Neowiz’s latest game Lies of P stoked my curiosity by promising a unique blend of soulslike games and the classic tale of Pinocchio, centering around the titular P, a lifelike puppet created by the one known as Gepetto. Initially, your life is a mystery as you arrive via train to Krat, a once prosperous and fantastical city thanks to the discovery of a mysterious substance known as Ergo that allowed for huge technological advancements, until various divides broke out and an uprising occurred, and you arrive to see aftermath, the protest signs, the gangs consisting of people wearing animal masks…okay, the more think about it, there’s a bit of BioShock in the main setup. But after initially being guided through town to Hotel Krat, seemingly the lone safe haven and the player’s base of operations, P now has to set out to find Gepetto so that they can hopefully put an end to the Puppet Frenzy that caused Krat’s magical automatons to go haywire and a wee bit murderous, although it quickly becomes clear that things may be more complicated…
Gameplay in Lies of P starts out standard for a soulslike game. Walk through a ruined world, hack and slash your way through several enemies, dodge roll, guard, perfect guard to avoid health loss, deal with occasional status condition, make your way to the campfires Stargazers to fill your Estus Flasks Pulse Cells and unlock fast travel, at the cost of most enemies respawning with each use, you probably know the initial drill. It might not seem like the most exciting stuff at first, but the combat is solid and fair for the most part, easily getting the job done. The bigger and more welcome twists to the combat, though, come in the form of your weaponry.
you may discover a lot of various weapons in Lies of P, everything from shock batons to massive scythes, and barring any unique Special Weapons, each weapon consist of a blade and a handle. Feel like mixing things up? Then you can use the hotel or any Stargazers to assemble new weapons by combining different blades and handles, each part having not just their own stats, but also unique powerful special moves that can be used by building up Fable as you fight. And with each weapon reacting differently to your starts and each part having the ability to be upgradeable, it allows for a lot of experimentation, letting players find something that might be more tailored to their favorite playstyle, or something suited for the current challenges at the moment.
There’s also the Legion Arm, a special mechanical arm that P has which can be swapped out with several different versions, each with its own unique skill to be used as well. Some shoot fire, other have Scorpion-style hooks, or if you find the right parts, you can craft ones that allow even more useful skills like the ability to shoot explosives or upgrade others more. It’s another unique option you have for combat purposes, though this one has limited ammo that you have to manage as well. Actually, you also have to manage weapon degradation with your main melee weapons as well, which thankfully isn’t too much of a pain thanks to a Grinder that allows you to quickly sharpen things. Lies of P boasts an impressive arsenal, even down to its single-use throwable items (though given their relative scarcity, this writer ran into “but I might need it later” syndrome too often with them), one that you’ll want to discover as much of as possible.
Speaking of the single-use items, you can purchase them from various vendors using Ergo, Krat’s miracle substance that you earn from defeating enemies, or found via the occasional Ergo fragment. The twist, though, is that Ergo isn’t just a form of currency, but also what P uses to level up back at Hotel Krat, increasing their stats in one of six different areas, not to mention it’s a part of the cost for weapon upgrades. So there’s a nice challenge alone in figuring out how to properly manage your Ergo, trying to figure out how to to best use it to buff up P. Although if you happen to come across any rare Quartz, you can use it in the P-Organ later on, which is basically this game’s twist on skill tree that offers up even more options and passive boosts.
There’s a lot to offer for combat opportunities in Lies of P (I didn’t even get around to things such as the Amulets), but time is precious, so let’s move on to who you’ll be using all of these combat skills on, that being the enemies and bosses. The first major chapter-ending boss you fight in the game is a massive circus puppet with a comically tall and thin stovepipe hat built on their head, and at the halfway point, they rip off their head and use it as a fiery mace, with the hat serving as a handle. It’s an imaginative design that mixes comical and creepy aesthetics, and the boss themselves puts up a fair challenge. I bring this encounter up, because again, this is just the first boss, and things go uphill from there.
The enemies in Lies of P range from puppets run amok to roving gangs of more intelligent humans and disease-ridden monstrosities that dive straight into body horror, and they all show a great degree of creativity, requiring players to uncover unique strategies to get past them…or just run past them if needed. There are quite a few bosses in your way, after all, ranging from the larger elite foes casually roaming around to the really large monstrosities at the end of each chapter, so you’ll need to find a way to do whatever it takes. But one way or another, the enemies – and the character designs in general – are a delight.
It helps that a good exploration of your surroundings will probably find some way around them. Lies of P starts to hit its stride once you get into the larger levels where things open up more, and there are multiple paths around that can lead to various secrets like chests guarded by armies of grunts, the occasional optional boss that you can battle, riddles and ciphers that can lead to secret treasures, or even just doors to open for various shortcuts. Aesthetically, Krat also looks fantastic – well, aside from the mounds of corpses – with each level having its own unique flair that fits the more Victorian feel, and has a lot of detail put into it (accompanied by terrific sounds and pulse-pounding boss themes as well). It’s a lot of terrific levels encouraging a full search of them in a natural way.
