I was coming to comment on how I did in fact find it much easier, but now perhaps I’m understanding why. I watched your video when it first released, but only now am starting it, and was shocked at how easy it was. I took down the first two “cutscene” bosses on my first try. The “fire machine” in the factory took a number of tries, but it was, I’d say, reasonable. If you wouldn’t mind answering, what bosses were you stuck on first?
i went to read the patchnotes and im seeing like 3 bosses HP nerfs and buffs to character scaling/damage. I dont think it'll make you get rolled less by the bosses and honestly some of them were just frustrating (speaking about two phase bosses, first phase is just a chore im glad they nerfed the hp)
That is an amazing feature, you’re never really out of the fight. In souls games if you take too much damage too early it’s often best to just die and try again, but Lies of P gives you the option to stay in the fight and recharge one of your healing items. It is a fantastic feature. There’s a lot of minor things and quality of life changes in this game that I really appreciate. There are a few other features present in Souls games that are missing in LoP however, which is a bit of a bummer. One example is with your item bar; you can’t hold the button to return to your first slot in your item bar like you can in Souls.
What I like to get talk about is how Lies of P is hyper focused on what it wants to achieve. Neowiz didn't have AAA budget, but they managed to make a AAA experience. A lot of it was being incredibly within their scope as a studio. They didn't try to do something crazy over ambitious. No Multiplayer No labyrinth giant map No class system No magic It went old school and got the most out of doing linear, hand crafted levels. Which is why I think a lot of people adore it so much. It hide a lot of it by overlapping areas and making the levels feel connected by vistas. Lies of P unlike a lot of Soulslike has a lot of heart. Everything is made with purpose and deliberately design. It's clearly within expansive storytelling that this was a passion project. This was just the duality of being human, but also the meta divide between a FromSoft game and Soulslike. It's clearly spelled out that difference is that those games had a heart and not just soulless representation of those games. With Lies of P's success. I'm excited to see them be more ambitious in their game design.
Yeah, they knew they dont have budget to make Elden Ring pt2. They knew what they can make the best from what they've got. It feels no inferior than AAA titles
As any souls like game LoP is dogshit in beautiful wrap. Shitty timings with almost invisible enemies attack telegraphing. Unpredictable garbage fight system. "SkILl iSsuE ghmghghgh" stfu.
Lies of P is an extremely special game. I hope more and more people realize this. Once you beat the game and the credits roll and that song plays. Just a masterpiece of a game.
I played through the game like 5 times because I loved it so much. It’s not perfect but it is amazing and I can’t wait to see what Neowiz does next. I’m a big Sekiro enjoyer so i’ve been wanting a game like this for a long time
There’s an awesomely subtle sound design choice that is also a spoiler (kind of, we all know the story of Pinocchio). At the start of game P is truly a silent protagonist, without even sounds of exertion as he rolls or attacks. He does, however, make mechanical sounds as his body moves like the other puppets. At some point, and I’m not sure when because I only properly noticed in the last chapter, P gains a voice. He starts to gasp and groan when he takes hits and makes sounds of exertion when dodging or attacking. The mechanical sounds disappear and by the end of the game, if you make the right choices, he has become human. It’s a fantastic detail and one I’ll be keenly listening for when I inevitably replay it.
you can also see the shadow of his long nose near the stargazer in the hotel if you lie, and his portrait also grows a nose when you lie. honestly i love the lie/truth system in the game, its really well thought out and a proper homage
Yeah, it's a great feeling when I realize the grunts I thought I was hallucinating about are actually real and actually come from P. He gradually becomes more and more human during my playthrough and I love details like that. I just love playing a protagonist that has actual ties with the game world and can change in it, not just a souless body for me to control.
Bone-cutting Sawblade combined with Dancer's Curved Sword Handle was the most fun weapon for me on my playthrough. Gracefully spinning with a bigass saw feels awesome.
pipe wrench plus booster glaive handle, then later on change blade to puppet blade the true meta route. it brings the holy grail wet dream of big dick dex build alive
i did the bone cutting sawblade with the exploding pickaxe handle. utterly massive and not the slowest thing ever (pipe wrench and puppet axe are both slower)
Such a rewarding game. I thought some bosses were BS until it finally clicked. Nothing is more satisfying than parrying every boss attack and absolutely embarrassing them. Especially after they killed you 20 times in a row lol
I can't get enough of this game. That fact that it's insanely hard doesn't really get me down. I love the world, music and concept as a whole. Almost gives me Kingdom Hearts for adults vibes but with souls combat and linearity.
@gloisnog21 beg to differ. Kingdom hearts is a souls like, play it on critical mode and do the organization 13 fights. Level 1 if your feeling especially fiesty. The bosses are fun, but hard. They demand that you learn there movesets and it becomes a song and dance that is so much fun.
Its very much appreciated that someone has finally spoken about writing in souls genre. It feels like most devs make souls likes only with gameplay in mind.
@@SevenPr1methis! Fact is not every game needs to have a mind bending amazing story. They are video games. Not a novel. Graphic or otherwise. I would rather play a hell of a good soulslike with a bad story than play something like Last of Us which might have a good story, but I found the gameplay to be dull as hell.
@@TheautisticlibertarianWhile I absolutely agree with you, there is room for both luckily. Though, these kinds of games I only play for gameplay. The story was fine in P, but I honestly don't give two shits about it. Setting and gameplay is all I care about
For me this is THE single best Soulslike existing right now. I have played absolutely everything the genre has to offer and Lies of P is the Pinnacle. I have no idea how they pulled of this insane quality without any experience in the genre, but i hope others will be able to learn from them.
They learned from souls BB and Sekiro and took what was best in those games while leaving the tedious not fun bits behind. If you follow this rule in anything you'll make something superior to the thing that came before you
I played 100 hours and completed all LiesofP achievements. Loved the game but it was too small. Elden Ring is still rewarding and feels new to me after 400 hours. I would rate Lies an A- and ER an A+ with possibilities of S ranks hopefully achieved by future games
@@nts4906 lies of p is actually a long game on an objective standard. Elden ring is open world my guy😭 it’s also one of the most expansive open worlds on all of gaming history that was made by multi million dollar game developers while lies of p was made by a small studio. I don’t think it’s fair to fully compare the two however i agree with your rating for the most part
The narrative had me so invested, i cried for romeo and carlo. Gepetto and the protagonist are written in very innovative ways, and the theme of exploring what humanity is in these characters is just too good
Yeah I don't think I knew enough about their past to be invested in them, I would have loved to have gotten some more backstory on how they became friends and how Carlo died
@@skipjacks85you didn’t? seriously? don’t you want to feel? to paint your life with a rich, vivid tapestry of emotion? to enjoy each moment fully? there is no shame in experiencing something deeply and passionately. it’s far more shameful to drain your life of color for no good reason.
The more I play this game, the more amazed I am that it came from a small studio with no track record in the genre. So happy it's been a success for them. Wonderful to hear your thoughts and I look forward to the lore vid!
Lies of p was my first souls game at that time i didn't know what souls like genre was i just downloaded the game to test my new gaming pc, my god to my surprise that coincidence was one of the best thing happend to me, a game that took countless hours from my life and given me a punch to the face everytime i got overpowered and pulled me out of the illusion of thinking rpg style combat games were useless and i got addicted time to time literally the chilling aesthetic world design to heavenly sounds effects to mind-blowing story twists and the mysterious lore just tied me up with a chain of pure curiousness there were some heavy atmospherric musically masterpiece places in the game where id just roam around and sit like a hour so to just to feel the game lore and really after playing it i didn't got any game that hooked me up like this one truly..(when you seen real gold you dont get attracted to copper anymore) i hope its devs bring this alive again with the dlcs
Interesting how different our experiences were. The story is great, but I found the atmosphere very lacking I wasn't immersed at all in the world. Most of the NPC battles felt super out of place with them being dead silent with some random one liners here and there (though the white lady was amazing). I also wasn't a big fan of some of the VAs like the rabbit gang is sick, but the girl especially kinda ruined it for me. The records were a great touch, but I can't remember a single other thing about the music despite playing it a few hours ago. It's a good game. Most importantly I'm very excited to see what they do next because I can definitely see the potential for something great. I'm just going to chalk up most of the things that drag the game down a few notches down to lack of resources (hopefully fixed in a dlc or new game)
Love that you point out how its better to figure out which attacks you can parry and which to just dodge, because it feels like that's a big part of why people are having so much trouble with Lies of P. The timings are difficult, but its compounded by the fact that if people see the parry, they think of sekiro and just only rely on the parry, and vice versa for the dodge with i-frames. For me learning which attacks I should focus on parrying and which ones to dodge was one of my favorite parts of the combat of this game
Completely agree that this is the best soulslike. It's shameless in its imitation but it absolutely worked, and unlike any other soulslike, there's a lot of *heart* in it, especially in the surprisingly heartfelt story.
I wouldn't say shameless. It has a lot of unique mechanics and just combines a lot of good ideas into one. Whoever gave this the line "Bloodbornes spiritual sucessor" was a genius
I remember I read somewhere that it's incredibly fucking meta that they're so obvious with their inspiration when the game's about puppets becoming humans lol. They don't try to hide what they were trying to be and made a product that stands alongside FromSoft games in quality. Personally I enjoy Lies of P miles more than Elden Ring or DS3, maybe it's the music or art design but I was instantly hooked
One thing i realise in Lies of P is that blocking is a very strong mechanic, and i haven't used block that much up until Laxasia where i couldn't learn how to dodge her second phase attacks and started using block, it made the fight much easier for me.
Easily the boss I struggled with the most. I think I must have replayed the Laxasia fight at least 2 to 3 more than Simon or the Nameless Puppet. I tend to have a harder time with human sized bosses with high mobility around the boss fight stage. When they are zipping around all over the place, it's harder for me to get a sense of the timing with the enemy animation.
@@zee9709I only dislike block in souls games bc it can make combat trivial once you find a 100% physical negation shield. You can just sit there for most of an enemy's attack and just turtle the entire thing
Not just that, there are certain fable arms that really can help, and if are using items, well there is an item that can recharge your fable arm a bit and you can carry three of them. At base level 3 basically gives you one full recharge, but it's enough. For one boss I was having a kinda tough time getting in close without taking damage in the first phase, I swapped out my flamethrower arm for the gun arm, and just unloaded at a distance, once I used all my fable arm charge and all the recharge items, he was more than halfway dead.
@charliericker274 Had s similar, albeit opposite experience. I couldn't clear the archbishop first phase quickly enough without taking a lot of damage (Only had 5 pulse cells at the time) and I was using the Aegis arm to block a lot of the attacks. Finally I unlocked the Flameberge and barbecued him in a few tries.
I like to think that they're purposely OP. If you're stuck on a boss and you don't see a way out there are mainly two things a person does: A try again, B stop playing. With A the more you can't beat him the more you grow frustrated, unless you know there's a way to get out of the slump (op throwables), this gives you the chance to say maybe "ok, I've been stuck for like 5 hours on this boss and I'm trying to beat him but I can't, ok, let me summon a spectre and cheese him with throwables". I personally don't see it as a shortcut, the game is still hard and if you want to beat you have the chance to do it the "hard" or legit way, but you also know that you can do it in an alternative way
The soundtrack for mercy statue room is so dam good plus the alchemist twist and in some of the notes it talks about actuall alchemists like trismagistus valentine and a zealot all being real life shit got me so invested and geppedo wearin a freemason symbol and it being on the sword for the main title screen was so cool
Man, I felt like it was way easier than any other Souls-like I've played. Beat almost every boss on first try. It's my main reason for replayability. Only game in this genre I went into NG+, so I could see the other endings and try out other weapons. I really love this game, plus the story was beautifully done. Also feels pretty balanced in terms of different play styles, you can't really go wrong with choosing one. Although, Tech is pretty OP.
It's really impressive how purely skill driven the combat is while still remaining very fair in most cases.This video is spot on, it's a great game but only if you're looking for the kind of challenge it provides
the combat is not that fair, many attack are very badly telegraphed and require too much trial and error to learn the parry timing. For comparaison it won't take you 15 tries to learn how to dodge most delayed attack in Elden Ring, most of the time it's about not panick rolling, and the delay are consistent between bosses, like they will not totally change the type of delayed attack they use in the middle of the fight.
@@ni9274 I don't think Elden Ring is a very good comparison. Ofc the combat has similar elements to it but you're comparing Elden Ring's combat with a game where parrying matters almost as much as in Sekiro Souls games are generally much more about i-frames specifically whereas Lies of P wants you to parry moves that are hard to dodge and dodge moves that are hard to parry That being said I do agree that some bosses have some moves that could be better telegraphed. But I also think most of it is completely fair, it's simply harder to deal with because knowing when to parry and when to dodge and actually pulling it off consistently is more difficult than i-framing through most things like in Elden Ring Lies of P is simply harder *on average*
@@yiangaruga4928 Did you try playing in light load ? It make the dash very good and imo make the parry useless, playing like that would make the game like Elden Ring.
I forgot to mention this in my first comment, but I like that this game also has a more compelling reason to play NG+. Although I would have liked some more changes to the levels and enemies, the narrative takes on a different light in NG+ when you have a better idea of what's going on. You also have the chance to pick different choices throughout the story, which is a tad underwhelming but still at least an option. Finally, and the biggest thing for me, is that a NG+ in a souls-like game finally has progression beyond the first playthrough. Your P-organ gains new phases in NG+ and even NG++ with new perks that can even be game changers. In NG++ you can finally gain the ability to block fury attacks... it's kind of late to be adding a crutch like this considering it requires beating the game twice to unlock, but still it's certainly a game changer!
Going through NG+ knowing what you know about the context of the story and then facing off against Romeo King Of Puppets again takes on a much more tragic tone. One of the few souls games that compelled me to play it a second time.
If a player doesn't want to go for the 2 hours of learning the attack patterns, use a spectre. They put it there for the non hardcore players. I think that this LOP's way of keeping this game welcoming to the average player
Well they are copied from Dark Souls so nothing unique there, but yea you're right. However if you have experience in souls-likes LoP and its bosses are actually way easier than Dark Souls' IMO, the attack patterns can be learned within 0-2 deaths.
