Lies of P

An honest-to-goodness superb soulslike, and that’s no lie.

Rating: 8/10

reddit.com › r/soulslikes › lies of p review

r/soulslikes on Reddit: Lies of P Review

July 12, 2023 -

Following the logic used in my Lords of the Fallen 2023 review , I have stopped doing some older reviews in light of playing and reviewing the newer game that most questions are surrounding if they should get or start with. And Lies of P is a great one to review due to the many questions and comments about the games crushing difficulty... As a preface, I have never summoned in a Souls game, however My wife is due to give birth to our second son... Yesterday, so I summoned on the last two bosses so I could finish the story and chose the ending that purposefully had one less boss to ensure I could see one of the three endings. I fully intend to do a second playthrough without summoning and defeat that final optional boss.

Lies of P landed on 19th September with near universal credit, scoring 8 & 9's out of 10's, with the 2 biggest criticisms being 'its a little too similar to Bloodborne' and that the game difficulty is harder than most other soulslikes, to the point of being unfair. Having completed the game myself, I don't think either of these are true.

Lets start with the setting and the story, as honestly, this is one of my favourite stories in a soulslike game to date. To my knowledge, only Sekiro (and Steelrising that I have yet to play) has a story worth following through dialog and the cutscenes. Many of the other games are told through Lore (and Vaatividya) Lies of P takes the tale of Pinocchio and cleverly twists the story into something much darker, even weaving in other fairy tales, some of which almost guaranteed to be DLC / made into a sequel, and some smaller details, such as a painting by 'D Grey' The story is excellent, with my only real complaint being the final boss doesn't really make an appearance until the final few levels, and I would have liked to known a little bit more about him. I didn't care about him, which is a shame as the rest of the characters have been done so well.

The Devs have cleverly created the backdrop of this game as the city of Krat, with so much information given it feels like a character of its own. The gameplay itself is very linear, so if you poke your head around every corner you will be hard pressed to is any content or items. Some reviwers weren't a fan of this, however I liked how tightly crafted the world was, with multiple shortcuts that felt natural and brilliant to explore. It wasn't on Lords of the Fallen 2023 or Dark Souls level of shortcuts, but still can stand tall amongst the likes of Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3 in level design. On top of this, while there are no secrets in the geometry, there are little treasure hunts in the form of cryptic puzzle boxes instead, and while they weren't ground breaking, I liked them. I also really liked the variety in the level design of Krat Many levels are set in the city streets (which is why I presume some people think its too similar to Bloodborne) but with a area of discarded puppet failures, a museum 'of the future' showing off the cities inventions and a factory where puppets are created...I never got bored of the backdrops myself and while, yes, Bloodborne takes place in a city... This seems to be something that is now said about any soulslike set in a city (another recent example being the city area in Remnant 2)

The next complaint people make is often surrounding the difficulty of the game, even in relation to other soulslikes and the early game is REALLY hard... but not because of the difficulty, but instead due to the lack of communication to the player.

For me, Lies of P was a game of two halves. It took me 33ish hour to complete the game's 11 chapters. 16 of those hours was getting up to and past, chapter 4. And honestly most of the boss fights in those early chapters could be cheesed very easily... or I hated due to there 'unfair difficulty' Then 'the combat clicked' (i.e. I understood I was playing wrong due to how the dev communicated there combat system worked) so changed how I played and suddenly was having a blast.

This may seem a strange complaint. But communication really is key here. In the demo of the game, I hear dodge rolling was awful, with no I-Frames (I never played it myself, but this is what I have heard) the tutorial of the game reflects this dodging system. With three separate boxes explaining parrying at three different points, and not one mentioning the dodge roll. The first time the games systems mentions it it on the skill tree, with a skill to improve it as the base level is pretty bad. This was obviously the original intent, as I-frames were added post demo. However parrying here is so much harder than the game most similar to it, Sekiro, due to 2 changes. The first, is that you only get 8 frames to time your parry. This is 30% quicker than Sekiro's 12 frames. The second change makes this timing even harder, when you click the button to parry in Sekiro, it's instant. In Lies of P, you must wait for the parry animation to raise the weapon. Its only a second delay, but its a slight timing difference to learn on each and every weapon to take into account, on top of the roughly 30% less time and learning the bosses move set.

