Lies of P - First proper bloodborne like - Which is about *checks notes* steampunk Pinochio kicking ass made by Koreans

[ShitLurker]

So, gamefest went and a demo came out. I've been paying a lot of attention to this one for a while, and went straight to the demo like a fatman on cake. It was... fine, but the control feels janky to a degree, don't know if others have had similar experiences. My lizard brain attempted to play it like bloodborne sidestepping all over the place, but it was going mid to poorly. Blocking is surprisingly strong and parry seems to be very important yet with very little impact at the same time.

The atmosphere is very well done, and the combat itself feels weighty, the handle + blade system is definitely not as cool as trick weapons, but it does have some charm. The puppets attack animations are great even though the tripped me up constantly. But the level design for now very linear, it is doing well when it comes to have the area winding back to a bonfire, but there is really no exploration to be had, though it is early game so may be better on release.

What are other people's impressions from playing it?

 

[Articles and Nudes]

I cannot get over that name. It could be the best Soulsborne in the world, but the physical damage dealt via cringing cannot be healed.

 

[Coalescence]

I liked it well enough, but agree it felt a little jank. Everything's distance felt off imo. Attacks felt like they didn't reach far enough, sidesteps didn't seem to move very far, your character moved slower than the animation seemed it should've, stuff like that. The combat as a whole felt decent. The sharpness mechanic adds an interesting aspect to keep track of, giving you another reason to back off once in a while. I'll be honest, I didn't try much blocking, just threw myself at that first boss until dodging had to work, lol.
As for the level design, yeah, I'm sure the full game's world is a little better designed than the first level demo.

 

[Wodanaz]

Clearly they spent way more on graphics than tightening up gameplay. And it releases in 3 months so I dont expect sweeping changes. Most I can hope for is to fix the parry timing because it is way too unforgiving, and allegedly tied to framerate, so that it becomes even smaller at 120fps.
I noted how blocking multiple hits doesn't immediately lower the HP you can recover from striking enemies, only when you fail to block. So tank builds will probably be just as strong, if not stronger than parry builds because the timing is so fucked up.
I've also heard it's by a group hacks that dissolved their own company after re-releasing an MMORPG over 9 fucking times (Bless Studio), got remerged into their parent company (NEOWIZ) renamed themselves Round8 and thought no one would notice. Interesting lore on the gooks copying fromsoft for their twink pinnochio thing.

 

[ShitLurker]

I liked it well enough, but agree it felt a little jank. Everything's distance felt off imo. Attacks felt like they didn't reach far enough, sidesteps didn't seem to move very far, your character moved slower than the animation seemed it should've, stuff like that. The combat as a whole felt decent. The sharpness mechanic adds an interesting aspect to keep track of, giving you another reason to back off once in a while. I'll be honest, I didn't try much blocking, just threw myself at that first boss until dodging had to work, lol.
As for the level design, yeah, I'm sure the full game's world is a little better designed than the first level demo.

I heavily dislike the sharpness mechanic, seems like extra tedium for tedium sake and I also don't really see the point of a weight system either, at least with how it's currently set up. Agreed on how things "felt" like the should cover more. I noticed there isn't a true dash attack, so running in swinging always felt like it was shorter than I intended till I calibrated for it.

Clearly they spent way more on graphics than tightening up gameplay. And it releases in 3 months so I dont expect sweeping changes. Most I can hope for is to fix the parry timing because it is way too unforgiving, and allegedly tied to framerate, so that it becomes even smaller at 120fps.
I noted how blocking multiple hits doesn't immediately lower the HP you can recover from striking enemies, only when you fail to block. So tank builds will probably be just as strong, if not stronger than parry builds because the timing is so fucked up.
I've also heard it's by a group hacks that dissolved their own company after re-releasing an MMORPG over 9 fucking times (Bless Studio), got remerged into their parent company (NEOWIZ) renamed themselves Round8 and thought no one would notice. Interesting lore on the gooks copying fromsoft for their twink pinnochio thing.

