I had been incredibly eager to get back into Lies of P: Overture, after initially previewing it back in May. Despite getting a pretty in-depth hands-on, I had to really expedite my experience to try and get the most out of my brief time with it. More than anything, I was just excited to get to play more Lies of P, because I really didn’t realize how much I loved it until I sat down to finish it almost twice now.
Finally playing Lies of P: Overture in earnest was a bit of a conflicting experience. While at its core, the DLC adds an area and a story that I genuinely wanted to explore and experience. However, what interested me the most was the way this DLC came alongside major game changes that I both welcomed and questioned. It’s certainly the mark of a good game that even its debatably bad decisions are fascinating.
I spoke about it a bit in my preview, but I’ll touch on it here again. In Lies of P: Overture, P and Gemmini are sent back in time to a version of Krat just before the Puppet Frenzy started. However, something even stranger seems to be going on, as several people and creatures have been turned into Carcasses, and it appears the Alchemists are at work here.
I won’t say too much more to save from spoilers, but I will say it was incredibly interesting, not just to see a version of Krat that was pre-Frenzy, but one that felt so hostile in a different kind of way. The base game of Lies of P presented a world that in the midst of a disaster and felt appropriately abandoned. But here, several of the locations feel thematically alive—from the Krat Zoo to a grand Carnival—and create such a unique juxtaposition from the areas of the main game.
“…I was just excited to get to play more Lies of P, because I really didn’t realize how much I loved it until I sat down to finish it almost twice now.”
This is bolstered by the setting’s new and much more monstrous foes that make Lies of P: Overture feel much more unnerving and, dare I say, Bloodborne-esque than before. Facing animals, both common and exotic, corrupted by Ergo, provides a challenge and a genuine scariness that most of the more humanoid Carcasses from the base game just didn’t.
And since the gameplay is fundamentally the same, I want to focus more on what has been changed in Lies of P: Overture for better and worse. The DLC introduces a whole host of Quality of Life fixes that make the game much more convenient and readable. Players can now see when they have enough Ergo to level up, and how many levels they can gain; they can conveniently convert Ergo Shards into XP from the Level Up or Store menus with the push of a button. You really wouldn’t think something so small would make such a difference, but it really does.
Secondly, and most notably, are the game’s “difficulty” options. When starting a new game, players can choose one of three options—although the game says “Legendary Stalker” is the supposed true difficulty…this is a lie. Take my recommendation here, play the game on the second difficulty, “Awakened Puppet,” as it is the one that feels the most balanced and better for even seasoned players.
“Much like with the base game, the more I played Lies of P: Overture, the more I didn’t want to stop.”
I really wanted to believe Round8 when they said, “For that very purpose, actually…we kind of hid the overall kind of elements of that so that you don’t immediately see the details of the difficulty.” But I had started a New Game+ before the DLC was shadow dropped, and unlike most DLC’s which you can just access from the menu, Lies of P: Overture can only be unlocked at the end of Chapter 9. So I began the game on Legendary Stalker, with my Ultra Instinct Pinnochio equipped with end-game gear and weapons, and was getting OBLITERATED by Chapter One mooks.
Even once I reached the DLC, and approached Markiona, Puppeteer of Death at Level 169, set to Legendary Stalker, she annihilated me in—and I’m not being hyperbolic here—two hits. Once I set the game back down, she actually felt like a reasonable challenge, if not a little slanted in my favour, given my high level and stats. While I’m glad to hear Game Director Jiwon Choi is being open to feedback and looking at rebalancing, I had really hoped the concept of optional difficulty in a Soulslike wouldn’t end up feeling like adjusting sliders on whether the player or the enemy hits takes more damage.
However, that being said, I am glad the options are there. It’s about time a Soulslike gives players who may like them, or even want to get into them but are put off by the difficulty, OPTIONS to approach them at their own speed. Even on the lowest difficulty, players are still encouraged to learn proper blocking or parrying in order to make it through fights; they just have a lot more room to take the punishment the game is dishing out. It’s a good step in the right direction, and if the higher difficulties are rebalanced, Lies of P could be something really special.
Much like with the base game, the more I played Lies of P: Overture, the more I didn’t want to stop. Even with a few questionable issues, the game offers a ton of brilliant new content to a game that was already overflowing with it. If you liked Lies of P, you’re absolutely going to love this, and if you haven’t played Lies of P yet, what is wrong with you?
