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Lies of P I have a lot to say about this one. Soulslike games are getting pretty common and a lot of them are either trash or unoriginal. This one is pretty much Bloodborne with the serial numbers filed off BUT imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and it copies the vibe of Bloodborne pretty well while still having some tricks of its own AND running at a steady 60 fps! There's so much going on here that I think it would be easier for me to make another bullet point list. The Good - Usually the whole "grimdark fairy tale" thing makes me roll my eyes, but I actually like the world this game has set up. It has a pretty interesting interpretation of the original Pinocchio story, and whether or not Pinocchio becomes a real boy depends on the choices you make during your playthrough. You even see it reflected in small things like how he starts to grunt during battle as he becomes more human and how the cat in the hub area regards you depending on how human you are. It's very clever. There's a teaser after the credits that also got me excited for DLC or a sequel. - There's some great weapon variety in here. Not only are there lots of different kinds of weapons, but you can mix and match the blades and the handles to change their movesets and speed. Is that huge, heavy axe too slow? Stick it on a fire axe handle. Dagger doesn't have enough reach for you? Put it on a spear handle. You can't disassemble the unique boss weapons, but they usually have pretty solid fable arts (weapon skills) to make up for it. - Parries and dodges are equally viable in this game, so most of the time you don't really have to choose between one or the other. Play how you want...with some exceptions. - Quite decent enemy variety. Enemies come in the form of puppets, humans, infected, or....other. Despite there being just those four subtypes, there's still a lot of different kinds of enemies within those four. - The different puppet arms you can equip on Pinocchio offer some great utility in combat and they all have their use. I definitely got the most use out of the flamethrower arm, though. - The environments are fairly linear without a ton of room for exploration, but they are really nice to look at and feel like actual places compared to something like, say, Code Vein. - Very solid performance. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I had frame drops in my playthrough of 43 hours. - If you use up all of your refillable healing items, you can still recharge one by landing enough hits, which is a great way to encourage being aggressive even when you're at a disadvantage. There is no limit to how many times you can do this. There were several bosses I probably wouldn't have been able to beat if not for this. The Bad - Once again, STR builds get the shaft. P has almost no poise, which means it's all too easy to get hit out of those heavy charge attacks and fable arts that are supposed to be the trade-off for being so slow. I would be very surprised if they don't patch this. - Not everything it copies from Bloodborne is good. For some reason you have to go to the hub area and talk to the blue fairy every time you want to level up rather than just doing it at a stargazer, which is this game's version of a campfire. The frustrating part is that you CAN level up at stargazers during the beginning and the end of the game, so it feels like they only make you do this because Bloodborne did. - In addition to leveling up, there is a separate upgrade system where you use quartz you find from elite enemies and chests to unlock upgrades like extra healing items or better mobility. This is fine, but the problem is some of the stuff you unlock are things that really should have been there from the get go, such as the ability to dodge while on the ground. No, really, I just love getting whacked to death on the floor by a shovel and not being able to do anything about it. - I don't say this often, but this game is just too damn hard. It is the hardest Soulslike I have ever played by a wide margin. In fact I'd call it inaccessible to anyone who isn't already a veteran of these games and no, Elden Ring alone is not enough. The parry window is a good bit tighter than Sekiro's, but there are bosses in this game where parrying is practically mandatory. Not just one or two hits either. Some of these bosses will flail at you in combos of 10 hits or more and you'd better get that rhythm down or they will jack you up. Unlike Sekiro, where staggering bosses two or three times will instantly kill them, staggering here just opens them up for a backstab/riposte and you still have to get that HP bar down to zero. Even then they only get stunned if you manage to land a charged heavy attack during the very small window where they are open to being staggered, which is easier said than done. Also, pretty much every boss in the second half has two phases, and by that I mean two full health bars. It's fucking sadistic. There is no posture bar either. Attacking, blocking, parrying, and dodge all share the same stamina bar so sometimes even if you parry every hit it won't leave you with much breathing room at the end. Sometimes this game just feels stacked against you in ways that are unfair, so I'm hoping the devs rebalance it a bit. As you can see, it's a little rough around the edges, but some of these issues can definitely be fixed with a patch and I still see enough potential here to be excited for the future of this franchise. For a first outing from this studio, it's pretty damn impressive.