Lies of P Demo
…by a Souls-like outsider
My time for gaming these days is, sadly, significantly less than it used to be in my twenties. Between work, creative side-lines, and the scourge that is adulthood, my usual sessions are quite confined in length. This could certainly be one of the reasons Souls-likes don't appeal to me. My limited time requires a bit more payoff to get the feel-good chemicals happening.
You can imagine my surprise then, when seeing Lies of P for the first time, I was oddly drawn to it. I won't lie (ahem) – as I set the demo downloading I did watch DrJamesTheYorkshireman play through it so I had a bit more of an idea of what I was getting myself into. Lo and behold, I still wanted to play even after seeing them getting killed repeatedly. And so the next chance I got, I loaded it up. And I died. A lot. But I kept coming back. Why?
Lies of P is set in an elegant steam-punk Italian world based (very) loosely on Pinocchio. But it wasn’t the aesthetic that sold me on this game. Frankly, I think the steam-punk genre peaked with Bioshock and Dishonored, and hasn't recovered from all the sub-par wannabes that followed. Maybe it was the combat system? I had chosen the faster of the three classes, hoping that if I could move out of the way quickly I could chip away with lighter blows and keep going. It kind of worked, but regardless of my speed the tap-dodge-tap-dodge system is still so intrinsic to the genre that I didn't enjoy that it essentially slowed down gameplay.
It could be that I was trying to prove something, that I could beat these types of games. I was riding high for a time, having gotten used to enemy attacks to the point where they were mere inconveniences, but pride is the thing that goes right before the fall. I did eventually come up against the first boss. And I fell hard. The boss philosophy is still the same - they’re going to close in faster than you move, your i-frames are precise and sparse, and you’re going to get hit hard. This is where my short-lived love of Lies of P fell off.
Despite a few quality-of-life improvements, such as all your ergo (read: souls) sitting before a boss battle, it’s not enough to sway the casual. I have loved the recent resurgence of popularity that Pinocchio has been getting, but I'm afraid this is one interpretation of the beloved tale I will leave behind.
I am not a Soulsborne player by nature. I have played Dark Souls. Once. I was actually excited to play it. I even managed to slay a few bosses. But this was more of a challenge than your standard indie or retro game. After hours of being beaten into submission by the same enemies over and over again, I decided this really wasn't a genre I was going to get into. I'm sure seasoned Souls-like players will find something to love here, but I doubt it's going to become an entry point to the genre.
The demo is available on Steam, Xbox, and Playstation, with the full release due 19th September 2023. PC and XBox Game Pass subscribers will be able to play it from day 1.