Review: Lies of P

Based on my review in progress, I was hoping Lies of P would improve over time. It didn’t.

No matter how much I play Lies of P, I can’t get over how heavily it borrowed from FromSoftware’s Souls series. I get it. The video game industry is built on trends. In the wake of every big success, there are always a number of followers who try to capitalize on the newfound hunger. But this isn’t Cities: Skylines borrowing the zoning system from SimCity 2000. This isn’t even Final Fantasy using the party system from Dragon Quest.

Lies of P borrows everything from FromSoftware’s titles. Movement, combat, right down to the aesthetic. A brief glance at Lies of P, and you could easily mistake it for Bloodborne. Lies of P is Bloodborne with puppets, and that is such a waste of Neowiz’s obvious talent.

Lies of P (PC, PS4 [Reviewed], PS5)
Developer: Neowiz, Round8
Publisher: Neowiz
Released: September 18, 2023
MSRP: $69.99

Lies of P is inspired by The Adventures of Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, but darker. It’s like how American McGee’s Alice is a dark reimagining of Alice in Wonderland or how Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is a dark reimagining of Alice in Wonderland. Taking a children’s story (even if The Adventures of Pinocchio is a pretty dark children’s story to begin with) and making it nightmarishly twisted is kind of storytelling easy mode. What’s worse is that they darkened it by crossing it with, of course, Bloodborne.

You’re dropped in the city of Krat, where a one-two punch of plague and puppet rampage has left it desolate. The city had risen to prominence on the back of some forbidden discovery, and it eventually backfired. Sound familiar?

Your goal is to follow the orders of some rich people in a hotel as they try to save what remains of their valuable assets. Or, I guess, figure out what went wrong with the puppets and put a stop to that. It follows the minimalistic storytelling of the Souls series, so plot points and lore are delivered in tiny morsels. In a world of cutscenes bloated with exposition, I still prefer this method of storytelling, I just wish it wasn’t so obviously borrowed.

Then touch the puppet inside me

I said in my in-progress review that it would be easier to list the things that Lies of P doesn’t lift from FromSoftware’s games than it would be to list the things that it does. That remains true throughout the game. If anything, as you progress, you start to notice more facets and mechanics that it uses.

Look, the 1979 movie Alien was pitched as “Jaws in Space.” A lot of creation is iteration; it’s unavoidably part of the process. But Lies of P isn’t an iteration. It’s so much the same. The moment I was handed a sword in the game, I knew what to do. The movement, the animation, and the secondary mechanics feel so familiar you could swear they were part of the same series. Your damage scales with two separate character stats, with weapons favoring one or the other. The vitality, dodge rolls, and health systems are all exact replicas.

Even the aesthetic is unmistakable. The desolate streets and murky forests. The grand architecture and broad vistas. The soft-spoken people who speak from lit windows. Hell, even the music is largely the same. It’s complete silence until you enter a boss room, and then suddenly, the Latin choir shouts itself to life. Now, you can collect records and play them in the hotel, and they are fantastic. Absolute gold star there.

Ye’ve got a heart of brass

The contributions to the genre that Neowiz actually made are easily my favorite parts of the game. That would be the puppets. The ornate animatronics go a long way in balancing the typical grotesque monsters. At the same time, there’s a lot of inhumanity in the world. You pick up snippets of lore scattered throughout the environments, and they largely lack personality, as if they were written by the puppets themselves. I’m not sure that was intentional.

I’m not intimately familiar with The Adventures of Pinocchio, but I feel like they tie in its themes rather well. There’s a lot of emphasis on finding the puppet protagonist’s humanity through lying and small acts of kindness. You’re given a lot of choices, which seem to reflect on the protagonist and those around him.

I’m not quite so hot on being shackled to a supporting character, though. You’re given a device with a cricket named Gemini (pronounced gem-mini to make it sound like Jiminy Cricket), and I really do not appreciate his input. He’s there to add background and context to what you’re doing, but it’s really needless, and I find it annoying.

Maybe Gemini is supposed to make up for the lack of multiplayer. You might feel lonely without all those messages scrawled on the floor.

Oilborne

Beneath that, yeah, Lies of P is a decent game. It pales only slightly in comparison to FromSoftware’s titles, and that’s a feat in itself. Some of the environments are boxier and less imaginative. The progression is starkly linear compared to the Souls series. There is less diversity in the enemies you go up against. The story is more rote than what you’d find in the nebulous tales of dead Gods that Miyazaki favors. But those are all rather small complaints that can add up.

Neowiz manages to land a lot of nuance here. The boss battles have that same intensity as you try to recognize and counter its movements and patterns. It has a lot of that same unforgiving challenge that its progenitors are known for. Those aren’t easy things to replicate. I can bang on all day about how unoriginal it is, but at least it’s executed well. It doesn’t taste like Bloodborne Lite, nor does it taste like Bloodborne Dark. Lies of P is just off-brand Bloodborne.

So, if you’re the type of person who thinks that “fun” is the only relevant criteria for what makes a good game, then have at it. I sincerely think you’ll find a lot to like, and that’s rad. However, if you’re someone who yearns to see growth and advancement within the medium, then this is going to just befuddle you. I think Neowiz shows off a great deal of talent with Lies of P. I just hope what they come up with next is something actually original.

_{[This review is based on a retail build of the game provided by the publisher.]}