I had a discussion with GamingOmnivore a while ago, when this Tweet started making the rounds on Twitter:
We talked about what we felt “Soulslike” meant, which games we thought would fit that meaning, and which would not. I don’t really like the term – personally, I feel like it’s more of a marketing ploy designed to grab the attention of a certain audience. But really, my biggest problem with the term is the way it sets my expectations. When I hear “Soulslike” I’m immediately thinking about everything I love from FromSoftware’s Dark Souls series, as well as the varying mechanics they introduced in Bloodborne, Elden Ring, and of course, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. I’m thinking about the world design, the way everything works together mechanically, and how the game communicates with me. Also, to some extent, the challenge. I guess.
This is all to say that, when I started up the Lies of P demo, I knew what I was looking for. I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t entirely fair, however, the actual website for Lies of P advertises itself as “soulslike” and for that, I feel like the comparisons are warranted. If these developers want to position their creation as such, then I’ll be judging it against the games that spawned this wannabe genre.
After spending several hours with the demo, I walked away feeling… a little confused. Confused because I can’t really tell what the focus of the combat in this title is. And realistically, the combat is what I’m here for. Bear with me as I try to explain. The first thing I noticed off the bat was how terrible the dodge felt. Again, I’ll admit, all the comparisons to Bloodborne had me expecting something similar to that fast and fluid lunge. But no. In Lies of P, the dodge feels underwhelming; instead of Mr. P dodging in a way that I’m familiar with, he does more of a slight sashay in one direction. Emphasis on “slight.” He moves about a foot, and my god is it unsatisfying. You definitely have a window of invincibility while dodging, which is great, but the movement itself is almost laughable. If you’re not locked on, the dodge becomes a roll, but I’m guessing the majority of players will be using lock-on while fighting. Against the small lackeys, I didn’t notice much of an issue, but against the first boss, while faced with multiple quick swipes and combos, I noticed a huge drawback to this limited movement. Dodging felt like it was only situational useful, which was odd to me – I had been assuming that dodging was going to be your primary “defensive” mechanic in Lies of P. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.
On par with the Souls games, Lies of P also has a parry mechanic, called a “perfect guard.” I had a few issues with this while practicing – the first one being more of a personal nitpick. When I first started using this technique, I had a hard time knowing if I was hitting the perfect guard or not. Compared to say, Sekiro, where a perfect deflection is impossible to miss: you can hear the sharp sound of the blades connecting (compared to the dull sound of a simple block), along with the shower of sparks that also gives you a visual tell. In this title, there’s a slight difference in sound to indicate you’ve hit that perfect guard, with nothing else. At first, I wasn’t sure if I was doing it correctly, because of this lack of a tell. I found myself watching my health bar instead, to confirm whether I’d gotten the perfect guard off or not. I should probably mention – in Lies of P, you can block, but you take chip damage as you do. More on that later. I did some testing with the perfect guard on the first boss (yes, you can use this technique on the first boss*, compared to many Souls games where bosses generally cannot be parried) and the way that it functioned was a bit strange to me.
I entered the boss fight again and decided to do nothing but parry – no regular attacks, no dodging. I managed about 20-30 perfect guards before realizing that nothing was happening. Lies of P has a slightly different parry process – after getting so many perfect guards, the enemies health bar will start glowing white. At this point, you can do a heavy, charged R2 attack to open them up to your official riposte. This comes with a special animation and a chunk of damage. But back to the boss – after dealing some damage, and returning to my parry regimen, I opened it up to that stagger, and critical follow up. I went back to confirm in the tutorial notes whether or not the game specified that the enemy had to be damaged first before this technique was possible. It did not. So maybe this only applies to enemies classified as bosses? I’m not sure. But either way, RIP “Parry Only” runs of this game, I suppose. I don’t necessarily have a problem with this, as I think it’s fair for the game to require you to deal some damage first, but I was a bit surprised.
I also found, and this might be a hot take, that the damage from a critical attack was a little disappointing. The deal with a parry is the high risk vs. high reward – if you mistime it, you’re taking the full brunt of that attack. If you hit it, however, you’re setting yourself up to dish out some major damage. In Bloodborne, a successful parry and follow up visceral could get me a third of the bosses health bar (depending on my build). In Lies of P, on the other hand, I did what I felt like was a comparatively small amount of damage. Again, my personal opinion. But it felt like my precision, and putting my ass on the line wasn’t all that rewarding. Especially given all that the game requires of me (damage already dealt, and hitting several perfect guards, not just one) before I even get my opportunity to earn that critical attack. Which just leaves me thinking – the dodge isn’t great, you have to work for the parry, you still take damage while blocking… so what does this game want from me? What philosophy is at the core of the combat in Lies of P?
