Lies of P - a Pinocchio-Inspired Souls-Like Game

[v1rus]

good gaem

I'm enjoying the level design. Lots of of intersecting shit, navigating the maps becomes a headache halfway into the game

parrying the bosses ..... seems a bit too easy

to both of these.

Have you ever played a soulslike with an actual great level design? I'm only two levels in but so far it reminds me of Steelrising the most, just streets and alleys, right angles everywhere, two or three vertical layers at the most, everything very simple and straightforward. And it's always the progression path + one side way with a chest at the end. Great level design this is not.

Also parrying bosses is easy? Either you're a 16 yo Korean kid or your nose touching your monitor rn.

Havent beat many "souls" games besides actual From games - I like calling Fallen Order a soulslike, people seem to disagree, so, eh, whatever. Tried Nioh and Surge for couple of hours, but I aint counting that. Of the actual From games - fully beat everything, except Demon Souls and Bloodborne.

My impression is that the beginning is extremely simple, yes, and that it starts picking up around the cathedral, at least level design wise. Mind you - the game really is extremely linear, and the basic scheme does remain "correct path" and "optional chests", but it does get mind numbingly entwined and harder to follow as the game progresses. I hope you stick with the game, as I'd love to hear if your opinion changes as you make further into the game. I'm sorely missing actual, real verticality tho, Elden Ring legacy dungeons and Sekiro did spoil me a bit.

Boss wise - another thing that changes as the game progress. I suck at parrying, I never parry actual mobs, only bosses. And the first boss (and perhaps the flame one?) are only ones I feel like i actually learned the movesets and parry timings. Later bosses are... Way more complex, way more combos, chains and delayed attacks but I feel like there are just too many ways to abuse them. Perhaps I'm overleveled, perhaps my P-Organ build just works well, but I beat every single one of them without much trouble - just trying to parry when it feels like I should, with some light dodging, and heavy Fable + Fatal Attack abuse. This just downs them before I bother actually learning their chains - which I dislike, since I feel like I just bruteforced through them with a heavy stagger + max estus build.

Mind you, I did some reading on "perfect-blocking" when I started the game, and people say you should "hold" your parry instead of just tapping it (contrary to what you do in Sekiro basically) - turns out if you just tap in this game, you only use half the frames you could or something. Havent really tested it - since I started the game, I've been parrying with actually holding the button, which works extremely well - most of the time, If i didnt fail at reading the atack, I parry, and If i dont, I just block it. And recoverable HP matters, a lot, because both parries and attacks restore it.

EDIT - Just reread my original post, and it could be misunderstood that I said "parrying EZ, lul, gitgud". I meant most of later bosses come across as not too difficult or requiring, regardless of are you parrying well.

 

[v1rus]

Just beat the Watchman, needed about 5 runs.

Finally had some fun, for the first time in the game. If only the parry windows were a bit wider, maybe 20%, that's all this combat needs to be better than just average.

Another problem I can already sense here - bosses tend to be large and imposing, so obviously half of the time you can't see what they're doing. Which is especially bad since you have to really watch your parry windows, which, as is the tradition in these games, usually start with the downswing.

This is a problem tho. Hated it in a couple of situations, but nothing too terrible.

You're in for a treat then, with regard to end game bosses. Just make sure to create a copy of your save when it gets serious, or just remember to say 'no' when a certain person wants something important from you at the end of the game (optional boss is related to that).

Glad to hear it, and ty for the tip. Looking forward to it, thats for sure. I was even contemplating backing up the save, doing a NG+ run, and then restoring the save back to vanilla NG for DLC... but that does seem a bit too tedious

 

[cvv]

people say you should "hold" your parry instead of just tapping it (contrary to what you do in Sekiro basically) - turns out if you just tap in this game, you only use half the frames you could or something

Whaaaaa... that so weird. Gotta test it tomorrow.

 

[v1rus]

people say you should "hold" your parry instead of just tapping it (contrary to what you do in Sekiro basically) - turns out if you just tap in this game, you only use half the frames you could or something

Whaaaaa... that so weird. Gotta test it tomorrow.

As I said - haven't tested it really, just said "sure, why not", and its been working very well so far. I basically press it for a sec. Googling might give you more info - perhaps its just a stupid myth or something.