Saying parrying reliably isn't true, many people have mastered the system and can beat the game on level 1 using parrying ONLY... this system alone however does push the game into the realms of being 'too hard' to be fun, some may say 'git gud' but the devs changing this means they agree with me here. The things the devs forgot to do, was change the tutorials to account for that change, meaning many players will listen to the devs, and play the game 'wrong' and struggle to the point of not having a good time. If it was just me, I would discount this as a me problem. But out of the 4 people in my friend group 3 of us all made the same mistake. The second we started adding dodging into our gameplay, we all had and easier and a much more fun time.

Even if this was clear, I DO think it's to hard... I personally think they should make parrying iframes closer to Sekiro OR, get rid of chip damage to allow for mistakes OR add a P organ upgrade to increase the parry window while decreasing the stagger damage to aid players.

Any one of these, paired with way less delayed attacks and Lies of P would probably have been my fav souls combat of all time. But instead, I didn't like the parrying. The risk was too high and dodging is infinitely more easy.

Another, smaller, less annoying point of the devs not communicating very well is with the levelling system. When you leave the starting area, you can level up at the stargazer (Bonfire) however you can't on the second one you come across as it actually requires you to speak to a person in the hub area. But the second bonfire appears before her. I genuinely thought the bonfire was bugged, as he game had taught me at the last checkpoint that these were places you can level up. I don't care if I need to go to the hub, or can level up at each bonfire. But usually From Software is so good at communicating everything through gameplay mechanics that it really stood out to me when it failed, and the parrying/dodging mistake could have made me drop the game I was getting so frustrated at some points as I didn't understand what i was doing wrong, as I was playing in the manner seemingly intended by the devs.

Finally, despite the lack of communication I do want to praise the devs on something I think they have done better then From software themselves... And that's the games stability and optimisation, and that said knowing I have never had a crash on a from software game before.... But the game runs AMAZING. The steam deck can play thing thing between High- Ultra settings at a stable 58-60 FPS. Its possibly the best optimised game I have played on the steam deck EVER and I only had 1 glitch where I rolled out of an elevator and died. This achievement is even more impressive as its the studios first game (second if you include a port they did of another game)

Ultimately, I agree with the 8/10 reviews on a technical level. Its a fantastic game, with a great story, atmosphere and boss designs... But for me, it's probably a 7.. 7.5. as I know a lot of people, even soulslike vets who know to listen to the devs on how to play, will end up getting annoyed as they can't understand what they are doing wrong.

Edit- I forgot to mention but I REALLY like that your souls drop OUTSIDE the boss door, and wish FromSoft would do this. I like the risk in levels, but don't enjoy it as part of the boss encounter, I would rather focus on the boss.