@@rogumann838No chance, The vast majority of Dark souls bosses are easier than Lies of P, especially late game. The game somewhat forces you into danger, you’ll need to block/parry at some point. A much harder skill compared to rolling away.
There are other ways. Like a high vitality build and try to parry most attacks, and even when failing the parry, the block just absorbs it and you can recover the health by attacking. It was the build I used where I blocked everything and power staggered them. Didn't need to learn most patterns if I had toughness.
@@Garybell09I firmly believe that people who think the bosses in this game were easy compared to Dark Souls didn't really understand how Dark Souls combat worked. Like, they didn't jive with the flow of Dark Souls and tried to force their own expectations of how things in the game should move onto their experience. I am basically complimenting the fluidity of the gameplay of LoP. It is so smooth and satisfying it seems to convince some people that it was easier than the bosses in Dark Souls. 😅 Essentially, those same people, when able to express themselves fluidly, feel like the challenge melts away. I have beaten every boss in LoP without specters, etc. I remember fights like Nameless King DS3 or Ancient Dragon DS2 being so much harder than they actually are. Aldrich is a pushover compared to the Archbishop. It's not meant to be a competition or anything but I also personally felt like Lies of P offered more engaging boss fights than many Fromsoft fights. Like most of LoP is on par with the best Fromsoft encounters; e.g. Freia, Lady Maria, Radagon, Artorias, Midir, Aldrich. And LoP's more monstrous bosses were executed very well.
This game is truly something special. I'm nearly at the end now, Simon is next and I'm utterly distraught about everything that's happening. Great video!
To me a huge part of the difficulty came from the attack animations. I remember one of the tall puppet soldiers has a red attack where he charges his right arm up and behind him so you think the attack is coming down, but then, upon releasing the attack, his torso spins and it comes up from the bottom left instead of the top right like it telegraphed. So it’s also one of my minor complaints with the game, that I felt like combat was a mind game against the devs trying to fake me out instead of just fighting under otherwise normal soulsborne circumstances.
Yes, that is on purpose. They are not meant to be perfect blocked the first time. You can roll AWAY from the attack instead of rolling INTO the attacks. I wish this was explained in the tutorial.
This game has an easy mode, just level up Capacity and Vitality and spam charged heavy attacks with a heavy weapon. Your spirit summon can tank for you while you dish out insane damage and stagger. Also throwables make the game a joke with an Advanced build, but that requires some farming.
It's hard but still doesn't escape the ability to be cheesed in some ways. Cause you can also ignore mini bosses by having a motivity technique build with big wrench head + krat police baton handle. Scaling is actually better when motivity and technique are evened out and you invest evenly in both for some reason. But anywho, you do krat fable art to buff the next damage you deal, then charge wrench head patient strike to max, and watch something explode for 4k in the early build, and 7+ when you optimize later
it's not really hard to break this game, but at the same time breaking the game requires a resource, typically throwables or fable arts. idk how much facetanking late game bosses will work, maybe if you're blocking all the time but early on yeah it'll work out.
this man speaks truth, lmao. i did just this - made my weight and HP bar higher. i was not having fun in the game because enemies hit like trucks and it's hard to learn when you're dying every 2 seconds. with just a bit more beef and HP i was able to learn to play the game the right way and now i think it's freaking amazing.
@@knivy6160 ye, my aforementioned build can 1 shot the youngest black rabbit brotherhood member in their second boss fight if you have the 4 fable slots ready lmao
Miyazaki leaves almost half of the bosses of Bloodborne as optional (Parrl, Witches of Hemwick, Amygdala, Gherman, Moon Presence, Lawrence, Ebriatas, etc) and its up to the player and how much investment they want to put into the game. Obviously those bosses and levels took hours of design, testing, music being created etc but left them optional because he knew the player would feel rewarded uncovering Yharnam's secrets as intended as they delved deeper into the nightmare. It also ties into the lore in paricular the DLC. Just amazing
I feel like that's a somewhat limited resource thing here, they had enough to make the bosses but not enough to go out of their way to make a load of optional content. They made the right choices imo
@@bladechild2449 I think LoP has the perfect amount of exploration for the type of game that it is. I do wish it had more hidden content like Cainhurst Castle, Archdragon Peak etc. but at the same time it was nice to be able to explore a linear, tightly designed game. Linearity isn't always a bad thing, imo. Especially with how over saturated open world games have become.
@@bladechild2449 i was rlly exciting exploring it, even being so llinear the game have some verticality but also a nice atmosphere , it was rlly good for a change.
As a souls vet I must confess that I had to uninstall this game because my life was going to be ruined from playing it too much, I platinum the game, got every single weapon and item and still did two more playthroughs, that's how good this game is, I don't think I played Elden Ring this much when it first launched... I am honestly cannot wait for the DLC.
LoP is hard in a very different way from souls games. In from software games pretty much every attack is reactable - you see a telegraph, press dodge/block/parry and avoid the damage. In Lies of P there are a lot of attacks that you have to memorize the timing of - you see a telegraph, wait 0.x seconds, and THEN press dodge/block. That, combined with a very small parry window, and a very short dodge distance, made LoP's combat completely unenjoyable for me.
I find that surprising. I think it's important to remember that a parry in Lies of P is not really a parry--it is a Perfect Guard. It is not a separate input or animation it is simply starting a guard at the moment an attack would hit. This video actually would have been better if the author had emphasized that distinction more. The only time they bring it up is when they address the fact that if you mistime a parry that your best decision is to not try again but to continue guarding. I found this learning loop to be incredibly rewarding. I could often try to react to the telegraph attacks in hopes of perfectly guarding them but if I didn't I would be rewarded with the potential to recover Health via rally like Bloodborne. It is very different to Dark Souls or Sekiro in this sense. Parrying in Dark Souls is an entirely different button and decision from the Block button. Sekiro cannot guard. I just wanted to say I'm a bit surprised and maybe disappointed that someone had the experience you did because for me this game really felt like it had improved on the combat systems of these other games and combined them. The trade-off of course for this power was mostly that our dodge was reduced in effectiveness (less distance and i-frames) but I am definitely of the school of thought that many players overemphasize dodging in Dark Souls and how combat can be improved with more proactive options. I don't remember whose video it was now but someone else made a review of Lies of P where they showed gameplay footage of players dodging attacks in Elden ring and how the player would flinch away from the boss because they were afraid of getting hit... versus someone playing Sekiro who would lean forward in their chair every time they realized they needed to parry timing to succeed. Showing those players side by side of course isn't an argument but it does help illustrate what they were trying to say. I noticed that some people were uncomfortable with P because, like Bloodborne or Sekiro, it often demands that you engage with combat proactively. Lies of P I think was very blunt about this by adding attacks which cannot be i-framed out of. While it's sometimes led to frustration It ultimately led to me feeling like I was way more engaged with the combat of the game as a whole.
Your point about every boss expecting you to get stuck on it is exactly why I found the game more exhausting than fun. Yes, it’s possible, but the combat is so rigid that there’s no room for creativity. Some people will prefer this just as you said. As for the story and world, I found it addicting. I loved the levels, exploration, and quests and this was another factor that made boss fights exhausting, because there was only a payoff beyond that brick wall boss. Good points in the video
@@BBQcheeseThere's clearly less room for creativity in Sekiro than there is in something like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Come on now lol. Let's be reasonable here
@@BBQcheese Whoa holup, are we talking creativity or complexity here? Because if we're talking about complexity I 100% agree with you, Sekiro's combat is From's most complex combat system by far. But if we're talking about creativity, player freedom, its the exact opposite. Sekiro's combat system while incredibly complex, is also incredibly rigid in its design. And that's intentional. You couldn't have the one-on-one clashing of swords style combat without limiting player options. And I think Sekiro is all the better for it. But there's only so much you can do to succeed in this framework. You cant be a spellcaster, an archer, a theif, a barbarian ect. You're a shinobi and that's that
@@BBQcheese It's all good don't worry about it. And I think that's fair, I don't think I necessarily disagree. But don't you also think that the ability to create different builds also gives the player more freedom to approach combat? And if so, wouldn't that also mean that's a component that Sekiro is specifically lacking? I think that build variety offers a lot of player freedom even if a lot of what you're doing boils down to "pressing R1". If you're playing as a sorcerer you can press R1 from a safe distance. But if you're a knight you have to get up close to press R1 which is far more risky. That's the kind of creativity I'm talking about. Because honestly you could flip that argument on its head and say, "Oh well, all you're doing in Sekiro is tapping L1" And I think both you and I know that isn't true
You probably played it like some Dark Souls iteration, expecting to through everything. This game has a really forgiving block mechanic, even if the parry fails. You are meant to use that to the fullest and charge attacks to constantly interrupt enemies or stagger them.
@@Leonhart_93frankly more people reviewing this game really need to emphasize that there is no parry in Lies of P. There is dodging, guarding or blocking, and Perfect Guard or what everyone immediately identifies as "the parry". It might sound unimportant but so many people's experiences feel like like they are explained by them not understanding the balance of Health regain from blocking and rallying, weapon durability damage to enemy weapons via PG (perfect guard or what is often called the parry), when to dodge for spacing, and the various incredibly strong effects offered through the special grindstones or consumables or fable arts. And to be clear none of this needed any online consultation. I believe the game does a very good job of indicating to you what you can do and how strong it can be. There is literally a throwable item in the game that instantly triggers a stagger and the item description is not vague about it.
Lies of P is a masterpiece. It starts challenging but the game gives you a lot of ways to deal with it and allows you to make progress without learning the fights perfectly. The best platinum trophy since Elden ring.
@@electroelysium2281 it's for sure 100 percent better than mid souls and mid borne in every single aspect. but yeah it's up there with the goats ER and sekiro
I'm on my NG+5 run atm, the game rewards you for beating it exceptionally well. The Flying Spaghetti Monster gives you an amulet allowing you to dodge rage attacks, and the P organ also has an upgrade to block them too. Sadly there isn't much more progression past NG+2, but I can't wait for the DLC.
Facts Im on NG + 2 and my only wish is the gear and amulets kept going up and up when you find them again. Like +2, +3 and so on… It starts to drop off around NG+ 2 When i finally finish NG+ 3 Ill put down the game and wait for DLC.. cant come soon enough :,(
I would argue that the game isn’t as difficult as it is just different. Learning timings was still a thing and I didn’t one shot every boss but once I understood the mechanics of the game I considered it easy. And part of what made it hard was that almost every enemy in this game had ridiculous windups and it was really difficult to intuit the timings. The windup was super slow and the actual swing was so fast you couldn’t react to it. Once you get used to how slow the attacks are, it got a lot easier. Im curious how many of you would agree or am I just full of it
I loved this game. It’s nearly perfect. I found the linear levels so refreshing as I have major open world fatigue. Combat was extremely difficult but so much fun. LoP is my game of the year right now.
Yeah I love that it's more linear, the rest of the game is excellent of course but I'm so glad it was more linear and I didn't spend lots of time being lost. I loved Elden Ring but I'm not always in the mood for big games like that.
Definitely agree, it's the closest I've gotten to how I feel when I play a from soft game. Lies of p weapon customisation is truly innovative and I hope it gets expanded on further in the genre
Glad to get your perspective. Mine is essentially the same: The game was very hard for me, but I like learning hard bosses. Bosses are my favorite part of these games and I'll happily get stomped repeatedly while I slowly develop some gitgud.
lies of p is a masterpiece. in fact lies of p actually improved on certain things from elden ring and i loved that the graphics are truly amazing, one of my complaints with fromsoft is although their art direction is amazing and does a ton of heavy lifting for them their graphics system is behind the times and imagine a fromsoft game like elden ring with the same level of art direction just updated graphics. itd be truly mindblowing!! elden ring is the best video game of all time imo and lies of p was not far behind it for me and i truly loved what they did with the weapons, i just wish it was a bit longer cause i know itll be awhile before we get a sequel or dlc. it actually might be my second favorite game. after lies of p being god of war and god of war ragnorok. i really struggled with LOP in the beginning but once i got used to the combat and was able to upgrade my character a bit the fun opened up just like it did for me in elden ring. truly an amazing experience and the developers should be proud of themselves. funnily enough im still not drawn to play sekiro though cause from what i hear you dont upgrade your characters level and only play with one weapon basically the whole time. maybe im wrong about that?
literally me! i spent a lot of middle and high school trying to beat touhou games on lunatic. never succeeded, but it’s a real testament to my masochism. this game made me feel right at home :)
Excellent review, you said everything I was thinking and summarized it all very well. If this is Neowiz' first attempt I can't wait to see what they can do next.
This game really is an impressive achievement. For any studio, not to mention a new studio making their first game. If someone told me that this was made by people who worked at From Soft during the Bloodborne era, then started their own studio, I would 100% believe it. It's clear that Bloodborne was their core inspiration and they emulate it very well. In the best possible way. The visual style, the architecture, the atmosphere, the level design, even the story themes are very similar to BB. The combat, animations and weapon "customization" as well. All the way down to the dodge "hop" instead of the dodge roll. Like, the developers of Lies of P studied BB very meticulously and had it as the blueprint for this game, then they changed and added some of their own ideas on top. But they nailed the foundations. But they also managed to understand and emulate how From Soft makes games: Narrow the scope, know your audience and don't let feature creep water down your design. Like, they knew exactly what kind of game they want to make and they stuck to it. In terms of game design and project management, that is basically a miracle. Very few studios can do this. For anyone who has never and will never own a Playstation console this is the closest they can get to actually playing Bloodborne, on PC or Xbox. That being said, here's where my major complaint with the game actually comes in. I really like Lies of P, but it is built on dated mechanics. Bloodborne is 10 years old and From Soft has made DS3, Sekiro and Elden Ring in the meantime. They refined their animations, their combat mechanics and their boss design so much since BB. DS3 and Elden Ring only look the same to the "untrained eye"; to anyone who doesn't actually play Souls games. Anyone who does knows that they're not the same at all. ER combat is so fluid, so dynamic, so... Liberating. It flows like water. There is a dance that took FS 15 years to perfect and they're gonna improve on it even more. If you go back to BB you will see that that combat design is still "turn based". You wait for the enemy to attack, then you attack. The hitboxes are huge and there is no space for "weaving into combos" with your own hit and avoiding damage. I mean, BB really isn't about avoiding damage; it's about trading damage and retaliating. And so is Lies of P. And then on top of that, Lies of P experiments with the parry mechanic from Sekiro, where most bosses do so much unavoidable damage that you are "forced" to parry if you want to hitless it. But the parry is weird, the timing is "off" and the jerky spasmic movement of most bosses and puppet enemies in the game makes is really friggin' hard to react to their attacks. And it's inconsistent. Contrast that to the way deflections work in Sekiro, where they are basically frame perfect. Maybe it's just me. I don't think the parry timing is a bug or a mistake by the developers. I think it's intentional. Maybe they couldn't do any better at this point, which is fine. It's their first game. Or maybe they wanted it to be weird to throw all the Souls players off balance and stand out. In any case, it is what it is. I don't like it at all, but I can look past it because the rest of the game and the ideas are executed really well. I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the genre. And I'm very much looking forward to the next game from Neowiz. Judging from Lies of P, that studio has a very bright future ahead.
