade gimmick run! Now that's thematic gameplay.

[AGermanArtist]

I've got hard earned Platinums for both Sekiro and Bloodborne, but I wasn't sold on the demo. It felt a little been there done that and my reasoning is admittedly quite irrational mostly due to my dislike of Timothee fucking Chalamet and the fact mt G/F's daughter never shuts up about the floppy little cunt, and his visual similarity to the game's protagonist, but I'm enjoying the enthusiasm in this thread. Maybe I wasn't in the right mood for it.

[Stevens]

Timothee fucking Chalamet and the fact mt G/F's daughter never shuts up about the floppy little cunt

I don't know who that is, but that made me laugh.

Stevens five hour report:

If I found out this was made by a splinter group of former From employees I honestly wouldn't be surprised. Combat is a flawless mix of parrying and quicksteps. It works beautifully here.

[Sumez]

I played the Lies of P demo, and while I agree it feels like they got everything down to a tee, the game just didn't drag me in the same way the better Souls/Borne games do.

Moving around the stages, areas felt quite samey, and I didn't get that constant sense of exploration and progression you get from Fromsoft's games, and I never had that heavy sense of dread about the dangers that could potentially exist around every corner - something that IMO defines those games and helps make them really memorable. I'd just faff around the streets like it was Bayonetta or something.

Combat with heavier enemies and bosses also didn't tickle my fancy as much. Stepping/rolling away to retaliate felt weirdly cumbersome and not super reliable. Instead it feels like the game is much more designed around those timed blocks that deflect damage and give you a much better opening to counterattack. That's not a bad thing really, and could be a nice alternative to the extended Souls series - but I wasn't completely sold by the demo.

That said, it seems that the demo represented a work in progress, with the devs willing to listen to feedback and change things around, so the final product could end up feeling quite different, and other areas later in the game might also offer more variation - hard to tell until the game is out.

[Sumez]

That's quite the backlog you have there BIL. Not that you asked - but if I had to pick two/skip two I would play Sekiro (biased) and AC6 (never played one). I don't know what it is with From's games and myself, but the sword and sorcery themed ones I play once and then never touch again.

If I'd play two and skip two, I'd never want to miss out on DS3 and ER. Both are fantastic games.

[it290]

I'm about five hours in. Here's my breakdown so far:

Gameplay: This is about as close to Bloodborne as I think it'd be possible for a non-From dev to get while still remaining legally distinct, and overall it scratches the itch.Some elements, like the main character's walk cycle, seem to have been lifted almost verbatim from BB. The combat system itself is a mixture of Sekiro and Bloodborne, with stagger and parry systems in place along with an HP regain mechanic that this time is based on health lost when blocking an attack without parrying. Similarly, the stats/level system is derived directly from Souls, pretty much using the exact same weapon scaling, stamina, etc. systems. You also have a skill tree in play here, replacing some features that would likely be confined to items in Souls.

So far, the bosses and minibosses have all put up a decent fight, with some seeming to want you to rely more heavily on dodging and movement and others more around blocking and parrying, although in the long run either approach seems viable for most fights.

I can't really say the same about the mook enemies or general level design; even 4 or 5 levels into the game, most of the mooks rely on a small set of basic attack patterns roughly analogous to what you'd find in Central Yharnam, and the levels themselves, while providing some degree of nonlinearity and interconnectedness, are a far cry from the complexity of Souls or BB and are generally fairly short and quick to traverse, with bonfire spacing that makes DS3 look stingy and overall detracts a bit from the satisfaction of progressing. Most of the larger enemies also do not respawn, making things even easier. There's also a general lack of setpieces—these seem mostly reserved for the boss encounters and although you frequently get some lovely views, rarely do you encounter the massive entities commonplace in From's games.

Art Direction, Worldbuilding, and Narrative: On a purely visual level, the game is lovely to look at, and although the enemy design shows some level of originality and creativity, enemies in general lack the intimidation and menace that From so readily conjure up, and the environments similarly fail to drip with the atmosphere found in Bloodborne or Souls. Everything pretty much feels like a generic, but expertly executed, steampunk world, which is to say it feels more grounded in our world and less otherworldly than From's games. The Pinocchio conceit does make for an interesting 'Victorian Bladerunner' kind of tale, but the character design and voice acting sort of let this down; they're both totally competent, but unremarkable, and again lack the transportative qualities you find in Souls. Some people might actually prefer this more straightforward and Western narrative style, but for me it fails to take the concept entirely where it could go.

This shortfall becomes even more pronounced when

Spoiler

the game predictably copies BB's story beats and veers into cosmic horror territory—the slight Brand X feel of the entirely game is doubly apparent because the eldritch horrors you end up having to fight feel like cookie cutter B-movie monsters rather than the truly alien beings faced in BB.

