I like Lies of P and want to rant some critique.

[Green Tea with Jamei]

I liked Lies of P a lot, and was shocked how such a new studio made a game so good. The music and art design were great, the character and their stories too. I enjoyed this game and will surely get their new game when it is ready. And having said all this I’d like to share some of my critique, what could be done better and what I’d like to see in their next game.

I have no complaints about the enemies and bosses until the junkyard area. I was playing motivity build and enjoyed every boss, including King of Puppets. I enjoyed a lot learning their movesets and perfect blocking them. I even beat the clown miniboss first try. But the Green Monster felt BS to me, like I didn’t want to be bothered to learn to perfect block his BS moveset (though it’s not that hard to memorize), it was just not enjoyable for me. And starting from this point I noticed the game felt not as high quality as the first half (or first 2/3). It makes sense, they could be running out of time, later locations also look not as flashed out as the early ones (puppets + zombies were fun, but alchemists felt boring). But I was annoyed by the insistence to keep making game more difficult, with what I would call lazy tricks.

Like unintuitive delayed attacks that come out in a flash, or non-rhythmic combos that you can’t react to, you must only memorize them as muscle memory. Which also felt immersion-breaking to me. It’s very easy to make a game “hard” like this to every time force you memorize nonsensical combos to perfect-block them. No matter how good a player you are, you just need to know all the moves in advance.

I’d be fine with different enemy types requiring different approach, like you can’t parry monsters, you must evade them. And puppets have delayed junky attacks (which are still not random), that you must parry. And I’d like an idea of some weapon master boss with tricky combos, but they look like he feints a lot, not just randomly swings his weapon. Also while doing a delayed attack, an enemy should be extra vulnerable to an interrupt. It should feel consistent, like having learned the general enemy type and game mechanics, it should be intuitive. Otherwise it just looks ridiculous. Fromsoft games were always a puzzle to be solved, but when you did find the right approach, they are actually pretty easy. I think turning them into sport for difficulty sake is just a wrong idea, contradicting their good design. Though some DLC or optional bosses can be tough.

Overall problem is they wanted to mix several Souls games together. Taking some inspiration from Sekiro. But Sekiro has rhythmic combos. Also Sekiro has animation cancel. LoP feels janky compared to it, like they’re missing the point. The lack of it feels especially hard while playing slow Motivity weapons, which makes such builds pure masochism, together with the lack of hyper-armor. Also good luck hitting a slow weapon charged attack to stagger (could carry a 2nd weapon dagger for that, but this is stupid). Playing Motivity I was forced to become a baton handle enjoyer. Sekiro taught us hesitation is defeat, same as Bloodborne taught us passivity is death. Lies of P feels reactive instead, you are punished for being proactive, you must wait and perfect-block, and then utilize the opening. And Sekiro had no builds for a reason, the gameplay was too tight for different builds with different approaches. Adding them, but forcing the player still into a specific playstyle, is just a bad idea in my opinion. Like it’s an illusion.

And the annoying part with delayed attacks (I don’t know why they keep doing this), they were present in Dark Souls 2 and Elden Ring, both of which were rushed in some moments (yes, lots of content and quality, but more focus on quantity still). It’s just a bad and lazy design. Same as roll-catching attacks, it’s just an immersion-breaking meta-game trying to squeeze more difficulty from the system the player has already mastered. I really feel Miyazaki who wanted to end Dark Souls and do new things, because Dark Souls combat is long exhausted for Souls players, it’s easy for them. I liked a lot what Bloodborne did to force players to switch their playstyle, by removing shields, adding quick evades and rally. And beautiful gun parries. This is how you do it, not by breaking your own game design.

You may object, but I just consider it lazy. If players mastered Souls mechanics, let them have it, let them win, they deserved it. If you want to bring them new challenge, create a new system. Lies of P doesn’t have such a great system, which is OK, because it’s their first game, and no one except Fromsoft can, but it’s annoying that they try to push difficulty, without more effort on precise animations and such stuff. I’m talking mostly about last 2/3 of the game with some extremely lazy elite enemies, standing in your way, and not an optional area like in Fromsoft games, cause the game is linear.

