After last year’s smash hit game Elden Ring shook the games industry, many new games are being developed in the Souls-like genre to follow in its footsteps. The vast majority of these games fail, but Lies of P may just be one of the exceptions. Lies of P, developed by Neowiz Games and Round8 Studio released September 19. It is a Souls-like game with a story based on a dark-fantasy version of the story of Pinocchio, taking place in a city based on the Belle Epoque era called Krat. You play as Pinocchio, a mechanical puppet, and the only puppet who is able to lie. Your main goal is to find out who started the puppet frenzy, turning all of the normal peaceful puppets mad and bringing the once glorious city of Krat to ruin.
Story and the Lie System
The game starts out with Pinocchio waking up in an abandoned train car in Krat. A once-bustling city where mechanical puppets did most of the strenuous work for humans, allowing them to live their lives and fulfill their dreams, is now engulfed with madness after the puppet frenzy. The puppet frenzy has turned all of the polite and helpful puppets against the people of Krat. Your goal is to make your way through the city and its surrounding areas to find out the truth about who started the puppet frenzy to save the city of Krat. Throughout the game, you will be given many chances to lie or tell the truth. Your choices in these instances will change many of the side quests of the characters, giving different rewards for their quests, and eventually will change the ending of the game.
Setting, Enemies, and Bosses
Krat is filled with different types of mechanical puppets and decayed zombie-like monsters. Throughout the city, you can find things called stargazers, which allow you to respawn and replenish your health and pulse cells. Although it may seem like there is no hope left for the city of Krat, there is one safe place in the city. This place is called Hotel Krat. This hotel is populated by most of the remaining humans who will help you along your journey. Many more will travel to this area as you move through the game and you meet or save them. Each of the mechanical puppets fit the theme of each of the areas. In the starting area, you will mostly see mechanical dogs and puppet butlers. They likely began breaking free from their homes and wreaking havoc around Krat during the beginning of the Puppet Frenzy. While in areas like the entertainment district, you will see actual puppets which would have been used in puppet shows, or you could find opera and singer puppets. The boss designs and mechanics in this game are quite diverse. Although most of them are some sort of large puppet or monster, they are nothing like any of the normal enemies found throughout the game. One of the more unique bosses is the King of the Puppets, which was shown in the trailer for the game. This boss is a large puppet with four arms, and it is found on the Estella Opera House Stage. The boss fight has two phases, and during the second phase, the boss’s move set, abilities, and design are completely different from the first phase.
Stats and Upgrades
The various stats in this game include Vitality, Vigor, Capacity, Motivity, Technique, and Advance. Vitality is the stat that increases your health. Vigor is the stat that increases your stamina allowing you to run, dodge, and attack for longer periods of time. Capacity is your weight stat allowing you to carry heavier weapons, amulets, and defense parts. Motivity, an equivalent to strength in other games, increases the damage of weapons that scale with it, which are usually large and slow weapons that deal more damage. Technique, an equivalent to dexterity in other games, increases the damage of weapons that scale with it, which are usually quick weapons that deal less overall damage. Lastly, Advance controls the damage of the various elements such as electric blitz, fire, and acid. Your starting stats are determined by the class you pick in the train car at the start of the game. They are a dexterity-focused class, a strength-focused class, or balance which is a mixture of the two. Each of these stats can be upgraded in the central hub of the game by the character named Sophia using Ergo, which is the currency throughout the game, obtained by defeating enemies and bosses.
P-Organs
P-Organs are a unique part of the Lies of P. P-Organs are this game’s variation of a skill tree and can be accessed on the second floor of Hotel Krat after unlocking the room. There are five phases of P-Organs, which are a part of the skill tree and include four groups. Unlocking two groups in a phase allows you to access the next phase of the skill tree. A group is the individual upgrades within a phase. Each group unlocks a major skill or item such as the ability to dodge while doing a dodge, an increase in the amount or effectiveness of pulse cells, or an increase in fable slots. To unlock a group, you need to unlock a certain number of slots, between two and four, to get the major skill. Each slot can be filled with one of four different categories of upgrades: Attack Type, Survival Type, Ability Type, and Item Type. And no slots in a group can have the same category of upgrades.
