Lies of P is a fascinating game, being a loose but faithful adaptation of Pinocchio into a Souls-like. If you, like me, missed out on the original release, it’s now on Switch 2 with the DLC included in Lies of P Complete Edition. While this port has its issues, it’s not a bad way to play the game at all.
Most third-party, AAA ports have stuck to 30 frames per second on Switch 2, even action games like Tales of Arise, Final Fantasy VII Remake and Rebirth, and Granblue Fantasy: Relink. So I was surprised to find that Lies of P actually has three graphics mode options: Performance-centered, Balanced, and Graphics-centered. Graphics is what you would expect, focusing on visual fidelity to deliver a decent 30 fps, while Performance forgoes fidelity to target 60. It’s hard to tell the difference at a glance, but when comparing the two directly, Performance is noticeably more blurry. Still, I find it worth it for that higher framerate.
Balanced is only available in docked mode and targets 40 fps, which makes it a very strange mode as the Switch 2 can’t currently support Variable Refresh Rate in docked mode, which would be needed to make things look smooth. If you can tolerate the fps difference, you’ll get a decent middle ground between Graphics and Performance, but personally I find it difficult to look at.
I spent the majority of my time playing handheld in Performance mode, and it is unfortunately far from perfect. It stays at 60 the majority of the time, though it frequently drops down 1 frame for a few seconds and has some noticeable dips when exploring; the visual compromises might make someone swap to Graphics mode. There’s a lot of pop-in, particularly in the more open areas later on in the game. Enemies thankfully don’t pop in, but objects like rocks, trees, and other decorations will suddenly come into existence when you get close enough. An additional patch to performance mode is coming on day one, so it’s possible they could further update and clean it up a bit. I prefer a higher framerate for a game like this, but I have been tempted by Graphics mode because of the pop-in and lower resolution.
The game itself plays great, even as someone a bit sick of Souls-likes given their full saturation in the action genre. As an adaptation, though, Lies of P intrigued me, and I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it. Part of that is being able to rebind the controls. I really hate having my primary attack buttons on the bumpers and triggers, so when I saw the game lets you rebind them, I immediately put light and heavy attack on Y and X respectively. The reason Demon Souls put those actions on those buttons was because it’s standing in for your left and right hands. Imitators and even games like God of War, Assassin’s Creed, and even Lies of P didn’t seem to notice this particular bit of intentionality, and just slapped attack on there because that’s what Fromsoft did. Using the face buttons feels a lot better, and I would encourage other Souls-fatigued people to try it, at least until we get non-Souls-like action games again.
Of course, button placement doesn’t mean a whole lot if there’s no reason to press those buttons, and Lies of P’s combat and level design are top-notch. It’s still fairly player-hostile, with hidden foes and traps everywhere, but that’s part of the sub-genre’s appeal. Despite taking place mostly in one city, environments feel diverse, with tons of different enemy types and a variety of location themes. You’re mostly fighting humanoid puppets, but they do throw in the occasional oddball like a freaky clown puppet to spice things up (it’s the stuff of nightmares in the best way).
Despite being a fascinating adaptation of a classic story, the writing is pretty bad. There are weird grammar choices all over the place, phrasing that just makes things confusing instead of creating mystery, and it’s just generally difficult to read. "Everyone's dead, from the Petrification Disease or from the monster.” is just the worst way you could possibly phrase that. The voice acting doesn’t really help or hinder this; it’s fine, but every read is extremely slow in that typical Souls-like fashion. The human/puppet dynamic you can play with through lying or telling the truth is fascinating and easily the best part of the story, but you’re not getting that through the dialogue itself, as it’s more of a mechanical thing.
Overall, I’m really enjoying Lies of P on Switch 2, and I’m glad this is my first experience with the game. While it’s a little crusty, I find Souls-likes much more digestible when you can pick up and play them for a few minutes at a time thanks to the Home menu and sleep mode pausing the game. I also appreciate the multiple difficulty options, as these games being notoriously hard usually just results in grinding levels in my experience. I played on the middle difficulty, and it’s just right for me, being hard but not frustratingly so. With the DLC included, it’s hard to go wrong with this version if you can tolerate the decreased fidelity for better performance.
In case you missed it, check out Richard’s review of the original game on the PlayStation 5 and Henry’s review of the Overture expansion!
