So, I don't usually play soulslikes, let alone a soulsborne game at all, mostly because, I don't really want to rage most of the time trying to beat the same time over and over again...until I played Lies of P, and the only reason why is because one of my friends was playing Elden Ring in a call one time in a discord VC, and watching them play it reminded me of Dragon's Dogma 2 at first, and then later I got reminded of Lies of P, then sometime after that, I saw a bricky review about Lies of P, and then a few more vids on Lies of P to which I just went: "Eh, might as well give it a try.", and after that exact moment, it has lead me down to through a rabbit hole about Lies of P, and needless to say: I love it, so i'll get to the point and just do the review, it'll go as the following: Gameplay, Story and Music, why no graphics section? Look, I love good graphics, but read the following: If the game is good, it doesn't need great graphics to carry it, anyways, i'll get to the point:

Gameplay: If you've played Lies of P, you've played most, if not all soulsborne/soulslike games, but with Lies of P, that statement is both true and not true at the same time, mostly because the gameplay borrows (some) elements from Bloodborne, Sekiro and Dark Souls (I don't think I need to explain what elements were Dark Souls), Bloodborne because of the Rally Guard system and how it works, and Sekiro with the Parry and Stagger-Bar system, like I said before, I've never played any of those soulsborne games before this, and Lies of P is just my exposure to it, there is also a Weapons Assembly system in the game too, best way I can describe it is kinda like this: If you like the Blade of a weapon but don't like the Handle of that weapon too much, you can change the Handle/Blade to fit your playstyle, and if you have any Motivity Cranks, you can use those to adjust what part of the Handle you like, and finally, the bosses, they are difficult, I don't think I can describe exactly how difficult they are because how difficult you want it is literally defined by how you play against those bosses, you could use Throwables or Specters (which would be the equivalent of those Summons in Elden Ring), that's all I can say for the bosses really, but besides how difficult the bosses are, there is also a truth and lie system too where it pretty much contributes to the story and it's 3 endings, but seeing as i'm mentioning this truth or lie system, we might as well get into the story. 8/10

Story: Welcome to Krat, or more specifically, what's left of it, the story and lore of Lies of P is surprisingly original despite it being a dark reimagining of Pinocchio, but with the concepts in the game like Ergo, Stalkers, The Petrification Disease and the entire city of Krat itself, it's enough for it to stand on it's own without the story of Pinocchio having to do the heavyweight (even though that's the whole premise of Lies of P, kinda.), of course, if you're talking about the lore you might as well talk about the lore of the bosses aswell, personally, one of my favorite boss lore is for the King of Puppets, it is pretty tragic and especially when you progress through the main story which, for spoiler reasons, I can't explain how it's tragic, just trust me, since the King of Puppet's lore is also important to a certain part of the main story, there's two other personal favorite characters would've been Pinocchio himself (aka the person you play as), but that probably wouldn't count in a way somehow, so there's Sophia, who, on my first playthrough, I thought reminded me of Fragile from Death Stranding in a way, she's one of my favorites because aside from being someone who helps guide you on your journey to where you'd have to go, she's also pretty tragic around the late-game which, again for spoiler reasons, I can't say, but yes, I like the story, it's gripping enough to make you want to know what happened before you woke up in that train car, and the side lore (like the lore of the bosses) is pretty well written. 10/10

Music: The music in Lies of P is pretty relaxing to listen to, especially if you had just got back from beating one of the bosses and having that extra amount of adrenaline, not to mention, that the music in the game also has a lore purpose for Pinocchio himself, as I've already mentioned, there is a truth or lie system where you can choose what to say, that is, well, truth or lie, if you did choose to lie, you'll gain humanity, as if you chose to tell the truth, you stay as a puppet, and it so happens that listening to the records in game, they actually help gain Pinocchio his humanity, but oh, here's something surprising, the music records in the game? They're actually covers from DJMAXX, another one of NEOWIZ's games, and like I said, with how it was made/covered, it's almost as if the songs kinda originated from Lies of P in the first place, anyways. 10/10

Conclusion: I didn't expect to love this game that much, really I didn't, because like I said, this is a soulslike, a game genre known to pretty much take some of the elements from FromSoftware's games (and difficulty) and make it in their own image, this was different, the story and gameplay actually kinda exceeded my expectations, not to mention this has some of the best storytelling that I've seen in a good while, in fact, as of typing, Lies of P had it's first dlc confirmed to be out sometime this year, and with me having just finished it, you could kinda tell that I'm debating on if I should do NG+ or not, anyways, go give Lies of P a try, sure, you may die at least 100 times or so before you beat that boss, but the story and environment should make you stay to see how everything comes together, just right. 9.3/10