I’d be fine if game threw more enemies against the player, or increased their damage and aggression, I just want a game to be smooth and fair. Fair in a way that player and enemies fight by the same rules. Like enemies having stamina, and being staggered if they hit a wall in a tight corridor. Cause I was annoyed when a huge enemy keeps swinging in a narrow space, but I immediately hit a wall and get staggered while also losing precious stamina. Same as when they keep throwing one long combo after the other, without me being able to interrupt it. And I can’t perfect block every enemy in the game with random attack animations. Also I’d like to have more effective evades, like in Bloodborne, and I want animation cancel, hyper-armor and being able to evade red attacks (I’m fine not being able to block them). Cause blocking/parrying the whole combo and missing a red attack in the end strips the player of the whole rally health, and if you can’t perfect block it, you can’t evade it.

Basically it would be better if a game gave a player more options. Different ways to play it with different builds. Like block, parry, evade, tank and stagger, attack from range (this option totally missing, one hand and consumables don’t really count, there is no “magic” or even ranged weapons). In my vision it’s a mix of Sekiro and Dark Souls 2, with some wrong things being used. I think it would be better to be a mix of proper Sekiro parries and animations + Bloodborne.

It’s all just my subjective opinions that I wanted to share and hear yours, discuss it. As I said the game is still good and punches far above it’s weight. But there is a lot of space for improvements to make it really great (like Venini). So pls don’t attack me for not “gitting gud” or not blindly praising it. And I'm still a fan of all Souls games.

[Amene]

How do you expect people to not tell you to "git gud" ?

From what I can see, you just want more ways too cheese the game. And anything that doesn't "click" with your imaginations is - of course - a game's fault.

And the annoying part with delayed attacks (I don’t know why they keep doing this)

It's a defining factor of this game. And the devs are spineless cowards considering they backpedalled and basically nerfed elites across the game (unless you revert version to 1.1.2.0) - so they are a bit slower, a bit more fluid and much weaker overall - for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6U2PeISNlco

The lack of it feels especially hard while playing slow Motivity weapons, which makes such builds pure masochism, together with the lack of hyper-armor.

Playing heavy motivity weapons is a walk in the park. Learn enemies and what you can do to them when.

[Green Tea with Jamei]

I tried to explain it, but you still seem to attack me. I want not to CHEESE the game. I want more options in combat. Especially not being locked to perfect block with random animations.

I don't need to "git gud", I already am, cause I can beat the game, it's not my first Souls-like. I am saying about where I think design is not the best and could be improved. It's a friendly discussion, not an argument if a game is "♥♥♥♥" or "masterpiece" with nothing in between. Must people in the internet be so binary and militant?

So you want to say playing worst type of weapon in a Souls-like game is a "walk in the park"? Even Fighting Cowboy said slow weapons are pointless in Lies of P, while in every other Souls game he plays a Strength build first. If you did beat the game already and learned all the enemies, may be it's a "walk in the park" for you. But not for the 1st playthrough.

And saying Lies of P is a "walk in the park" is overall ridiculous. Because it's a hard game for someone who didn't play Souls-likes before. And not a trivial game for the one who did still.

But please don't start the argument, I won't answer, cause I'm here not for it.

[strangerism]

I just want to give my two cents. Enemy ai is quite simple and so it's combat, once you remove this delayed-attacks and parry gimmick, nothing is left game play wise. Skill wise the only thing to grow in the game is this parrying game thing.

[Nightflash]

Sekiro is definitely better that your character is fast as enemies. This one is much more clunkier, tho I guess most other souls are too. Some other valid critique is that some hitboxes have much bigger hitbox from where they physically hit. Some examples are the Romeo downstomp, mini viktor dropkick, green monster down slam.

Also as someone who used a slow motivity weapon for a first playthrough, it does add quite extra difficulty.

[strangerism]

I liked the game so far (isle chapter still) but undoubtedly its mechanics and level design feels old. Still glad it was made and the niche success is well deserved. What I liked the most was the delivery of the story, characters and story beats.
People keep comparing this to Sekiro or Bloodborne just because both focus on parry or the character wear coats is quite a silly argument. They cannot distinguish the forest from the tree.

[MundM]

All kinds of builds work in this game. I don't see the issue you have.

