Reviews of Niche Genre Masterpieces, Soulslike fatigue
I'm always fascinated by "Guy who plays [GENRE] games for a living reviews [GENRE] game" stuff, because it offers an interesting window into why people might choose to do that for a living, but also why most people don't.
A few months ago when Age of Wonders 4 launched this happened - I follow a lot of strategy game youtubers so I saw a lot of talk about it, but when I came to play it myself I found I just don't have the depth of experience in the genre to really access what they were talking about as a new pinnacle. It's very good, but I'm just not getting why it's amazing - I need to sink a few thousand more hours into strategy games before I can really appreciate the multitude of choices without massive decision fatigue.
Lies of P looks like it might be a similar sort of deal. IronPineapple is concerned that the wider gaming press may be engaging with it poorly, giving it praise while still approaching it as just another soulslike a la Mortal Shell, and attempting to squeeze it into the boxes they already understand - playing it like Sekiro and getting frustrated with parry timing, or like Bloodborne and getting frustrated at how punishing health-loss is. He makes the case that it's a synthesis of the two that requires the player to really engage with all the game's mechanics and consider options at all times and, well...
That's a really "Guy who plays [GENRE] games for a living" kind of thing to praise.
But also, maybe major outlets should recognise this limitation when reviewing niche genre pieces like Lies of P? Elden Ring might have sold 10s of millions of copies, but it's wildly accessible compared to the rest of the Soulslike genre, and a big evolution in something From has been doing well since Dark Souls - it lets you fuck around. Elden Ring is happy for you to become an expert on one stupid game mechanic and just ride that mechanic through to the ending, just having fun in the various glass-filled sandboxes they lay out for you. Sure, it's hard, and learning attack patterns helps, but you can also just go grab one of the dozens of massively OP weapons and adjust your build to fit if you want to cruise for a bit. Or call in some help. Or spam jars, or aromatics, or...
Anyway Lies of P isn't that game. This is the best justification for dropping the Soulslike genre tag I've seen to date, because it's mechanically similar, but the design is totally different. It doesn't want you to perfect the one mechanic it's built around - it wants you to learn every one of the dozen mechanics they put into it, and they've designed the boss encounters to keep exploiting any potential weaknesses you might have in that knowledge. It's 80% parry 20% dodge/roll, and you need to fucking study if you want to pass that test. You will need to be aggressive to recover health, you will need to understand how blocking aids health recovery, you will need to learn charge attack timing, boss attack windows, item exploitation...
The whole Soulslike genre is built on ideas like this, and it's just not very like Dark Souls. If you love From games there's just no guarantee this is going to appeal, because you probably cheese your way through them, and these genre games are made for the freaks who don't. A normal person who sunk a hundred hours into DS3 isn't going to suddenly click into a non-From Soulslike game like they did Elden Ring.
I think reviewing them in the same breath is just the wrong approach - the audience just isn't the same. Lies of P outwardly appeals to people who loved Elden Ring and just assumed a high-quality Soulslike would be a similar experience, and while the coverage is probably better than they could have expected if they hadn't leaned on that reference, it's not going to do wonders for their review metrics.
From what I can tell Lies of P is really good, but only if you're that particular kind of freak.