The FPS thing is also a thing I hope they sort out, boss 3 was giving me fits, dropped down to 30fps and took it out first try (though I had phantom help since I was being a gigantic pussy), boss also felt a lot less aggressive in 30fps, though might have just been lucky RNG, but it's not the first time I read weird shit with FPS.

I didn't block either like @Coalescence mentioned, but then I start reading how you can recover health from retaliating, and how it seems you can block anything that isn't a red attack and I felt kind of dumb for not blocking more. I also started with the greatsword, hated how it felt like getting an attack in between windows against a boss just meant getting decked, shifted to the Rapier and things went a lot better after that, but may need to reconsider the greatsword again and go with a "shield build".

Also, thanks for sharing the funny little story of how the studio started.

 

[David Brown]

I played it for about five seconds and when I realized the intro was going to be one of those forced walking sequences I uninstalled. No game that does that has ever been good. Just fucking port Bloodborne to PC, that's what people want. Nobody is going to buy this uninspired trash.

24SEP2023 EDIT: I'm a huge faggot please rape my face; this game fuckin rocks

 

[Dysnomia]

I cannot get over that name. It could be the best Soulsborne in the world, but the physical damage dealt via cringing cannot be healed.

Name is so bad. I have no idea how that one got approved. I keep hearing "Friends Of P" by The Rentals in my head. At least that song has an amusing story behind it. This game's title sounds like someone way too into themselves thought it sounded awesome and no one could say otherwise because they wielded all the power.

 

[I'm Retarded?]

Clearly they spent way more on graphics than tightening up gameplay.

this unfortunately seems to be the rule rather than the exception with off-brand soulslikes. I'm expecting the Lords of the Fallen reboot to be much the same

I've also heard it's by a group hacks that dissolved their own company after re-releasing an MMORPG over 9 fucking times (Bless Studio), got remerged into their parent company (NEOWIZ) renamed themselves Round8 and thought no one would notice. Interesting lore on the gooks copying fromsoft for their twink pinnochio thing.

I cannot get over that name.

Name is so bad. I have no idea how that one got approved.

the korean connection makes more sense. "Lies of P" hits a little more coherently when you interpret it as asians trying to make a cool-sounding english brand name

 

[Coalescence]

I noted how blocking multiple hits doesn't immediately lower the HP you can recover from striking enemies, only when you fail to block. So tank builds will probably be just as strong, if not stronger than parry builds because the timing is so fucked up.

I start reading how you can recover health from retaliating, and how it seems you can block anything that isn't a red attack and I felt kind of dumb for not blocking more.

Out of curiosity I went back to try blocking for once and you're absolutely right, it definitely feels like they want you to block and parry more than they want you to dodge.
I realized my problem with attack reach feeling off; if you're moving forward and press the attack button, it stops you and just does the standing still attack. IIRC the range difference between standing and moving wasn't all that much in Bloodborne, but in this, it completely stops you for a second, throwing you off.

Also I really don't mind the sharpening, but I play Monster Hunter, so maybe I'm just used to it, lol

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

The name makes it sound like Mia Goth is going to be in it and I don't like that. They should have called it "Traces of Trier" or "Triertardation" instead.

 

[Wodanaz]

I heavily dislike the sharpness mechanic, seems like extra tedium for tedium sake and I also don't really see the point of a weight system either, at least with how it's currently set up. Agreed on how things "felt" like the should cover more. I noticed there isn't a true dash attack, so running in swinging always felt like it was shorter than I intended till I calibrated for it.

+1 for the redundant durability mechanic. Who enjoys gigantic pop ups in the middle of a boss fight that remind you your weapon is about to break? Fucking retarded ass gooks. Weight system seems like it can be gamed slightly by mixing and matching blades/hilts, which itself is a fairly unique mechanic, and by just leveling endurance anyway. We'll see. I might give it a pirate, but the voice acting is really, really bad. There's a massive pause in between each line of dialogue for reasons unknown to me.

I realized my problem with attack reach feeling off; if you're moving forward and press the attack button, it stops you and just does the standing still attack. IIRC the range difference between standing and moving wasn't all that much in Bloodborne, but in this, it completely stops you for a second, throwing you off.

