It isn’t often that I play a game and decide to just put it down never to go back. Especially after playing it for a few hours. There’s something in me that makes that time seem like a waste, if I don’t submit to more time with the game in order to finish it off. But here we are.

On paper, there was no way I was going to enjoy Lies of P. It’s ostensibly a Soulslike, and I have never enjoyed any of that genre. A combination of the grimdark settings and rock-hard gameplay and trying to beat the same area or baddie over and over and over again with slow combat and precision blocking and parrying just doesn’t feel fun. I’m a little jealous of all those people who do find it fun, and yes, I understand the satisfaction they must get for completing sections of the game or taking down an impossible boss. After all, I find the same in 2D Castlevania games, which are, in many ways, also soulslikes.

Lies of P made me want to try this sort of game again. Toby off of the ugvm Podcast (yes, that’s still going, somehow) mentioned he also hadn’t been a fan of soulslikes in the past but Lies turned him. I was also intrigued by the premise – you’re Pinocchio and all the other puppets have gone mad and you have to fight them. It definitely sounded a lot less grimdark and dirty and rainy and miserable.

Sadly, it is just as grimdark and dirty and miserable.

That in itself isn’t the end of the world (unlike other games in the genre which are the end of the world, ah ho ho), but the gameplay feels just like Demon’s Souls does only with marionettes instead of skellingtons and undead soldiers and stuff. Perhaps if this were more like Toy Story or Clockwork Knight or Pikmin instead I could pretend it was something different but it isn’t.

A few hours in, after meeting Geppetto and beating a boss and progressing through a few areas, I just wasn’t enjoying it. I hate how all the baddies respawn when you save the game and how there are loads of baddies that spring out of nowhere meaning you die and have to remember them next time. The world doesn’t have enough landmarks to stop me getting lost and going round in circles, and the slow (albeit quicker than Demon’s Souls) combat just isn’t for me. On the plus side, it isn’t as punishingly hard as other games like this I’ve played, and the plot is really interesting, but no – I’m out.