Weirdly enough lies of p felt like a breath of fresh air even though it is the most fromsoft like souls game. Truly a gem of a game. Aside from 1 specific boss, All the bosses were fun to learn. It was the kind of game i was itching for for a long time. I genuinely want to say its more fair than some of elden ring's bosses.
I think the vast majority of bosses are fair like you mentioned. What really wasn't fair (to me) were the numerous elites that had a stupidly high amount of hp and very punishing movesets. The first two that come to mind are the clown with boxing gloves and the dual wielding jester but there are certainly more.
@@BBQcheese yeah I found that out too by just getting in his face and trying to perfect guard, I think people are afraid to lose so they forgo just trying it out and try the “safer” options of running around and dodging
For me, Lords of the Fallen changed every notion I previously had about Soulslike in which I never was interested in. Some parts of LotF are out of this world good, like the level design. And what it lacks, it’s cause it is raw in a way Demon’s Souls was. But the essence, core, and magic that was under layers in DS is there in LotF as well. GOTY underdog and I know how good ACVI is.
Dude LotF is complete and utter dogshit lol what are you smoking. Good level design?? My guy it has literally no exaggeration the worst level design in any soulslike by far. The enemy placement is the worst I've ever seen in a video game.
Im about halfway through LoP now and I have to say, this game is truly incredible. I love everything about it. The combat feels really good, the story is captivating and the world is beautiful. I really like all the NPCs as well. It isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be, maybe I just play too many Souls games but it is a good healthy challenge. I’m averaging 5-10 attempts per boss. Just for comparison it took me 40 attempts to clear Balteus, which felt much more difficult. Not that it’s good or bad, just an observation. I’m enjoying this game so much that I’ll definitely do a second playthrough immediately. Thanks for the great review!
It's crazy how the only bosses that got me actually stuck were Romeo and Swamp monster. I didn't think apart from that the game is as hard as you said it is.
Yeah it’s really not lmao, the game is amazing and it’s a nice challenge but parrying is so powerful and so easy that it kind of invalidates anything any of the bosses try to do. That’s only if you’re just trying to beat them though, trying to master their patterns and take them down as quickly as possible (like using the katana in NG+) is where it gets actually difficult and way more fun
Liked this game a lot. The story, despite its somewhat silly premise, was really great and drew me in so much that I'm excited for the marvel-esque expanded universe it teased at the end. Unironically, there were more enjoyable, challenging bosses in this game than in Elden Ring for me. Sekiro is probably my favorite FromSoft game at the moment due to its memorable and masterable bosses, and this game is very similar in that regard. I do wish that when you get really stuck, doing something else was more of an option, but I enjoyed the challenge even though it required me to rethink how I was playing the game several times (i.e. relying too much on dodging or blocking and finding the right balance).
I think most people are honestly not remembering what it was like to play Dark Souls for the first time. Have people forgotten Gargoyles? It took me a full day to beat on my first play through; my roommate took 3! Hell, O&S are legendary for being a brick wall that people couldn't get past. People need to leave their egos at the door and stop claiming a game is unfair or broken because they can't beat a boss on the first or third time.
Yea I was stuck on the Ergo Enhanced Wrestler guy and died like 20 times Almost killed him but the attack phase he does after being staggered on 2nd phase caught me off guard because I was in the flow state
the problem is not doing a boss multiple times, it's that you don't feel the progress and you just wait for good RNG (not being 10-hit comboed) to be able to beat some bosses. It's a good copycat, but clearly has some balancing issues on the AI of the enemies.
My favorite is tards in comments saying it's easy and they usually suck but beat every boss first or second try. Imagine lying like that. That's much more toxic than ppl admiting the parry window is unfair but doable if you have the time
@@iHaveTheDocuments I don't think there was a boss that didn't take me more than 4 tries to get in the groove of Outside of the fire machine puppet but I saw someone fight him so I knew most his tells when I went up against him
I absolutely adore this game. I platinumed it after 50-something hours and the only bosses I felt were actually super challenging were king of puppets and nameless puppet
My personal game of the year. Did 4 play throughs, 1 for each ending/build type and then another NG+ cause I had to fight all the bosses with the katana. An absolute joy start to finish, could still see myself going for a NG++ run in the near future.
I've Just finished my 5th playthrough after 100 hour. Really enjoyed the journey. Having the urge to replay the game through NG+ is a MAJOR sell point. The story is amazing and really captures the grim settings , in it own style ,of the OG story. My only complain is the junky camera when fighting big bosses.
I feel you on the replayability. My char in Lies of P is max level, and I still find myself wanting to play through again. I really like that the Lies of P NG+ adds more to your experience since you can understand what robots are saying for more story context, and your P-organ will unlock more levels for a few NG sessions. On the contrary, I'm nearing the end of my Lords of the Fallen NG+, and I feel more miserable than I did on the first playthrough. Doesn't help that LotF takes trolling to the next level, which is the largest source of difficulty in the game (large packs of melee/ranged mobs, ambushes around almost literally every corner/terrain, etc.), but adds nothing; in fact, the NG+ experience removes permanent waypoints from the game... which would be fine if you didn't need to travel around like crazy for some quests or main story progression. Overall, Lies of P left me craving more NG+ progression, LotF made me want to just start over instead of going into NG+ to experience more of the game.
I loved this game like it was my first time playing Demon's/Dark Souls all over again. Very rarely does a game this special get made. If BG3 and AC6 didn't release this year, Lies of P would genuinely be competing for my GOTY.
If I came out of a coma today and someone told me that this game was made by From I would 100% believe it. This game is my personal GotY 2023 and at the same time one of the most underated games of 2023
True it is really close to than kind of experience and they have figured out what is the appeal to these rather than just the difficulty that is often the most talked thing
@@alfiebarboza a lot of souls fans out there ( Iron Pineapple, Maximilian Dood, Ratatoskr, Me and others ) think this is the game that comes closest to the From formula and thats is a fact, you can desagree but that changes nothing.
@@irmaoburro1 lol you must be really young. So because a couple of dudes think something thats a fact? Its all opinions and everyone is entitled to one. This isn’t about right or wrong, just preferences.
@@alfiebarboza yes, I'm very young thank God, you must be old and stubborn. I agree with you that everyone has the right to an opinion, I can for example say that bloodborne is a bad game and use your excuse that "just because some guys think it's good, don't make it a fact", however I would be completely wrong. What I mean is that it's not a couple of guys that think this game is good, a lot of reviews praise the game for being the closest to understanding From's formula, that's not an opinion or a preference, that's a fact.
Many folks who just gave up fighting a couple of bosses in this game have absolutely no idea what a saviour of a video game Lies of P is. This game leaves nothing out, from the gameplay to the story, the deep lore, the setting, the atmosphere, the gameworld, level design, enemy variety, the boss designs, the levelling, customization, the art direction to the music in this game is so high level stuff that if this game was published by a mainstream publisher it would have been 10/10 everywhere because it's uncompromising in every single aspect. I mean we can call this the purest form of video game. Even more impactful was how the story in this game the dialogues reflect humanity and how we are made to be a puppet of society is a powerful message for players to ponder upon
I think the bosses in this game have a lot of problems that fans will just assume is diffuculty, but I disagree. Much of what makes the hardest bosses hard is their lack of propper telegraphs. Even the hardest Dark Souls bosses have obvious windups and rhythms to their moves to make it possible to sight read the angle and timing of almost every attack quickly, and Lies of P just doesn't do that. Bosses will have long, arduous windups and then a lightning quick strike afterwards without an indication of when the windup stopped and the attack began. Even Fromsoft bosses with crazy mixups let you know if they're about to attack with subtle cues like an extra inhale or a quick step forward or something, but Lies of P fails on a lot of fronts to make bosses that are possible to learn without trial and error.
There are absolutely ways to make your build more range centric. There are throwables you can upgrade with your p organ, ranged legion arms, and even a weapon that has a long range weapon art.
Seeing you come full circle here is pretty neat. I commend you for getting out of your comfort zone to play this game and hold this title’s feet to the fire.
I stopped watching and listening when I heard "Nioh had a bad story", you are absolutely entitled to your own opinion but I am certain that's not what 99% of the people who played the game think about it, the cutscenes and the story-telling in Nioh is some of the best I have seen, the dialogue, the voice-acting, the cut-scenes, the score, it's exhilarating and truly teleports you into feudal Japan
Played it, wouldn't call it a master piece really, it has its flaws, but story was not one of them so yeah, dude either didn't really play it or didn't like it, but objectivelly, nioh was easily 7/10
I agree with you. I mean yeah everyone is entitled to their own opinion but this guy in particular seems to hate on most everything. Just a really negative person in general
I have to agree with Lies of P being the best Soulslike and my personal game of the year thus far. Just finished The Lords of the Fallen, and that games comes as a decently close second. The feel of Lies of P and the bosses are on a whole other league compared to bosses in LotF, Nioh, Wo Long etc. While I do think Lies of P is challenging, I wouldn't say it's any different from anyone's first experience playing a FromSoft game. I did somehow have a harder time with some of the bosses in New Game+ lol Great video!
Me too honestly. I kinda made a joke of fueco on my first playthrough with the electric telsa head and krat police baton handle and a summon, but he took me over an hour of actually learning him in NG+ and not using the summon to for a greater challenge lmao
I want to mention some stuff about perfect guarding. It only builds stagger when you get an upgrade for it. What it *DOES* do from the start is break enemy weapons. You can also get an upgrade (pretty early, iirc) that lets you recover guard regain on perfect guard. So on a multi-hit, you could miss the first perfect, lose a lil HP, but get it back right after.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, I got stuck HARD on Laxasia the first time, and I really enjoy learning the attack patterns, too. I guess the throwables and specters can help with some bosses, but you didn't mention them. Anyway, I liked the game so much I'm already at NG+++ with 100% achievements.
the thing with the parry is that its not like sekiro completely were you need to press the button just as you get attacked to deflect, parry here you need to do it just very slightly before you get hit and i think this with the very low parry window is what throwing people off. while i do think enemies and bosses are fair and i did beat them fair and found them fun, one annoying thing i found is the insane combos they have. a normal enemy will do a one two punch and just repeat that seven times or a boss will throw a combo that last for 14 hits and it just becomes too long which i think this is just a larger issue with souls and soulslike in general, i think we got too good that the only way we have a hard time with a boss is with overtuned ones
Getting through the levels and basic mobs I felt was easier than Souls especially with how generous the game is with short cuts and stargazer placement. The bosses and elites however felt somewhat harder than Souls, at least until I realized the Sekiro influence of parrying necessity. I sometimes wish they didn’t make enemy poise invisible but maybe that’s what encouraged me to get even more aggressive than I do in From games. Absolutely loved the setting and vibe of it, was really surprised to find out that it’s Korean made because it’s a phenomenal take on Pinocchio.
Do people unironically like Fromsofts Soulsgames the most? I myself found myself enjoying games like say Mortal Shell, The Surge 2 but even something like Immortal Unchained more than Dark Souls 3 as example. To me, Fromsofts lore always ends up being "A Kingdom got corrupted because a greedy Kings ambitions", so I eventually genuinely stopped caring. More power to Miyazaki for getting R. R. Martin and coming up with a very intrinsic story how Sheng Long fought against Nibiru 100 billion aeons ago in a different galaxy and the cosmic energy awakened a slumbering evil, but I am tired of it and I find it pretentious. So pretentious, that they switched from beautiful artworks of NPCs in the loading screens of Demons Souls to boring item descriptions about random trash enemy items nobody cares about, which I am still salty about. Sometimes, beauty lies in things unsaid.
It’s honestly baffling how far up their own asses they are about the story. And I agree; they’re all the same. It hasn’t changed since DeS, except people call that game’s plot okay and everything thereafter great. Nioh 1 and 2 honestly make going back to FromSoftware’s Souls games a chore for me.
This is a prime example of subjectivity, but I think if you have to study a bosses moves for hours and hours like it's college finals in order to beat it, then either the player has missed an important element, or it's a terrible boss. I truly don't think for a second Fromsoft ever intends players to get stuck on a fight. With Miyazaki games in particular, he touts the importance of immersing to player in the world. There is _always_ ample amounts of training before a major challenge, that is IF the player engages with the world in a deliberate way and doesn't rush through the levels/enemies. These "Soulslikes" seem exclusively made of bosses that just kill you instantly until you've memorized each and every frame of their animations. That's the opposite of immersion for me. If I can beat Orphan of Kos and Gael (often called the hardest in the series) in around 5 tries my first playthrough, there's no reason Frieda should have taken me over 50. I feel it's no longer a skill issue in cases like that. Either I missed something, or the fight is severely flawed.
FromSoft doesn’t have good story, they have good lore. The stories are always bare bones “go here, do the thing, now go here and do the next thing, now go here and do the last thing. Or the opposite of the last thing. Or the last thing-lite.” That’s barely a story. The real story happened long before you started playing and you’re just mincing around in the ruins of the actual story. In other words, you are the epilogue.
Yeah, the fans will defend it, but in reality no one had any idea what was happening before they watched videos on youtube. And the player character is just a minor player. But here the main character has the main conflict too, much more interesting.
