In the review, there was a mention of various assists. Can anyone expand on that?
Personally, I love the art style, architecture, and overall atmosphere of games like this but I dont have the skill (… or time?) to work with the excessive (to me) difficulty. My biggest frustrations are the small windows of blocks, parrys, and dodges and the severe (excessive?) punishment of a fail. I don’t find 1 or 2 hit deaths “fun”.
In Elden Ring, I had to over level, farm, and use summons constantly and use cheeses of magic to really get anywhere. It felt like I was avoiding “the game” and working around the instant death to try and enjoy everything else in the game.
On over leveling, the video also mentioned it was feasible in this game? Over leveling in Elden Ring, for example, seemed to do absolutely nothing to make combat easier or more surviveable.
In advance, thanks to anyone with added info. I’ll likely try the game in GP, but the end game state will be much more important to determining if I purchase or not.
You can have a specture help you on boss fights. They also nerfed some of the difficulty in the day one patch. Other than that it’s mostly just power leveling.
Quick heads up on the game. If you notice a sort of white flashing that you see in the menus and while playing the game, turn off VRR on your console it will stop that from happening. Seems to be something about the game not supporting VRR and causing this effect. Can be very irritating
At my end I thought it was the 120hz mode causing flicker (white flashing of sorts). I noticed it immediately, so when I locked the console at 60hz, the flickering disappeared. Dolby Vision elevates blacks as well here (like it does in Starfield), so I’d recommend turning that off as well.
Yeah I didn’t notice it in the demo but I loaded up the demo again along with the full game and both had the effect. When I looked online they said either turning off VRR or setting the console to only 60fps fixes it. Strange and I hope they fix it but the game runs very smoothly so VRR isn’t really needed on performance mode
I’m kind of astonished by how good this is. Striving to out-do FromSoftware is absurdly stupid for so many reasons (chiefly, it is an impossible task) and yet this is a more than commendable effort. It looks and plays wonderfully. Sets itself apart with new mechanics and its own take on the formula too. I was sure it would feel like some amateur-hour fan mod of Bloodborne, but it’s more like a group of Souls fans successfully commissioned a very experienced development team to make a game for them. It reminds me a lot of the kinds of AA games smaller development teams used to put out during the 360 era - games like Alice: Madness Returns, Risen and of course Dark Souls - but with the production values and technical performance we expect today.
Getting third-party games like this on Game Pass day one is crazy and I’m here for it.
I think it’s time for (another) conversation about game difficulty.
The souls genre has always had a very vocal fanbase who gatekeep the difficulty as an integral part of the experience and to an extent they’re not wrong. But here in Lies of P… I just want to explore this wonderful world they’ve crafted & I can’t unless I focus like a super nerd on lighting reflexes & fight, fight & fight the same boss again & again until I miraculously beat it.
I’m too old for this sh*t. It’s a beautiful game but come on, does anyone enjoy Halo 2 on Legendary difficulty? This is the equivalent, except in a third person character action game, at least for me.
My 2nd time through the the game I’ve gotten in 4 hours as far as I did in 20 hours during review. There are ways to make the game easy, mainly in making sure you know how to level up, constantly upping your weapon damage, and understanding that the game really wants you to be patient. it’s never “easy” but it’s a hell of a lot more manageable now that I know exactly how I should power myself up. I get the frustration with it but I find this type of difficulty curve to be a hell of a lot more enjoyable than the one in Armored Core VI
I’m loving the game but I do understand that the difficulty can be very off putting especially as there’s no online component where a friend can help you through it. The bosses in particular can be a real Road block especially as quite a few are two phase. For me the genre has always been about the moment when the game clicks with me and the game becomes not easy but manageable.
As Lies of P has been compared with Bloodborne, I feel like the latter has a difficulty reputation which exceeds the reality of the game itself, likewise Dark Souls as well. I mean Father Gascoigne is the first real brick wall in Bloodborne, with his second phase werewolf form being the hardest part. But throwables get the job done. It’s not ultra punishing. Summoning an AI companion for later bosses also gets the job done as well.
But something I’ve noticed with the souls genre is how games inspired by From Software’s work often go above & beyond the difficulty of From Software’s titles. Like The Surge 1, which I failed miserably at.
The Parade Master in Lies of P is basically harder than any early Bloodborne boss, IMO. My attacks get interrupted & the range of my weapon is not great (I need to get really close, which leaves me vulnerable). It’s just very hard & not particularly welcoming for players (nor do I find it teaches me much about the game’s mechanics).
I’ll push on though because the game is indeed beautiful (on the Series X in performance mode). I’ll also focus on upgrading weapon damage (this was true for Bloodborne as well).
