Darkest Dungeon, a harrowing challenge that will leave you humbled. A very stressful review

I am no stranger to challenging games with moody, gothic atmospheres. From Dark Souls to Elden Ring, I've played my fair share of "spooky hard games." But there's one game that has completely captivated me. Red Hook's Darkest Dungeon, a cult classic strategy game with a reputation for being fiendishly difficult, and also for being heavily inspired by the writings of the classical horror author H.P. Lovecraft. While it is NOT a Souls Like, this is still a Gothic Horror game about medieval fantasy adventurers fighting nightmarish monstrosities. So it's something that's still within my wheelhouse, as I am the Guy Who Likes Spooky Hard Games. Before we continue, here's a quick content warning. Darkest Dungeon is rated T for Teen by the ESRB and is (at least ostensibly) meant for ages 13 years and older. Despite this, I still feel the need to put a content warning because this game can be... a lot. Expect to see violence, body horror, psychological horror, offscreen self-harm, offscreen debauchery and mild profanity.

Official box art of Darkest Dungeon. Image found on Wikipedia.org

So what exactly is Darkest Dungeon? It's a side-scrolling strategy roleplaying game developed and published by Red Hook Studios, released on January 16, 2016. It gained a following online due to its striking art style, impressive voice acting and fiendish difficulty. It would later get three DLC packs titled Crimson Court, Color of Madness and The Butcher's Circus. The former two being major expansions that add in new areas, classes and bosses while the latter is a Player Vs Player minigame. Not only that, but Red Hook also made a full blown sequel to this game, simply titled Darkest Dungeon II. Taking place in a Victorian Gothic setting, Darkest Dungeon tells you everything you need to know about the story with what is perhaps the most captivating intro to any video game ever. The art and voice acting in the intro is so good that I almost never skip it, and it sets the bleak, oppressive vibe that the game goes for perfectly. To put it simply, this intro makes one heck of a first impression.

In Darkest Dungeon, you play as an unnamed, 19th century noble who had received a letter from a mysterious relative only known as the Ancestor. This unnamed noble is meant to be a self-insert for the player, and as such this character remains unseen for most of the game. I am going to refer to this unseen character as the Heir for the sake of consistency. The Ancestor is already dead by the time the letter reaches the Heir, as he discovered *something* so horrible and terrifying that he took his own life in an attempt to escape whatever it was that he found. The letter he sent gave the Heir legal ownership over the Ancestor's estate, which includes a mansion, a nearby hamlet and the titular Darkest Dungeon. Unfortunately, most of the estate is overrun with monsters, cultists, bandits and many more threats to the Heir's safety. Because the Heir is a member of the aristocracy, their life is too important to set foot on the estate in its current condition. So the Heir hires adventurous mercenaries called the Heroes to clear out the estate in their stead. That's the basic premise, and the story doesn't really get more complicated than that. Most of the lore you learn outside of this intro is about the Ancestor's life before he died. Also, the Ancestor's ghost narrates over the entire game, describing both the story and the in-game battles with flowery prose befitting a Lovecraft protagonist.

The Ancestor, who narrates over the entire game, writes a letter to his family begging them to come home and retake the titular Darkest Dungeon. Image found on MobyGames.com

Darkest Dungeon officially starts with a brief tutorial in which you are ambushed by bandits. Fear not, for the Heir always starts with two Heroes on their payroll already; A Crusader named Reynauld and a Highwayman named Dismas (these Heroes are the only ones with canon names, the other Heroes are given randomized names upon recruitment). These two are your starter Heroes, and they exist mostly to teach you the basics of battle. Combat is turn-based with the turn order being decided by a number called the Speed stat, in which the character with the highest number goes first. Each Hero on your team has four different abilities they can choose to use on their turn. What these abilities are depends on the Hero's class, of which there are 18 (15 in the base game and 3 more in DLC expansions). Some Heroes focus on supporting allies with healing and buffs, others focus on killing enemies quickly with big burst attacks, and others still focus on tanking and defenses. You can have up to four Heroes in the same team, with any class combination you want (including multiple Heroes with the same class). 

Additionally, the Heroes follow a strict marching order, and their place within the marching order changes their abilities. These positions are your backline (far left), your frontline (far right) and two middle positions. Some Heroes want to be certain places more than others. For example, the Arbalest and the Plague Doctor both want to be in the backline, as they are long range fighters who use projectiles and support abilities to keep their teammates alive. The Leper and the Hellion meanwhile want to be in the frontline as they are both melee powerhouses who focus on tearing through enemies with close range attacks. Some classes, like the Grave Robber and the Jester, can even change their position mid battle when using certain abilities. And other classes like the Occultist and the Man-at-Arms don't really care where in the marching order they are, as they have abilities that can be used in any position. 

The last main combat mechanic is Torchlight, which is meant to be a high risk, high reward system. Basically, the lighting during an expedition will gradually get darker as you progress, but you can use torches to restore it. Monsters grow more powerful in darkness, but the odds of finding more valuable items and treasure are increased when the Torch Light gets low enough. If you're feeling very brave (or you're desperate for more money) it could be worth letting Torchlight run out on purpose for the extra rewards. But keeping Torchlight high is safer for your Heroes.