Lies of P can be genuinely unfair and bullshit though, the biggest example of this is while unblockable attacks glow red to let the player know to either perfect guard or avoid the attack entirely, there are also grab attacks that need to be perfect guarded or avoided entirely that *don't* glow red
The point you made that the game rarely gives you breaks on the bosses is so true. I personally love it because imo the bosses are all very fair. You just have to learn them. I loved this game so much. It feels so good to dominate a boss that was killing you in 15 seconds flat the first handful of attempts. They even NAILED the gank fights. Especially the first black rabbit brotherhood fight. I was getting destroyed early on but it is such a great fight once you get good at it.
@@Sangarudin I thought dex was exponentially harder, for me anyways. My motivity build (bone saw/exploding pick axe handle) ran through enemies with no problem.
there is not much different in dex/str builds, dex is stronger since it has more weapon variety they both increase physical resistance, while advance adds more elemental resistance I have 7 NG playthroughs and dex is the best, str 2nd, advance build is strong but very limited handles and need 3 element weapon upgraded not to mention dex has the *Dancer sword handle* with dex scaling (has one of the fastest charge attacks)
8:30 actually there’s always a range option for every boss in the game. Through the game you will plenty of thing you can throw in the enemy. They hit HARD. Entire bosses can be skipped by just throwing all that random things you got in your pockets. For example: Laxasia and Simon second phases can be dealt by summoning phantom and throwing around 20-25 bottles in them. Every miniboss can be dealth with by throwing 5k ergo worth in them. Even less if you build Advance.
I remember struggling with the second police puppet you encounter in the game in the quarantine zone, then I remembered I had collected 5 throwing cells up to now. Next attempt I threw all 5 of them and he just fucking died
You got that right. The game is hard. Too hard. And not fair. Why? There are several reasons. One, the most obvious, you don't have any poise, and the enemy has. Anything that touches you while you are attacking stops your attacks, not so with the enemy, except if you make several charged attacks and you break posture (or whatever it's called), when the life bar of the boss is flashing white, and that's it. The player should have poise, as those charged attacks are the way to breaking posture, and the enemies should have less poise. Bosses also have what seems to be infinite stamina. They can make 4-5 hit combos, even it you perfect parry them all, you are left without stamina after those parries, so you can't counter attack. If you get a perfect parry, you shouldn't lose ANY stamina, at all. Also, there are way two many double bosses, not a two phase boss, but a double boss, you defeat the first one, with the full hp bar, then the 2nd one, usually a transformation or something, with another full hp bar. Usually the first one is not so hard, but you still have to repeat it to near perfection for the 2nd boss attempt. For those that haven't played it, it's like the Elden Ring final boss, first you have to deal with Radagon, then the Elden Beast, here it's the same but a lot more times. Also, some runs back to the boss are not so good, you waste some time and there are several enemies on the way, something that Elden Ring had finally solved. It's a pretty good game, but they are going for making it harder for the sake of making it harder.
I can't stand Double Bosses. Like you said, it's not one boss with two phases, it's two entirely distinct bosses stapled to each other, that you arbitrarily have to beat in one go. Great example of artificial difficulty.
I just recently finished the game in 20 hours (true ending, motivity + ark sword, solo), and the pulse cell recharge is a godsend. I defeated every boss in less than 10 tries and sometimes defeating them in 1 try when I get these clutch moments on the pulse cell recharge, game is hard af but fun.
Just finished LoP yesterday, and I honestly have to say that this IS the best souls-like game, and I guarantee that, if you told someone that FromSoftware made this game, it would be praised much more. IMO, after Elden Ring and Bloodborne, this is the best soulslike game. Can’t wait for the dlc and sequel.
Oh My God, I'm going to cry 😭Such a wonderful video. Only people who watch and participate in the Live playthroughs, know how close to heart this game is, to us. I was going to try this on gamepass. But now, I'll surely buy it. They deserve my money ♥
The biggest most important lesson for new players, and you say something to this effect early on, is that the game requires a *combination* of dodging, blocking and perfect guarding (assuming you're not a god-tier deflecter) within each fight. I was struggling with parade master's 2nd phase as I couldn't dodge his sweeping attacks. Once I started blocking them, the fight was done. Figure out what to do for each attack or combo- what is most comfortable for *you* to do. The health regain on block is surprisingly generous, especially with some weapons. Use it!
I'll take the chance of saying I don't really like dying in soulslikes. I like the challenge but I don't really enjoy bashing my head against a boss over and over like many other fans do. I good level of challenge is appreciated, it makes me feel immersed into the world and makes it more real. But spending a forthnight fighting a boss, learning every single animation and learning to manipulate them to get the upper hand does the opposite for me. It's a constant reminder I'm playing a videogame and I should probably do something more productive with my time. I don't take the game world seriously if I have to manipulate Malenia's animations in order to survive her next attack, I just feel like I'm fighting a mindless puppet rather than a skilled warrior. Of course I don't want victory handed to me but there's a sweet spot of difficulty that keeps me invested in the world while being challenged. So yeah, don't think P would do it for me
Nioh 2 goes so hard dude. Gameplay is what im there for. Ill go watch a movie for story. Missing out on a super deep & tight combat system if you don't try it. Same with lies of p to an extent. Although not as tight & responsive. Makes up for it in other ways though imo
Yea nioh two is one of my all time favs. Easily the best combat system probably ever in a video game and I stand firmly on that, it’s definitely head and shoulders of any from software game easily. But it lacks level design and enemies which is my biggest knocks against it. Lies of P gives faint resemblances of nioh2
Nioh 2 is easy as hell though Magic - talismans - amrita on hit/heals the parry/spirit especially the blue spirit has so much frames I remember I was like NG+6 or 7 and never had any problem with any boss with that build, weapon Switchblade even beat the underworld that has 100 levels, then the 5 hard levels repeatedly for gear farming
@@looots1320 yea once you have a build it’s not as hard. But it’s like that even with souls games and honestly elden ring was an extreme let down in terms of boss difficulty outside of maliena, everything else was a piece of piss
I would say the only unfair fights are laxasia second phase and the first dark brotherhood fight. Everything else I felt as though was doable from the start. With the exception of Romeo but after I stopped trying to parry everything and started dodging his 7+ hit combo he became a lot more doable
I don't think either are unfair. I don't like the Eldest's scoot forward on his overhead and also the Swamp Monster does something similar on his overhead Fury Attack despite already covering huge ground without the scoot. Laxasia was hard to keep track of but remember that you can parry everything.
The final 4 fights are obnoxious. Bloated HP, infuriating persistence with wasting your time with 2 phase fights. They should've really just taken the second forms of all of these fights and turned them fleshed out 1 phase battles. Having to wade through Manus phase 1 every time just to even practice a bit of its 2nd phase made me want to slit my wrists.
Based purely on gameplay and combat the Nioh series is still the best 'soulslike' as far as I'm concerned. However I have only played the Lies of P demo and I plan on giving the full game a try.
Yeah, although I don't think Nioh games are actually Souls-likes, but Nioh and Nioh 2 are really great games, mainly Nioh 2, which does everything better than his predecessor.
@@sdotwallace No it doesn’t. If you play Nioh/2 for what it is: a difficult h&s grind arpg with complex gameplay and combat, Lies of P has no room to even be mentioned as rival.
have you heard lies of p went platinum? i am so happy for the devs!! what a truly special and heartfelt game this is. can't wait to see what they create next!
All complaints about Lies of P's difficulty can be boiled down to a pure skill issue. Also nothing wrong with the story, its well above average. Level design? I prefer the more linear and focused approach, over some discombobulated rat maze. btw, if you are stuck on a boss, just farm throwables.. The problem you describe with majority of "souls fans/veterans" being unwilling to stick on a boss for hours to learn it - well, we have Elden Ring myriad of broken op tactics and training wheels options to thank for that.
Lords of the Fallen was a huge disappointment in everything from combat, animations, lore, levels and performance, it's also very easy. I just came back to Lies of P immediately to see the other endings.
Lies of p is my first souls game, and now i am going to elden ring. You see, i saw hours of gameplay of souls games and completely fell love in it, i always thought that i would never overlevel myself for a boss, and when i played lies of p, i was stuck at first boss (forgot his name large dude with a red jacket), i finally managed to defeat him two days later. Then i was stuck at 2nd encounter of black police guy. I was really frustrated. It was because i didn't understand parry system, I decided to just go and die then, i stood there and tried to parried his attack. I lost many times but a time came where i didn't felt need to dodge, infact i forced myself to dogde sometimes, since it looked cool rather than avoiding attacks. I then, defeated mad monkey at first try. The 3rd boss (that big electricity dude) really took out of me in 2nd phase, since i needed to dodge his electricity lol. Btw point is, i love dying, and i am disappointed that the game was nerfed when i bought.
I've somehow managed to avoid learning any details about this game, so when I heard "P Organ" for the first time, I lost my shit and had to pause the video.
Game was made easier multiple times so not everything in this review will be relevant.
I feel like the game wasn't even hard I beat the demo relatively easy and I played on release and it was fine
I was coming to comment on how I did in fact find it much easier, but now perhaps I’m understanding why. I watched your video when it first released, but only now am starting it, and was shocked at how easy it was. I took down the first two “cutscene” bosses on my first try. The “fire machine” in the factory took a number of tries, but it was, I’d say, reasonable.
If you wouldn’t mind answering, what bosses were you stuck on first?
@@buddydiamond8736 were you using summons tho?
i went to read the patchnotes and im seeing like 3 bosses HP nerfs and buffs to character scaling/damage. I dont think it'll make you get rolled less by the bosses and honestly some of them were just frustrating (speaking about two phase bosses, first phase is just a chore im glad they nerfed the hp)
or maybe im missing something and im just coping for getting ass fisted in the "easy" version of the game
I love the pulse cell recharge. It's a great feeling to be on the ropes and have the ability to scrape a win.
That is an amazing feature, you’re never really out of the fight. In souls games if you take too much damage too early it’s often best to just die and try again, but Lies of P gives you the option to stay in the fight and recharge one of your healing items. It is a fantastic feature. There’s a lot of minor things and quality of life changes in this game that I really appreciate. There are a few other features present in Souls games that are missing in LoP however, which is a bit of a bummer. One example is with your item bar; you can’t hold the button to return to your first slot in your item bar like you can in Souls.
Yup really smart mechanic. I always felt like I had a chance to survive even tho I was living on magic pixel and no heals
such a smart feature!
Best feature of any souls like if you ask me. That pulse recharge is a life saver.
"On the ropes"
Nice one
What I like to get talk about is how Lies of P is hyper focused on what it wants to achieve. Neowiz didn't have AAA budget, but they managed to make a AAA experience. A lot of it was being incredibly within their scope as a studio. They didn't try to do something crazy over ambitious.
No Multiplayer
No labyrinth giant map
No class system
No magic
It went old school and got the most out of doing linear, hand crafted levels. Which is why I think a lot of people adore it so much. It hide a lot of it by overlapping areas and making the levels feel connected by vistas.
Lies of P unlike a lot of Soulslike has a lot of heart. Everything is made with purpose and deliberately design.
It's clearly within expansive storytelling that this was a passion project. This was just the duality of being human, but also the meta divide between a FromSoft game and Soulslike. It's clearly spelled out that difference is that those games had a heart and not just soulless representation of those games.
With Lies of P's success. I'm excited to see them be more ambitious in their game design.
I have to agree, the focus in the game design is what ultimately led to this great product
This is a great observation. Quality over the quantity.
Yeah, they knew they dont have budget to make Elden Ring pt2. They knew what they can make the best from what they've got. It feels no inferior than AAA titles
Well said
As any souls like game LoP is dogshit in beautiful wrap. Shitty timings with almost invisible enemies attack telegraphing. Unpredictable garbage fight system. "SkILl iSsuE ghmghghgh" stfu.
Lies of P is an extremely special game. I hope more and more people realize this. Once you beat the game and the credits roll and that song plays. Just a masterpiece of a game.
Idk, it felt meh.
Yes, loved it. I for sure want them to make another one!
@@lok687I think they will sold over a million copies which is amazing for them
I played through the game like 5 times because I loved it so much. It’s not perfect but it is amazing and I can’t wait to see what Neowiz does next. I’m a big Sekiro enjoyer so i’ve been wanting a game like this for a long time
I cannot take it seriously for a second. "Lies of p" is such a silly, goofy title and edgy pinnochio is such a ridiculous concept.
There’s an awesomely subtle sound design choice that is also a spoiler (kind of, we all know the story of Pinocchio).
At the start of game P is truly a silent protagonist, without even sounds of exertion as he rolls or attacks. He does, however, make mechanical sounds as his body moves like the other puppets. At some point, and I’m not sure when because I only properly noticed in the last chapter, P gains a voice. He starts to gasp and groan when he takes hits and makes sounds of exertion when dodging or attacking. The mechanical sounds disappear and by the end of the game, if you make the right choices, he has become human. It’s a fantastic detail and one I’ll be keenly listening for when I inevitably replay it.
you can also see the shadow of his long nose near the stargazer in the hotel if you lie, and his portrait also grows a nose when you lie. honestly i love the lie/truth system in the game, its really well thought out and a proper homage
It happens around the cathedral of you've lied enough. Or when his hair starts turning brown, you'll rarely hear them as his hair lightens
Spoiler, he’s not P. He’s Carlo
That’s class.
Yeah, it's a great feeling when I realize the grunts I thought I was hallucinating about are actually real and actually come from P. He gradually becomes more and more human during my playthrough and I love details like that. I just love playing a protagonist that has actual ties with the game world and can change in it, not just a souless body for me to control.
Bone-cutting Sawblade combined with Dancer's Curved Sword Handle was the most fun weapon for me on my playthrough. Gracefully spinning with a bigass saw feels awesome.
Pipe wrench goes bonk
pipe wrench plus booster glaive handle, then later on change blade to puppet blade the true meta route. it brings the holy grail wet dream of big dick dex build alive
i did the bone cutting sawblade with the exploding pickaxe handle. utterly massive and not the slowest thing ever (pipe wrench and puppet axe are both slower)
Thanks for the tip, just starting using it and it's sick
I had booster glaive handle with dancer's curved sword blade and it carried me for the whole game until I got two dragon sword.