 

[Multidirectional]

Couldn't fall asleep so came back and beat the Watchman after few more tries. Not sure if I actually got good, but last one was a really lucky run where I was parrying almost every attack. And even finally learned when to dodge his grabs, this was probably the biggest factor because that does so much damage. I think I would probably be able to focus on fights like this easier, without getting annoyed, if I wasn't almost completely soured on soulslike "dance to the tune of the boss" combat by Dark Souls III and Elden Ring. From Software got me into these games and then they got me out. Now I just strongly prefer the more free-form combat like the kind Team Ninja games or DMC offers. But I'm still interested enough in continuing this, as I found out there will be more ways to upgrade. Maybe it will get less annoying later. Have to see more bosses to decide, as regular enemies are a joke for now.

 

[Multidirectional]

Fuoco down on first try, didn't expect next boss to be that much easier. Sure, double dodge skill I acquired helped somewhat, but it seems he's just way easier regardless. Didn't bother with the big fucker that is walking around in acid in the factory yet, somehow it didn't look appealing.

 

[Ravielsk]

Fuoco down on first try, didn't expect next boss to be that much easier. Sure, double dodge skill I acquired helped somewhat, but it seems he's just way easier regardless. Didn't bother with the big fucker that is walking around in acid in the factory yet, somehow it didn't look appealing.

Its pretty much a tradition at this point for soulslike games to have at least on boss in the early game that was clearly made for mid-game with minimal adjustments. The Watchmen comes at a point in the game when you do not have good stats, armor or even farming options for upgrade materials so by default you are facing him with a gimped build while in an arena that makes dodging impractical and parries mandatory. On top of that he annoyingly delays attacks to trip you up and his second stage grab can just one shot you if you did not level HP.

Its the sort of boss you put in the middle of the game to make sure the player has properly understood core mechanics and upgraded at least one weapon to a level that lets them beat the following sections. Instead the watchman is placed at the start where its a given that none of those things would be true so he is just an annoying difficulty spike that then quickly fades because the following boss and levels do not demand nearly as much mastery as the boss would imply is needed.

 

[Multidirectional]

Its pretty much a tradition at this point for soulslike games to have at least on boss in the early game that was clearly made for mid-game with minimal adjustments. The Watchmen comes at a point in the game when you do not have good stats, armor or even farming options for upgrade materials so by default you are facing him with a gimped build while in an arena that makes dodging impractical and parries mandatory. On top of that he annoyingly delays attacks to trip you up and his second stage grab can just one shot you if you did not level HP.

Its the sort of boss you put in the middle of the game to make sure the player has properly understood core mechanics and upgraded at least one weapon to a level that lets them beat the following sections. Instead the watchman is placed at the start where its a given that none of those things would be true so he is just an annoying difficulty spike that then quickly fades because the following boss and levels do not demand nearly as much mastery as the boss would imply is needed.

Yeah I don't understand whats wrong with having a normal difficulty curve instead of crap like this. It's like they really want a lot of people to quit the game at the beginning for some reason. I'm not some "omg hardcore" player with great skill but I still have a reasonable amount of experience with these games and that thing probably took me about 30 tries or more. Though I wasn't really counting, just a guess. I can't imagine what it must be like for people who play this as their first soulslike.

 

[Ravielsk]

Yeah I don't understand what wrong with having a normal difficulty curve instead of crap like this. It's like they really want a lot of people to quit the game at the beginning for some reason.

Brain rot brought on by the label "souls-like". The genre defined itself in the public eye as being "hardcore" and "difficult" so devs feel like having idiotic spikes in difficulty is not a failure but a feature.

People really forgot that the only reason why Demon's Souls and Dark Souls were lauded as the mega criptid level challenge games was because they came out during the 7th gen when the default difficulty was shifted to "baby mode" for most games. So a couple of games that explicitly did not baby the player were perceived as mega challenging when in reality they were just moderately more demanding PS2 titles.

 

[Sunri]

I'm waiting for the new game with fem protag

 

[Ravielsk]

I'm waiting for the new game with fem protag

Why wait? Mods already have you covered.
https://www.nexusmods.com/liesofp/mods/100?tab=files

 

[Sunri]

I'm waiting for the new game with fem protag

Why wait? Mods already have you covered.
https://www.nexusmods.com/liesofp/mods/100?tab=files

Its ugly

 

[Multidirectional]

Ok so the acid pool boss wasn't trouble at all, also dead first try. Acid was easy to manage with consumables. And the Booster Glaive Blade it was guarding looks pretty appealing to me as well. Seems like it's time to ditch the Electric Coil Stick so I could also make use of the grindstone elemental buff mechanic that I unlocked.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Ok so the acid pool boss wasn't trouble at all, also dead first try. Acid was easy to manage with consumables. And the Booster Glaive Blade it was guarding looks pretty appealing to me as well. Seems like it's time to ditch the Electric Coil Stick so I could also make use of the grindstone elemental buff mechanic that I unlocked.

