Lies of P: Complete Edition (Nintendo Switch 2) Review-Master of Puppets READY

Lies of P: Complete Edition (Nintendo Switch 2) Review

Soulslikes and hardcore action RPGs are my go-to genre, and I’ve played (and reviewed) dozens of them. The poor ones misidentify difficulty as the main feature. The good ones might have challenging combat but give the player a wide range of approaches. 2023’s Lies of P is a very good game, one of the first Soulslikes to really completely capture the rhythm and reward of FromSoftware’s best games. Best of all, Lies of P: Complete Edition has a completely different setting and aesthetic than most Soulslikes and some genuinely new ideas.

I played the game several times through on PC and PS5, and now Lies of P has been released on Nintendo Switch 2. The Complete Edition includes the game’s excellent Overture DLC.

Puppet on a String

Back when it was originally announced, the idea of a Soulslike based on Pinocchio seemed a bit ridiculous. How wrong that was! Lies of P leans hard into the dark elements of the seemingly benign and innocent story. Set in the ruined European city of Krat, automatons created to serve humanity suddenly go rogue and murderously attack their makers. You play as a puppet who can choose to lie. Your goal is to survive, uncover the truth, and make choices that evolve you towards being a “real boy.” A number of familiar characters from the Pinocchio story make appearances as NPCs, including your sidekick Gemini. The gearpunk setting has echoes of games like Steel Rising and Bloodborne. Like FromSoft’s titles, Lies of P’s narrative is a little opaque and full of melancholy and menace.

Clocking in at 15-20 hours, the Overture DLC is a prequel. It allows the main character P to travel back in time before the Puppet Frenzy. For players who become invested in the story, Overture is an opportunity to learn the backstories of several important characters. Even better, Overture adds a number of excellent weapons and exciting boss fights.

Outside the narrative, Lies of P really shines in its combat, progression, and weapons systems. Weapons break down into handles and blades, so that you might combine the handle of a club with the blade of rapier. Each have separate impacts on a weapon’s effectiveness and add their own moves.  Although Lies of P doesn’t have an immense catalogue of basic weapons, the parts can be endlessly rearranged without penalty.

Parry This

The parry mechanic is especially critical to success in Lies of P. Quite a number of the game’s bosses are built around it.  There’s almost always a way to brute force your way to victory — consumables, weapons and buffs, etc —  if you can’t nail the parry timing. Generally speaking, Lies of P’s combat is nearly as fun and addictive as the best Souls game. Only a few gimmicky bosses get in the way of perfection. Like many Soulslikes, Lies of P has a summons system to bring an NPC ally — called a Spectre — into boss fights. Unlike FromSoft’s games, adding the NPC does not change the attack or defense stats of the boss.

The Overture DLC brought difficulty options to the base game. This essentially made the original difficulty the new “hard” mode. We won’t argue the merits of a difficulty slider in a Soulslike. I say, the more options the better.

Speaking of Options

As someone who has played the game on a highest-end PC, the Nintendo Switch 2 graphics options feel pretty constrained. Playing handheld, there is a choice between quality and performance mode. Docked, there are quality, performance, and balanced options. Aside from brightness and HDR settings, that’s about it. There is no way to turn down or turn off motion blur, for example, which is a huge oversight.

Playing with the game in handheld mode with the 30fps quality setting pushes the Switch 2 to the edge. The result is inconsistent performance, pop in and sluggish response. Obviously, the performance mode helps with the framerate but only some of the pop-in, and overall the visuals remain a little blurry. The game fares better in docked mode using the balanced setting. It doesn’t come close to the sharpness of Lies of P on a good PC, but that’s not surprising.

In the end, slightly degraded graphics and a lack of visual options are no excuse for not playing Lies of P: Complete Edition. It was, and remains, one of the best non-FromSoft Soulslikes ever made no matter the platform. Thanks to its difficulty options, it’s also relatively accessible and a great introduction to the genre. If you’re an action RPG fan who’s never played Lies of P, now’s your chance to correct that error.

***Nintendo Switch 2 code provided for review***