And it’s also day one GamePass which is nice.

3 months later

I struggled up get into the demo. Might give it another go though. They’ve fixed the dodge and made it less parry heavy I believe.

6 days later

Ok. I… actually really like this. I’ve worked my way through past the first proper boss and into the first area after the introduction. It took me about an hour to actually see the Lies of P title roll across the screen, and then things opened up in interesting ways.

I wasn’t hugely enamoured with it when I tried the demo, but they fixed a lot of my issues. Parrying isn’t necessary imo, but they’ve included some great ways to practice the timing, which is in no way as egregious as Sekiro was anyway.

I think if you like From games, then I’d say at least give this an evening. I was a little standoffish at the start, but I’m pretty into it now.

Had a play for an hour this evening. It definitely feels better to play than the demo a little while back. I think difficulty may have been toned down a little too. I managed the mini boss first time and tougher mobs were easier to manage too. Liking it a lot. Pity there is no multiplayer. Inclusion of emotes seems to indicate it was considered at some point.

First boss now down. Took me a fair few tries after the first being my more successful attempt 🙂. Eventual key was using block more and then following that up with aggression - which it rewards in a nod to Bloodborne. Blocking doesn’t give you 100% protection like some shields in Dark Souls (stamina allowing) - but what you do lose you can regain some of by causing damage.

There are some weapons whose special can give you a one off perfect block . It just keeps unlocking more and more ways to tailor the play style.

Thoroughly enjoying it.

That second big truncheon police mob is a complete ****. Much harder than the first. Had my ass handed to me a lot. Think I’ll grind out the cash for a bag of electric bombs and get him from up top 😉

Yeah the electric bombs from the scaffolding worked a treat 😁. Donkey man also down… slight whiff of edam in my methods here, but if they don’t block my exit with a fog door what is a player meant to do 😉

I’m still wearing that donkey suit. 🙂

    Bigger boss number two down, used a spectre for help - which is a nice feature. Now making my way into the factory. I see what you mean about it opening up. Lots of nice layered features and options.

    A couple of nice features like the post death run to collect your “souls” allowing for you dying on the way, and leaving them outside boss battles if you lose them in there are good too.

    Just finished the factory. It’s so well designed in terms of shortcuts. I saw one review that said it didn’t see much of note in terms of level design and that the shortcuts were useless and they hadn’t seen many of them regardless.

    It’s like the opposite of the game I’m playing. I think they did the first level and stopped, because honestly these are some of the smartest shortcuts I’ve seen in a soulslike. And I include From in that.

      I’m really blown away by how well it performs as well. Everything I’ve tried it on just looks and feels fantastic. I’m running it on the Ally this morning (yay gamepass ultimate) and getting a solid 60 with fsr2 and medium settings, unplugged. Plugged in I could get high settings, but honestly even on medium and - from what I’ve seen on Steam deck reviews - low to medium it looks amazing. Deck is still getting a solid 60 with it.

      It’s a great achievement for a developer who only had 1 other game under their belt.

      Brave I don’t think I’ve had too many “Oooohhhhh!” like shortcuts so far, but there have been plenty of them and they are very functional.

      It’s got a very nice clean look to it, and with close examination I can see they’ve done some great custom LoD stuff too.

        In the 4th full area now. It’s definitely gone full Dark Souls for this bit.

        7 days later

        Flame git boss down in factory now, so unlocked a few more options and upgrade bits. Also discovered I’ve been neglecting heavy attack in favour of quick hit light attack combos. Heavy attacks much more effective against heftier mobs and gets to stagger much quicker too. There is still quite a bit step up from the regular mobs to the tougher ones in terms of HP bars, and this helped a lot. (As did the drop from the one I was avoiding before the fire boss 😉).

        This is pretty good. Why did no one say?

        Good innit?

        I was stuck on a particular boss further down the road but they just released a very helpful patch that dealt with a couple of very common roadblocks and buffed the spectre.

        Still wasn’t a pushover mind, but I finally got him. I was in the process of doing the old Dark Souls grind to level past him.

        I’m away on a short holiday to the west coast just now. So happily carrying on playing on the Ally.

        Top tip. Do not sell the special named ergo piles you get for beating a boss. They’re like boss souls and you’ll get rewarded for hanging on to them until later.