Such a rewarding game. I thought some bosses were BS until it finally clicked. Nothing is more satisfying than parrying every boss attack and absolutely embarrassing them. Especially after they killed you 20 times in a row lol
I'm still in the process of learning parrying. Not an easy learn for an old guy. My first video game was "Pong", if that tells you anything.
@@kmaterne From a fellow old guy I wish you luck! Parry window is much tighter than I’m used to you in this game. Unforgiving but rewarding.
@@kmaterne if you want to unlock the easy mode for LoP, just build the Aegis arm and enjoy.
100% agreed. 😄
Factual..
I can't get enough of this game. That fact that it's insanely hard doesn't really get me down. I love the world, music and concept as a whole. Almost gives me Kingdom Hearts for adults vibes but with souls combat and linearity.
Kingdom Hearts is not something you want a souls like to be compared with.
@gloisnog21 beg to differ. Kingdom hearts is a souls like, play it on critical mode and do the organization 13 fights. Level 1 if your feeling especially fiesty. The bosses are fun, but hard. They demand that you learn there movesets and it becomes a song and dance that is so much fun.
Beat the game and never want to touch it again. Not that good
great point
@@justsomeguyreallyjustaguy3010
One of the best games this years, and definitely the best souls like, can't wait for the sequel.
Its very much appreciated that someone has finally spoken about writing in souls genre. It feels like most devs make souls likes only with gameplay in mind.
Yes! 👍
Yes because they're video games not graphic novels. Story should be secondary to gameplay
@@SevenPr1methis! Fact is not every game needs to have a mind bending amazing story. They are video games. Not a novel. Graphic or otherwise. I would rather play a hell of a good soulslike with a bad story than play something like Last of Us which might have a good story, but I found the gameplay to be dull as hell.
@@SevenPr1methat's not the point of a story
@@TheautisticlibertarianWhile I absolutely agree with you, there is room for both luckily. Though, these kinds of games I only play for gameplay. The story was fine in P, but I honestly don't give two shits about it. Setting and gameplay is all I care about
For me this is THE single best Soulslike existing right now. I have played absolutely everything the genre has to offer and Lies of P is the Pinnacle. I have no idea how they pulled of this insane quality without any experience in the genre, but i hope others will be able to learn from them.
Pure passion for the genre, thats why
imagine how they will pop off with their next games when the revenue from LoP kicks in
They learned from souls BB and Sekiro and took what was best in those games while leaving the tedious not fun bits behind.
If you follow this rule in anything you'll make something superior to the thing that came before you
I played 100 hours and completed all LiesofP achievements. Loved the game but it was too small. Elden Ring is still rewarding and feels new to me after 400 hours. I would rate Lies an A- and ER an A+ with possibilities of S ranks hopefully achieved by future games
@@nts4906 lies of p is actually a long game on an objective standard. Elden ring is open world my guy😭 it’s also one of the most expansive open worlds on all of gaming history that was made by multi million dollar game developers while lies of p was made by a small studio. I don’t think it’s fair to fully compare the two however i agree with your rating for the most part
The narrative had me so invested, i cried for romeo and carlo. Gepetto and the protagonist are written in very innovative ways, and the theme of exploring what humanity is in these characters is just too good
You cried? Seriously? C’mon dude...
I don't know how anyone can say this tbh. It took everything in me not to skip every cutscene with how repetitive it all was.
Yeah I don't think I knew enough about their past to be invested in them, I would have loved to have gotten some more backstory on how they became friends and how Carlo died
@@skipjacks85you didn’t? seriously? don’t you want to feel? to paint your life with a rich, vivid tapestry of emotion? to enjoy each moment fully? there is no shame in experiencing something deeply and passionately. it’s far more shameful to drain your life of color for no good reason.
@@VioletOrbWeaver okay pipe down William Wordsworth, you’re gonna hurt yourself. Let’s remember it’s a friggin video game, not Sonnet 29 lol
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed lies of p.
Its seriously my game of the year at the moment as I've had such a good time with it
100%. Only thing that’s pulled me away from Elden Ring. Game of the Year for me too.
You guys haven't beaten armored core 6 I see. Don't sleep on it. My goty without question. Fromsoft does not miss.
I was suprised by how much people enjoys lies of p.
Overrated for me. Feel like LotF captures the soulslike formula a lot better.
@@alfiebarbozalol super cap lotf is so mid it's not even funny
Personally AC6 still takes the cake but I have enjoyed LoP
The more I play this game, the more amazed I am that it came from a small studio with no track record in the genre. So happy it's been a success for them. Wonderful to hear your thoughts and I look forward to the lore vid!
The legend is here!
The Thing himself chiming in! Hope all is well with you good sir!
@@EpicZeldagamer-ln7fd What does that even mean? Care to elaborate?
Lies of p was my first souls game at that time i didn't know what souls like genre was i just downloaded the game to test my new gaming pc, my god to my surprise that coincidence was one of the best thing happend to me, a game that took countless hours from my life and given me a punch to the face everytime i got overpowered and pulled me out of the illusion of thinking rpg style combat games were useless and i got addicted time to time literally the chilling aesthetic world design to heavenly sounds effects to mind-blowing story twists and the mysterious lore just tied me up with a chain of pure curiousness there were some heavy atmospherric musically masterpiece places in the game where id just roam around and sit like a hour so to just to feel the game lore and really after playing it i didn't got any game that hooked me up like this one truly..(when you seen real gold you dont get attracted to copper anymore) i hope its devs bring this alive again with the dlcs
Interesting how different our experiences were. The story is great, but I found the atmosphere very lacking I wasn't immersed at all in the world. Most of the NPC battles felt super out of place with them being dead silent with some random one liners here and there (though the white lady was amazing). I also wasn't a big fan of some of the VAs like the rabbit gang is sick, but the girl especially kinda ruined it for me.
The records were a great touch, but I can't remember a single other thing about the music despite playing it a few hours ago.
It's a good game. Most importantly I'm very excited to see what they do next because I can definitely see the potential for something great.
I'm just going to chalk up most of the things that drag the game down a few notches down to lack of resources (hopefully fixed in a dlc or new game)
Love that you point out how its better to figure out which attacks you can parry and which to just dodge, because it feels like that's a big part of why people are having so much trouble with Lies of P. The timings are difficult, but its compounded by the fact that if people see the parry, they think of sekiro and just only rely on the parry, and vice versa for the dodge with i-frames. For me learning which attacks I should focus on parrying and which ones to dodge was one of my favorite parts of the combat of this game
Completely agree that this is the best soulslike. It's shameless in its imitation but it absolutely worked, and unlike any other soulslike, there's a lot of *heart* in it, especially in the surprisingly heartfelt story.
This whole game just has a massive, pulsating P-Organ
I wouldn't say shameless. It has a lot of unique mechanics and just combines a lot of good ideas into one. Whoever gave this the line "Bloodbornes spiritual sucessor" was a genius
I remember I read somewhere that it's incredibly fucking meta that they're so obvious with their inspiration when the game's about puppets becoming humans lol. They don't try to hide what they were trying to be and made a product that stands alongside FromSoft games in quality. Personally I enjoy Lies of P miles more than Elden Ring or DS3, maybe it's the music or art design but I was instantly hooked
"Dark Souls is shameless in its imitation of Zelda" - this guy in 2011 probably
@@jollygrapefruit786 "Dark Souls is just a ripoff of Castlevania and Faxanadu. SMH."
One thing i realise in Lies of P is that blocking is a very strong mechanic, and i haven't used block that much up until Laxasia where i couldn't learn how to dodge her second phase attacks and started using block, it made the fight much easier for me.
i always use combination of roll and block in souls fromsoft game, it is multitude easier than just timed roll all the time
Easily the boss I struggled with the most. I think I must have replayed the Laxasia fight at least 2 to 3 more than Simon or the Nameless Puppet. I tend to have a harder time with human sized bosses with high mobility around the boss fight stage. When they are zipping around all over the place, it's harder for me to get a sense of the timing with the enemy animation.
You really dont need to block/parry until very last boss. And this game doesnt feel hard.
@@zee9709I only dislike block in souls games bc it can make combat trivial once you find a 100% physical negation shield. You can just sit there for most of an enemy's attack and just turtle the entire thing
Exactly you can play however want. U can dodge, block, or parry or all 3. Just how it should be.
Lies of p has really strong throwables. I got through some tough bosses using them. They are OP
Sometimes it made me feel like I was cheating, but its really effective when you are hard stuck for sure
Not just that, there are certain fable arms that really can help, and if are using items, well there is an item that can recharge your fable arm a bit and you can carry three of them. At base level 3 basically gives you one full recharge, but it's enough. For one boss I was having a kinda tough time getting in close without taking damage in the first phase, I swapped out my flamethrower arm for the gun arm, and just unloaded at a distance, once I used all my fable arm charge and all the recharge items, he was more than halfway dead.
@charliericker274 Had s similar, albeit opposite experience. I couldn't clear the archbishop first phase quickly enough without taking a lot of damage (Only had 5 pulse cells at the time) and I was using the Aegis arm to block a lot of the attacks. Finally I unlocked the Flameberge and barbecued him in a few tries.
Nothings cheating if the developers put it in the game to use
I like to think that they're purposely OP. If you're stuck on a boss and you don't see a way out there are mainly two things a person does: A try again, B stop playing. With A the more you can't beat him the more you grow frustrated, unless you know there's a way to get out of the slump (op throwables), this gives you the chance to say maybe "ok, I've been stuck for like 5 hours on this boss and I'm trying to beat him but I can't, ok, let me summon a spectre and cheese him with throwables". I personally don't see it as a shortcut, the game is still hard and if you want to beat you have the chance to do it the "hard" or legit way, but you also know that you can do it in an alternative way
The soundtrack for mercy statue room is so dam good plus the alchemist twist and in some of the notes it talks about actuall alchemists like trismagistus valentine and a zealot all being real life shit got me so invested and geppedo wearin a freemason symbol and it being on the sword for the main title screen was so cool
Man, I felt like it was way easier than any other Souls-like I've played. Beat almost every boss on first try. It's my main reason for replayability. Only game in this genre I went into NG+, so I could see the other endings and try out other weapons. I really love this game, plus the story was beautifully done. Also feels pretty balanced in terms of different play styles, you can't really go wrong with choosing one. Although, Tech is pretty OP.
It's really impressive how purely skill driven the combat is while still remaining very fair in most cases.This video is spot on, it's a great game but only if you're looking for the kind of challenge it provides
i saw you get 2k followers on twitter. congrats
@@naxergss2625 Thank you!
the combat is not that fair, many attack are very badly telegraphed and require too much trial and error to learn the parry timing.
For comparaison it won't take you 15 tries to learn how to dodge most delayed attack in Elden Ring, most of the time it's about not panick rolling, and the delay are consistent between bosses, like they will not totally change the type of delayed attack they use in the middle of the fight.
@@ni9274 I don't think Elden Ring is a very good comparison. Ofc the combat has similar elements to it but you're comparing Elden Ring's combat with a game where parrying matters almost as much as in Sekiro
Souls games are generally much more about i-frames specifically whereas Lies of P wants you to parry moves that are hard to dodge and dodge moves that are hard to parry
That being said I do agree that some bosses have some moves that could be better telegraphed. But I also think most of it is completely fair, it's simply harder to deal with because knowing when to parry and when to dodge and actually pulling it off consistently is more difficult than i-framing through most things like in Elden Ring
Lies of P is simply harder *on average*
@@yiangaruga4928 Did you try playing in light load ? It make the dash very good and imo make the parry useless, playing like that would make the game like Elden Ring.
I forgot to mention this in my first comment, but I like that this game also has a more compelling reason to play NG+. Although I would have liked some more changes to the levels and enemies, the narrative takes on a different light in NG+ when you have a better idea of what's going on. You also have the chance to pick different choices throughout the story, which is a tad underwhelming but still at least an option. Finally, and the biggest thing for me, is that a NG+ in a souls-like game finally has progression beyond the first playthrough. Your P-organ gains new phases in NG+ and even NG++ with new perks that can even be game changers. In NG++ you can finally gain the ability to block fury attacks... it's kind of late to be adding a crutch like this considering it requires beating the game twice to unlock, but still it's certainly a game changer!
Going through NG+ knowing what you know about the context of the story and then facing off against Romeo King Of Puppets again takes on a much more tragic tone. One of the few souls games that compelled me to play it a second time.
You can also craft a amulet that let's you dodge them. It's from swamp thing iirc.
NioH 2 is the best for this. You don't even unlock the final underworld dungeon until you finish New Game++++...
This game NEEDS to win best soundtrack. The boss osts are bangers but the records just hit the soul..They are beautiful.
Man have you listened to ff16 soundtracks? Those are beautiful and imo need to win best soundtrack
@@orforix3147 environment matters too..in the grim and dark world of Lies of P the music is more special to you imo
im having a hard time deciding between both, but if someone have to win it should be one of them@@orforix3147
This year is going to be one of the most stacked OST years in recent memory lies of p FF 16 Octopath traveler, 2 atomic heart BG3 and many others
@@sadmarinersfan8935 damn looks like best ost its going to be a more hard price to win than GOTY xD
If a player doesn't want to go for the 2 hours of learning the attack patterns, use a spectre. They put it there for the non hardcore players. I think that this LOP's way of keeping this game welcoming to the average player
Well they are copied from Dark Souls so nothing unique there, but yea you're right. However if you have experience in souls-likes LoP and its bosses are actually way easier than Dark Souls' IMO, the attack patterns can be learned within 0-2 deaths.
@@rogumann838No chance, The vast majority of Dark souls bosses are easier than Lies of P, especially late game.
The game somewhat forces you into danger, you’ll need to block/parry at some point. A much harder skill compared to rolling away.
Exactly play howeveru want to play
There are other ways. Like a high vitality build and try to parry most attacks, and even when failing the parry, the block just absorbs it and you can recover the health by attacking. It was the build I used where I blocked everything and power staggered them. Didn't need to learn most patterns if I had toughness.