Speaking of safety, I should warn you now that Darkest Dungeon is deliberately designed to be a challenging experience, to the point where it provides a warning saying as much every time you boot it up. Why is this game so difficult, you ask? Because of four main mechanics. First and most obvious is permadeath. When a Hero dies for any reason, that specific Hero is dead for the rest of the game, and anything they were carrying at the time of death is lost forever as well. Secondly, Heroes have two health bars, one for their physical wellbeing and one for their mental health. If their physical health reaches zero, that Hero is put on Death's Door. Despite the name, this event doesn't kill the Hero, but if they get hit while on Death's Door there is a 1-in-3 chance that they will die for real. However, literally any healing spell will remove the "Death's Door" condition. As long as your Heroes are NOT on Death's Door, they will never die from physical injuries.

The Plague Doctor, one of the game's many playable Heroes, suffers a mental breakdown and becomes Fearful. Image found on TrueAchievements.com

But this leads to the third major mechanic of the game, Stress. Stress represents your Heroes' declining mental health, and it will rise the longer a battle progresses. If the Stress meter fills all the way up, the Hero will reach their breaking point and they will gain a random, but usually negative, ailment called an Affliction. These can take the form of extreme fearfulness, paranoia and hopelessness, among others. While Afflicted, the Hero in question will occasionally do things that are detrimental to the team, such as skipping turns or even attacking teammates. If the Stress meter fills all the way up a second time, the Afflicted Hero will have a heart attack that puts them on Death's Door immediately. If they were already on Death's Door at the time this happens, then the heart attack straight up kills the Hero. There is a small chance that a Hero will gain a positive status effect called a Virtue, which instantly heals Stress and provides a power boost for the whole team, but Virtues are rare and should not be relied on. If they happen, great! But don't count on them for victory. Also, Stress is persistent across multiple expeditions and can only be treated by giving that Hero a break. These three mechanics work together in tandem to ensure that battles against even basic enemies can quickly devolve into a life or death struggle if you aren't careful. 

So how do you deal with the horrors of the estate? The answer is by upgrading the hamlet. The hamlet is your base of operations, and from here you can replace casualties recruit new Heroes and outfit them with new armor and weapons. You can also give a Hero the week off and let them visit either the Tavern or the Church. Both of these facilities will heal Stress, but most Heroes will develop a preference for one or the other. You can also send the Heroes to the Sanitorium to cure them of any diseases they may have contracted (diseases, while nonlethal, will still weaken a Hero in addition to other status conditions). You can use a collectible currency called Heirlooms to upgrade the hamlet (thus making each facility more effective), and you can get more Heirlooms by exploring the estate. Upgrading the Heroes themselves does not cost Heirlooms, but instead costs Gold, which is also found within the estate. Keep in mind that a Hero will be unavailable for deployment until the next expedition is complete if they are spending the week at the Sanitorium, Tavern or Church, as these facilities' effects are not instant. In fact, my biggest criticism of Darkest Dungeon is that your Heroes are often forced into long periods of downtime even when they are successful. Like, let's say that a Hero becomes Afflicted and gets infected with a disease. You can only heal one ailment at a time, meaning that if you want that Hero to be back at full strength, you need to wait at least 2 in-game weeks for that to happen. The wait gets even longer if the Hero contracts multiple diseases at once.

An overview of the hamlet, which serves as your base of operations. Image found on MobyGames.com

And speaking of taking the week off, the game measures time in weeks, with one expedition to the estate taking up one in-game week. This translates to about 30 minutes to an hour of real life playtime. On the game's hardest difficulty setting, officially called Stygian mode, you will have a time limit forcing you beat the entire game within 86 weeks or sooner.  Stygian mode also puts a 30% multiplier on the health and damage output of all enemies. So maybe don't try this mode if it's your first time playing, as it is especially sadistic. The last major mechanic concerning the hamlet is that there are random events that can occur. These events are always positive, and include things like discounts at the various facilities, all Heroes belonging to a specific class getting a free level up, or even bringing one dead Hero back to life. This random event is the ONLY way to revive dead Heroes, by the way.

The estate is divided into five main areas, each themed around a different archetypal monster; the Ruins (undead), the Warrens (beast men), the Weald (witches/fungi), the Cove (sea monsters) and finally, the Darkest Dungeon (Lovecraftian horrors). The Crimson Court and Color of Madness expansions add two new areas, also themed around archetypal monsters. The former adds the Courtyard (vampires) and the latter adds the Farmstead (aliens/crystals). All areas have human enemies, which take the form of either bandits or cultists. Once you pick an area to explore, the layout in those areas are randomized. The layout might be a linear hallway during one trip, or a sprawling maze during the next trip. Additionally, each expedition has a quest objective. These quests can range from defeating all enemies, to collecting three specific items, to killing a boss. Normally, your Heroes cannot leave until their current quest is complete. However, you can choose to abandon the quest, which will allow all currently living Heroes to return safely, but you will get reduced rewards for doing so. Keep in mind that if all four Heroes sent on an expedition are killed, you lose access to EVERYTHING that they found. As cowardly as it sounds, it is always better to abandon a quest before you lose too many Heroes, as it is better to come back with some rewards than it is come back with nothing at all.

While exploring any given area, your team may stumble across objects called Curios. These can range from treasure chests, to bookshelves, to confession booths, among many others. Interacting with Curios will produce a random effect, which can be either positive or negative in nature. However, you can use certain supply items on specific kinds of Curios to force a positive effect to occur. For example, you can use a skeleton key on treasure chests to get even more treasure from them than normal. You can use holy water on confession booths to heal Stress. You can clear out a blocked passage using shovels. And there are many more possibilities. The only restriction you have to worry about is limited inventory space. Your Heroes can only carry an absolute maximum of 16 different items, with items of the same type sharing an inventory slot. For example, a single slot can hold either 12 rations, 6 bandages or 4 shovels, but not all of those at once. All supply items are one time use, and if you have any unused supplies once the expedition is complete you will get a refund for your troubles. To quote the Ancestor regarding treasure and supplies; "The cost of preparedness, measured now in gold, but later in blood."