Top answer

1 of 5

5

Very much agree with this review. While I'm not finished with the game yet (I'm about halfway through, I believe), I can comment that this all rings very true for me so far. Not sure where my own personal rating will end up for the game, but likely in the 8-9 range. Some of my own highlights below, both pros and cons: Pros Performance is, as you say, outstanding. Every other developer should step up and take note, THIS is how a game is supposed to feel when you play it. There's no excuse for all the stuttering and other nonsense we have to face in nearly every modern game. I don't want framerate hiccups ever, especially in a genre of game that demands so much precision in my gameplay. The atmosphere is equally excellent. Everything about the way the game looks, sounds, and feels is genuine and fitting. I have no complaints. The boss fights are fair. Are they hard? Sure, especially if you refuse to engage with the parrying mechanic (this is a requirement for many bosses), but every boss I've seen so far has been completely fair in that the tells they show for their attacks are obvious and consistent. Learning the timing takes a few attempts on each boss, but at no point did I say to myself in a boss fight "wow, that was bullshit". The combat is fun, the weapons feel good, the variety of handle/blade swapping gives a lot of dynamic build options. No complaints in this department at all from me. The level design is solid, but as identified it is pretty linear. That makes exploration a bit less fun than it could be. Oftentimes I find myself wishing there were more enemies to fight than there are (possibly not all at once, because that's annoying, but I would definitely like to see more area to explore and combats to fight, because that's the most fun part of the game). I also appreciate the character icons on the fast travel screen indicating locations where quests are ready to be moved forward. Every soulslike should take note of this feature and start including something like that, as well. Cons This is controversial, I'm sure, but I'm tired of locking away exploration of the myriad of weapons provided because I'm blocked by stupidly limited upgrade materials. I know why this is done (to give players a reason to replay the game), but I'm tired of the entire thing. If you want to restrict how many leveled up weapons we have at once, fine, but at least give us a way to get our materials back out of those weapons to try something new. Or, better yet, just let us flat upgrade ourselves in some way such that all weapons are at equal level parity so we can play with whatever is most fun to play with. Farming materials isn't fun, and discovering what looks like a fun new weapon that you can't use right now (and likely won't risk committing to even when you can because your primary weapon will be even higher level by now) is also totally unfun. I don't want to browse the wiki before I play the game just because I've suffering from FOMO on potential weapons I want to save my upgrade materials for. While the bosses are fair, they're not all "fun". Off the top of my head, a miniboss like the White Rabbit stands out as a particularly boring boss that's extremely easy to beat while being completely unfun to do so. Along these lines I understand the game has been balanced a bit before I started playing, and I've heard this has made the game a lot easier. I can't speak to what it was like before, but imo bosses currently still have a tad too much health. Once you've gotten the moveset down for a boss, you can beat them. Having to do the same cycle over and over and over again to succeed is no more or less fun than being able to do that for the first couple cycles. Artificially inflating difficulty by making every boss a massive HP sponge doesn't add any fun to the process. Not being able to level up at the bonfire equivalents (after being able to do so initially) is completely stupid and insulting to our time as players. There is no technical reason for this, obviously, and the lore-related reasons that may or may not exist aren't sufficient for me to justify this dumb, time-wasting mechanic. Speaking of time wasting... I absolutely appreciate the respec-friendly nature of the gold coin tree, but having this clock on a real time basis really feels like an excuse to inflate gameplay hours. I'm "fine" with it, but I'd be more fine with a system by which we can just respec freely (which is basically what this is anyway). Weapon durability is bad. It's always bad. It's never fun. Trying to make it work as a way to also imbue your weapon now and then doesn't make it more fun. Weapon durability isn't a HUGE issue in this game (because at least the item to do it isn't a consumable), but that also highlights even more why it's a useless mechanic that could have been left out. I have never once, in all of my many years of gaming, ever enjoyed any element of weapon durability. No one in all of gaming history has ever said "Oh boy, I love that they included a feature to let my weapons break!" Equipment degradation is always a solution nobody wants in search of a problem nobody actually has. Devs, please, stop trying to make this a thing and find a more fun way to address whatever problem you're ever trying to solve with equipment degradation. I wish there was more armor/costumes available. The costumes are purely cosmetic, which is actually okay with me, but there just aren't enough of them to make that entire mechanic worthwhile. The armor pieces themselves are lackluster and entirely uninteresting. They serve a functional purpose, but overall the whole system feels underbaked and bad. Honestly, unless the last half of the game absolutely blows my socks off I'll likely end up rating this game an 8/10 or so, but even that's a tad elevated because of how happy I am about the game's performance and how refreshing it is to have such a smooth gameplay experience (likely a 6 or 7 out of 10 if it suffered the issues we've come to expect from the genre, like LotF or Elden Ring -- Conversely LotF would easily be a 9/10 for me if it DIDN'T suffer the performance issues it has, and Elden Ring would probably be a 10/10 if not for its inconsistent framerate issues at points, too). The lack of interesting armor and costumes along with the minor annoyances of weapon durability, stingy nature of upgrade materials throughout at least the first half of the game, traveling to level up, etc. are hard to overlook. I'm sick of it feeling like it's too much to ask for a game to respect my time. If you want me to play your game for a long time, make it fun and leave me alone to enjoy it rather than giving me reasons not to want to do another playthrough.