In summary: I'm not quite sure what to think about this game. It's an entirely competent BB/Souls rip-off that does certain original things (without really breaking new ground) with its systems and world. It can't hope to ascend to FromSoft levels, but it's still totally fun to play, nice to look at, and does the job of standing in as a sequential-level-based Souls game, which From themselves are unlikely to return to in the near future. In some ways I'd probably even recommend it as a first game for someone getting into the genre due to the generally low difficulty and generous bonfire placement. My verdict would be that it's worth playing, but I'd probably hold off for a price drop unless you're just dying to play this type of game right now. I also have mixed feelings about something that so shamelessly and studiously plagiarizes its inspirations, but I suppose that was inevitable at this point.

[To Far Away Times]

That's quite the backlog you have there BIL. Not that you asked - but if I had to pick two/skip two I would play Sekiro (biased) and AC6 (never played one). I don't know what it is with From's games and myself, but the sword and sorcery themed ones I play once and then never touch again.

If I'd play two and skip two, I'd never want to miss out on DS3 and ER. Both are fantastic games.

If I had to pick two, DS3 and ER would be mine as well.

I am mixed on Sekiro. I think it has the weakest level design and aesthetics in the "series" but goddamn the sword fighting gameplay is all aces and the final boss is the biggest bastard I've ever had to beat in a videogame.

[Lander]

Watched a stream for a few hours; long enough to witness an impressive mustache. If you told me Round8 had a team dedicated to reverse-engineering the Bloodborne and Sekiro design docs, I'd probably believe you.
It comes off as unabashedly derivative, but the implementation looks really solid. Made me actually want to pick up a controller and play it, which is more than can be said for most From-a-likes.

Terms like Fable Arts are a tad on the nose, but the Pinocchio concept seems to have a lot of potential; all the little details you'd expect, and probably more that I'm missing. Mild-mannered Genocidepetto? I can dig it.
Giving bosses garbled subtitles that you can kind of sort of figure out if you squint is a nice touch too; adds a bit of mystery to muddle out during the retry cycle.

Weapon mix-matching could be neat, but I've not seen enough to say so far. Seems pretty fundamental mechanics-wise, absent a defining gimmick like trick weapons.

I get it with DS3 and ER on some level; one's a culmination of the thing that started it all, and the other is From showing the industry at large who's boss.
But on the other hand, the greatest hits album and the open-world one? Maaan

[AGermanArtist]

I'll wait and see what Edge have to say.

[Blinge]

my reasoning is admittedly quite irrational mostly due to my dislike of Timothee fucking Chalamet and the fact mt G/F's daughter never shuts up about the floppy little cunt, and his visual similarity to the game's protagonist

Valid

[evil_ash_xero]

I couldn't get into the demo. I felt like I wasn't equipped for what I was dealing with. The dodge was bad, and you felt a little sluggish.
I know there is an upgrade, but people say it's not much better feeling.

I hear that it's a really good game, but it's such a rip off that it just makes me wonder why I'm not playing BB instead, when it is more mechanically sound?

Well, I hope everyone else enjoys it.

[it290]

I've had zero problems with the dodge personally. It doesn't grant massive mobility, but the iframes are pretty generous and I think that makes up for it. I think there have been some tweaks since the demo originally dropped, however.

That said,

Spoiler

I've progressed a little further and there is a wannabe Sen's Fortress section that focuses on traversing a bunch of structural beams while dealing with enemies that attempt to use projectiles to force you off the edge Anor Londo style and also involves some required platforming using the classic shitty Souls jump. I get that this is a tried and true Souls trope, but I feel the series had largely moved past this stuff and its inclusion feels weird here. Mercifully that segment is pretty short, but I'm hoping the rest of the game doesn't return to this well too often.

[Volteccer_Jack]

The dodge was bad, and you felt a little sluggish.

First, the dodge is secondary, similar to Sekiro combat revolves heavily around blocking and perfect blocking. Second, the dodge is very different from a Souls kind of dodge, you use it to sidestep attacks rather than to dart around the screen. A simple example from early on is a spear enemy who does a lunging thrust at you; if you time a dodge, you'll neatly slip around and be in position to get an easy backstab. I started really liking it once I got the hang of how it's meant to be used. Reminds me a little bit of PN03 honestly, which is high praise since PN03 has my favorite dodges in any action game.

As for general mechanical soundness, I think it's on par with BB/Sekiro, maybe better, but I'm still super early so take that with plenty of salt. I like the regain and stagger mechanics a LOT, and I think if you're gonna make combat revolve around perfect blocks, the Lies of P system is probably better than how Sekiro handled it.