On the subject of Heroes, let's talk about them in more detail. As previously mentioned, the Heroes are divided into classes, with each class having a unique role on any given team. While you can make most team compositions work, some classes work better with others. For example, The Highwayman and Grave Robber are mid-range damage-dealers whose weapons can deal extra damage against enemies with the Marked condition. Neither the Highwayman nor the Grave Robber have any way of Marking a target by themselves. So if you want to get the most out of these classes, pair them up with Heroes who can Mark targets like the Hound Master, the Bounty Hunter or the Occultist. In fact, you can build an entire team of Heroes around Marking enemies so that their teammates can obliterate them. The same practice can be applied with other status conditions, like Bleeding and Blight. Or you can forsake all these fancy status conditions altogether and run a party of three melee powerhouses who overwhelm their foes with sheer strength, and give them a single healer to keep them alive. And if you are in desperate need of Gold, the otherwise unimpressive Antiquarian can multiply the amount of treasure found on an expedition, as long as the other three Heroes do everything they can to protect her. The possibilities are endless. 

You can also customize your Heroes with collectible items called Trinkets that provide a passive boost to certain abilities. Like a scroll that increases the amount of health healing spells restore by 30%, or a bandana that raises the damage of all long-range attacks by 25%. All bosses (excluding the final boss) drop extra strong Trinkets with powerful effects, and most bosses are worth killing just for their Trinkets. The last thing about Heroes you need to worry about is camping. On longer expeditions, the party will be given a log of firewood. Use this item in an empty room and your Heroes will camp for the night. Outside of certain Curio events, camping is the only reliable way of healing Stress mid-expedition. All classes also have special camp abilities, which allows them to either heal Stress even further or give the party some kind of buff. But of course, this game won't let you camp without danger, as every time you set up camp there is a 1-in-3 chance that you'll get ambushed. And said ambushes always start in complete darkness, meaning the enemies will always be at max strength should this happen. Some Heroes, such as the Crusader, Occultist and Vestal, have camping abilities that outright prevent ambushes from occurring. For the sake of your own sanity, make sure at least one of your Heroes has an anti-ambush camping ability. 

A promotional comic depicting the Leper leaving his kingdom for the greater good. Image found on darkestdungeon.fandom.com and darkestdungeon.com

One fun bit of trivia I want to mention about the Heroes is their backstory comics. These comics are not accessible within the game itself, but were made as promotional material. These comics show more of the Heroes' lives prior to the start of the game, and all of them are meant to paint the Heroes in a tragic, or at least sympathetic light. Just to give a few examples, the Crusader was once a farmer with a wife and son who was drafted into a holy war, but he's been fighting for so long he gave up hope on returning home. The Arbalest was forced to run away from home as a child due to an angry mob burning her village down, with the only relic of her childhood being her father's crossbow. The Hound Master was once a police officer with a strong sense of justice, who left the police force in disgust when he found out his commanding officers were part of a cult. My favorite comic goes to the Leper, who was once a fair and just king that was beloved by his subjects. But one day, the Leper contracted leprosy (obviously), and he left his kingdom willingly to spare his people from a potential plague. And keep in mind, the comics manage to communicate these ideas and themes without a single word of dialogue, instead choosing to let the art tell the story by itself. Even if you have no desire to play Darkest Dungeon yourself, I can highly recommend looking at the comics. They are only one page long each and have some hauntingly beautiful artwork.

One last thing about the Heroes before we continue. Each Hero is given a random set of minor strengths and weaknesses called traits. Traits provide either an improvement or a penalty, like 10% extra damage against undead but having -1 Speed. Some traits make it so a Hero can only heal Stress with specific methods, like the Tippler trait, which makes the Hero become an alcoholic who can only heal Stress by drinking at the Tavern. A Hero can have a maximum of five "positive" traits and five "negative" traits, and once that limit is reached, the old traits will swap out for new traits at random intervals. If there's a positive trait you really like and want it to stay on a Hero, you can send them to the Sanitarium to lock that trait in, making it permanent. Likewise, if there's a negative trait that you feel is more trouble than it's worth, you can use the Sanitarium to instantly remove it. While most of the traits are minor enough to not make that big a difference, there is one negative trait that's hugely detrimental and should be removed immediately; Kleptomania. It's exactly what it sounds like, a random chance for that Hero to steal treasure and supplies from the rest of the team. The problem is that there is (to my knowledge) no way to get those items back, as they are pretty much gone forever. For obvious reasons, you don't want a Hero who will steal from their own comrades. Funnily enough, Reynauld, the Crusader given to you during the tutorial, always starts with Kleptomania as his first negative trait. Every playthrough of Darkest Dungeon will involve you sending Reynauld straight to the Sanitorium to cure his Kleptomania as soon as you are able to. This is not negotiable. It's a canon event.

