Free from the puppet string ending

[Skadi]

so from searching around it sems people say you need humanity, but not too much humanity. but nobody seems to have a good answer on how to know when you have enough humanity...

i really dont want to underdo or overdo it with lying for humanity and end up doing a whole playthrough of the game again just for an ending

[Elsuya]

I THINK, if you just refuse Sophia's request (you don't give her peace) while having like at least warmth, you'll be locked into this ending (and Real Boy of course), when you're at least feeling warmth perhaps? Better safe than sorry tho.

[WhiteLezard]

I just got the Puppet string ending so I can confirm that Sophia's request at the end is the only thing that matters for that ending; refuse it and then refuse to give away your heart and you will get the Free from the puppet string ending no matter how high your humanity is.

[Nightflash]

How do people come to this wrong conclusion of refusing Sophia's request? I've seen the same mistake in some guide. I've done the free from puppet string ending while "helping" Sophia. You can get all ending while choosing to agree to sophia's request. Also there can't be "too little humanity" for the puppet string ending. The game has to give some ending upon completion. Only things that matter are giving the heart at the end or not and if there's more lying or telling the truth.

[Mako]

Originally posted by Nightflash:

How do people come to this wrong conclusion of refusing Sophia's request? I've seen the same mistake in some guide. I've done the free from puppet string ending while "helping" Sophia. You can get all ending while choosing to agree to sophia's request. Also there can't be "too little humanity" for the puppet string ending. The game has to give some ending upon completion. Only things that matter are giving the heart at the end or not and if there's more lying or telling the truth.

You are very wrong.

Endings requirements are as follows:

1. give heart = real boy
note that of you have very low humanity you will not have the option to refuse and get either of the 2 other endings

2. refuse, and either have mediocre humanity or dont give peace to Sophia = free from puppet string

3. refuse, give peace to Sophia and have enough humanity to switch to white hair in this cutscene = rise of p

So yes, you can force "free from" with Sophia's choice. You can also get it even if you give her peace if your humanity is low.
No ending actually requires low humanity. If you have high enough you can get all 3 based on 2 choices that appear after Laxasia boss fight.

[Elsuya]

Originally posted by Nightflash:

How do people come to this wrong conclusion of refusing Sophia's request? I've seen the same mistake in some guide. I've done the free from puppet string ending while "helping" Sophia. You can get all ending while choosing to agree to sophia's request. Also there can't be "too little humanity" for the puppet string ending. The game has to give some ending upon completion. Only things that matter are giving the heart at the end or not and if there's more lying or telling the truth.

I'm not saying you can't, just refusing the request AND having high enough humanity guarantees it, so why bother risking it.

[Nightflash]

Originally posted by Mako:

Originally posted by Nightflash:

How do people come to this wrong conclusion of refusing Sophia's request? I've seen the same mistake in some guide. I've done the free from puppet string ending while "helping" Sophia. You can get all ending while choosing to agree to sophia's request. Also there can't be "too little humanity" for the puppet string ending. The game has to give some ending upon completion. Only things that matter are giving the heart at the end or not and if there's more lying or telling the truth.

You are very wrong.

Endings requirements are as follows:

1. give heart = real boy
note that of you have very low humanity you will not have the option to refuse and get either of the 2 other endings

2. refuse, and either have mediocre humanity or dont give peace to Sophia = free from puppet string

3. refuse, give peace to Sophia and have enough humanity to switch to white hair in this cutscene = rise of p

So yes, you can force "free from" with Sophia's choice. You can also get it even if you give her peace if your humanity is low.
No ending actually requires low humanity. If you have high enough you can get all 3 based on 2 choices that appear after Laxasia boss fight.

I'm not wrong, I said I've done the free from the puppet string while helping Sophia. That's literally it, it's proven that you can help Sophia and get that ending.

[Mako]

Its not the only thing you've said.

"How do people come to this wrong conclusion of refusing Sophia's request? I've seen the same mistake in some guide." - wrong, its not a mistake. There are TWO requirements for "rise of p": giving peace to Sophia so you have her ergo (used to revive her later in ending cutscene), and having very high humanity. Failing any of those locks you out.

"there can't be "too little humanity" for the puppet string ending" - wrong, there can be. if you have almost none at all you wont be able to refuse giving heart

"Only things that matter are giving the heart at the end or not and if there's more lying or telling the truth." - wrong, Sophia's choice matters, its a hard cutoff from "rise of p", number of lies/truth doesnt matter in itself, it all just translated into single humanity meter. Some lies matter more than others because you double dip by also getting music record. One lie (end of Eugene quest) doesnt matter at all, you get humanity point for saying truth too (with a small delay).

[C1REX]

Originally posted by Mako:

"there can't be "too little humanity" for the puppet string ending" - wrong, there can be. if you have almost none at all you wont be able to refuse giving heart

Is it still a case or was it changed in some patch?
I've completed the game multiple times. One of them was my personal speedrun with the worst answers possible and I still could refuse to give heart. However, I couldn't kill Alidoro. There was no such option.

[Mako]

It was in 1.3. I didnt test with 1.4 but patch notes say nothing about the change and I dont see why that would be changed.
To have no option you need to ignore all sources of humanity, not just lies. Answering (almost) all riddles wrong is important (btw you still get keys in every case except when arlecchino asks for red apple which you may have used already at this point), not listening to music records as well.

edit: I realized I can use any speedrun video to show this effect
Video