2/5 ★ – xeothe19th's review of Lies of P.

System Played(s): PC Overview (Review for Base + Overture DLC) It was really hard for me to review this game. On one hand, the world building and the environments were almost flawless. The setting of the scene, without imposing too much on the player, did wonders for the atmosphere. Exploring was great when I wasn't constantly bombarded by erratic enemy placements and constant traps/surprise attacks (seriously, use this in moderation or it gets old real fast). On that topic, enemy design was awful. The variety was nice to see, but heavily aggressive enemies with erratic movement patterns at every turn made exploration feel like a chore. It worked for Sekiro, which intentionally had more fluid movement and much greater mobility. Having intentionally clunky Dark Souls style movement, while having mobs of very fast, quick, and high hp enemies gang up on you was not fun. At the end of the Monad Manor in Overture, I exhaled in relief at making it to the Rose Garden to stand at the final boss gate. It was finally over. There were too many lootable orbs on the ground (100th dim ergo fragment anyone?), and it still did not address the issues from other Soulslikes where 75 percent of what was lootable was not relevant to the build you were running. Exploration felt rarely rewarded for the effort. The story was ok. These games were never strong narratively, and Lies of P follows suit here. Did it try to be more upfront than FromSoft games? Yes. Did it succeed in telling a cohesive narrative without the need for external lore digging? No. It succeeded in piquing interest though. Win for Lore Youtubers, I guess. And finally, the bosses. Many times, the Camera could not capture the full boss (Simon Manus, Cathedral Monster, Green Beast). The bosses were very aggressive, fine, you need to parry. The bosses would have long and delayed windup animations into instant hits forcing you to rely on memory rather than reaction, never been a fan. And my biggest pet peeve, bosses having the same startup animation for more than one move, or different animation times for the same move (mixups). That’s almost a deal breaker for me, but I pushed through it. In the end of the day, this game held my attention long enough to finish it. I know I’m heavily comparing it to masterworks from FromSoftware, and this was Neowiz’s first attempt at the genre, but releasing a game so closely mirroring those games warrants the comparison. My verdict? So close, but yet so very, very far. Gameplay (4/10): This is a Soulslike game, with parries. This suffers too much from attempting too many things, without perfecting anything. Why have a functional dodge at all, if you would like players to rely mostly on parrying? What I missed in the overview was the lack of build variety. Mixing handles and blades did not make up for the glaring lack in ranged combat options, or magic based options. This was a missed opportunity, despite it being a balancing nightmare. Remove the difficulty slider and lean in to making spells OP at that point, there, done. Honestly, the 4th point in this rating is carried by Spring, and kitten Spring, and also the mediocre satisfaction in parrying with the Twin Dragon Sword. Graphics (9/10): This is where my praise for the game solely lies. Everything was beautiful. From the snowy environments of the zoo and carnival (ferris wheel? <3) in Overture, to the beautiful stained glass windows in the Cathedral, everything was skillfully executed, and everything ran well. My one complaint is that the game had insane 1% lows, and the frame pacing was quite poor (might just be my old CPU) Soundtrack (4/10): It was alright, nothing memorable. My issue was with the records that could be played over the gramophone. Why were there Ballads? I understand maybe one in memory of the red lady (Adelina), but why so many? It just didn’t fit the game. Replayability (6/10): Extra points here for almost getting me to replay the game, just so I could understand what the puppets were saying with the decoder (poor way to bait me into replaying the game). I just couldn’t bring myself back to do it, especially after running out of upgrade mats (WHY ARE THESE FINITE POST GAME, STOP THIS TREND) Conclusion (9.5/10): I could say more about this game, but I wont. Maybe some last gripes? All the cosmetic options were underwhelming, and I was excited for the BB style drip going in. I ended up modding in the Blood Borne hunter’s gear. Shout out to that mod creator. There, I'm done now.