A group of Heroes start a battle against the Swine King, one of the game's bosses. Image found on MobyGames.com

But now it's time to talk about the bosses, which are a major highlight for me. Not only because their designs are creatively monstrous, but they have some neat mechanics that make them more interesting that the regular enemies. Each of the four main parts of the estate have two bosses that need to be defeated three times each (with each rematch being more difficult than the previous battle).The Ruins get the Necromancer and the Prophet, the Warrens get the Swine King and the Formless Flesh, the Weald gets the Hag and the Brigand Pounder, and the Cove gets the Siren and Drowned Crewmen. There are other bosses in the game, but these are the main ones you need to worry about. Anyway, every time you start an expedition to fight a boss, you will get a confession from the Ancestor's ghost where he explains his relationship with the boss in question. Fight these bosses enough times and the Ancestor will reveal more information, both about the boss and about himself. And the more you learn about the Ancestor, the more you learn that he was kind of an awful person in life. Every boss encountered is either one of his failed experiments, a co-conspirator he betrayed or an unfortunate victim who was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. 

I have more to say about the Ancestor himself, but let's get back to the bosses. All of them have a gimmick that allows the boss to mess with the Heroes' positioning or even the turn order itself. Just to list a few examples of my favorite bosses, the Prophet can "predict" an attack that will hit a random Hero three turns in advance, and if that Hero doesn't switch to a safer spot in the marching order they'll get crushed by a boulder. The Formless Flesh is actually four different creatures fused together, and thus it gets four separate turns for each of its parts. But because these parts share a health bar, damage over time effects like Bleeding and Blight are four times as effective, as these effects activate once per each part's turn (thus dealing damage four times total). The Hag can grab a random Hero and put them in her stew, preventing them from doing anything until the other three Heroes free them by smashing the Hag's cooking pot. My favorite boss is the Brigand Pounder, as it's literally just a really big cannon being escorted by regular human bandits. The cannon can't do anything by itself, but if a Brigand Matchstick Man gets a chance to light the cannon's fuse, all four Heroes get hit with enough damage to instantly put the ENTIRE TEAM on Death's Door. The idea being that you have to kill the Matchstick Man before that can happen, and once he is dead you can focus on whittling down the cannon itself. 

Now let's talk about the Ancestor himself, because he is part of the reason I like this game as much as I do. I know I just called the Ancestor an awful person. But make no mistake, the Ancestor is my favorite character in this whole game, besides the Heroes themselves. Having such a villainous character narrate both the story and the gameplay is such an interesting artistic decision to me. His ghost speaks with a mixture of flowery prose and thinly veiled bitterness. He can go from mourning the decline of the estate and regretting how he handled his original expedition, to proudly boasting about the many ways in which he ruined the lives of the bosses, and somehow both of these views feel in character for him. You could make the argument that he is trying to atone for his sins by helping the Heir retake the estate. But honestly? I don't get the vibe that he even wants redemption. He sounds more annoyed that he died before his plans came to fruition than anything else.

And of course, I have to mention the incredible voice acting of the late Wayne June, who voiced the Ancestor. June brought his absolute A-Game when it came to delivering such verbose narration, and the game is all the better for it. And the Ancestor's callouts during the expeditions are iconic, with memorable lines like "These nightmarish creatures can be felled, they can be beaten!" and "A moment of clarity in the eye of the storm!" My favorite line the Ancestor says is "Monstrous size has no intrinsic merit, lest inordinate exsanguination be considered a virtue!" Because that is the fanciest and most pretentious way of saying "the bigger they are, the harder they fall." And how could I forget THE most famous quote from this game? "Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer." This quote is is unironically the best piece of advice anyone could give while playing this game. Never assume your Heroes are invincible, as all it takes for an expedition to fail is for you to push your luck too far. Always be prepared for any scenario, including the possibility of your favorite Heroes dying. Heck, you could make the argument that the Ancestor was guilty of overconfidence himself, as the entire reason he did everything he did was because he believed he was above facing consequences for his actions.

The Bounty Hunter smashes his axe into an enemy, destroying it. Image found on TrueAchievements.com

Okay, now that we have discussed most of the game, let's talk about the Darkest Dungeon itself, as it is the location that the game is named after and works under some different rules from other areas. Firstly, it is the only location with non-randomized layouts. This means you could look up a map online and use that information to beeline for the quest objective. Secondly, there are no Curios whatsoever in the Darkest Dungeon. It's meant to be a marathon of extra tough battles with few chances to rest. Thirdly, any Hero who goes to the Darkest Dungeon and survives will never return for a second trip, with the idea being that the Darkest Dungeon was so horrific and traumatizing that it gave that specific Hero permanent PTSD. The only exception to this rule is if you are playing on Radiant mode, the game's version of easy mode. Radiant mode removes this PTSD restriction, though "traumatized" Heroes will start the expedition with the Stress meter at 80% full the moment they return, so you're still discouraged from using the same Heroes again. These traumatized Heroes can still go on expeditions to everywhere else in the estate, and they even give weaker Heroes an experience boost, causing them to level up faster. So they can still contribute to the campaign, even if they won't get a chance to fight the final boss. I would say that the final boss being in the Darkest Dungeon is a spoiler, but come on. Where else would the final boss of a game called Darkest Dungeon be if not in the place literally called the Darkest Dungeon?

Speaking of the final boss, the final battle is really cool narratively, even if it is not as difficult as the other bosses. Full spoiler warning ahead. The final boss is none other than the ghost of the Ancestor himself. Here at the final floor of the Darkest Dungeon, the Ancestor reveals what exactly was the great and terrible *thing* he found that drove him to take his own life; The Heart of Darkness. This ancient being possesses all knowledge of the cosmos, including truths that mankind was never meant to learn. It also feeds on human suffering, and if it eats enough suffering, it can grow strong enough to cause the end of the world. So the Ancestor made a deal with it. The deal was that the Ancestor would be revived as an immortal spirit with access to as much knowledge as he wants, and in exchange, the Ancestor would cause human suffering on an unprecedented scale, thus speeding up the Heart's gestation. The Ancestor knew his relatives would spare no expense in reclaiming the estate. He also knew that plenty of Heroes would "suffer" in the process. But the Heroes were never meant to push as far into the Darkest Dungeon as they did, and as such, the Heart of Darkness is forced to wake up early, which is why the Ancestor is fighting you now. 