2 of 5

2

This was one of my first soulslikes (first was Lords of the Fallen, which I stopped playing halfway), so I learned the game from the ground up. So, to me, parrying was the main way to play the game and I never really relied on dodge other than certain occasions where it's better. As such, this game was a 9 - 10 for me. I'm about to beat NG+ and will likely start NG++ soon after. I'm thinking about trying other souls games, like Elden Ring, but not sure if they will scratch the itch because I REALLY enjoy the parry/rally/stagger combat system. I've tried a little bit (<1 hour) of Sekiro a while back and Sekiro's combat system was not as satisfying as Lies of P (I know this sounds like blasphemy). Sekiro requires you to basically only parry; whereas Lies of P rewards you for a perfect parry but gives you leeway to use other tactics when you don't think you can pull off the perfect parry. This leeway makes the combat so much more satisfying as you can think on your feet during the fight.

Discussions

Patient Review: Bloodborne and Lies of P

If you enjoy the bosses and combat of DS3 and Lies of P, you are in for a real treat with Sekiro. A small tip with Sekiro: don't focus on beating bosses, just focus on getting comfortable with the combat system. The game doesn't actually require fast reflexes, and if you think it does, then it hasn't clicked for you yet. More on reddit.com

r/patientgamers

100

160

November 18, 2024

Lies of P: Overture - Review Thread

I've done 1.5 areas of the DLC so far on NG at level 93-97 and so far, I'm loving my time with the expansion. It feels like a step in every key metric from the base game. Lies of P is such a good surprise, hoping to see a full-fledged sequel one day. More on reddit.com

r/Games

332

626

June 9, 2025

Lies of P Review

Very much agree with this review. While I'm not finished with the game yet (I'm about halfway through, I believe), I can comment that this all rings very true for me so far. Not sure where my own personal rating will end up for the game, but likely in the 8-9 range. Some of my own highlights below, both pros and cons: Pros Performance is, as you say, outstanding. Every other developer should step up and take note, THIS is how a game is supposed to feel when you play it. There's no excuse for all the stuttering and other nonsense we have to face in nearly every modern game. I don't want framerate hiccups ever, especially in a genre of game that demands so much precision in my gameplay. The atmosphere is equally excellent. Everything about the way the game looks, sounds, and feels is genuine and fitting. I have no complaints. The boss fights are fair. Are they hard? Sure, especially if you refuse to engage with the parrying mechanic (this is a requirement for many bosses), but every boss I've seen so far has been completely fair in that the tells they show for their attacks are obvious and consistent. Learning the timing takes a few attempts on each boss, but at no point did I say to myself in a boss fight "wow, that was bullshit". The combat is fun, the weapons feel good, the variety of handle/blade swapping gives a lot of dynamic build options. No complaints in this department at all from me. The level design is solid, but as identified it is pretty linear. That makes exploration a bit less fun than it could be. Oftentimes I find myself wishing there were more enemies to fight than there are (possibly not all at once, because that's annoying, but I would definitely like to see more area to explore and combats to fight, because that's the most fun part of the game). I also appreciate the character icons on the fast travel screen indicating locations where quests are ready to be moved forward. Every soulslike should take note of this feature and start including something like that, as well. Cons This is controversial, I'm sure, but I'm tired of locking away exploration of the myriad of weapons provided because I'm blocked by stupidly limited upgrade materials. I know why this is done (to give players a reason to replay the game), but I'm tired of the entire thing. If you want to restrict how many leveled up weapons we have at once, fine, but at least give us a way to get our materials back out of those weapons to try something new. Or, better yet, just let us flat upgrade ourselves in some way such that all weapons are at equal level parity so we can play with whatever is most fun to play with. Farming materials isn't fun, and discovering what looks like a fun new weapon that you can't use right now (and likely won't risk committing to even when you can because your primary weapon will be even higher level by now) is also totally unfun. I don't want to browse the wiki before I play the game just because I've suffering from FOMO on potential weapons I want to save my upgrade materials for. While the bosses are fair, they're not all "fun". Off the top of my head, a miniboss like the White Rabbit stands out as a particularly boring boss that's extremely easy to beat while being completely unfun to do so. Along these lines I understand the game has been balanced a bit before I started playing, and I've heard this has made the game a lot easier. I can't speak to what it was like before, but imo bosses currently still have a tad too much health. Once you've gotten the moveset down for a boss, you can beat them. Having to do the same cycle over and over and over again to succeed is no more or less fun than being able to do that for the first couple cycles. Artificially inflating difficulty by making every boss a massive HP sponge doesn't add any fun to the process. Not being able to level up at the bonfire equivalents (after being able to do so initially) is completely stupid and insulting to our time as players. There is no technical reason for this, obviously, and the lore-related reasons that may or may not exist aren't sufficient for me to justify this dumb, time-wasting mechanic. Speaking of time wasting... I absolutely appreciate the respec-friendly nature of the gold coin tree, but having this clock on a real time basis really feels like an excuse to inflate gameplay hours. I'm "fine" with it, but I'd be more fine with a system by which we can just respec freely (which is basically what this is anyway). Weapon durability is bad. It's always bad. It's never fun. Trying to make it work as a way to also imbue your weapon now and then doesn't make it more fun. Weapon durability isn't a HUGE issue in this game (because at least the item to do it isn't a consumable), but that also highlights even more why it's a useless mechanic that could have been left out. I have never once, in all of my many years of gaming, ever enjoyed any element of weapon durability. No one in all of gaming history has ever said "Oh boy, I love that they included a feature to let my weapons break!" Equipment degradation is always a solution nobody wants in search of a problem nobody actually has. Devs, please, stop trying to make this a thing and find a more fun way to address whatever problem you're ever trying to solve with equipment degradation. I wish there was more armor/costumes available. The costumes are purely cosmetic, which is actually okay with me, but there just aren't enough of them to make that entire mechanic worthwhile. The armor pieces themselves are lackluster and entirely uninteresting. They serve a functional purpose, but overall the whole system feels underbaked and bad. Honestly, unless the last half of the game absolutely blows my socks off I'll likely end up rating this game an 8/10 or so, but even that's a tad elevated because of how happy I am about the game's performance and how refreshing it is to have such a smooth gameplay experience (likely a 6 or 7 out of 10 if it suffered the issues we've come to expect from the genre, like LotF or Elden Ring -- Conversely LotF would easily be a 9/10 for me if it DIDN'T suffer the performance issues it has, and Elden Ring would probably be a 10/10 if not for its inconsistent framerate issues at points, too). The lack of interesting armor and costumes along with the minor annoyances of weapon durability, stingy nature of upgrade materials throughout at least the first half of the game, traveling to level up, etc. are hard to overlook. I'm sick of it feeling like it's too much to ask for a game to respect my time. If you want me to play your game for a long time, make it fun and leave me alone to enjoy it rather than giving me reasons not to want to do another playthrough. More on reddit.com

