Remakes and re-imaginings of older stories are all the rage these days, but it takes a lot of work to do them right. The Lies of P demo, an upcoming Soulslike game from developers NEOWIZ, attempts to do just that by taking the classic tale of Pinnochio and making it incredibly darker than even the original source material.
Lies of P puts players in the shoes of Pinocchio, the puppet-turned-boy created by Geppetto. He wakes up in a city called Krat which has been overrun by evil puppets. Geppetto appears to be central to all the death and destruction that has ravaged Krat, and it is up to Pinnochio to uncover the truth behind what happened and put an end to it. It’s a fairly interesting take on the classic tale, with quite a bit changed from what players might be familiar with. The Lies of P demo only features a small portion of the earliest sections of the game, so there is still so much more to uncover about what happened, but I can’t wait to dive into the full thing.
The most important thing for a Soulslike game to do has nothing to do with the story at all though. The key staple of the genre has always been challenging and interesting combat that feels polished. Thankfully, the Lies of P demo showcases truly satisfying combat that flows with every sword stroke. Timing your attacks is vital to defeating the countless evil puppets, and learning to parry and dodge will be the first things players need to master.
It was a little disappointing, however, that the early game enemies did not feel as challenging as they normally would in a Soulslike game. The evil puppets may look intimidating, but actually dispatching them was not difficult at all. The only time I struggled against general-purpose enemies was when I was fighting two on the ground while being shot by one on a ledge up above, but that was just down to being unable to see the enemy up above. Figuring out enemy movements is quite easy and makes defeating them less enjoyable than I hoped.
What makes up for that is how excellent the first few boss fights are. Each boss presented in the Lies of P demo is incredibly foreboding and quite intelligent. The difficult difference between regular enemies and bosses was a little jarring at first, but taking my time to learn how the bosses moved and thought was as rewarding as I hoped. They were not unfairly difficult either, there were no surprise attacks or glitches, just good old-fashioned tough mechanics and fast movements. It is really going to be interesting to see how they continue to expand on these with bosses in the later stages of the game.
Finally, while I expected the combat in the demo to feel quite polished, I was not expecting it to be as visually stunning as it was. The evil and chaos in Krat were palpable from the moment the demo began. The Belle Epoque architecture works beautifully with the dark approach to the story, and the sheer amount of detail was stunning. If they can keep that same level of detail and beautiful art direction throughout the entire game it will be one of the most impressive visual experiences of the last few years.
The Lies of P demo shows a lot of potential and the approach to the classic tale works perfectly with the Soulslike approach. If this is just the demo, I cannot wait to see what the full game looks like.
Lies of P releases September 19th on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series S|X, and PC.