Maybe I’m just being too picky, or too hard on this game by asking this type of question – but the Souls games have conditioned me to do so, I’m afraid. In Dark Souls, you have your shields and your dodging. You can block attacks, but what you can block is limited by the quality of your shield (its stability) as well as your stamina. Stamina is consumed each time you block, which means you can’t turtle-up behind your shield forever. Dodging gives you a small amount of invincibility frames, which means you have to time your dodging carefully – this can also be affected by your equipment load, and how “fast” you’re rolling. Ultimately, Dark Souls is about intention, precision – timing your dodges correctly. Learning attack patterns and when it’s safe to go on the offensive, or back off and heal. It’s about patience and being methodical in your approach. Sure, you can parry, but its situationally useful, and again, high risk, high reward. If we’re talking Sekiro, on the other hand, blocking and dodging aren’t particularly reliable. You need to deflect (or parry) in order to succeed. The game wants you to get in the faces of your enemies, and stay there. You’re punished for blocking too much, which will decimate your Posture meter and leave you open to taking a huge amount of damage. Bloodborne wants you to be similarly aggressive – with its regain mechanic, you can potentially recover HP by attacking an enemy soon after taking damage. Your only real defensive options are dodging and parrying with your gun – parries are hugely rewarding in this game, though of course, they take practice and careful timing.
So, what’s the deal with Lies of P, then? My problem is that it seems to want to incorporate a bit of all of these ideas, while not being particularly committed to any. What this leads to, for me personally, is a lack of focus. Lack of focus equals unsatisfying combat. The movement and dodging doesn’t have the pacing of Bloodborne – it’s slower, more akin to a Souls title. The parrying doesn’t have the same weight or payoff as any of FromSoft’s games. There are some other curious mechanics that I couldn’t quite understand the point of as well. For instance, using your left arm (Legion Arm) you can sharpen your blade. Your weapon loses durability alarmingly fast, and you have to sharpen it constantly. However, you don’t do any extra damage for having it sharpened to its maximum, nor does your damage decrease as it dulls until it breaks entirely (at which point it cannot be sharpened/fixed). As I mentioned earlier, you’ll lose a bit of health each time you block an attack with your weapon – with limited healing, this chip damage can add up quickly. This seems like a strange choice – why not have blocking consume stamina instead? A final nod to the Souls games is the way you drop your “souls” (called Ergo) upon dying, which you then have to retrieve. However, in Lies of P, the amount of Ergo that you can retrieve upon returning diminishes if you take damage before collecting your lost Death Ergo. Why? If I want to run past enemies to quickly return to a boss, and take a stray slap, a portion of the Ergo that I’ve earned immediately disappears. Or, If I’m practicing parrying or trying to learn to fight a certain enemy, I’m also punished for taking these hits. In some ways, this might feel less punishing for some – I mean, you’re not losing everything upon taking too much damage, and/or dying, just a portion. But Sekiro tried this as well, and people still complained. It’s a punishment regardless, so why this extra stipulation? I haven’t even mentioned the Fable Arts (they seem like a pseudo-magic system) which adds yet another element to the combat. It just feels like a lot. Lies of P seems like it’s spreading itself too thin.
I don’t think anything I’ve talked about makes this game bad. And of course, this is just a demo – the shape of the final game may differ slightly. In fact, as of writing this, I’ve already seen that the developers claim they’re “fixing the dodge” – whatever that means. However, as it currently stands, the game feels a bit wooden to me. It’s an imitation of a formula that (I feel) has been done many times before, and better in each of those previous iterations. Describing your game as a “soulslike” is a lofty claim to make. It automatically sets expectations (of the combat especially), which ultimately felt like a letdown for me. This game is clearly polished, and the interesting setting was a high point for me, but the lacking combat is the deal breaker here. The dodge doesn’t feel right. The parry doesn’t give me the same feeling of accomplishment as other games. Certain gameplay elements feel intrusive, rather than enhancing the experience. Of course, the game doesn’t have to have the narrow focus I’ve discussed to be “good” – but if it wants to do a bit of everything, then it has to do it well. Right now, it feels like all of these cogs aren’t quite fitting together, which leads to this general sense of dissatisfaction. I’m going to spend some more time with this demo, but as of right now, I don’t see myself picking up Lies of P. Maybe on sale, or as a PlayStation Plus game I’d be interested enough to play it; but it really does feel like a lot of other Soulslikes I’ve tried – a hollow imitation.
*Quick note: I went back to the demo last night (for reference, June 26th, 2023) and it seemed as though the first boss was no longer open to being parried. I had been getting perfect guards consistently after dealing some damage, and the opportunity for the charged attack, and critical follow up never appeared (at least, in its first phase). It seems like the developers are already making changes. We’ll see how this pans out.
Meghan Plays Games 