Main problem is that so far, the enemy designs are rather lacking. All the enemies thus far have felt pretty same-y. Plenty of time for that to change, but BB hits you upside the head with Cleric Beast in the first half hour, and I unequivocally adore Cleric Beast. The first boss of Lies of P is really generic and bland. Can only hope it gets better. (although honestly I already like Lies of P more than DS2/3 and ER rofl)

Story obviously is taking a LOT of cues from Bloodborne, but I really like that the game is doing an optimistic slant. It's a stark contrast to the From Souls vibe of "life sucks then you die, but actually you're immortal so even in death life still sucks". Lies of P has a hopeful tone to it, more "let's save the world" instead of "all is lost".

[Stevens]

Hey all -

Still plugging away. I'm at about 24 hours - but that will skew high cause I always walk everywhere during a first playthrough. I am probably about halfway.

I'm five bosses in - boss tries here ->

Spoiler

1st - 3, 2nd 10 or so, 3rd 2, 4th 7, 5th a lot, but I finally figured it out. Despite the high number of tries I had a lot of fun with it.

EDIT - I mean main chapter bosses. I've fought about five or six mid bosses also.

Going with a straight dex build. I've used the starting weapon the most and have no doubt it will carry me to the end game if I want it to.

Difficulty is ramping up for sure.

[it290]

Now that I'm nearing what I assume is the end of the game, I have to retract what I said about the level design earlier. The levels scale in both scope and complexity as the game progresses, and the later ones are pretty satisfying to navigate indeed. The enemy diversity also improves as you go, and there are some pretty nifty ones later on.

The blade & handle and legion arm systems both allow for some pretty nifty specialization as you go, also. I'd been overlooking the Fable Arts (weapon skills) earlier on since the ones on the starting saber are kinda meh, but some of them are uber useful for building up stagger and pushing out ridiculous amounts of damage. The same goes for the legion arms — some of the upgraded skills are pretty damned powerful and enable a nice diversity of playstyles.

[To Far Away Times]

I've been bouncing off a few other games that are just okay (Sea of Stars, Image Fight, Starfield) but this dark and gritty Pinocchio reboot is what I needed.

It has some real "we have Bloodborne at home" energy, but I like a lot of the tweaks to the healing system and blocking, and I dig the more straightforward level design.

[Lander]

The healing tweaks seem pretty nice - rally for regenerating your last flask is a good comeback mechanic, and not replicating blood vial farming was a wise choice.

Extra points for how they implemented Jiminy Cricket's umbrella too. That's good stuff that is.

[BrianC]

Can you use your nose as a weapon if it grows really long?

[Stevens]

The healing tweaks seem pretty nice - rally for regenerating your last flask is a good comeback mechanic.

GREAT mechanic. Nice layer to desperate combat. Forces you to be aggressive. This legit turned the tide when I beat

Spoiler

Romeo, King of Puppet s

. That fight is all Bloodborne.

That said I've died a fair bit from over extending myself. Feels good when it works though.

Also the levels and level design take a huge step up mid game.

[BrianC]

That said I've died a fair bit from over extending myself.

Is that what happens when Pinocchio lies too much?

[Lander]

The playthrough I've been following has been exclusively using the donkey hat, so I wouldn't know firsthand, but my understanding is that the nose has been downgraded to side content in this depiction.

[evil_ash_xero]

There's a patch out now that supposedly tones down the difficulty.

As for me not liking the dodge, I feel like it doesn't really do much at all. I would just like more mobility.
Even in Sekiro, where the dodge isn't great, you can jump all over the place. You don't feel stuck to the ground.
In LoP, I feel like you're kind of really limited in movement, and forced to trade. And I'm not so great with that.

And I'm not a newbie or anything. Beaten Demon's Souls and Dark Souls II. Platinumed Dark Souls 1, III, Bloodborne, Sekiro, and Elden Ring. I also beat both Nioh games (not the DLCs, though).
I'm just trying to say I'm "OK" at these games.

Lies of P just messes with my head. Like I'm doing something wrong (which is very possible).

[it290]

As for me not liking the dodge, I feel like it doesn't really do much at all. I would just like more mobility.
Even in Sekiro, where the dodge isn't great, you can jump all over the place. You don't feel stuck to the ground.
In LoP, I feel like you're kind of really limited in movement, and forced to trade. And I'm not so great with that.

Don't sleep on running. It's a pretty good option in this game.

[To Far Away Times]

As the game starts ramping up in difficulty the warts start showing. The last two bosses I've fought have been outrageously spongy. I also want to dodge attacks and not rely on the parry so much.

[Volteccer_Jack]

I dunno guys, I get plenty of use out of the dodge. For example, when I beat

Spoiler

King of Puppets

...I didn't block a single time after he transformed.

Granted the dodge is terrible for movement, but that's what sprinting is for.