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Lies of P (Xbox one, xbox series, PS5, PS4, PC )

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    Lies of P (Xbox one, xbox series, PS5, PS4, PC )

    Lies of P, is what you get when you cross the story of Pinocchio with the mechanics of Bloodborne, in this Victorian steampunk world humans are served by mechanical automatons or puppets as the game keeps calling them. Things in this world have gone very wrong though and the puppets have broken their programing and killed pretty much everyone in the city in a murderous rampage.

    You play as P a puppet with the unique ability to Lie and to think for yourself, one of the founding rules of puppets is that they cant lie, (they also must never harm a human or let a human come to harm, and must always obey how very Asimov). It's your job to find out whats happened as the streets are full of robot butlers with shotguns, candlestick wielding servants and Marry Poppins style cockney chimney sweeps that try and skewer you with their brushes. From the central hub of Hotel Krait Gepeto will send you off to the four corners of this hellscape to try and piece together what has happened, the hub seems to open up more after each mission giving access to new ability's and ways to spend your puppet souls.

    The saying 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery' works well here as if you have ever played a souls game its systems will be very very familiar. it even has blodbornes aggressive rally mechanic where you can get energy back if you attack quickly after taking a hit. That's not to say it doesn't have tricks of its own to add to the mix, the perfect block system is like a super quick parry and feels really good to get right it also has the added bonus of breaking enemy weapons.. I especially liked the sub weapon you get a robotic arm that can be upgraded with various tools. The hook shot is great for pulling enemy's towards you and is a great way to close distances and pull enemy's out of the pack. Aiding you along the way is your trusty talking lamp Gemini, a lady that will convert the power you take from the puppets into power for yourself, a blacksmith for weapon upgrades and various vendors where you can spend your robot loot, so yeah so far so hub world souls game.

    One thing I've found so far is its a fair bit easier than the likes of bloodborne, it has its challenges and you still have to be careful as your life energy is precious, but i found it a lot more generous with its shortcuts. Nothing has felt like the relief of opening that first gate back to the lamps in bloodbourne as so far its never really made me run the gauntlet. If you've always bounced off souls games this could be a good start with its easier difficulty. and you can play it how you like (block, parry or dodge). It's currently on game pass and if it wasn't i think id of happily paid full price for this.

    in summery a modern take on blood borne with an interesting story and world to explore for next gen systems that runs far better than bloodbone ever did with a solid 60fps 2160p on series x.
    Last edited by Lebowski; 04-10-2023, 15:22.

    #2
    Playing on pc via gamepass so i can play '4k' with DLSS and all the bells and whistles turned on for a smooth framerate, would have brought it as it is that good of a Soulsborne copy, the best a none Formsoft company has done. If you're seasoned, there isn't much challenge early on to mid game specially if you call in npc help on the bosses (which i do), the levels aren't too large or that complicated, they tend to give plenty of shortcuts right up to the boss doors. Has similar 'untracked' sidequests, with a little guidance from Gemini saying you've picked up an 'item' that person we talked to before wanted, and then flags up an icon on the teleport screen (bonifre teleports). Thankfully you do get to fight more than robots, the areas become reasonable varied and there are plenty of tough mini bosses to go out of your way for to get upgrades or keys to locked places. The challenge does start to pick up if you don't upgrade pulse cells (HP recovery and quantity) as runs to open a shortcut will get longer and longer, with the enemy placement becoming more cunning like mixing up grenade throwing things with a dual shield beefy robot on tiny rafters in the roof, had to cheese that one with every last throwing item and playing the enemy lease game.

    The rally mechanic is just for blocking, straight hits to the face won't give chance to claim it back so you can spec in to guarding with the heavy weapons, accessories and puppet upgrades. Which is exactly how i'm playing it, don't usually spec in STR builds (first playthrough) but i found much easier for me to interrupt all enemies with basic swings and it plays well in to reducing the amount of guarding chip damage i take before i can rally that HP back, it also lets me at least try for perfect blocks which adds to staggering big bosses and will break weapons of everything else.