So like... you could've just gotten rid of the acid before fighting it.

 

[Multidirectional]

Well I didn't. I am sure the way to get rid of acid was some real obvious one, but I missed it anyway. I have unique talents. So I fought it up to my knees in acid like a real man. And it was easy too so maybe the acid actually made me stronger.

 

[cvv]

I'm waiting for the new game with fem protag

Why wait? Mods already have you covered.
https://www.nexusmods.com/liesofp/mods/100?tab=files

And I suppose all mods changing the protag from a mangina to a male character have been banned by Nexus and their authors are on the FBI watch list.

 

[Multidirectional]

And I suppose all mods changing the protag from a mangina to a male character have been banned by Nexus and their authors are on the FBI watch list.

I'm just happy they let me have a wolf face. Might have had to uninstall otherwise.

 

[Ravielsk]

I'm waiting for the new game with fem protag

Why wait? Mods already have you covered.
https://www.nexusmods.com/liesofp/mods/100?tab=files

And I suppose all mods changing the protag from a mangina to a male character have been banned by Nexus and their authors are on the FBI watch list.

For once that does not seem to be the case. Though none of the mods available are optimal.
https://www.nexusmods.com/liesofp/mods/36
https://www.nexusmods.com/liesofp/mods/18

 

[Multidirectional]

Do you get enough quartz to max out your pee-pee in one playthrough or are those as rare as they seem to be now? Seems to be lots of good stuff in that upgrade tree, kind of a bummer that I also have to spend quartz to increase my estus flask amount.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I'm enjoying the level design.

The shortcuts are complete jokes, go left and open shortcut or go right and activate new bonfire 80% of the time lmao

 

[Multidirectional]

Cathedral is the first challenging level. Haven't reached the boss yet and already died a bunch of times. Giving me a slight Sen's Fortress vibe too, enjoying it.

 

[v1rus]

Do you get enough quartz to max out your pee-pee in one playthrough or are those as rare as they seem to be now? Seems to be lots of good stuff in that upgrade tree, kind of a bummer that I also have to spend quartz to increase my estus flask amount.

31 in total

I'm enjoying the level design.

The shortcuts are complete jokes, go left and open shortcut or go right and activate new bonfire 80% of the time lmao

In my experience, later levels can get confusing with shortcuts. As in, I can memorize the layout while I'm exploring, but when I backtrack, I have no idea where I'm at anymore. But yeah, its a extremely linear game; lots of nooks and crannies, and twisty design towards treasure; but in the end theres only one path. Decided to check out which weapons I missed and found couple of decent nooks that managed to slip past me.

Its far from a master class in level design; but it can be challenging and creative, which is way, way more than your average game does these days. Also, as I said - couple of first levels are quite simple - it gets way, way more complicated as the game progresses. If you managed to get to the top of cathedral without a headache, well done. You did miss a chest there for sure tho, just as I did.

Just a little sidenote - there's also a reason (aside from obv handholding in the beginning) why starting levels are so simple design wise

spoiler

I'm actually way too lazy to compare the layout of "original" levels and ruined Krat, but they do feel like they match; still, cant be 100% sure, and ruined Krat is super trippy so far

 

[abija]

And it looks like parrying is going to be pretty important here too, it ain't just one of the possible options.

I only used parry in one boss fight + 1 miniboss because it clearly made a big difference (and some really telegraphed attacks here and there, but I wouldn't practice it and if I failed once didn't try again). Had no issue before first nerf patch (which hit while I was on last boss).

 

[Multidirectional]

Spent about an hour dying to archbishop Andreus only to discover he has a full second health bar which also comes with new shit to learn. Fuck you game.

I only used parry in one boss fight + 1 miniboss because it clearly made a big difference (and some really telegraphed attacks here and there, but I wouldn't practice it and if I failed once didn't try again). Had no issue before first nerf patch (which hit while I was on last boss).

Well I don't see how I could've done Watchman without parrying. Or this Andreus fight. Wide reaching attacks where dodging or running away doesn't seem reliable. If I try to just block/regain I end up getting staggered a lot. Also am I missing some fast way to get up once I'm knocked down? I usually end up lying on the ground long enough for more attacks to hit me, it's irritating.

 

[Silverfish]

Well I don't see how I could've done Watchman without parrying.