@@Garybell09I firmly believe that people who think the bosses in this game were easy compared to Dark Souls didn't really understand how Dark Souls combat worked. Like, they didn't jive with the flow of Dark Souls and tried to force their own expectations of how things in the game should move onto their experience. I am basically complimenting the fluidity of the gameplay of LoP. It is so smooth and satisfying it seems to convince some people that it was easier than the bosses in Dark Souls. 😅 Essentially, those same people, when able to express themselves fluidly, feel like the challenge melts away.
I have beaten every boss in LoP without specters, etc. I remember fights like Nameless King DS3 or Ancient Dragon DS2 being so much harder than they actually are. Aldrich is a pushover compared to the Archbishop.
It's not meant to be a competition or anything but I also personally felt like Lies of P offered more engaging boss fights than many Fromsoft fights. Like most of LoP is on par with the best Fromsoft encounters; e.g. Freia, Lady Maria, Radagon, Artorias, Midir, Aldrich. And LoP's more monstrous bosses were executed very well.
This game is truly something special.
I'm nearly at the end now, Simon is next and I'm utterly distraught about everything that's happening.
Great video!
To me a huge part of the difficulty came from the attack animations. I remember one of the tall puppet soldiers has a red attack where he charges his right arm up and behind him so you think the attack is coming down, but then, upon releasing the attack, his torso spins and it comes up from the bottom left instead of the top right like it telegraphed. So it’s also one of my minor complaints with the game, that I felt like combat was a mind game against the devs trying to fake me out instead of just fighting under otherwise normal soulsborne circumstances.
yes i agree, this is my top 5 games but man i hate the deception with attacks
Yes, that is on purpose. They are not meant to be perfect blocked the first time. You can roll AWAY from the attack instead of rolling INTO the attacks. I wish this was explained in the tutorial.
This game has an easy mode, just level up Capacity and Vitality and spam charged heavy attacks with a heavy weapon. Your spirit summon can tank for you while you dish out insane damage and stagger. Also throwables make the game a joke with an Advanced build, but that requires some farming.
It's hard but still doesn't escape the ability to be cheesed in some ways. Cause you can also ignore mini bosses by having a motivity technique build with big wrench head + krat police baton handle. Scaling is actually better when motivity and technique are evened out and you invest evenly in both for some reason. But anywho, you do krat fable art to buff the next damage you deal, then charge wrench head patient strike to max, and watch something explode for 4k in the early build, and 7+ when you optimize later
it's not really hard to break this game, but at the same time breaking the game requires a resource, typically throwables or fable arts. idk how much facetanking late game bosses will work, maybe if you're blocking all the time but early on yeah it'll work out.
this man speaks truth, lmao. i did just this - made my weight and HP bar higher. i was not having fun in the game because enemies hit like trucks and it's hard to learn when you're dying every 2 seconds. with just a bit more beef and HP i was able to learn to play the game the right way and now i think it's freaking amazing.
@@knivy6160 ye, my aforementioned build can 1 shot the youngest black rabbit brotherhood member in their second boss fight if you have the 4 fable slots ready lmao
What spirit summon?
Miyazaki leaves almost half of the bosses of Bloodborne as optional (Parrl, Witches of Hemwick, Amygdala, Gherman, Moon Presence, Lawrence, Ebriatas, etc) and its up to the player and how much investment they want to put into the game. Obviously those bosses and levels took hours of design, testing, music being created etc but left them optional because he knew the player would feel rewarded uncovering Yharnam's secrets as intended as they delved deeper into the nightmare. It also ties into the lore in paricular the DLC. Just amazing
I feel like that's a somewhat limited resource thing here, they had enough to make the bosses but not enough to go out of their way to make a load of optional content. They made the right choices imo
So, I have to ask what is your point in regards to this video and Lies of P?
@@AdoreYouInAshXI Mostly that it suggests how linear and unexciting it is to explore in it.
@@bladechild2449 I think LoP has the perfect amount of exploration for the type of game that it is. I do wish it had more hidden content like Cainhurst Castle, Archdragon Peak etc. but at the same time it was nice to be able to explore a linear, tightly designed game. Linearity isn't always a bad thing, imo. Especially with how over saturated open world games have become.
@@bladechild2449 i was rlly exciting exploring it, even being so llinear the game have some verticality but also a nice atmosphere , it was rlly good for a change.
As a souls vet I must confess that I had to uninstall this game because my life was going to be ruined from playing it too much, I platinum the game, got every single weapon and item and still did two more playthroughs, that's how good this game is, I don't think I played Elden Ring this much when it first launched... I am honestly cannot wait for the DLC.
LoP is hard in a very different way from souls games. In from software games pretty much every attack is reactable - you see a telegraph, press dodge/block/parry and avoid the damage. In Lies of P there are a lot of attacks that you have to memorize the timing of - you see a telegraph, wait 0.x seconds, and THEN press dodge/block. That, combined with a very small parry window, and a very short dodge distance, made LoP's combat completely unenjoyable for me.
I find that surprising. I think it's important to remember that a parry in Lies of P is not really a parry--it is a Perfect Guard. It is not a separate input or animation it is simply starting a guard at the moment an attack would hit. This video actually would have been better if the author had emphasized that distinction more. The only time they bring it up is when they address the fact that if you mistime a parry that your best decision is to not try again but to continue guarding.
I found this learning loop to be incredibly rewarding. I could often try to react to the telegraph attacks in hopes of perfectly guarding them but if I didn't I would be rewarded with the potential to recover Health via rally like Bloodborne.
It is very different to Dark Souls or Sekiro in this sense. Parrying in Dark Souls is an entirely different button and decision from the Block button. Sekiro cannot guard. I just wanted to say I'm a bit surprised and maybe disappointed that someone had the experience you did because for me this game really felt like it had improved on the combat systems of these other games and combined them. The trade-off of course for this power was mostly that our dodge was reduced in effectiveness (less distance and i-frames) but I am definitely of the school of thought that many players overemphasize dodging in Dark Souls and how combat can be improved with more proactive options.
I don't remember whose video it was now but someone else made a review of Lies of P where they showed gameplay footage of players dodging attacks in Elden ring and how the player would flinch away from the boss because they were afraid of getting hit... versus someone playing Sekiro who would lean forward in their chair every time they realized they needed to parry timing to succeed. Showing those players side by side of course isn't an argument but it does help illustrate what they were trying to say.
I noticed that some people were uncomfortable with P because, like Bloodborne or Sekiro, it often demands that you engage with combat proactively. Lies of P I think was very blunt about this by adding attacks which cannot be i-framed out of. While it's sometimes led to frustration It ultimately led to me feeling like I was way more engaged with the combat of the game as a whole.
Your point about every boss expecting you to get stuck on it is exactly why I found the game more exhausting than fun. Yes, it’s possible, but the combat is so rigid that there’s no room for creativity. Some people will prefer this just as you said.
As for the story and world, I found it addicting. I loved the levels, exploration, and quests and this was another factor that made boss fights exhausting, because there was only a payoff beyond that brick wall boss.
Good points in the video
@@BBQcheeseThere's clearly less room for creativity in Sekiro than there is in something like Dark Souls or Elden Ring. Come on now lol. Let's be reasonable here
@@BBQcheese Whoa holup, are we talking creativity or complexity here? Because if we're talking about complexity I 100% agree with you, Sekiro's combat is From's most complex combat system by far. But if we're talking about creativity, player freedom, its the exact opposite. Sekiro's combat system while incredibly complex, is also incredibly rigid in its design. And that's intentional. You couldn't have the one-on-one clashing of swords style combat without limiting player options. And I think Sekiro is all the better for it. But there's only so much you can do to succeed in this framework. You cant be a spellcaster, an archer, a theif, a barbarian ect. You're a shinobi and that's that
@@BBQcheese It's all good don't worry about it. And I think that's fair, I don't think I necessarily disagree. But don't you also think that the ability to create different builds also gives the player more freedom to approach combat? And if so, wouldn't that also mean that's a component that Sekiro is specifically lacking? I think that build variety offers a lot of player freedom even if a lot of what you're doing boils down to "pressing R1". If you're playing as a sorcerer you can press R1 from a safe distance. But if you're a knight you have to get up close to press R1 which is far more risky. That's the kind of creativity I'm talking about. Because honestly you could flip that argument on its head and say, "Oh well, all you're doing in Sekiro is tapping L1" And I think both you and I know that isn't true
You probably played it like some Dark Souls iteration, expecting to through everything. This game has a really forgiving block mechanic, even if the parry fails. You are meant to use that to the fullest and charge attacks to constantly interrupt enemies or stagger them.
@@Leonhart_93frankly more people reviewing this game really need to emphasize that there is no parry in Lies of P. There is dodging, guarding or blocking, and Perfect Guard or what everyone immediately identifies as "the parry".
It might sound unimportant but so many people's experiences feel like like they are explained by them not understanding the balance of Health regain from blocking and rallying, weapon durability damage to enemy weapons via PG (perfect guard or what is often called the parry), when to dodge for spacing, and the various incredibly strong effects offered through the special grindstones or consumables or fable arts.
And to be clear none of this needed any online consultation. I believe the game does a very good job of indicating to you what you can do and how strong it can be.
There is literally a throwable item in the game that instantly triggers a stagger and the item description is not vague about it.
Lies of P is a masterpiece. It starts challenging but the game gives you a lot of ways to deal with it and allows you to make progress without learning the fights perfectly.
The best platinum trophy since Elden ring.
Tell me I'm crazy, IDC. I liked Lies of P more than ANY OTHER SOULS GAME EVER, except maybe Sekiro. That even includes Elden Ring.
@@electroelysium2281 it’s right up there with many of the greats for sure.
@@electroelysium2281 it's for sure 100 percent better than mid souls and mid borne in every single aspect. but yeah it's up there with the goats ER and sekiro
I'm on my NG+5 run atm, the game rewards you for beating it exceptionally well. The Flying Spaghetti Monster gives you an amulet allowing you to dodge rage attacks, and the P organ also has an upgrade to block them too. Sadly there isn't much more progression past NG+2, but I can't wait for the DLC.
What flying spaghetti monster?!
@@Squabbywabose The great green Flying Spaghetti monster of the barren land? He's quite the celebrity with the katana weilders.
@@Squabbywabosethe green puppet sucking monster in the swamp that turns into the scrapped watchman in the second phase
Facts Im on NG + 2 and my only wish is the gear and amulets kept going up and up when you find them again. Like +2, +3 and so on… It starts to drop off around NG+ 2
When i finally finish NG+ 3 Ill put down the game and wait for DLC.. cant come soon enough :,(
@@brunolong763 It takes away all reason to play after ng++, quartz just becomes useless too :(
I would argue that the game isn’t as difficult as it is just different.
Learning timings was still a thing and I didn’t one shot every boss but once I understood the mechanics of the game I considered it easy.
And part of what made it hard was that almost every enemy in this game had ridiculous windups and it was really difficult to intuit the timings. The windup was super slow and the actual swing was so fast you couldn’t react to it. Once you get used to how slow the attacks are, it got a lot easier.
Im curious how many of you would agree or am I just full of it
I loved this game. It’s nearly perfect. I found the linear levels so refreshing as I have major open world fatigue. Combat was extremely difficult but so much fun. LoP is my game of the year right now.
Yeah I love that it's more linear, the rest of the game is excellent of course but I'm so glad it was more linear and I didn't spend lots of time being lost. I loved Elden Ring but I'm not always in the mood for big games like that.
Definitely agree, it's the closest I've gotten to how I feel when I play a from soft game.
Lies of p weapon customisation is truly innovative and I hope it gets expanded on further in the genre
Idk, I seen it in many other games and in my experience was mostly a worthless
@Wilhelm4131 did you play lies of p
@@commandotaco3299 yep, beat it on xbox gamepass
@@commandotaco3299don't mind him, he just replying any comments that praise lies of p with hate lmao
I loved the demo of lies of p and seeing this makes me confident that it'll be a good purvhase.
Yes, it's an amazing game worth of every dolar you spend
I bought it recently and I’m having a blast lol
The only game I have EVER played more than once is Sekiro.
I am 75% through lies of P, and I am ABSOLUTELY playing it again. I love it.
Do it. I just Platinum'd it and I'm sad the ride is over.
@@caseyadams2627i platinumed it on the ps5 now flying through the ps4 version to get it all over again
Glad to get your perspective. Mine is essentially the same: The game was very hard for me, but I like learning hard bosses. Bosses are my favorite part of these games and I'll happily get stomped repeatedly while I slowly develop some gitgud.
If You found some boss difficult, remember consumables are a good choice for ranged combat, the bombs do a good damage
lies of p is a masterpiece. in fact lies of p actually improved on certain things from elden ring and i loved that the graphics are truly amazing, one of my complaints with fromsoft is although their art direction is amazing and does a ton of heavy lifting for them their graphics system is behind the times and imagine a fromsoft game like elden ring with the same level of art direction just updated graphics. itd be truly mindblowing!! elden ring is the best video game of all time imo and lies of p was not far behind it for me and i truly loved what they did with the weapons, i just wish it was a bit longer cause i know itll be awhile before we get a sequel or dlc. it actually might be my second favorite game. after lies of p being god of war and god of war ragnorok. i really struggled with LOP in the beginning but once i got used to the combat and was able to upgrade my character a bit the fun opened up just like it did for me in elden ring. truly an amazing experience and the developers should be proud of themselves. funnily enough im still not drawn to play sekiro though cause from what i hear you dont upgrade your characters level and only play with one weapon basically the whole time. maybe im wrong about that?
Masochist when playing lies of P
🍷🗿”yes, a game where I’m finally accepted”
literally me! i spent a lot of middle and high school trying to beat touhou games on lunatic. never succeeded, but it’s a real testament to my masochism. this game made me feel right at home :)
My school mates tell me i like pain cuz for the majority of my time gaming, ive played exclusively souls/likes
I really hope you'll make a lore video. LoP is GOTY for me and it's my first soulslike! Finished NG++ just yesterday.
So happy that this game turned out good! I love it
This is hands down the best review of the game I've watched. You've captured the game and studios efforts perfectly.