    The depth comes from playing with your weapon builds, the blade end will mix up guard regain, damage type (slash, blunt, pierce), a weaponart (which uses the fable metre) and sometimes elemental damage which will either be native or applied via the weaponart. While the Handle changes the stat scaling and animation of attacks, along with another weaponart which varies between an attack or temporary buff. You'll get the ability early on to mix and match blades and handles up. The other major system is the P-organ, getting a rare upgrade item allows major upgrades to standard abilities so you can spec stuff like guard regain, dodging, fable amount and recovery, staggering, ambush damage (backstabs), pulse cells (HP potions), items uses.

    As of where i am in the barren swaps i think i have 3 areas left to go based on what Geppetto had to say, 17/18 hours in, level 68.

    my build is levelling the core stats HP/STR/stamina and some capacity(weight management and some legion use, which is special arm power), using only 1 weapon to kept my weight to 'slightly heavy' and that is Saw Blade (huge 2 handed tree saw) with a STR modded police batten handle which i felt gave the best speed and reach for light and heavy attacks, spec'd my accessories into heavy defence (costs weight) and rally regain, pretty much only using the flame arm (level 3 of 4) everything else i've tried is nowhere near as good in universal application (everything burns), the grinder upgrade is usually electric, wishcube set to npc recovery. P-organs i've aimed for pulse cells and perfect guard/rally regain.

    Also did something really stupid in spending the bosses 'souls', didn't even twig they're named ergo items... so when the dealer turned up i had nothing to buy off 3 bosses i'd killed

    Good game and a surprise for me how well it turned out after trying the demo out and not feeling hot on it.

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      #3
      Near the end of the game, enjoying the story more as it goes on and feel it will definitely have a multiple endings vibe to it similar the souls games. Just got a certain item which i think might give me something similar to (big guess coming up but, it'll be big spoilers)


      the Nier games in being able to understand the enemy/puppet language, not had a chance to use it on any puppet who can talk but i do remember boss tier puppets having made up language at the bottom of the screen when fighting them, this will probably be an newgame plus bonus as i can't see me coming across any top tier puppets anymore



      also had to laugh at how much P's Hair changed... had been wearing some sort of mask all game, so it was a surprise me when i took it off about 15 hours since i last looked .

      Come across some cool weapons i'd like to use, but the amount of time i need to level them up when i'm so comfortable with my huge ass saw blade so close to finishing isn't worth the investment... maybe new game plus, i can try the huge puppet axe (as big as P) or a pneumatic drill, but i'd probably want to try respecing into Dex or Technique(elemental stuff)

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        #4
        beaten the game lvl 97 about 24/25 hours, had a good 2 hour slugfest with the final boss... with no npc crutch to fall back on (which they do quite often late game) i had to learn my prefect guards, the usual of getting through phase 1 PG'ing every hit after doing it so often but the visual mess in phase 2 from the bosses weapons and just the amount of attacks incoming meant i need more dodges than PG attempts. Got the 'Rise of P' ending, which i think it probably the good ending, really liked the how the story played out which from my understanding


        4 kids grew up, Carlos (you), Romero (king), simon (big bad alchemist), Sophie (level up lady, ergo conduit), in your adventurous attempt to become stalkers you die along with Romero. Geppetto upset his son is dead sets up his plan to store your memories in an egro heart/puppet then use sophie and simon to accumulate enough ergo it to make you human. Present day gets messed up when Simons experiments on sophie/egro go to far making more and more monsters while becoming a god himself. The puppet king (Romero in a prototype body G made before you) unleashes the puppets to hold back the monsters but they end up attacking everything. Sophie wakes you up early and rewinds your time everytime you die in her bid to have you come 'rescue' her.

        In my story, lied often, choose to kill the treasure hunter, let hotel lady die, save the 2 stalkers, kill the Riddler, Kill/release Sophie and kill Geppetto. I liked that there some sort of illuminati on the look out for special humans and showing Dorothy (Wizard of Oz) at the end, if we get sequel game where Dorothy is teleporting around as a combat move, i'd be up for it



        Did a little of newgame+ up to entering the hotel, you get every gameplay item from the start (the previous post about item spoilers turned out how i thought it would go) and an option for a free P-organ reset and unlock level 6, i choose not to for now as there was no stat reset available at the start. Got one new piece of accessary for beating the Policeman in the station again and it was a +1 version of the original... wonder if weapons will also get +1 versions as well?

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