You also find hints of the story and various bits of world-building by poking around, and the narrative here is a captivating one as well, with a lot of engaging mysteries presented to you and a lot of interesting characters along the way, helped out by good voice acting (same for everyone pronouncing the game of P’s automaton cricket companion Gemini as “Jiminy,” which kind of ruins the joke’s subtlety). But the most interesting part of the story is in P’s journey towards humanity, and in discovering how humanity includes the occasional lie, hence the title.
At various parts of the game, either via main path our through side quests you may uncover, you have the option to lie to certain people, and the choices don’t just affect the overall story, but also whether or not P gains Humanity, thus affecting the ending further. Puppets were designed not to lie in Krat, thus lying can actually prove P’s humanity, especially in cases where the lie may be more comforting. There’s a bit of an art to lying, though. In one instance, the option to lie about P’s identity can determine whether or not you can go past someone to use a cable car, with the first time around, the option to lie not being available, leading to a boss encounter instead. It wasn’t until afterwards that I realized by mistake: I initially thought that I had forgot to put a proper mask on, but it turns out I needed a specific emote, per this particular gang.
Yes, unlockable costumes and emotes in Lies of P aren’t just for show, they can actually affect who you may talk to, and thus what you can discover from the people you can encounter. After all, P is still a puppet, and the citizens of Krat don’t have the greatest view of puppets right now. It’s a particularly novel approach for a game such as this, adding strategy not just to the combat, but to a bit of how you approach the narrative as well. There’s also a chunk of other ways for P to gain Humanity, such as discovering records and listening to them back at the hotel, or even equipping unlockable emotes and using them in front of certain NPCs. The focus on humanity in the story is integrated into the game especially well, even determining if you can finally pet a cat or not.
So does anything bring down Lies of P? How the game handles the Death Ergo left behind when you die is an issue. You keep everything else, but your Ergo (not including your collectible chunks of Ergo) has to be picked up where you initially perished, with the catch that any time you take a hit along the way back, your Death Ergo is diminished, even moreso if you die again. I realize this is a genre of games known for being punishing, but considering that Ergo is essentially used as experience points, it can feel like it even denies a chance to improve at times. Speaking of the punishing difficulty being a staple of soulslike games, the bigger problem with Lies of P is that while it soars whenever it comes to exploring its own unique world and the tales and secrets within it or experiencing and experimenting with its own unique mechanics, the fun seems to dip whenever the game copies the soulslike gameplay playbook note for note, as if it felt an obligation to do so. And there are some parts of the soulslike formula – or at least some touches associated with it – that feel they can get in the way at times.
There’s the the overly elaborate animations when healing, using certain items or performing special moves, given opponents easy opportunity to interrupt you with a blow and essentially negate their abilities. There’s the weight mechanic that alters your much-needed stamina, making it feel like the game is discouraging you from actually using the more powerful unlockable Special Weapons that you can obtain (and especially feels ill-timed afterStarfield’scontroversial encumbrance in its gameplay). There’s the potentially lethal fall damage and occasional obstacle that can wipe out nearly your whole health bar. There are the two-stage bosses that refill all of their health in between fights, a trope which instead of shock and surprise, now triggers an aggravated grunt and an eye roll, especially after already going through one whole fight suffering attacks that took out half your health. Even the one big boost against major bosses – spirit NPCs you can summon with Star Fragments – is something borrowed from other games.
All of this reminded of something likeYooka-Laylee,which took a “warts and all” approach when it came to paying tribute to its genre as well (retro 3D platformers), and suffered for it. Game director Choi Ji-won has said that they don’t believe soulslike games should have difficulty settings, preferring well-crafted, tight level design. And true enough, Lies of P does have mostly amazing level design, ones with a lot of challenge that still encourages exploration. But that still doesn’t excuse some of the more cheaper elements of the genre or cheaper elements in general. Lies of P is still a fantastic game that’s worth checking out, but it feels bogged down by genre conventions at times, never able to fully ascend and become a real boy…but an entertaining puppet is still good.
Closing Comments:
Lies of P is a worthy entry into the soulslike genre of gaming, particularly when the game allows its own unique elements to truly shine, such as its unique spread of weaponry and combat mechanics or its impressive story twists that can have you rediscovering what it means to be human. Top those parts off with large, well-designed levels with a ton of stuff to discover and terrific visuals in both beautiful scenery and terrifying monsters, and you have a great game in general that, despite occasional frustrations, is worth checking out, and that’s no lie.
