You wake up in an abandoned train car to a mysterious voice calling out to you, “Geppetto’s puppet… We need your help”, as a blue butterfly disappears into your body and you regain consciousness with no memory of who or where you are. The mysterious voice then tells you to make your way to a place called Hotel Kraft where all will be explained. This is the opening to Lies of P a Soulslike game that released on September 19th, 2023, and was published by Neowiz Games and co-developed with Round8 Studio. What sets this Soulslike apart that it is set in a darker version of the Pinocchio universe. You read that correctly. While this may seem like an unlikely combination I am happy to say that it’s one that works surprisingly well.
Check out our review below to find out how.
An Unforgiving World
If you’re unfamiliar with the story of Pinocchio and why it makes sense for the setting of a new Soulslike game, here’s the quick run down. The story of Pinocchio was originally created by Carlo Collodi about a wooden puppet that comes to life and gets involved in various forms of mischief. After running into trouble one too many times the puppet named Pinocchio learns from the error of his way and matures to a point through the assistance of magic, he is transformed into real boy. The story was later adapted by Disney and is known as of their darker animated movies. While this darker tone may not be ideal for a Disney animation, it works perfectly for the unforgiving nature that Soulslike games are known for.
That being said I mentioned in my initial impressions of Lies of P that the environment you explore is very reminiscent of FromSoftware, Inc’s 2015 hit, Bloodborne. Most of the game takes place in a dark Victorian era city with tight streets that wind back into themselves for easy shortcuts. Residents can be spoken to through windows with only a shadow being any indication of who exists on the other side, while monsters and bodies line the streets due to a recent puppet uprising. The puppets are what make Lies of P feel unique and stand on it’s on as these puppets are not marionettes controlled by strings for amusement. The puppets resemble something closer to humanoid robots that were created to to enhance the lives of humanity. Unfortunately for the citizens of Krat, the city where most of the game takes place, the puppets have gone into a frenzy where they are now the equivalent of dangerous killing machines.
Your goal is to find the cause of the puppet frenzy and put an end to it.
Deliberate Combat and Challenging Bosses
While it was the initial set up of the world that attracted me Lies of P it was the combat, mechanics, and quality of life additions that made me keep coming back and see the challenging experience all the way through the end.
Movement feels fast and engaging when fighting enemies and it’s one of the many parts of the game that feels very much inspired by Bloodborne. Health can be regained when attacking enemies but healing items known as Pulse cells, will mostly be replenished when sitting at a Stargazer, Lies of P’s version of bonfires. The reason I say mostly is because when your Pulse Cell total reaches zero, you can still regain one through combat. This means you still have a change for victory in tense moments if you play smart and skillfully.
As I mentioned in my initial impressions, I really liked the simplification of stats and gear. There are only 5 stat to choose from which may sound shallow at first, but when these stats are paired together with the various amounts of weapons and equipment they allow for different build types that the Soulslike genre is known for. While I originally called out some frustration on how the information on stats is provided in game it wasn’t as restrictive as I had originally thought since you can quickly find out which weapon type and playstyle you prefer.
Many of the weapons can be separated into a blade and handle that can be swapped to create unique weapon combinations that lead to even deeper gameplay decisions. If you really like the rapier weapon but wished it did more damage you can attach the blade of giant glaive to the rapier handle and create a weapon that honestly shouldn’t exist, but works if you have the right stats for it. Not all weapons have this functionality as certain weapons are available after defeating a boss. What they lack in customization they make for in unique abilities and higher stats. One thing that all weapons do have in common are unique abilities called Fable Arts that allow for a more powerful or defensive attack. Because these abilities are on the stronger side they have limited uses and can only be activated when the player has the appropriate amount of active Fable slots. These can be gained from successful attacks. In addition to Fable Slots, every weapon has the option to change their stats to better fit your build through the use of an item called a crank. Cranks can change a weapon that is more attuned to a Strength build to one for a Technique build or vice versa, meaning you have more freedom to choose how you play.