r/soulslikes

50

57

July 12, 2023

Lies of P has been out for over a week. What's everyone's thoughts on the game?

The strongest souls-like not made by fromsoft I've ever played, the animation quality, weapon feedback, level design (even if much more linear than anything from fromsoft), enemy design just feels... right. Some things can be tuned a bit? Yeah, but even as is, I sometimes forget this is not made by Fromsoft themselves. I never felt that with any other souls like and I tried Nioh 1 and 2, Mortal Shell, and other souls clones but they just don't hit that spot that From does, but Lies of P? I just want. to. keep. playing. It's just that good to me. More on reddit.com

r/Games

897

1355

September 30, 2023

Videos

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Lies of P Review | Game Informer - YouTube

September 15, 2023

12:00

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Lies of P - Before You Buy - YouTube

Lies of P: Overture DLC Review - A Legendary Prequel - YouTube

June 14, 2025

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Game Informer

gameinformer.com › review › lies-of-p › master-of-puppets

Lies of P Review - Master Of Puppets - Game Informer

September 13, 2023 - Lies of P developer Neowiz proudly calls its The Adventures of Pinocchio-inspired action game a Soulslike, drawing direct attention to its From Software inspiration. The proclamation is a bold and risky move. While there are great contenders in this action subgenre, even the best are a few marks from what From Software creates and I went into Lies of P with that expectation.

GodisaGeek

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Lies of P review | GodisaGeek.com

September 19, 2023 - Lies of P is exceptional. It's a staggering achievement for Neowiz, and one of the very best "non-FromSoft" Soulslikes I've ever played.