Also I really don't mind the sharpening, but I play Monster Hunter, so maybe I'm just used to it, lol

Honestly every weapon moveset except the rapier felt like slow janky garbage. This is somewhat remedied by putting different blades on the rapier hilt to get the moveset but yeah, as I said, more money spent on graphics than gameplay.

OH and how could I forget the annoying ass marvel-tier companion character? Probably because I desperately wanted to. Enter a spooky area and start getting spooked, this nigger pipes up to tell you how great this place used to be before the puppet frenzy, completely killing the tone. Then you accept a quest to find a baby. You find what remains of it in a puddle of blood surrounded by some fucked up shit. You start thinking to yourself "Damn this is fucked up", and this thing seriously just speaks out loud what you are literally thinking to yourself because of the environmental storytelling. "Oh my god, this is so fucked up... Should we even go back and tell that bitch about her baby being dead as fuck?" Kill yourself.
I would be more inclined to cut them some slack if it didn't appear that they spent at least 3x as much on graphics as anything else.

 

[Asian tech support]

Like everyone else, I thought it was a little janky. They should have tied blocking/parrying to the mechanical arm instead of the weapon or maybe even axed blocking completely in favor of BB style interrupts - they're aping so much already, might as well go whole hog. I had a hard time reliably pulling off parries. At first I thought the dodges were tied to weight as I chose the two handed sword at the beginning and that's indeed the case but going under 50% doesn't make a huge difference unless there's another tier under 25%, but that's not possible to get to without a huge dump into whatever the encumbrance stat is. Just some range would be nice. It's especially noticeable when you're trying to dodge around large boss enemies and the distance traveled is so short you think you got caught on the legs or something.

The area design annoyed me a bit and unless they're going to remove some of the rubble that's just blocking streets and hallways, it's probably the lamest aspect of the lot. If it's all linear levels with two to three doors that can be opened from the other side or a conspicuous ladder that can drop, yeah, even Code Vein had better level design.

Most I can hope for is to fix the parry timing because it is way too unforgiving, and allegedly tied to framerate, so that it becomes even smaller at 120fps.

This explains a lot.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

Lol looks like super generic animu goyslop

How is this one different?

 

[ShitLurker]

On the shit dodge, in case you lads didn't notice, after the demo ends you can sit in Gepetto's chair of fun and get enhancements and one of them is a double dash. Maybe their grand plan is giving a sense of progression by everything feeling like jank at the start. So I can give that benefit of the doubt.

There's a massive pause in between each line of dialogue for reasons unknown to me.

Because Souls does it!

I honestly could not give enough of a shit, so I just skipped after reading. If I get the final product I will bother with the lore more. I expect some abominations from the stone skin thing like the dead emerald lile thing in one of the alleys.

 

[Pissmaster]

My pee never lies.

 

[ChucklesTheJester]

I saw the gameplay video for it. The style reminds me of a mix of blood born with a mix of BioShock infinite.


It's like someone was like. "Hey guys what if we took the stylistic turn of the century look from Infinite, but mix it blood born's Victorian horror look. "


And when I saw the ending to the gameplay video where the game zooms out to show you what hotel krat looks like.

The first thing I thought was that it looked like a fucking Disney ride.

 

[Love Machine]

Played the demo, feels really clunky and sloppy compared to bloodborne, does have a lot of silly charm because of the whole edgy Pinocchio thing tho.

 

[Something Awful]

 

[Asian tech support]

Played the demo, feels really clunky and sloppy compared to bloodborne, does have a lot of silly charm because of the whole edgy Pinocchio thing tho.

To be fair, nearly every game attempting to ape From's gameplay has failed at that. Nioh succeeded imo but it's also its own thing.

 

[Love Machine]

To be fair, nearly every game attempting to ape From's gameplay has failed at that. Nioh succeeded imo but it's also its own thing.

Im not sure whats to be fair about it. Its either it feels good or it doesnt. If you cant do it well then maybe just change it to make it good instead of dying on the hill.