The battle against the Ancestor/Heart of Darkness is not a hard fight, but it is a long one. It has four phases and plenty of attacks that can inflict all the major status conditions, but it doesn't have anything you haven't seen before by this point. That is, until you reach the final phase. Once the Heart is down to its fourth and final health bar, it can use its signature move: Come Unto Thy Maker. This "fun" little ability is a guaranteed one-hit kill move. This attack ignores Death's Door and is always 100% accurate. Nothing will save you from Come Unto Thy Maker. The good news is that the Heart can only use this technique twice per battle. The bad news is that the Heart forces the player to choose who gets hit with it. This attack is devastating for obvious reasons, and for a long time everyone (including Red Hook themselves) believed it was impossible to defeat the final boss without suffering casualties. The fact that the game forces you, the player, to choose the target of this attack is adding insult to injury. Yet it works from a narrative standpoint. When you start out, you feel compelled to be a good boss to your Heroes, paying for their healthcare and outfitting them with the finest equipment available. But as they start dying and you get used to replacing the deceased, you start to see less value in your Heroes' lives. Soon enough you realize that unless the Hero in question is fully upgraded (or close to it), it's often cheaper to just fire a half-dead, traumatized Hero and hire a replacement than it is to heal them properly. This battle is basically calling you out for (potentially) becoming just as ruthless as the Ancestor was. After all, at this point you are not only desensitized to the death of the Heroes, you are sacrificing them yourself just for a chance to finish the final battle.

But what if I told you it doesn't have to end that way? As it turns out, some people on the Internet figured out not one, but two different ways to circumvent Come Unto Thy Maker, completely skipping over the sacrifice and outsmarting the developers themselves. The first method is the simplest, but arguably the most dangerous. All you have to do is bring ONLY two Heroes to the final boss fight. You see, the Heart of Darkness can only use Come Unto Thy Maker if at least three out of four Heroes survived long enough to reach the final phase. If there's less than three Heroes on the team by the time you reach this phase, the Heart has no reason to use its signature move. The second method is more complicated, but more satisfying; Figure out a way to kill the Heart in a single turn. The Heart can't use Come Unto Thy Maker if it's dead. I don't know the exact details, nor do I have the time to explain, but there are plenty of YouTube videos out there showing that it can be done.

Regardless of how you choose to defeat the Heart of Darkness, its gestation is halted and forced back into dormancy. But as is tradition with Lovecraftian storytelling, the Ancestor claims that the Heart cannot be permanently destroyed by mortal hands, and that the Heart will return one day to destroy the world. The game ends with the Heir writing a letter to their next of kin, just as the Ancestor did. And the Heir takes their own life to escape the Darkest Dungeon, just as the Ancestor did. And the letter calls in another relative who leads another doomed crusade to retake the estate, just as the Heir did. And then when they defeat the Heart again, that relative will write a letter to their next of kin. And that relative will come to reclaim the estate, defeat the Heart, and write a letter to THEIR next of kin. And so on and so forth. This familial bloodline is now locked in a never ending loop of wasting money and lives on trying to retake this cursed estate, while inadvertently saving the world repeatedly. It's a bittersweet ending, one that's more bitter than sweet. It does create the somewhat humorous mental image that the only thing stopping the end of the world from occurring is a single, stupidly stubborn family of aristocrats with more money than sense who refuse to let this estate go.

A group of Heroes make camp for the night. Image found on SteamDB.com

In terms of presentation, Darkest Dungeon is stylishly macabre, with a comic book inspired art style with heavy shading and sharp angles on literally everything. The game is so over-the-top in its Gothic Horror aesthetic that it borders on absurdity. I mean, what other video game has a literal leper as a playable character? One detail I love is how all of the Heroes cover their eyes, either with masks, helmets or shadows. Despite having wildly different outfits from a wide range of cultures and time periods, the eye covering is something that is consistent across everyone. The only creatures with visible eyes are the monsters you battle against. I'm sure there's some symbolism there, if you want to read into it. I also like how the vampire enemies added in the Crimson Court are based off of mosquitos instead of bats, thus giving them a more insectoid appearance. It's a rather clever spin on a tried and true monster concept.

The actual animations are a little limited, unfortunately, but there's a certain charm to the Heroes various poses. You see, the only part of the game that is fully animated is walking from room to room. When in battle, the Heroes simply *snap* from an idle pose to a handful of contextual poses based on what is happening at the moment, with no smear frames to make the transition between poses smoother. You'd think this would weaken the visual experience, but in practice it makes the game look and feel even more like a comic book, and I mean this as a compliment. Basically, there is no other video game that looks quite like Darkest Dungeon. The only negative thing I can say about the visuals is that I noticed some mild typos in the captions. Nothing serious, but things like not capitalizing the letter "I" when using it as a first person pronoun, or accidentally putting the plural version of the word when the Ancestor is clearly referring to something singular. It's not a deal breaker by any means, but once you notice the typos, it becomes hard to ignore them.

