Fret not puppet fans, Lies of P has fixed its dodge
And why Neowiz is taking on FromSoftware.
When Lies of P released a demo back in June, many players found its dodge to be, well, dodgy. It was sluggish and imprecise and made tackling the game's towering bosses more challenging than it should have been.
Now that's changed. After receiving feedback from players, developer Neowiz Games has spent time tweaking the dodge ahead of the game's launch next month.
"When we switched the dodging part, we made it smooth and flexible when you dodge," game director Jiwon Choi told me at Gamescom. "Also when you change to another movement or action, we made it shorter and smoother to make it easier to switch."
I was able to play a new Lies of P demo at the show and can confirm the dodge certainly felt smoother. I played two sections, the first exploring the streets of Krat littered with gun-wielding puppet soldiers and spinning robots firing missiles. Dodging past those projectiles to close in for melee sword swipes felt far more satisfying than before.
Later I jumped ahead to a grandiose opera house full of soprano spiders where I encountered the King of Puppets boss: a hulking clockwork enemy that slams its fists and emits electrical charges. Dodging was a far more viable strategy than before and felt more responsive than in the demo. That said, blocking to parry attacks and unleashing a charged thrust between the boss's legs still proved most effective.
A further piece of feedback was on weapon durability, Choi told me. After repeated use weapons become dull and must be sharpened, a mechanic that's now been tweaked. Indeed, I never needed to sharpen my weapon in the middle of a boss fight. "We had some feedback that [durability] is hard to adapt to," said Choi. "We had to adjust it a little bit. Overall [feedback] was about getting used to the combat system, that was the main part we have changed."
He added: "We cannot list every little thing we have changed after the demo version, but of course we took everything thoroughly into account to make it better."
I asked how the studio has approached difficulty, considering Soulslike games are known for their challenge.
"Soulslike games are notorious for their smart level design, but we don't think it's only hard to learn. We want it so players just need some more information and experience to get used to it," said Choi. "Through the combat system, users might feel it's a hard game to adjust to, but in the beginning of the game we made it more approachable.
"We have an expression: it's easy to enter, but it will be hard to get out of it."
So why take on FromSoftware at its own game? For Choi and the team, it was a challenge to rise to - much like a typical Souls boss - as in their eyes nobody else had managed to beat the Dark Souls makers.
"That became motivation for us," said Choi. "We wanted a challenge and to make the best game of that genre."
Standing apart from other games in the genre is also a challenge. "There are so many Soulslike games and already masterpieces from FromSoftware," admitted Choi. "It was pressure and motivation at the same time."
Since this is Neowiz's first attempt at the genre, the team chose the Pinocchio story as it's already familiar to players. But each element of the game, from the setting to combat, has a unique twist.
"Soulslike games are known for sophisticated level design and combat systems. But we of course made it our own, which is better, which makes our game stand out among all these other games," said Choi. "That's how we were thinking about our own specific combat system and it shows in our weapon combination system. We went through so many nights and discussions to make it possible."
Neowiz is also playing on Pinocchio's lies - it's in the title after all. Lying is a tool and isn't always a bad thing, so players will need to decide when to lie and consider the consequences. There will also be multiple endings based on the number of lies told.
Finally, I asked if Choi had any tips for those looking to play the game. "Don't be too frustrated when you die," he said. "Prepare to be defeated happily."
That's certainly advice that applies to any Soulslike game. As I faced off against the King of Puppets with a mix of revised dodging and parries, admiring the mechanical details of its animations and never quite beating its second phase, I died repeatedly but always with a smile on my face.