[Gnodab]

Originally posted by Green Tea with Jamei:

You may object, but I just consider it lazy. If players mastered Souls mechanics, let them have it, let them win, they deserved it.

You haven't mastered the game. Just because you beat it once doesn't mean you understand everything about it. That's the assumption driving this entire post. You think you understand more than you actually do.

I can speak from personal experience and say it wasn't until the 70-hour mark that I actually started to understand the game. That was about 75% of my way through NG+. I used a Motivity build and mostly no specters my first playthrough as well. It was hard. But it wasn't unbeatable.

[Amene]

Even Fighting Cowboy said slow weapons are pointless in Lies of P, while in every other Souls game he plays a Strength build first.

I don't know, neither I care who some random guy is. If he is clueless how to use heavy weapons in this game that's his problem, not mine.

Heavy weapons work beautifully here, on top of basically giving you de-facto normal block - as even if you don't deflect something properly, whatever next deflect will heal you up.

Learn the enemies and it becomes a walk in the park. Like in every other game of this kind. And if you do use heavy slow weapons - regardless of their scaling - they are exceptionally good at "parry everything/most" approach, giving you a lot of leeway for mistakes.

Also good luck hitting a slow weapon charged attack to stagger (could carry a 2nd weapon dagger for that, but this is stupid).

It's not a matter of luck, but knowing the enemy and the game - there are at least 2 other options (and I don't count secondary/tetriary fast weapon) that give you basically instant stagger. Maybe upgrade your "git gud" knowledge about the game.

So you want to say playing worst type of weapon in a Souls-like game is a "walk in the park"?

That's literally YOUR problem that you can't use slow weapons and find them "the worst". I find them amazing here and not worse than any other options. And so do many other people.

But please don't start the argument, I won't answer, cause I'm here not for it.

Yea I know - you are here to see people agreeing with you. You might be out of luck at this point in time, better timeframe was right after the release. Oh goodness the tourists back then screaming everything was too difficult.

[Loudness]

While I did rage often for not getting the attacks with slow windups and quick actual attack animations, I liked them. I even perfect blocked "THAT" 8 frame attack a few times and it felt really awesome.

What I like about Lies of P is that it plays more like The Surge 1 on steroids. You had gadgets in The Surge in the form of drones, which inspired the Sekiro prosthetics/Lies of P left arm. You could also stagger the enemies with a perfect block although the parry window was more lenient (closer to Sekiro). Lies of P feels like a faster, more fluid Surge 1 to me.

I think the souls-genre shouldn't stagnate. I feel like playing Demon's Souls, DS1 and DS2 in 2024 is rather boring. While the atmosphere, lore and level design is still there, the actual combat is not fun anymore to me, everything looks like it's in slow motion and clunky as hell. I'd rather have enemies with delayed attacks and roll-catches over the archaic attack animations with 3-4 simple to read attacks and slow movements. When you go back to DS3 or BB from Elden Ring, you can also feel that FS got better with the times due to the better tech available for motion capture nowadays.

[Green Tea with Jamei]

And if you do use heavy slow weapons - regardless of their scaling - they are exceptionally good at "parry everything/most" approach, giving you a lot of leeway for mistakes.

Only a blade gives blocking %. So people quickly found a meta of saw blade + dancer handle.
Or for actual Motivity: big pipe wrench head + baton handle. I used greatsword of fate blade + bramble sword handle (with motivity crank, but still it's a quality, not motivity handle). Another good handle is exploding pickaxe.
But slow handles just make no sense. Even the beautiful Holy Sword of the Ark is great in spear mode, but bad in sword mode.

Yea I know - you are here to see people agreeing with you. You might be out of luck at this point in time, better timeframe was right after the release. Oh goodness the tourists back then screaming everything was too difficult.

How can you assume you know why I wrote this post? Are you judging me by yourself? I shared my thoughts and wanted to hear what others say, to friendly discuss. And I explicitly said and repeated that I like the game. You look like you saw me attacking the game and are trying to defend it, denying my every single point, like it's black or white.

I cringed very hard from your response. Some people in internet can't help but see everything as binary and anyone not 100% agreeing as enemy. And they must personally insult him.
Internet affects some people very negatively. You are toxic.