I've already mentioned the incredible voice talents of Wayne June as the Ancestor, and thus I will not repeat myself. Keep in mind that the Ancestor is the only character in the game who is fully voiced. Everyone else gets comic book speech bubbles containing written dialogue. Anyway, the sound effects are crisp and instantly recognizable. I like how every attack (for both Heroes and monsters) has two different sound effects depending on whether or not the attacker actually hits their target. Like you can hear the weapon whizzing past the target and hitting only empty air, but the if attack strikes true, you can hear the weapon crush through bone and slice through flesh. It's brutal sound design, but it fits the gruesomeness of the game's aesthetics. 

The music meanwhile could best be described as stressful (pun intended again). The battle music (composed by Stuart Chatwood) sounds less like a heroic conflict between good and evil and more like a siren warning of impending doom. The music makes it clear that the Heroes are not welcome in the estate, and its monstrous denizens will show no mercy. And as the Torchlight lowers, the music gets louder, with more instruments and even demonic cackles and growls joining the beat. The only "calm" songs in the soundtrack are the hamlet's theme, simply titled The Hamlet, and the camping music, titled A Brief Respite. Both of these songs are meant to be relaxing and comforting, in their own way. But The Hamlet has a distinctly mournful vibe to it, sounding like something you would hear at a funeral. I don't know what instruments were used to make the soundtrack, as music is something that is not my expertise, but I do know that I would call the soundtrack "good" for what it's trying to do. Would I willingly listen to the combat music while doing chores or something? Not really. But this soundtrack does a good job keeping you immersed in this setting.

Overall, Darkest Dungeon is a brutal game that is most definitely not for everyone. Not to sound like a stereotypical game journalist, but I can see the difficulty being a major turn off for some people. This is not the kind of game you play casually to blow off steam. At the same time, so much care and passion was put into it that I can say with confidence that I greatly enjoyed the 90+ hours I spent with the game. No other game looks, sounds or plays quite like it, and I can respect the artistic vision. The game isn't difficult for the sake of it, there's a point to it. Have you ever heard the phrase, "suffering builds character?" That is the core thesis of Darkest Dungeon, both on a narrative and mechanical level. So I will give Darkest Dungeon 4 stars out of 5. It is really good for what it's trying to do. You just need to be onboard for that kind of experience.

Darkest Dungeon is the property of Red Hook Studios. None of the images used in this review were created by me. Please support the original creators.

A "totally serious post" on Hollow Knight: Silksong

 One of the best platformer games I've ever had the pleasure to experience was Hollow Knight. Thanks to its haunting music, thrilling boss battles and Gothic art style, Hollow Knight is a game that I'd argue comes the closest to being "the perfect video game." So when Team Cherry announced their plans to make a sequel back in February 19th, 2019, I was naturally excited. Who wouldn't be? Especially because the sequel, officially titled Hollow Knight: Silksong, would focus primarily on Hornet, a fan favorite supporting character from the original game.

Official cover art for Hollow Knight: Silksong. Image found on Wikipedia.org and IGN.

In case you don't know what Hollow Knight is or if you need a recap, it was an action-platformer game taking place in a world of anthropomorphic insects. You played as a character called the Knight, who is a humble warrior tasked with exploring the fallen kingdom of Hallownest. Within the heart of Hallownest lies the Hollow Knight, the host of an ancient goddess of plague and disease called the Radiance. The Knight's ultimate goal is to find a way to destroy that goddess to stop her plagues from spreading to the rest of the world. Making the journey more complicated is Hornet, the long-lost princess of Hallownest who believes the Knight is not worthy of saving the world. Eventually, after many trials and tribulations, Hornet agrees to team up with the Knight and the two of them fight the Hollow Knight together. Spoilers here, but depending on the ending you got, the Knight would die sacrificing itself to destroy the Radiance.  Hornet meanwhile is released from her royal obligations and is now free to travel the world as she sees fit. Like I said earlier, the main sales pitch of Silksong is that it's supposed to focus on Hornet's adventures as she travels the world of bugs and beasts. 

Only problem was the wait. There were very few trailers after the initial announcement. No new screenshots. And not a release date in sight. The only reason we knew the game was still in development was because Team Cherry would post on their social media accounts specifically to remind everyone that Silksong is still in development. For six long years, the Hollow Knight fan community waited with bated breath for, well, anything more substantial than a Twitter/Facebook post. Because of that arduous wait, the fandom was driven mad and started making increasingly nonsensical memes about a game that technically doesn't even exist yet. Usually these memes took the form of fake spoilers or fake boss names. Were these memes a thinly veiled coping mechanism for a fandom that's been deprived of potential content to enjoy? Probably. Was it hilarious to watch the insanity unfold? Definitely. What makes the insanity even funnier is that Silksong actually won two awards already, both times for Most Anticipated Game. The first time was in 2022. The second time was in 2024.

But then Silksong released in The Year of Our Lord, 2069 and it made 420 Morbillion dollars at the box office. It won a Nobel Prize for being the pinnacle of human achievement. All the world leaders of Earth and Mars collectively agreed that nothing they could do or make will ever surpass the majesty that is Hollow Knight: Silksong. Centuries from now, Hollow Knight Silksong will be required studying for History Majors, as it will go on to influence our society's culture for generations. It would go on to be praised for such profound scenes like the time Hornet said "Every Silk has its Song!" And it would feature spectacular battles against legendary foes like "Nightmare Queen Grimm-Ette" "Grey Prince Zote 2: Mighty Boogaloo" and "Radiance Prime," which are all totally real bosses and not outlandish parodies that I invented on the spot.