Excellent review, you said everything I was thinking and summarized it all very well.
If this is Neowiz' first attempt I can't wait to see what they can do next.
This game really is an impressive achievement. For any studio, not to mention a new studio making their first game.
If someone told me that this was made by people who worked at From Soft during the Bloodborne era, then started their own studio, I would 100% believe it.
It's clear that Bloodborne was their core inspiration and they emulate it very well. In the best possible way.
The visual style, the architecture, the atmosphere, the level design, even the story themes are very similar to BB.
The combat, animations and weapon "customization" as well. All the way down to the dodge "hop" instead of the dodge roll.
Like, the developers of Lies of P studied BB very meticulously and had it as the blueprint for this game, then they changed and added some of their own ideas on top. But they nailed the foundations.
But they also managed to understand and emulate how From Soft makes games: Narrow the scope, know your audience and don't let feature creep water down your design. Like, they knew exactly what kind of game they want to make and they stuck to it. In terms of game design and project management, that is basically a miracle. Very few studios can do this.
For anyone who has never and will never own a Playstation console this is the closest they can get to actually playing Bloodborne, on PC or Xbox.
That being said, here's where my major complaint with the game actually comes in.
I really like Lies of P, but it is built on dated mechanics. Bloodborne is 10 years old and From Soft has made DS3, Sekiro and Elden Ring in the meantime. They refined their animations, their combat mechanics and their boss design so much since BB. DS3 and Elden Ring only look the same to the "untrained eye"; to anyone who doesn't actually play Souls games. Anyone who does knows that they're not the same at all. ER combat is so fluid, so dynamic, so... Liberating. It flows like water. There is a dance that took FS 15 years to perfect and they're gonna improve on it even more. If you go back to BB you will see that that combat design is still "turn based". You wait for the enemy to attack, then you attack. The hitboxes are huge and there is no space for "weaving into combos" with your own hit and avoiding damage. I mean, BB really isn't about avoiding damage; it's about trading damage and retaliating. And so is Lies of P.
And then on top of that, Lies of P experiments with the parry mechanic from Sekiro, where most bosses do so much unavoidable damage that you are "forced" to parry if you want to hitless it. But the parry is weird, the timing is "off" and the jerky spasmic movement of most bosses and puppet enemies in the game makes is really friggin' hard to react to their attacks. And it's inconsistent. Contrast that to the way deflections work in Sekiro, where they are basically frame perfect.
Maybe it's just me. I don't think the parry timing is a bug or a mistake by the developers. I think it's intentional. Maybe they couldn't do any better at this point, which is fine. It's their first game. Or maybe they wanted it to be weird to throw all the Souls players off balance and stand out. In any case, it is what it is. I don't like it at all, but I can look past it because the rest of the game and the ideas are executed really well.
I would recommend this game to anyone who likes the genre. And I'm very much looking forward to the next game from Neowiz.
Judging from Lies of P, that studio has a very bright future ahead.
Weirdly enough lies of p felt like a breath of fresh air even though it is the most fromsoft like souls game. Truly a gem of a game. Aside from 1 specific boss, All the bosses were fun to learn. It was the kind of game i was itching for for a long time. I genuinely want to say its more fair than some of elden ring's bosses.
Which one, Laxasia?
you talk about the last boss?
I bet it's Swamp Monster
@@fastenedcarrot9570 its the 2nd black rabbit gank fight. The first encounter was done much better
I think the vast majority of bosses are fair like you mentioned. What really wasn't fair (to me) were the numerous elites that had a stupidly high amount of hp and very punishing movesets. The first two that come to mind are the clown with boxing gloves and the dual wielding jester but there are certainly more.
That damn jester took me a few run backs but he’s one of the kinds of enemies that likes to punish you for trying to back away
@@BBQcheese yeah I found that out too by just getting in his face and trying to perfect guard, I think people are afraid to lose so they forgo just trying it out and try the “safer” options of running around and dodging
For me, Lords of the Fallen changed every notion I previously had about Soulslike in which I never was interested in. Some parts of LotF are out of this world good, like the level design.
And what it lacks, it’s cause it is raw in a way Demon’s Souls was. But the essence, core, and magic that was under layers in DS is there in LotF as well. GOTY underdog and I know how good ACVI is.
I agree
Currently playing LOTF. Still early to mid-game but so far I agree. It really reminds me of Demon's Souls/Dark Souls 2 in all the best and worst ways.
Dude LotF is complete and utter dogshit lol what are you smoking. Good level design?? My guy it has literally no exaggeration the worst level design in any soulslike by far. The enemy placement is the worst I've ever seen in a video game.
Im about halfway through LoP now and I have to say, this game is truly incredible. I love everything about it. The combat feels really good, the story is captivating and the world is beautiful. I really like all the NPCs as well. It isn’t nearly as difficult as I thought it was going to be, maybe I just play too many Souls games but it is a good healthy challenge. I’m averaging 5-10 attempts per boss. Just for comparison it took me 40 attempts to clear Balteus, which felt much more difficult. Not that it’s good or bad, just an observation. I’m enjoying this game so much that I’ll definitely do a second playthrough immediately. Thanks for the great review!
It's crazy how the only bosses that got me actually stuck were Romeo and Swamp monster. I didn't think apart from that the game is as hard as you said it is.
Yeah it’s really not lmao, the game is amazing and it’s a nice challenge but parrying is so powerful and so easy that it kind of invalidates anything any of the bosses try to do. That’s only if you’re just trying to beat them though, trying to master their patterns and take them down as quickly as possible (like using the katana in NG+) is where it gets actually difficult and way more fun
Archbishop Andreus, the first phase of the King of Puppets and Manus were nerfed about two weeks after launch
Liked this game a lot. The story, despite its somewhat silly premise, was really great and drew me in so much that I'm excited for the marvel-esque expanded universe it teased at the end. Unironically, there were more enjoyable, challenging bosses in this game than in Elden Ring for me. Sekiro is probably my favorite FromSoft game at the moment due to its memorable and masterable bosses, and this game is very similar in that regard. I do wish that when you get really stuck, doing something else was more of an option, but I enjoyed the challenge even though it required me to rethink how I was playing the game several times (i.e. relying too much on dodging or blocking and finding the right balance).
I think most people are honestly not remembering what it was like to play Dark Souls for the first time. Have people forgotten Gargoyles? It took me a full day to beat on my first play through; my roommate took 3! Hell, O&S are legendary for being a brick wall that people couldn't get past. People need to leave their egos at the door and stop claiming a game is unfair or broken because they can't beat a boss on the first or third time.
Yea I was stuck on the Ergo Enhanced Wrestler guy and died like 20 times
Almost killed him but the attack phase he does after being staggered on 2nd phase caught me off guard because I was in the flow state
the problem is not doing a boss multiple times, it's that you don't feel the progress and you just wait for good RNG (not being 10-hit comboed) to be able to beat some bosses.
It's a good copycat, but clearly has some balancing issues on the AI of the enemies.
@@alfiebarboza Which boss was it that hurt you the most?
My favorite is tards in comments saying it's easy and they usually suck but beat every boss first or second try. Imagine lying like that. That's much more toxic than ppl admiting the parry window is unfair but doable if you have the time
@@iHaveTheDocuments I don't think there was a boss that didn't take me more than 4 tries to get in the groove of
Outside of the fire machine puppet but I saw someone fight him so I knew most his tells when I went up against him
I absolutely adore this game. I platinumed it after 50-something hours and the only bosses I felt were actually super challenging were king of puppets and nameless puppet
Totally agree. I wish the rest of the bosses were kind of as challenging as they were, but overall the game is amazig.
My personal game of the year. Did 4 play throughs, 1 for each ending/build type and then another NG+ cause I had to fight all the bosses with the katana. An absolute joy start to finish, could still see myself going for a NG++ run in the near future.
That hit at 11:36 knocked the resolution back up
I've Just finished my 5th playthrough after 100 hour. Really enjoyed the journey.
Having the urge to replay the game through NG+ is a MAJOR sell point.
The story is amazing and really captures the grim settings , in it own style ,of the OG story.
My only complain is the junky camera when fighting big bosses.
I feel you on the replayability. My char in Lies of P is max level, and I still find myself wanting to play through again. I really like that the Lies of P NG+ adds more to your experience since you can understand what robots are saying for more story context, and your P-organ will unlock more levels for a few NG sessions. On the contrary, I'm nearing the end of my Lords of the Fallen NG+, and I feel more miserable than I did on the first playthrough. Doesn't help that LotF takes trolling to the next level, which is the largest source of difficulty in the game (large packs of melee/ranged mobs, ambushes around almost literally every corner/terrain, etc.), but adds nothing; in fact, the NG+ experience removes permanent waypoints from the game... which would be fine if you didn't need to travel around like crazy for some quests or main story progression. Overall, Lies of P left me craving more NG+ progression, LotF made me want to just start over instead of going into NG+ to experience more of the game.
I loved this game like it was my first time playing Demon's/Dark Souls all over again. Very rarely does a game this special get made. If BG3 and AC6 didn't release this year, Lies of P would genuinely be competing for my GOTY.
If I came out of a coma today and someone told me that this game was made by From I would 100% believe it. This game is my personal GotY 2023 and at the same time one of the most underated games of 2023
lol wat? not even close bro
True it is really close to than kind of experience and they have figured out what is the appeal to these rather than just the difficulty that is often the most talked thing
@@alfiebarboza a lot of souls fans out there ( Iron Pineapple, Maximilian Dood, Ratatoskr, Me and others ) think this is the game that comes closest to the From formula and thats is a fact, you can desagree but that changes nothing.
@@irmaoburro1 lol you must be really young. So because a couple of dudes think something thats a fact? Its all opinions and everyone is entitled to one. This isn’t about right or wrong, just preferences.
@@alfiebarboza yes, I'm very young thank God, you must be old and stubborn. I agree with you that everyone has the right to an opinion, I can for example say that bloodborne is a bad game and use your excuse that "just because some guys think it's good, don't make it a fact", however I would be completely wrong. What I mean is that it's not a couple of guys that think this game is good, a lot of reviews praise the game for being the closest to understanding From's formula, that's not an opinion or a preference, that's a fact.
Many folks who just gave up fighting a couple of bosses in this game have absolutely no idea what a saviour of a video game Lies of P is.
This game leaves nothing out, from the gameplay to the story, the deep lore, the setting, the atmosphere, the gameworld, level design, enemy variety, the boss designs, the levelling, customization, the art direction to the music in this game is so high level stuff that if this game was published by a mainstream publisher it would have been 10/10 everywhere because it's uncompromising in every single aspect. I mean we can call this the purest form of video game.
Even more impactful was how the story in this game the dialogues reflect humanity and how we are made to be a puppet of society is a powerful message for players to ponder upon
I think the bosses in this game have a lot of problems that fans will just assume is diffuculty, but I disagree. Much of what makes the hardest bosses hard is their lack of propper telegraphs. Even the hardest Dark Souls bosses have obvious windups and rhythms to their moves to make it possible to sight read the angle and timing of almost every attack quickly, and Lies of P just doesn't do that. Bosses will have long, arduous windups and then a lightning quick strike afterwards without an indication of when the windup stopped and the attack began. Even Fromsoft bosses with crazy mixups let you know if they're about to attack with subtle cues like an extra inhale or a quick step forward or something, but Lies of P fails on a lot of fronts to make bosses that are possible to learn without trial and error.
Lies of P is awesome, really demanding but worth it
There are absolutely ways to make your build more range centric. There are throwables you can upgrade with your p organ, ranged legion arms, and even a weapon that has a long range weapon art.
Don't forget the Puppet Ripper, the reach on that R2 is ludicrous and it's way earlier
Seeing you come full circle here is pretty neat. I commend you for getting out of your comfort zone to play this game and hold this title’s feet to the fire.
No magic build? Oh yeah, totally not me getting full stacks of throwables after Laxasia whooped my ass. Shout out to the Red Lobster.
Your pacing in the way you talk is very good. Do not change it, please.
Really enjoy your reviews and analysis, keep up the great content!
I stopped watching and listening when I heard "Nioh had a bad story", you are absolutely entitled to your own opinion but I am certain that's not what 99% of the people who played the game think about it, the cutscenes and the story-telling in Nioh is some of the best I have seen, the dialogue, the voice-acting, the cut-scenes, the score, it's exhilarating and truly teleports you into feudal Japan
Played it, wouldn't call it a master piece really, it has its flaws, but story was not one of them so yeah, dude either didn't really play it or didn't like it, but objectivelly, nioh was easily 7/10
@inbdelivery8942 Nioh 1 was good for its time, in around DS2 era, but Nioh 2 is even better.
I agree with you. I mean yeah everyone is entitled to their own opinion but this guy in particular seems to hate on most everything. Just a really negative person in general
Found it hard to follow nioh 2 story but I gotta agree with you on nioh 1
I have to agree with Lies of P being the best Soulslike and my personal game of the year thus far. Just finished The Lords of the Fallen, and that games comes as a decently close second. The feel of Lies of P and the bosses are on a whole other league compared to bosses in LotF, Nioh, Wo Long etc. While I do think Lies of P is challenging, I wouldn't say it's any different from anyone's first experience playing a FromSoft game. I did somehow have a harder time with some of the bosses in New Game+ lol
Great video!
Me too honestly. I kinda made a joke of fueco on my first playthrough with the electric telsa head and krat police baton handle and a summon, but he took me over an hour of actually learning him in NG+ and not using the summon to for a greater challenge lmao
@alterreb4775 Haha, he's a tough one for sure! For me, it was the Arm of God in NG+. What a nightmare lmao
I want to mention some stuff about perfect guarding.
It only builds stagger when you get an upgrade for it.
What it *DOES* do from the start is break enemy weapons.
You can also get an upgrade (pretty early, iirc) that lets you recover guard regain on perfect guard. So on a multi-hit, you could miss the first perfect, lose a lil HP, but get it back right after.
Subscribed due to the chill nature of your commentary.
I agree with pretty much everything you said, I got stuck HARD on Laxasia the first time, and I really enjoy learning the attack patterns, too. I guess the throwables and specters can help with some bosses, but you didn't mention them. Anyway, I liked the game so much I'm already at NG+++ with 100% achievements.