[Green Tea with Jamei]

Originally posted by Loudness:

While I did rage often for not getting the attacks with slow windups and quick actual attack animations, I liked them. I even perfect blocked "THAT" 8 frame attack a few times and it felt really awesome.

What I like about Lies of P is that it plays more like The Surge 1 on steroids. You had gadgets in The Surge in the form of drones, which inspired the Sekiro prosthetics/Lies of P left arm. You could also stagger the enemies with a perfect block although the parry window was more lenient (closer to Sekiro). Lies of P feels like a faster, more fluid Surge 1 to me.

I think the souls-genre shouldn't stagnate. I feel like playing Demon's Souls, DS1 and DS2 in 2024 is rather boring. While the atmosphere, lore and level design is still there, the actual combat is not fun anymore to me, everything looks like it's in slow motion and clunky as hell. I'd rather have enemies with delayed attacks and roll-catches over the archaic attack animations with 3-4 simple to read attacks and slow movements. When you go back to DS3 or BB from Elden Ring, you can also feel that FS got better with the times due to the better tech available for motion capture nowadays.

I totally agree, Dark Souls formula is very overused at this point. Games should evolve. It's good to see something different. But delayed attacks, roll catches, smaller windows - I think it tries to fix the symptom, not the problem. The problem is we need something new, different. Not mixing up the old mechanics (imperfectly) and creating lazy (artificial) difficulty. Which I'm fine with in Lies of P, cause I can't demand more from a new dev, and it's already a good game. I'm just saying what could be better, or what would be good to see in the future.

[Green Tea with Jamei]

Originally posted by Gnodab:

Originally posted by Green Tea with Jamei:

You may object, but I just consider it lazy. If players mastered Souls mechanics, let them have it, let them win, they deserved it.

You haven't mastered the game. Just because you beat it once doesn't mean you understand everything about it. That's the assumption driving this entire post. You think you understand more than you actually do.

I can speak from personal experience and say it wasn't until the 70-hour mark that I actually started to understand the game. That was about 75% of my way through NG+. I used a Motivity build and mostly no specters my first playthrough as well. It was hard. But it wasn't unbeatable.

Actually true. I want to make another playthrough. Though with an OP Advance build. And see what new can I learn.

[Green Tea with Jamei]

Originally posted by strangerism:

I liked the game so far (isle chapter still) but undoubtedly its mechanics and level design feels old. Still glad it was made and the niche success is well deserved. What I liked the most was the delivery of the story, characters and story beats.
People keep comparing this to Sekiro or Bloodborne just because both focus on parry or the character wear coats is quite a silly argument. They cannot distinguish the forest from the tree.

Story, characters and atmosphere are really strong. I agree with most, what you said.

What I meant, the game took direct inspiration from Bloodborne (mostly visually), Sekiro (parrying, which other souls-like start adding too btw), and overall gameplay from Dark Souls. I know parrying is different from Sekiro here, also no jump, no mikiri etc. But I'm not sure I completely understood you here.

Also I'm not sure I'm a fan of parrying, pressing a button at the right time mechanic just sits wrong with me. It was good in Sekiro, but this game was very specific. But adding this mechanic to other games seems like all or nothing to me. If it's there, you must heavily use it. I'd prefer it to be optional, like parry in Dark Souls (that I never used). Or to exist in a more casual forgiving game like Tsushima.

Building difficulty around it just sounds like a bad idea for me. Wo Long also had it, and also wasn't even close to say Nioh 2. It feels good when you make a successful parry, a pleasant flash and sound, but it takes away variety. Sekiro was so single-minded for a reason. But again it's all just me thinking loud.

[strangerism]

Originally posted by Green Tea with Jamei:

Originally posted by strangerism:

I liked the game so far (isle chapter still) but undoubtedly its mechanics and level design feels old. Still glad it was made and the niche success is well deserved. What I liked the most was the delivery of the story, characters and story beats.
People keep comparing this to Sekiro or Bloodborne just because both focus on parry or the character wear coats is quite a silly argument. They cannot distinguish the forest from the tree.

Story, characters and atmosphere are really strong. I agree with most, what you said.

What I meant, the game took direct inspiration from Bloodborne (mostly visually), Sekiro (parrying, which other souls-like start adding too btw), and overall gameplay from Dark Souls. I know parrying is different from Sekiro here, also no jump, no mikiri etc. But I'm not sure I completely understood you here.