RPGamer

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Lies of P Review - RPGamer

September 14, 2024 - As P wears down his health, the Parade Master resorts to severing his own head to use as a makeshift flail, giving him longer reach and a whole new moveset. Every boss encounter offers something new and exciting to contend with, making every hard-earned victory feel like a well-deserved cherry on top of an already satisfying combat cake of twisted metal and cruel intentions. There’s a lot more to Lies of P than its difficulty, and it’s clear the designers have taken careful stock of various aspects of the Soulslike formula in order to keep what works and improve what came up short.

Xbox Tavern

xboxtavern.com › home › lies of p review

Lies of P Review - Xbox Tavern

September 24, 2023 - From the creases on Pinocchio’s ruffled clothing to the grime and dirt that has been left to accumulate alongside the corpses that cover the streets and cobblestone paving, to the fantastic soundtrack that ramps up in moments of tense combat and softens down in a moment of escape, there is nothing I would have wanted any different in the presentation of this dark and gothic experience. Having fantastic visuals won’t do a Souls-like many favours though if it can’t match the epic combat such games are revered for. Lies of P however succeeds in combat too, with the issues raised in the early demo ironed out and combat now feeling fair and fluid as you take on the deliberately wooden attacks from the rogue animatronics savaging the city of Krat.

Gamecritics

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Lies Of P Review - Gamecritics.com

November 9, 2023 - HIGH The many bosses and mini-bosses! LOW The world is far too linear for a soulslike. WTF Why can't I attack that obvious traitor before it's too late?!

FextraLife

fextralife.com › home › reviews › lies of p review

Lies of P Review

09:19

Overall, the story of Lies of P successfully engages players with a fresh take on a classic theme, but it unfortunately does not deliver completely and stumbles over the finish line, so it's not the strongest point of the game.

Published September 13, 2023

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Lies of P Review | RPG Site

November 2, 2023 - Despite its unique weapon system and generally friendlier structuring, Lies of P hews a little too closely to its inspirations to rise above feeling like something of an also-ran.

VG247

vg247.com › home › reviews › lies of p

Lies of P review: One of 2023’s most frustrating games is a hard sell, even on Game Pass | VG247

Lies of P

A lot of games miss the mark as often as they deliver, but few are as mundane as Lies of P.

Rating: 2

Metacritic

metacritic.com › game › lies-of-p

Lies of P Reviews - Metacritic

Plays like Bloodborne but tighter and more refined. No game has created a parry mechanic as focused as Lies of P, most games it can feel either oddly timed like in the souls series or perhaps too lenient as found in Sekiro and whilst I love ...

Published 1 month ago

reddit.com › r/patientgamers › patient review: bloodborne and lies of p

r/patientgamers on Reddit: Patient Review: Bloodborne and Lies of P

November 18, 2024 -

Hello everyone! After years of avoiding them due to their reputation for being brutally difficult, I finally decided—at almost 40—to give Dark Souls another shot. It felt like a personal challenge as a gamer to finish at least one of the famed FromSoftware titles. I won’t lie: it was rough in the beginning. There were times I was pushing forward purely out of stubbornness rather than enjoyment. But then, at a certain point, something just clicked—and I fell completely in love with these games.

Now, I wouldn’t call myself a super hardcore FromSoftware veteran. When possible, I use NPC summons for bosses, and I’m not ashamed to overlevel if it makes things a bit easier. But that’s one of the beautiful things about these games: you really can approach them at your own pace and play style.

After finishing Dark Souls 3, I decided to give Lies of P a try—and I was genuinely amazed. The combat is faster-paced than Dark Souls, and you’re pushed to play very aggressively since there are no shields—you either parry or attack. Still, I found its overall difficulty to be a bit lower than the Souls games. The world and lore are incredible. I loved the dark reimagining of Collodi’s Pinocchio; it’s loosely inspired by the novel but offers a twisted, gothic take full of atmosphere and personality.

The game is packed with memorable characters, varied locations, and fast-paced, satisfying combat that stayed engaging right up to the end. If you haven’t tried Lies of P, I highly recommend it!