Good job dude I couldn't get the hang of this one :(
the thing with the parry is that its not like sekiro completely were you need to press the button just as you get attacked to deflect, parry here you need to do it just very slightly before you get hit and i think this with the very low parry window is what throwing people off.
while i do think enemies and bosses are fair and i did beat them fair and found them fun, one annoying thing i found is the insane combos they have.
a normal enemy will do a one two punch and just repeat that seven times or a boss will throw a combo that last for 14 hits and it just becomes too long which i think this is just a larger issue with souls and soulslike in general, i think we got too good that the only way we have a hard time with a boss is with overtuned ones
Those combos have always been in these games. Look at the combo basic hollows can come out with in ds1
Wow. Great clip. I seen a lot of 'Lies of P' clips. This one make me want to buy it. Comment are helpful, too.
Getting through the levels and basic mobs I felt was easier than Souls especially with how generous the game is with short cuts and stargazer placement. The bosses and elites however felt somewhat harder than Souls, at least until I realized the Sekiro influence of parrying necessity. I sometimes wish they didn’t make enemy poise invisible but maybe that’s what encouraged me to get even more aggressive than I do in From games. Absolutely loved the setting and vibe of it, was really surprised to find out that it’s Korean made because it’s a phenomenal take on Pinocchio.
Do people unironically like Fromsofts Soulsgames the most? I myself found myself enjoying games like say Mortal Shell, The Surge 2 but even something like Immortal Unchained more than Dark Souls 3 as example. To me, Fromsofts lore always ends up being "A Kingdom got corrupted because a greedy Kings ambitions", so I eventually genuinely stopped caring. More power to Miyazaki for getting R. R. Martin and coming up with a very intrinsic story how Sheng Long fought against Nibiru 100 billion aeons ago in a different galaxy and the cosmic energy awakened a slumbering evil, but I am tired of it and I find it pretentious.
So pretentious, that they switched from beautiful artworks of NPCs in the loading screens of Demons Souls to boring item descriptions about random trash enemy items nobody cares about, which I am still salty about.
Sometimes, beauty lies in things unsaid.
It’s honestly baffling how far up their own asses they are about the story. And I agree; they’re all the same. It hasn’t changed since DeS, except people call that game’s plot okay and everything thereafter great.
Nioh 1 and 2 honestly make going back to FromSoftware’s Souls games a chore for me.
This is a prime example of subjectivity, but I think if you have to study a bosses moves for hours and hours like it's college finals in order to beat it, then either the player has missed an important element, or it's a terrible boss.
I truly don't think for a second Fromsoft ever intends players to get stuck on a fight. With Miyazaki games in particular, he touts the importance of immersing to player in the world. There is _always_ ample amounts of training before a major challenge, that is IF the player engages with the world in a deliberate way and doesn't rush through the levels/enemies. These "Soulslikes" seem exclusively made of bosses that just kill you instantly until you've memorized each and every frame of their animations. That's the opposite of immersion for me.
If I can beat Orphan of Kos and Gael (often called the hardest in the series) in around 5 tries my first playthrough, there's no reason Frieda should have taken me over 50. I feel it's no longer a skill issue in cases like that. Either I missed something, or the fight is severely flawed.
FromSoft doesn’t have good story, they have good lore. The stories are always bare bones “go here, do the thing, now go here and do the next thing, now go here and do the last thing. Or the opposite of the last thing. Or the last thing-lite.” That’s barely a story. The real story happened long before you started playing and you’re just mincing around in the ruins of the actual story.
In other words, you are the epilogue.
Yeah, the fans will defend it, but in reality no one had any idea what was happening before they watched videos on youtube. And the player character is just a minor player.
But here the main character has the main conflict too, much more interesting.
Lies of P can be genuinely unfair and bullshit though, the biggest example of this is while unblockable attacks glow red to let the player know to either perfect guard or avoid the attack entirely, there are also grab attacks that need to be perfect guarded or avoided entirely that *don't* glow red
The point you made that the game rarely gives you breaks on the bosses is so true. I personally love it because imo the bosses are all very fair. You just have to learn them. I loved this game so much. It feels so good to dominate a boss that was killing you in 15 seconds flat the first handful of attempts. They even NAILED the gank fights. Especially the first black rabbit brotherhood fight. I was getting destroyed early on but it is such a great fight once you get good at it.
I went Dex build in Lies of P. I can confirm it is indeed hard mode. The Brother/Sister fight murder fucked me lmao.
Have you tried motivity build? It's the best build to make things harder
Good thing the booster glaive scales with dex and its heavy hits across the room with almost as much tracking as a boss attack
@@Sangarudin I thought dex was exponentially harder, for me anyways. My motivity build (bone saw/exploding pick axe handle) ran through enemies with no problem.
there is not much different in dex/str builds, dex is stronger since it has more weapon variety
they both increase physical resistance, while advance adds more elemental resistance
I have 7 NG playthroughs and dex is the best, str 2nd, advance build is strong but very limited handles and need 3 element weapon upgraded
not to mention dex has the *Dancer sword handle* with dex scaling (has one of the fastest charge attacks)
8:30 actually there’s always a range option for every boss in the game.
Through the game you will plenty of thing you can throw in the enemy. They hit HARD.
Entire bosses can be skipped by just throwing all that random things you got in your pockets.
For example: Laxasia and Simon second phases can be dealt by summoning phantom and throwing around 20-25 bottles in them.
Every miniboss can be dealth with by throwing 5k ergo worth in them. Even less if you build Advance.
I remember struggling with the second police puppet you encounter in the game in the quarantine zone, then I remembered I had collected 5 throwing cells up to now. Next attempt I threw all 5 of them and he just fucking died
Question. What is Laxasia weak to? I'm guessing fire because she's blue like a carcass but she might also be human.
@@MechFung she's human, acid
@@alterreb4775 Ty hope I can beat Laxasia today! (Just got to her last night)
@@alterreb4775 TYSM! Just beat Laxasia!
You got that right. The game is hard. Too hard. And not fair. Why? There are several reasons. One, the most obvious, you don't have any poise, and the enemy has. Anything that touches you while you are attacking stops your attacks, not so with the enemy, except if you make several charged attacks and you break posture (or whatever it's called), when the life bar of the boss is flashing white, and that's it. The player should have poise, as those charged attacks are the way to breaking posture, and the enemies should have less poise.
Bosses also have what seems to be infinite stamina. They can make 4-5 hit combos, even it you perfect parry them all, you are left without stamina after those parries, so you can't counter attack. If you get a perfect parry, you shouldn't lose ANY stamina, at all.
Also, there are way two many double bosses, not a two phase boss, but a double boss, you defeat the first one, with the full hp bar, then the 2nd one, usually a transformation or something, with another full hp bar. Usually the first one is not so hard, but you still have to repeat it to near perfection for the 2nd boss attempt. For those that haven't played it, it's like the Elden Ring final boss, first you have to deal with Radagon, then the Elden Beast, here it's the same but a lot more times.
Also, some runs back to the boss are not so good, you waste some time and there are several enemies on the way, something that Elden Ring had finally solved.
It's a pretty good game, but they are going for making it harder for the sake of making it harder.
I can't stand Double Bosses. Like you said, it's not one boss with two phases, it's two entirely distinct bosses stapled to each other, that you arbitrarily have to beat in one go. Great example of artificial difficulty.
I just recently finished the game in 20 hours (true ending, motivity + ark sword, solo), and the pulse cell recharge is a godsend.
I defeated every boss in less than 10 tries and sometimes defeating them in 1 try when I get these clutch moments on the pulse cell recharge, game is hard af but fun.
Just finished LoP yesterday, and I honestly have to say that this IS the best souls-like game, and I guarantee that, if you told someone that FromSoftware made this game, it would be praised much more. IMO, after Elden Ring and Bloodborne, this is the best soulslike game. Can’t wait for the dlc and sequel.
Lies of P needs poise so bad, the stunlock just kills this game sometimes for me, the story is good tho.
Oh My God, I'm going to cry 😭Such a wonderful video. Only people who watch and participate in the Live playthroughs, know how close to heart this game is, to us. I was going to try this on gamepass. But now, I'll surely buy it. They deserve my money ♥
I beat it and laughed pretty hard when I saw that the achievement for the ending was only obtained by like 30% of the players on steam yesterday lol
The biggest most important lesson for new players, and you say something to this effect early on, is that the game requires a *combination* of dodging, blocking and perfect guarding (assuming you're not a god-tier deflecter) within each fight. I was struggling with parade master's 2nd phase as I couldn't dodge his sweeping attacks. Once I started blocking them, the fight was done. Figure out what to do for each attack or combo- what is most comfortable for *you* to do. The health regain on block is surprisingly generous, especially with some weapons. Use it!
I'll take the chance of saying I don't really like dying in soulslikes. I like the challenge but I don't really enjoy bashing my head against a boss over and over like many other fans do. I good level of challenge is appreciated, it makes me feel immersed into the world and makes it more real. But spending a forthnight fighting a boss, learning every single animation and learning to manipulate them to get the upper hand does the opposite for me. It's a constant reminder I'm playing a videogame and I should probably do something more productive with my time. I don't take the game world seriously if I have to manipulate Malenia's animations in order to survive her next attack, I just feel like I'm fighting a mindless puppet rather than a skilled warrior. Of course I don't want victory handed to me but there's a sweet spot of difficulty that keeps me invested in the world while being challenged.
So yeah, don't think P would do it for me
Nioh 2 goes so hard dude. Gameplay is what im there for. Ill go watch a movie for story. Missing out on a super deep & tight combat system if you don't try it. Same with lies of p to an extent. Although not as tight & responsive. Makes up for it in other ways though imo
Nioh 2 is easily a 9. But he's right that the level design isn't great. Enemy variety is also lacking.
Yea nioh two is one of my all time favs. Easily the best combat system probably ever in a video game and I stand firmly on that, it’s definitely head and shoulders of any from software game easily. But it lacks level design and enemies which is my biggest knocks against it. Lies of P gives faint resemblances of nioh2
Nioh 2 is easy as hell though
Magic - talismans - amrita on hit/heals
the parry/spirit especially the blue spirit has so much frames
I remember I was like NG+6 or 7 and never had any problem with any boss with that build, weapon Switchblade
even beat the underworld that has 100 levels, then the 5 hard levels repeatedly for gear farming
@@looots1320 yea once you have a build it’s not as hard. But it’s like that even with souls games and honestly elden ring was an extreme let down in terms of boss difficulty outside of maliena, everything else was a piece of piss
@@looots1320 sounds like you enjoyed the hell outta nioh 2.
I would say the only unfair fights are laxasia second phase and the first dark brotherhood fight. Everything else I felt as though was doable from the start. With the exception of Romeo but after I stopped trying to parry everything and started dodging his 7+ hit combo he became a lot more doable
I don't think either are unfair. I don't like the Eldest's scoot forward on his overhead and also the Swamp Monster does something similar on his overhead Fury Attack despite already covering huge ground without the scoot. Laxasia was hard to keep track of but remember that you can parry everything.
The final 4 fights are obnoxious. Bloated HP, infuriating persistence with wasting your time with 2 phase fights.
They should've really just taken the second forms of all of these fights and turned them fleshed out 1 phase battles. Having to wade through Manus phase 1 every time just to even practice a bit of its 2nd phase made me want to slit my wrists.
@@bladechild2449 Disagree. Phase 1 Simon is pretty easy anyway.
@@fastenedcarrot9570 this. I would have prefered skipping phase 1 and just going straight to the 2nd phase (with slightly more hp)
@@joeysmit4644 His first phase is decent practice for some of his melee in his second tbf
Based purely on gameplay and combat the Nioh series is still the best 'soulslike' as far as I'm concerned. However I have only played the Lies of P demo and I plan on giving the full game a try.
Yeah, although I don't think Nioh games are actually Souls-likes, but Nioh and Nioh 2 are really great games, mainly Nioh 2, which does everything better than his predecessor.
but the game isnt just combat. in every other regard lies of p is better
@@sdotwallace No it doesn’t. If you play Nioh/2 for what it is: a difficult h&s grind arpg with complex gameplay and combat, Lies of P has no room to even be mentioned as rival.
@@theeliteterrarian1888 Again: Nioh/2 is not a Soulslike. That’s why. And I find Lies of P sucks in every aspect.
@@sdotwallace it doesn’t because they are targeting different gameplay cores.
have you heard lies of p went platinum? i am so happy for the devs!! what a truly special and heartfelt game this is. can't wait to see what they create next!
All complaints about Lies of P's difficulty can be boiled down to a pure skill issue. Also nothing wrong with the story, its well above average. Level design? I prefer the more linear and focused approach, over some discombobulated rat maze.
btw, if you are stuck on a boss, just farm throwables..
The problem you describe with majority of "souls fans/veterans" being unwilling to stick on a boss for hours to learn it - well, we have Elden Ring myriad of broken op tactics and training wheels options to thank for that.
Lords of the Fallen was a huge disappointment in everything from combat, animations, lore, levels and performance, it's also very easy. I just came back to Lies of P immediately to see the other endings.
Vice versa.
Nioh is not even a soulslike. It's much more and much better
Lies of p is my first souls game, and now i am going to elden ring.
You see, i saw hours of gameplay of souls games and completely fell love in it, i always thought that i would never overlevel myself for a boss, and when i played lies of p, i was stuck at first boss (forgot his name large dude with a red jacket), i finally managed to defeat him two days later. Then i was stuck at 2nd encounter of black police guy. I was really frustrated. It was because i didn't understand parry system,
I decided to just go and die then, i stood there and tried to parried his attack. I lost many times but a time came where i didn't felt need to dodge, infact i forced myself to dogde sometimes, since it looked cool rather than avoiding attacks. I then, defeated mad monkey at first try. The 3rd boss (that big electricity dude) really took out of me in 2nd phase, since i needed to dodge his electricity lol.
Btw point is, i love dying, and i am disappointed that the game was nerfed when i bought.
I've somehow managed to avoid learning any details about this game, so when I heard "P Organ" for the first time, I lost my shit and had to pause the video.
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