I have never played “Souls-like” games before. They never appealed to me. I was really drawn to this game because it’s a twist on Pinocchio and I thought it was really cool. However, I am massively struggling with enjoying the game because of how brutal it is as far as gameplay. I just cannot seem to get the hang of this. Do I hang in there or is it not worth it? Any advice for a first timer to help me get through this will be appreciated.

27 Comments

  1. ParappaTheWrapperr

    Just use a trainer and enjoy the story. That’s why soul games sale so good on PC, you can do what you want with it from moding to gameplay control to all you want. I’ll usually start a souls game on PlayStation and if I hit a point that’s too much for me I’ll just move over to PC.

    Using a trainer from the wemod app also usually allows for more exploration like the ability to go through walls and the ground and really anywhere, it adds to the game because the worlds are so well designed and there’s so much going on you would never see playing vanilla

  2. PageOthePaige

    Even by souls like standards, Lies of P is /hard/, and not necessarily for good reasons. I consider it a good few steps harder than any Fromsoft games.

    Incidentally, I still think it’s worth it to persevere. It’s got a fantastic story, and the gameplay is extremely satisfying once it clicks. Main thing to note is that the dash, until upgraded, is very weak. It has mediocre iframes and it doesn’t break enemy tracking.

    Your much better defense is to guard. Try to press guard just as the enemy attacks move towards you, and if you mistime it just keep blocking. Your goal should be to avoid taking damage, then earn back your guard health in a counter attack. Running away to buy time to get health and stamina is also key.

    Finally, be okay with dying a lot. You’ll lose ergo, it’s completely fine. You’ll die to the same thing ten times, it’s completely fine. That struggling, and learning from it, is essential to the story. Souls games are about gitting gud, not about being good. Having an easy time your first go makes the genre feel less effective.

    Finally, with progress, you have way more tools and organs to mess with the balance.

  3. NumerousBug9075

    Just take your time with it OP. Whenever I play a new soulslikes I feel the same way.

    It all comes together after a bit of practice, It’ll be so satisfying once you get the hang of it 🙂

  4. Electrical_Life6186

    Oh, it is definitely worth it, really. I haven’t still cleared it entirely yet but I am way past the half of it. I am definitely recommending you hanging in there and figuring it out, because, well, for me – it made me smile and giggle at a lot of the ways it not so much references but outright uses the Pinnochio story details to make them Bloodborne-esque. A LOOOT of this stuff there. There are even other literary references like Giopetto claiming that he ordered the portrait of P from a certain D. Gray. That was the last giggle I had from what I can remember.

    The game is not really hard, really, it’s actually pretty fair, but the problem is that the player is mostly engaging enemies of a robotic variety, who’s movements are spastic and unnatural, hence prove very… problematic to read organically, unlike in something like Sekiro, where very human movements of the enemy’s blade is mostly obvious because there is a natural organic, “live” flow to them, while puppets prove to be very sudden, moving really unnaturally and hard to predict. Still – I assure you… Just spend some time learning whatever enemy you are having trouble with and remember that one of the main gimmicks of the game is the weapon durability, which P is capable of recovering, but enemies DO NOT and which in the end ends up BREAKING their weapons if perfectly parried continuously, rendering them if not utterly weak then seriously handicapped. But in order to parry well you might need to stufy the enemy’s move list.

    I like the game very much so far. I am not taking any of the story seriously, because for me it is kind of hilarious how Pinnochio is made into this Bloodborne-like dark fantasy, seeing how the original story can be dark at points, but is never this kind of nasty. That’s like making a dark fantasy game out of Felix the Cat or something. But I do very much enjoy the effort put into it, it’s quite charming.

    No, seriously, don’t give up, you’ll like it. Where are you right now, can you remember and explain ?

  5. Spideyman20015

    Aside from ‘git’ing gud’, find a good weapon you like, max points into your vitality(health) and play it slow.

  6. joebewaan

    I’m with you OP. I’ve been playing computer games my entire life and used to think I was quite good until I picked up dark souls. I don’t get the appeal of getting killed by a boss 20 times in a row, each time having to go back 10 mins to try again. I got quite far in Elden Ring because there was often other things to do but I got stuck close to the end of that game too, which sucked because I really liked the vibe and exploration. I think they’re just not for me.