After I finished it, I read many comparisons between Lies of P and Bloodborne—especially regarding the combat and atmosphere. Bloodborne often comes up in discussions as FromSoftware’s best game (even the creator has suggested it’s his favorite, if I’m not mistaken), with Sekiro being the other contender. I knew Bloodborne was unofficially playable on PC, but since I’ve become less tech-savvy over the years—and a bit wary about downloading things—I ended up buying a used PS4 just to play Bloodborne and its Old Hunters DLC.

And wow… it was absolutely worth it.

Bloodborne might just be my favorite FromSoftware game (though I could never give up Dark Souls and DS3 either). Its atmosphere is unmatched: a sprawling Victorian gothic city, towering cathedrals, and a story steeped in eldritch horror. The entire world oozes style and eerie beauty. The combat is fast and brutal, demanding aggression. You dodge or parry—there’s no hiding behind a shield here—but once you adapt, carving through enemies becomes incredibly satisfying.

If I have one critique, it’s the brutal start. You can’t level up until you reach a certain point, and that initial area is densely packed with enemies. I can imagine if I hadn’t already finished other FromSoftware games, it might have put me off entirely. And, of course, in typical FromSoftware fashion, you’re left to figure most things out on your own (or through Googling!). But once you unlock the ability to level up, things become much more balanced and enjoyable.

In fact, I’d say Bloodborne has the best pacing of any FromSoft game I’ve played so far. Most lanterns (the equivalent of bonfires) are well placed, and you’ll frequently unlock shortcuts. Boss runbacks are usually short, and thanks to the quick, aggressive combat, dying never feels too punishing—you’re back in the action in no time.

A common criticism is the Blood Vial system, which replaces the Estus Flasks from Dark Souls. Blood Vials are consumable healing items that don’t automatically replenish when you die. However, you can carry at least 20 of them, giving you plenty of opportunities to heal while exploring without constantly returning to a lantern. They’re also farmable—many enemies drop them, and you can purchase them with Blood Echoes (this game’s version of Souls). After the early game, I never found myself running out of vials.

The weapons are fantastic, with most offering two distinct forms and unique playstyles. Now that I’ve finished the game, I’m definitely feeling a bit of post-game blues. It’s hard to leave such an incredible world behind! I’ll be taking a short break from Soulslikes, but Sekiro or Elden Ring will definitely be next on my list.

So, do yourself a favor—don’t let the difficulty scare you away from these games. They are absolutely worth it!

Game Information

Game Title: Lies of P: Overture [This is a major DLC/expansion and requires ownership of the base game]

Release Date: June 6, 2025

Platforms: PC, PlayStation 4/5, Xbox One/Series X|S,

Trailers:

Lies of P: Overture - Launch Trailer

Developer: NEOWIZ

Publisher: NEOWIZ

Review Aggregator:

Opencritic – 83% – 5 Critic Reviews

Critic Reviews

Gamersky - 85%

If you enjoyed Lies of P, then you'll likely be glad to return to Krat in Overture -to wield new weapons, and face tougher enemies and bosses. The many refinements to the game's details also help make this return journey a much smoother ride. | Review in Chinese

IVEN - 85%

Lies of P: Overture is a most welcome expansion for fans. From the story and boss battles to new weapons, it adds meaningful depth across the board. While it does have the inherent limitations of an expansion, it’s a must-play for fans, as it completes Lies of P’s narrative as a prequel. | Review in Korean

Everyeye.it - 85%

Ultimately, Lies of P: Overture is configured as a further testimony to the crystalline talent of the Korean developers of Neowiz and Round 8 who, after having hit like a hurricane in a seemingly saturated market such as that of soulslike action/RPGs, replicate the winning scheme by declining it in an adventure with even darker tones, supported by a powerful imagery and an exciting story. Net of some qualitative contraction in some moments and a not exactly stellar duration, the expansion of Lies of P will certainly delight those who loved the epic of Geppetto's favorite son. Are you ready to return to tread the streets of Krat? | Review in Italian

IGN - 80%

Even if it’s clearly dancing on the same old strings, Lies of P: Overture is an excellent expansion that adds a whole lot more to a game that was already great.

GameSpot - 80%

Lies of P: Overture heads back to the past to build on its twisted rendition of Pinocchio, telling a compelling story that throws you into combat with creative enemies in varied environments.