Weaponry, Weapon Assembly, and Legion Arms
Although Lies of P features similar weapon categories to other Souls-like games. it has one unique change: the weapon assembly system. The weapon assembly system allows you to split all weapons apart from a few exceptions into a handle and a blade. These parts can then be reassembled into completely unique weapons. The handle of each weapon controls its move set and damage scaling of the weapon while the blade provides damage type and actual damage numbers. The weapon assembly system can be accessed at every stargazer, as well as by speaking to Eugenie at Hotel Krat. The weapons that cannot be disassembled are called special weapons and are received by defeating bosses and trading their Rare Ergo for the weapon through the character named Alidoro. All of these weapons have a thing known as fable arts, which is a special ability that deals a lot of damage and Groggy Damage. There are also some fable arts that give a temporary boost to you or your weapon. All fable arts use up your fable slots. The fable slots can be regained by attacking and defeating enemies, and the maximum number of fable slots can be increased using P-Organs. All of these weapons can also be upgraded for increased damage and damage scaling. While fighting in Lies of P, weapons lose durability rather quickly and need to be fixed during fights. Luckily, the grindstone item can be used to quickly repair weapons as many times as it is needed during fights, as long as the weapons have not completely broken. In the case that they become completely broken, there are a few options. Resting at a stargazer or dying will repair your weapon to full durability, and you can use an item called Venigni’s Urgent Repair Tool to restore its durability. And as a last resort, you can switch to a different weapon. The other unique weapon in this game is the Legion arms. Your left arm is a mechanical arm that can be switched out with different ones for different uses. The starting Legion arm is the Left Arm of Steel and allows you to charge up a punch dealing large amounts of damage. This arm can be switched out very soon for more interesting ones, such as the puppet string allowing you to bring enemies towards you. The various legion arms throughout the game can be further upgraded, allowing them to have more unique features. The legion arms do have a limited amount of uses during combat which can be replenished by using a Legion Cartridge or resting at a stargazer.
Healing, Dodging, Guards, Guard Regain, and Perfect Guards
There are various techniques to avoid damage and regain health in this game. To heal in Lies of P, there is an item called the pulse cell. You start the game with three pulse cells, and they can be used to recover a fixed amount of health when used. Once all three have been used, you can gain one back after attacking an enemy or boss for enough time. There are a few ways to increase the effectiveness and number of pulse cells throughout the game, but the easiest is from P-Organs. The most basic way to avoid damage is dodging. Dodging in Lies of P is slower and less rewarding than in many other Souls-like games, but it is still very useful. There are two types of dodges: there is the roll when you are not locked on to an enemy and the dash when you are. Both of these have a certain number of invincibility frames, times when you become invincible, based on your weight. This can be used to quickly escape combat scenarios or to move around an enemy. Guards, where you hold up your weapon to block an attack, are the preferred way of avoiding damage. Doing this consumes a large amount of stamina and a minor amount of health, but much less health than what would be taken if you were to get hit. You can regain your health after guarding by quickly attacking afterward through a system called guard regain. Perfect guards in Lies of P, also known as parrying, are performed by guarding at the exact time you were going to get hit. A successful perfect guard will be indicated by a flash of bright red and orange sparks. After a successful perfect guard, you will take no damage, and you will consume much less stamina. The enemy’s groggy status will also be built up and in some cases, the enemy’s weapon can even break.