  7. bakedtatoandcheese

    Strange, I find it significantly easier than any souls game. Horses for courses though.

  8. NotPlayingSeriously9

    Lies of P was the toughest single player game I played in a long while and I’m a good old school gamer.

    Is it worth it? I mean, is beating a game worth it? Some bosses I struggled and died a lot, but the game is fair and well designed, so I found beating it extremely satisfying.

    Thats what you play this type of game for, for the satisfaction of getting better and learning to overcome a challenge. From what I understand of your answers here, you are still in the easy part of the game.

    I’m not trying to discourage you. On the contrary, I think if you can beat Lies of P, many other similar games would open up to you. Skills in games aren’t exclusive, getting good at one will make you better at other games. Its fun to see another hard game come out later and not feel scared of it.

    “Getting good” is worth it, but your first big challenging game is always the hardest. As for the game and story itself, I loved it and the series has a future thanks to its success, it will have DLC/sequels. I think you would have no regrets sticking through it, but its up to you if you want to put in the effort.

  9. No-Significance2113

    Just treat the combat like learning a dance, your partner has rythym for their attacks and may change that rythym to throw you off occasionally or later on into the fight.

    So first you want to work out their tempo or rythym, since people love these games a trends gone on where devs will try to hide the tempo through inconsistent animations and by also changing the tempo during different attacks or phases of the fight.

    Another thing is these enemies are generally programmed to react to you. Things like foot work and position can influence the type of attack you receive and the frequency of those attacks. Attacking, healing and running away can also change the move set, so be aware of that as well and try not to get into the habit of just dodging.

    A big thing is don’t try to cheese the game, a lot of these games don’t have tutorials and instead use the early game bosses to teach you the mechanics of the game. And the late game bosses will absolutely use those mechanics turned up to 11 later on in the game. It may seems like cheating but if your struggling then look up help online, a lot of the community loves to help people and will make guides and tips for beginning players to use.

    Finally don’t try to rush through the game impatience will just increase the amount of mistakes you make and greed will cause you to lose fights that you would otherwise win. Don’t worry everyone’s been where you currently are and we’ve all struggled, that’s why everyone likes to help each other so don’t be afraid to ask for help and use the fan made tutorials.

  10. Hey. Don’t worry about the perfect block, it’s useful against the bosses but not the end of the world if you can’t do it. Other than that, just use the powder thing in boss battles, I just didn’t have time to spend hours to beat each boss. Other than that just play concentrated, every move matters. You got this!

  11. mleighly

    I would suggest that you check out “fightincowboy” on youtube for some pointers.

  12. demifiend_sorrow

    Find a weapon type you jive with and work towards being good at the weapon. Dont forget your throwables. Also remember that levels do have an effect on things like your damage.

    And like your typical soulslike, level your fucking vigor. Lmao

  13. JohnLocke815

    The hardest part of the game is that first boss. If you can get past him you’re fine.

    Take your time, learn enemy moves, don’t be greedy with attacks, wait for an opening.

    If all else fails, just grind for more exp and over level and everything becomes a joke.

  14. YourReactionsRWrong

    Yup lifelong gamer and this is a game that I spent over 50 hours on one boss, which was a brick wall to me. Won’t spoil it, but there’s two phases, and I got so good at reading the first phase. You begin to know when it’s safe to attack, traps, distance, etc.

    Problem is that it takes 2-3 mins to get through 1st phase, just so you can learn the movements of the 2nd phase, where you can die extremely quickly. It was maddening. My advice is to record the fights, rewatch them and analyze them. The only other method is repetition until you learn the hard way what not to do. A lot of gamers these days don’t have that kind of patience (so then developers put it a patch to make the game easy).

    I beat the game on version 1.00, before they made it easier.  If you are a completionist of any sort, I would say ignore this game, because you need to play it through twice to get everything (collectibles, etc). I was never into the souls games either, but this one game crafted such a world that intrigued me, it was enough for me to persist.

    For the game itself outside of bosses, I highly recommend just running past enemies to the next stargazer. You can defeat enemies easier by going to the next SG, then going backwards, because most enemies will be facing away, so you can backstab them quicker, then pick up items or whatever thing you missed. 

    Overall I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze, for the time commitment required, but that doesn’t mean the game is bad in any way; in fact I’m glad I did it, but wouldn’t recommend it.