…Okay, I've run this joke into the ground. This isn't a real review. In case it wasn't obvious, this was an April Fool's joke. But in all seriousness, the sheer insanity of the Hollow Knight fandom could have been avoided had Team Cherry just done a better job marketing the game. For all we know this game was shadow-canceled and Team Cherry is too ashamed to make that public knowledge. Either that, or they announced it way too early. Never before had I seen a game with such little marketing cause so much drama on the Internet. Then again, maybe not advertising the game was the plan all along, because the sheer mystery of whether or not this game will release within our lifetimes is better marketing than all the potential trailers and screenshots Team Cherry could have released combined.

I hope you enjoyed this little joke post. Obviously this joke is going to age like milk if Team Cherry ever actually released the game (or announced its cancellation publicly). So depending on how far you are into the future, this is going to look like utter madness. Or it's going to look like I got hit with Apollo's Gift of Prophecy and used it in the silliest way imaginable. Either way, I do genuinely recommend playing the first Hollow Knight. Even without a sequel, it's an excellent experience that has been honed to near perfection.

Hollow Knight and Hollow Knight: Silksong are the properties of Team Cherry. None of the images used in this post were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Untitled Goose Game is outrageously silly. A very fowl review

 It's pretty rare for a video game to be advertised as a "slapstick comedy experience." Sure, there are jokes and quips in video games, but rarely is the game itself built entirely around the joke. But today's review is about the exception to that rule, a game called Untitled Goose Game. Before you ask, yes, that is the actual title of the game. For obvious reasons, the "untitled" part of the name was meant to be a placeholder. The developers, House House, decided that leaving the "untitled" part in the title was funnier and did a better job communicating the idea that this is supposed to be a comedy game.

The official box art for Untitled Goose Game. Image found on Wikipedia.org

Untitled Goose Game is a stealth-focused puzzle game that was developed and published by House House and Panic Inc. respectively. The game was released September 20th, 2019 and became a hit because of the inherent absurdity of the concept. In Untitled Goose Game, you play as a goose. Obviously. But not just any goose. You play as the Horrible Goose, who has come to a quiet, unnamed village specifically to mess with the townsfolk and cause as many problems for them as possible. The game has basically no lore or narrative outside this premise. The only official bits of lore is that the village is located "somewhere" in England. Anything else the devs have said about the lore of this game should be taken with a grain of salt, as this is a comedy game and thus it is not meant to have a serious narrative.

The Goose has a handful of abilities at its disposal. It can run, crouch, pick up small objects, push and pull around larger objects, flap its wings and honk. You use these abilities in tandem with each other to solve simple logic puzzles and be an overall menace to society, as geese are wont to do. The Goose cannot fly, mostly for gameplay reasons. A lot of puzzles would be trivialized if the Goose could just fly over the obstacle. Just to give a few examples of how puzzles work in this game, you could trick a villager into hitting his own thumb by honking at him right before he hammers a sign into the ground, Looney Toons style. You can also trick a villager into putting a lovely red ribbon on the Goose by pretending to be a statuette, then start flapping your wings right afterwards to give that villager a jump scare.

In each of the game's four main areas (the Garden, the High Street, the Back Gardens, and the Pub), there is at least one townsperson with a simple behavior schedule. As long as the Goose doesn't distract or hinder them, the townspeople will perform a set of thematically appropriate tasks and carry on with their day. The Groundskeeper for example will tend to his garden if the Goose leaves him alone, while the Shopkeeper will brush away dirt from her marketplace. If they see the Goose pick up one of their belongings, they will give chase to get it back. Given the mellow/humorous vibes that Untitled Goose Game goes for, the Goose is never killed or captured. In fact, there simply isn't any kind of game over status at all. If the Goose gets caught, it's forced to drop the item it stole, but nothing's stopping you from stealing that exact same item again immediately afterwards. Heck, the Goose can just yank items right out of people's hands as long as they aren't paying attention.

The Horrible Goose has just stolen the Groundskeeper's keys. Image found on goose.game/presskit

There are, however, two villagers with unique interactions with the Goose. The Wimp (encountered in the High Street) and the Burly Man (encountered in the Pub). The Wimp is terrified of the Goose and will run away if approached. The Burly Man meanwhile works as a bouncer for the Pub and will chase the Goose on sight, even if it hasn't stolen anything yet. But only if the Goose is already inside the Pub. Honestly, I almost feel bad for the Wimp specifically because out of all the villagers in the game, the Wimp gets tormented the most. If you complete all the tasks related to the Wimp, he gets chased into a phone booth by the Goose, who also steals his glasses and swaps them out for a worse pair.  The Goose can also untie his shoelaces to make him trip and fall flat on his face. And top of all that, the Goose tricks the Wimp into buying a toy airplane that he already owned by placing said toy plane inside the nearby market. Like, the Goose is obviously a villain (of the harmless, Saturday Morning variety) but the way the tasks single this one person out feels almost excessive. Not that this is a bad thing. Comedy needs a victim, after all.

Every time the Goose makes its way to a new area, it is given a To-Do List. You cannot progress to the next area until all tasks on the list are completed. These tasks can include things like "trick the groundskeeper into hitting his own thumb" or "place a bunch of (stolen) groceries in a basket." Again, the solution to most of these tasks is simple enough to be solved without too much issue. Heck, even the final task (which I won't spoil here) isn't too hard once you have a decent path planned out. Once you beat the game for the first time, you unlock even more To-Do Lists for the four main areas . There's even speed run challenges where you have to complete each area before the town church bells ring, which in practice gives you about six minutes per area to complete it.