Also I'm not sure I'm a fan of parrying, pressing a button at the right time mechanic just sits wrong with me. It was good in Sekiro, but this game was very specific. But adding this mechanic to other games seems like all or nothing to me. If it's there, you must heavily use it. I'd prefer it to be optional, like parry in Dark Souls (that I never used). Or to exist in a more casual forgiving game like Tsushima.

Building difficulty around it just sounds like a bad idea for me. Wo Long also had it, and also wasn't even close to say Nioh 2. It feels good when you make a successful parry, a pleasant flash and sound, but it takes away variety. Sekiro was so single-minded for a reason. But again it's all just me thinking loud.

I would not make the parry mechanic a signature of Sekiro.
What Sekiro did was to use the parry and create a combat system that is based on rhythm or a dance so to speak. A fight turns into a ballet of strikes and parries almost like a song.
In Lies of P you don't dance with the enemy, you mostly wait for it especially those very delayed and baiting attacks. So all the focus is in getting that parry right as a very deliberate action while in Sekiro parrying it's just part of the flow, it happens on his own once you get in the rhythm. It did made that game quite special because of this.
Sekiro had also a more fluid movement and level design some of it even vertical, here you walk in corridors and attack one enemy at a time as you come across them, but we are digressing now.

Bloodborne on the other end is a very fast paced game and it's extremely horror-like and Gothic. Life of P is neither Gothic (maybe steam punk) nor is fast paced.

I agree with you that the souls formula has became stale, we can say Elder Ring went backward after Sekiro although ER stands as an amazing game.
Life of P did rewind the clock even further to the DS1 era with the combat and level design, only the story execution was best in all souls games.

I recently played the latest Lords of the Fallen (and truly enjoyed it) and beside having many flaws of its own and being quite derivative of the souls genre it has advanced on some aspect for instance movement is very fast paced there, like Sekiro, and combat as a consequence is too. A big change from fighting the typical one of two mobs encounters we have had in Souls games so far.

[Grim@FU_BARRACUDA]

First of all, im also surprised how good and polished this game is. Especially in comparison to LotF wich is still not where it should be after more then 26 patches and hotfixes ...

But i also have to say that im not a souls player wich has to perfect every encounter and bossfight and block everything perfect. I dont need that to have fun with the game. i say that because you sound as if that is extremly importent to you.

I love when game surprise me gameplaywise and visually. When it comes to LoP i have to say that i like it visualy a lot but it does not have any surprises when it comes to that, you get what you expect from the first to last minute. When it comes to gameplay i have to say, i was surprised how fun it is to learn the blocking. Yeah sure i had that in Sekiro too, but here i really started to enjoy it. But as in Sekiro, it is fun to combine that with all the other abilitys you have.

The bosses where ok and sometimes even cool, but the normal enemies could be a bit harder sometimes and there could be far more diffrent ones. One example are these diffrent variations of the "dogs". Yeah sure, i could be happy that they even made diffrent versions and they made a lot of them. But i would have appreciated complete diffrent enemies more and as i said, they are also often to predictable.

What i really liked as so many other players, is the ability to combine every weapons blade with every grip. It is really fun to experiment and find out what suits your playstyle and motivates for diffrent builds and additional playthroughs. The legion weapons just add to this, like the p-organs aswell. I have to say that because of these things, this is the first souls like, where i say i want to make a ng+ run, im not kidding.

Yeah and there is ofc the story wich is great, i mean i had never expected to see this childhood story in such a way. That these guys had the guts to not only make a more advanced souls like gameplaywise, but also warp this new theme around the souls like gameplay, is in my opinion outstanding to be honest. I mean one have to keep in mind, that is their first souls like and they did both of these things (gameplay/story) well.

Im also very exited to see what they come up with for their next title and i have a prediction. I bet its another souls like, but not LoP2. I guess they will take another childhood story and make a complete new souls like. I bet it will be Alice in Wonderland and it will be like the "Spicy Horse" like Alice game "Madness Returns". That is at least what i hope for, but no matter if thats the case or not, im sure it will be a good game.

Was fun to think and write about this, thank you for triggering me ;-)