Defense Parts and Amulets
Rather than having traditional armor pieces like in Souls-like games, the costumes and headgear in Lies of P have no protective value. In place of that system, there are four types of defense parts. These are frames, converters, cartridges, and liners. Frames increase physical damage resistance which is the most common type of damage encountered throughout the game. Converters increase the resistance to elemental damage. Cartridges increase resistance to status effects. Lastly, liners increase resistance to the different types of physical damage which are slash, strike, and pierce damage. Amulets are another item that gives you various different effects. Some examples of an amulet effect are increased health, increased weight capacity, or increased stamina recovery rate. There are also many more complex effects given by the more powerful amulets but these have the downside of being much heavier. You can obtain amulets from chests, killing larger enemies, and from Alidoro by using the boss ergo to get an amulet rather than a special weapon. At the beginning of the game, you can use two amulets, but you can increase the number of amulet slots using P-Organs.
Elements and Status Effects
In Lies of P, there are two main elements and seven status effects. The three elements are called electric blitz, fire, and acid. Electric blitz is an effect similar to lightning which works well against the various types of mechanical puppets. Electric blitz damage will also build up the electric shock status. One other element is fire which works well against the more zombie-like enemies found throughout the game. This element also builds up the overheat effect. The last element is acid which will build up the decay status of enemies. The seven status effects in Lies of P are electric shock, overheat, decay, corruption, disruption, shock, and break. Some of these status effects have both good and bad effects like electric shock, overheat, and decay. The electric shock status effect causes both you and surrounding enemies to take increased electric blitz and physical damage, as well as constantly draining your fable slots and constant groggy buildup on surrounding enemies. The overheat status causes continuous fire damage and an increase in fire damage to you and surrounding enemies. Enemies will also experience slower regeneration, and you will experience lower guard regain. The decay status effect causes increased acid damage for you and surrounding enemies as well as causing you to take continuous damage to yourself and your weapon durability. The corruption status when fully built up causes your character to take continuous damage. The disruption status when fully built up causes instantaneous death to your character. The shock status effect when built up causes a decrease in your character’s stamina recovery rate. Lastly, the break status effect when built up causes your healing from pulse cells to be significantly decreased. Status effects although having some positive effects are very deadly and most of the time should be avoided at all costs.
Groggy Status and Fatal Attacks
Groggy is a status in Lies of P that affects both enemies and bosses. The status builds up on enemies as you attack with perfect guards, charged heavy attacks, and certain fable arts building it up the fastest. After you attack an enemy for long enough, their health bar will gain a white border, indicating that after a charged attack, they will become groggy. When an enemy is groggy they are unable to move and are open to a fatal attack. A fatal attack is a heavily damaging attack that can be performed on a groggy enemy. An icon of three red slash marks will appear and begin to glow when approaching groggy enemies; while during a boss fight, there will be a growing red circle on the ground in front of a groggy boss. Press the light attack button after approaching either of these and the fatal attack will be performed. The fatal attacks have different animations based on what weapon you are using, but all deal significant amounts of damage and should be taken advantage of.
Review
After fifteen hours of gameplay in early access, I have absolutely loved the game. I am an avid fan of the Souls-like genre, having played the entire Dark Souls series and Elden Ring multiple times. I can say that this is the only game I have ever played that replicated the same kind of feeling that you get when playing Dark Souls. A sense of great challenge that is hard to overcome, but it’s not overbearingly difficult to the point that it is annoying, however, you still feel that great sense of achievement after it is complete. The graphics of the game are absolutely beautiful, and it runs fairly well on high settings on my gaming computer. If you are unable to run the game on your computer, medium settings still look absolutely gorgeous. None of the different areas of the game feel very repetitive and all have interesting layouts with shortcuts leading back to the different stargazers in each area. Although some of the enemies are quite repetitive, there is enough variety in the enemies to keep the game interesting. The bosses all feel very good, even though some such as the aforementioned King of the Puppets gave me a much harder time than the rest. The weapons have so much variety that I will probably play the game a few times to try the different play styles that it allows. Overall, I feel that the sixty-dollar price tag attached to the game is absolutely worth it, and any person looking for a challenging game should give Lies of P a shot.
