I saw a comment on Reddit that said something like, “I just want to sit on that puppet’s face and tell it lies…”
That’s kind of how I feel after playing Lies of P, a bloodborne contender based on the story of Pinocchio. Sure, I’m a casual gamer to enjoys relaxing with a video game, but I also don’t totally suck. I don’t have to put every game on easy mode – but I often chose to. Because I want to story and experience.
Bloodborne should have been the perfect game for me, it was exactly what I love in a brooding dark gothic fantasy landscape. But I couldn’t get past the very opening bit – I tried every couple years for the past decade and spent 20 or 30 hours on that very initial part without every getting past it. So fuck bloodborne. And I never got into the Dark Souls trilogy or Sekiro either.
I downloaded the new Demon Souls and enjoyed it, for awhile (using all the hacks and cheats I could find to survive) but at once point, I was just dying and repeating the same 15 minutes of gameplay on a loop for hours and hours, so I quit. Grind on a hard boss, fine. Being killed by some random asshole on your way to the boss, making no progress? Lame.
But I loved me some Elden Ring, and I played that game to completion. Elden ring is punishing and challenging and frustrating, because some twerp *always* kills you *all* the time. But it’s always a new death, always a surprise, always when you’re exploring someplace new – and then you learn. There’s plenty of places to explore and grind and level up, and hunt for treasures and stuff.
Lies of P is VERY cool and pretty. And it’s got me hooked – most games I play awhile and get totally bored.
Most games are fine. Lies of P is a bastard, and I hate it.
Everything is easy but the bosses
This has been my experience: I can pretty much plough through a level in one go, killing everything or at least running through to a save point. Maybe it takes me a couple tries. 30 minutes tops – so then I’ve seen the level. The novelty and surprise factor is gone. I’ve been here, done that, already.
And then there’s some random asshat like the fire robots with shovels that can just pummel you into the ground – not even a miniboss. Just some random dude who is way too hard. Fine, whatever, I can run away and skip past that… until you get to a real boss. Lies of P is linear, and there’s not actually that much to do or see.
So when you get to a boss, you’re stuck.
You have to go back and grind, and level up, and upgrade all your gear and weapons – but all of that is extremely limited since you don’t have the freedom to explore or travel. Every boss fight, you need to go grind for ergo (the money system, based on Descartes’ cogito ergo sum, I guess because Pinocchio wants to be a real boy) – so you can travel and buy a couple grenades, or uplevel a bit, and then you die and get to do it again.
Sure you can practice on the boss until you learn its moves pretty well.
Either way, it’s about 30 minutes for a level and 10 hours for a boss fight.
That means, 10 hours of running back through places you’ve already been, killing the same exact dudes again, getting no pleasure or joy at all out of the game, and being absolutely conscious of what a lame sack of shit you are to waste this much of your precious life on a stupid fucking video game.
I’m probably not even halfway through. I’m facing a miniboss that’s not important enough to even have a name apparently, he’s just the “green shield boss” – it’s like fighting the Hulk and just getting smashed. I got lucky a few times and nearly got him – that was hours ago. Now the entire day is gone and I’ve not progressed at all, and I absolutely hate this fucking game.
The actual next boss, is the Fallen Archbishop Andreus, and that boss is supposed to be really super hard.
So I’ll probably quit, because I’m not enjoying myself, I’m not seeing anything new, there is nothing rewarding about grinding in the same place for days so you can see another 30 minutes of fresh gameplay before getting immediately stuck on the next challenge. I had stuff to do, like work or bathing or eating – but I did none of that.
Kudos for holding my attention, something we writers do is hook interest and then deliver satisfaction and a positive experience; Lies of P is all punishment and pain (I’m not the only one who thinks so either, I’ve read pretty similar comments around the Interwebz and it’s not just the casual gamers who are whining). Life is short. If video games don’t make us feel good, if we aren’t enjoying ourselves, if it’s not entertainment… if even your core audience is saying this shit about your game, well, whatever. Can’t please everyone I guess, and I’m sure there are a few dudes who have been so carefully trained over the past decade by unplayable games that they’ve developed the requisite skill set to succeed, without absolutely loathing the journey.
Update: I found a cheese on YouTube. I’d be less pissed off if I’d just found it earlier – but that was hard because this boss has no name and it’s not easy to search. Climb the ladder, jump on his head, run out the door, repeat. It’s a stupid way to play a game, but at least it’ll allow me to progress to the next 30 minutes or so and then I’ll just delete.
Is Lies of P too hard (is it worth playing?)
So here’s the thing… like I mentioned, I think it’s easier than Bloodborne.
And there hasn’t been a good, enjoyable dark fantasy game like this in a long while.
A lot of the mechanics are solid.
For comparison, I made it through Elden Ring, the Witcher 3, Ghost of Tsushima, Cyberpunk 2077… this feels like it should compare to those games, which are tough but fair. But none of them are making me angry like Lies of P is.
I like it, or I want to like it, and I do think it’s worth playing… until it isn’t. And then, it sucks, because you’re invested and you like the game but it’s just impossible (of course it’s possible, it just costs more time than you’re willing to invest without getting at least a bit of pleasure back).
Just maybe, when you get frustrated, try to find some stupid online hack to get past the roadblocks.