Along with weapons you have a few other combat options you can utilize. The most noticeable one is your Legion Arm, a prosthetic arm that mixes up and enhance fights depending on which arm you have attached. The first one you receive is a string that allows you to pull in enemies close to you and makes you feel like Scorpion from Mortal Kombat. Other Legion Arms offer you a shield, the ability to shoot fire, and even use a makeshift gun. Legion Arms are not the only tool at your disposal. You have access to another tool simple called The Cube that provides buffs to you and allies in battle but can only be used a limited amount of times until you rest or die.
While the amount of options is well and good, what matters in a Soulslike is the level of challenge. As someone who has beaten Elden Ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls 3 I can easily say Lies of P provides a fair level of difficulty. While some bosses were easier than others I never felt like I encountered a fight that I was going to be stuck on for weeks. Each boss fight felt realistically beatable but very rarely did I encounter a boss that was a pushover with the exception of the first few bosses in the beginning.
Quality of Life and the Freedom of Choice
The amount of choice in Lies of P is definitively plentiful and this extends beyond combat. While the idea of freedom and choice as a design approach is not new to Soulslikes or even gaming in general, it’s very apparent that it was something very important to the Neowiz and Round 8 and it is incredibly nice to see as this is the developers’ first attempt at a Soulslike game.
One of the first standout opportunities curate your experience comes from the ability to customize your appearance. In many games, gear is often tied to stats but in Lies of P this is not the case. The two systems are completely separate and do not impact one another, meaning you can look as cool or as ridiculous as you want with no gameplay repercussions. Some may argue that this is more of quality of life addition to the game and I could not agree more because that is something that I think make Lies of P unique when compared to a traditional Soulslike game.
There’s a ton of quality of life implementations that made the game much easier to enjoy without taking away from it’s challenging and unforgiving world. If an NPC or quest can be interacted with in a certain area an icon will appear when fast traveling to another Star Gazer. It helped indicate that there were steps I needed to take to progress the main story and/or side content. In some cases it wasn’t always clear what was next in my journey so I really appreciated the push along.
Something else that I thought was nice was how the game deals with currency/experience loss. In case you’re not familiar with currency and experience work in a Soulslike, the basic explanation is they are one in the same. Killing an enemy may net you 500 points but that’s points you either use to level up or purchase items, how you spend your points is up to you. In Lies of P the points are known as Ergo and are what power everything in the game, including you. When you die you lose all Ergo you have until it is reclaimed after you respawn. In other Soulslike games if you do not regain your lost points and die again you will lose everything, Lies of P is a bit kinder and reduces the number. While you don’t get everything back it’s nice to at least get something. I understand that some may find this impacting the difficulty of the game but I think it makes for a great feature and only adds to the overall gameplay experience.
There was only one thing I thought that took away from the Lies of P and that was the environments. They felt a little repetitive and were not as diverse as I would have liked. When I did come across a more interesting area in the game it didn’t stick around very long which was a disappointment. I understand that the game takes place mostly across one city but I think seeing a bit more variety would have elevated the experience overall for me.
Final Thoughts
This was review was a bit challenging because I wanted to rate the game on it’s own merits but everything feels very referential either because of it’s story components or game design. There are moments in Lies of P that I loved like having a pocket sized companion that breaks up the silence by sharing his thoughts on a situation or dropping little tid bits of lore when appropriate or seeing other characters from Pinocchio interpreted in a much darker way. The story overall was a little predictable but I did enjoy that there were places where they went for a more cinematic approach to add more substance to the game. It felt fresh to have story be a bit more in your face for a soulslike game, and it makes sense given that the source content was narrative driven.
Overall I liked the Lies of P a lot for it’s combat and it’s improvement on what came before. While it may not be original it takes a lot of elements of different sources blends them in to an experience that works really well. This is a game I would easily recommend it to anyone who is still holding out for Bloodborne 2.
Lies of P is available for PC via Steam, Xbox (Including GamePass), and PlayStation.
