4/5 ★ – Kalle_Deimos's review of Lies Of P.

TLDR: Great dismount! But does he stick the landing? Eh, close enough. Gameplay: Lies of P is extremely linear for a souls-like. There is almost nothing extra to explore and discover besides a handful of extra fights in rooms off to the side. Which is dissapointing considering a big part of the souls game is exploration and branching paths. It's more linear than Dark Souls III which is saying something. Combat at least is very good however, possibly even more enjoyable than souls combat. This may sound redundant but it's a mix between Souls and Sekiro. You can dodge like Souls but spamming it isn't as effective, you can block / parry like Sekiro but the timing window is much tighter and you can break the gaurd of enemies like Elden Ring. Combat is heavily favored towards parrying and while it may seem extremely difficult at first, it gets easier as you get a feel for it and can feel extremely satisfying once you learn an enemy or boss. Enemy variety is pretty decent, the puppets are really cool. But then we start fighting "carcasses" which are basically zombies and they are infinetely more boring than the puppets in almost every scenario. Many enemies have some kind of weapon that breaks if you're able to parry their attacks enough, but many of the carcass enemies do not have weapons to break and function more like generic souls enemies where you walk up, stun lock them and they die in three hits rather than being interesting. Which REALLY puts some souls enemy design into perspective. Thankfully there are some carcass enemies that are interesting that come later so I guess that's fine. Assembling and dissambling weapons lets you experiment with movesets before you commit to upgrading. Every weapon is pretty unique as well. Bottom line, it's a pretty phenomenal display of how good soulslike combat can be. And everything else is okay. Story: Lies of P has one of the worst endings I've ever seen followed by a post-credits scene that left me absolutely speechless in a bad way. I cannot BELIEVE it and it can only be seen to be believe. But you also need the feeling of seeing it after consuming this 30+ hour bizarre experience first because it put me in an incurable funk for the rest of the night. The bad ending is more interesting than either the "good" ending or True ending. The story is possibly the weakest aspect of Lies of P, and it really falls apart only at the end. Lots of concepts work, the Puppets, Puppet frenzy, Ergo, the Grand Covenant. Basically everything with the puppets is good. Simon Manus and his whole thing tho is really lacking however. He's like "I'm going to make a world free of lies by becoming a big mutant god" and I'm just confused. He literally tells me his plan and yet I'm at a loss on what he was going to do. What the hell is a world without lies? What does that even mean. Honestly the smaller plotlines throughout the game are more intriguing than the "main plot". Romeo & Carlo, Geppetto and Sophia are all interesting and their stories have the juiciest details and biggest suprises. Also who the hell is Gemini. I thought there would be some clarification but I did not get much from him. Graphics: Game looks very good. I really enjoy the design on all the puppets and many of the environments. And despite not being a puppet, one of the final bosses have a pretty wild design and boss arena that is lit as hell. Sound: Genuinely beautiful music makes up this soundtrack. Not just in the regular tracks but also the unlockable records you can find have the best songs that'll make you want to hang around Hotel Krat. Extra: A couple of these sidequests are supremely annoying because you can fail them if you do something slightly out of order. And trying to get the true ending on a first playthrough left me feeling burned. Spoilers for the game but if you want the True Ending you should lie as much as possible. I appreciate the idea of this as the whole concept of lying revolves around expressing deception over silly things, but many lies end up feeling completely counter-intuitive to contribute to P's humanity. Especially when a lie reads as P acting as a puppet being controlled instead of a genuine response. As mentioned previously, there is basically nothing to explore. And the sidequests are pretty minimal but at least are interesting and let you learn more about the characters. Favorite Thing: When big enemies explode when you kill them it's pretty cool. Not My Favorite Thing: What the fuuuuck was that ending duuuude. What the FUUUUCK.