  15. Somasonic

    I’ve played a few of the ‘easier’ souls-likes but I noped out of this after trying the demo. A shame because the setting does seem very cool.

  16. FlopsMcDoogle

    If you are on PC, you can use cheats.

  17. jorynagel

    I love this game so much, but it’s been a few months since I’ve really been into it, so forgive me if my terminology is a bit off.

    Something to remember is to play with weapon and handle combinations. Your typical upgrades (+1, +2, +3, etc) stay with the blade/striking portion while cranks alter the handle to adjust the scaling to fit your build. If you disassemble a weapon, you can always reassemble it, and because the blades and handles upgrade separately, you don’t lose anything by experimenting with different combos. If a weapon is a little slow, try a smaller blade. If you don’t like the moveset, try another handle. I can’t remember which portion governs it, but larger weapons will block more damage when guarding, so you can adjust that aspect too. With this mechanic, you can really tweak weapons to fit your playstyle.

    Another is don’t forget to utilize your legion arm and consumables. At some point in the game I had used every legion arm. Also, inflicting status effects on enemies and bosses gives different effects as well as dealing damage. I believe shock makes them take additional melee damage, but I don’t remember the rest.

    Last from me is parrying vs dodging. I’m in the parry camp. It was my favorite part of Sekiro, so I did the same here. I’ve heard people say some bosses are better to dodge and others to parry. I never figured out dodging through attacks, so I just doubled down on parrying instead, and it worked well enough for every boss. The only time I dodged was when it would put me out of the bosses range. It’s all just trial and error and seeing what works best for you. The only wrong way to play is the way that you don’t like.

  18. The great sword handle you can get at the start that gives absolute defence is like the most OP thing in the game so use that, don’t know how I’d be able to get through bosses without it.

  19. _Szotyi_

    It is definitely the hardest souls game imo, but for completely wrong reasons for. I couldn’t enjoy the game because of the incredibly unforgiving parry timings and that every boss was full of delayed attacks that needs to be learned individually so I didn’t feel any improvement after each encounter. But I hope the other comments could convince you to continue since the game has a bunch of amazing features and story. Good luck and don’t give up ,you will eventually get the hang of it don’t worry.

  20. listen for sound cues, certain enemies prolly most make a certain noise or something to indicate an attack or ability is coming. you can learn alot from just watching the enemy and dancing around it for a bit.

    GL its an awesome game.

  21. Makhai123

    The game is horribly balanced and requires you to learn how to deflect/guard. There is really no other way to progress in that game, you perfect guard or you die. Any investment you make into dodging is wasted and should probably just lead to a complete restart of the game, because it is that weak. Every fight is about finding openings for attack and perfect guarding all of the enemies’ attacks to build stagger. Fast weapons are king here, anything slow just reduces your overall DPS.

    I found the balance so bad I gave up on the game on the gank fight. It’s really not worth your time, there are better souls-likes on the market.

  22. Pablogibbous

    What you need to do is go do the boss fights in order not trying to win the fight but learn all the parry mechanics. That is the way

  23. hang in. I almost quit Elden Ring, then it all clicked and I never looked back.

  24. AquaArcher273

    Lies of P is a very hard game even by souls-like standards. It’s a wonderful game and my all time favorite Souls-Like having played all of Fromsofts titles. If you’re struggling and think you can get better with time I’d keep playing. There really isn’t a sure fire way to get better other than continuing to play or watching some guides though. If you’re confident you won’t be able to get the hang of it I’d give it up as souls-likes really aren’t for everyone regardless of age, they are just genuinely hard games that many people no matter how hard they try just can’t get into them. So if you end up putting the game down it’s no big issue.

    If you want advice if you ever try to get into souls likes I’d start with Elden Ring. It’s open world means if you ever come upon a boss you can’t beat you can just leave and go somewhere else to level up and gear up. Then when you come back an hour or two later having explored a bunch of the map and killed a few mini bosses you can stare that boss in the face and wipe the floor with them (as long as you are patient and learn there moves a bit)

  25. Alastor3

    You might want to switch weapons. You have fast, normal and heavy weapon. Im only good with heavy weapon but my friends just cannot play them and only use fast attack, it’s all in the feel

  26. Clear-Swimming8245

    Pick a longish range weapon really got me through some shit

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