Untitled Goose Game's two-player co-op mode being used to bully the Wimp. Image found on mobygames.com

Also, Untitled Goose Game sports a two player co-op mode, with the second player controlling a second Horrible Goose. I haven't had a chance to test this mode out for myself, but from what I understand, all of the tasks are more or less the same as their single player counterparts. Keep in mind that co-op mode is local only. It does not work online. What this means is if you want to try it for yourself, the second player as to be be there with you in person, and you need an extra controller for the second player to use. That being said, I'd imagine some tasks might be easier with a second player, since one player could distract the villagers while the other completes a task in secret.

There is only one bad thing I can say about Untitled Goose Game, which is that it's a very short experience. It will take you about three-to-six hours to complete your first playthrough. And while the game does have bonus challenges that become available after completing it for the first time, these challenges take just as much time to complete as well. But then again, if my biggest complaint is "I wish there was more of this game to play through" I suppose that's a blessing in disguise. After all, it proves that the game is fun enough that I would want more of it.

In terms of presentation, Untitled Goose Game is a cutesy, simplistic game. Everything has a smooth, cel-shaded, pastel aesthetic to it, from the Goose itself to the environments. The Goose's mannerisms are humorous, and speaking as someone who sees waterfowl on a regular basis, the body movements and animations on the Goose are surprisingly accurate to how geese move around in real life. The townspeople have a surprising amount of personality in their animations, despite having no spoken dialogue or even facial expressions. The most you'll hear from them is either annoyed grunting or screaming in goose-related terror. The human character designs remind me of the character designs in Aardman's Wallace & Gromit series. But I think my favorite thing would be the music and sound effects in this game. The Horrible Goose has a dedicated "honk" button, and hearing the Goose honk will never not put a smile on my face. To make it even better, the exact sound of the honk changes based on where the Goose is located or what item the Goose is holding. Like if you honk near a tunnel or well, the honk will echo. And if you honk while holding a glass bottle, the honk sounds slightly muffled. And if you honk while holding a harmonica, the Goose will play a little tune with it.

The Goose honks into a well. Image found on goose.game/presskit

The game's soundtrack consists entirely of piano, because a simple game needs a simple soundtrack. The piano notes vary in intensity based on what the Goose is doing. The piano is dead silent when nothing important is happening, it plays a triumphant jingle when the Goose completes a task, and it plays a panicked tune when the Goose is being chased by a villager. Funnily enough, House House never intended for Untitled Goose Game to even have music at all. The music was originally meant only for the game's announcement trailer, but it was so well-received that the devs recorded some new piano music as a last-minute addition to the game. Honestly, the piano music elevates the experience. It makes the game feel more charming and lively. Like one of those old silent films from the 1890's and 1920's.

Overall, would I recommend Untitled Goose Game? Yes. 100%. It's a short, sweet slapstick spectacle. Again, my only criticism is I wish the game was a little bit longer. And you know a game is good when the only complaint I have is that I wanted more to do in it. It's current price at the time of writing is around $20 USD, and for a bite-sized comedy experience I'd say that's pretty reasonable pricing. I give Untitled Goose Game 5 stars out of 5. This review feels like it's shorter than normal, but there admittedly isn't much to talk about. It's a simple game through and through.

Untitled Goose Game is the property of House House and Panic Inc. None of the images used here were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, it's a Souls Like IN SPACE. A very Forced review

Star Wars is an absolute monolith of a franchise. Everyone has either heard of it, saw at least one of the nine main movies or played one of the literal 100+ video games. Back in 2020 I reviewed Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, a surprisingly competent game that combines the "Space Western Samurai Movie" aesthetic of the franchise with Souls Like combat and Metroidvania style exploration and upgrades. All things considered, this combination worked shockingly well. So naturally, a sequel to Fallen Order was released in 2023, titled Star Wars: Jedi Survivor. I knew I wanted to review it, because not only do I like Star Wars, I am a big fan of Souls Like games. That being said, I came away with mixed feelings on this game, for reasons I will explain more thoroughly later.  Before we begin, I have a few disclaimers. Firstly, I played the game on Playstation 5, and thus can only speak to its performance on that system. Secondly, I have already explained terms like Souls Like in greater detail in other reviews, and will assume you know the basics of the genre. I will also offer (brief) explanations of common Souls Like terminology as needed.

The official box art of Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, featuring Cal Kestis and BD-1. Image found on Wikipedia.org

In the event you somehow don't know what Star Wars is, here's an attempt to summarize over 40 years of lore. A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away there was a Galactic Republic. The Republic was the de facto main government of the entire galaxy, with senators and representatives from literal thousands of different planets. One day, the Republic went to war with a group called the Confederacy of Independent Systems, called the Separatists for short. The Separatists didn't want to live under Republic rule, and unleashed an army of robotic minions called Battle Droids to terrorize the Galaxy. The Republic responded by creating an army of super soldier clones, and tasked an ancient order of psychic warrior-monks called Jedi Knights to lead said clones into battle. The Republic came very close to winning the war, thanks to the clones' tenacity and the Jedi's otherworldly Force powers giving them a distinct advantage. However, the clones were actually a trap devised by Chancellor Palpatine, who was manipulating both sides of the war for his own benefit. When Palpatine told the clones to "Execute Order 66" all the clones turned on their Jedi masters, killing 90% of them in a violent coup. To add insult to injury, Palpatine corrupted the strongest Jedi of them all, Anakin Skywalker, and turned him into an evil cyborg samurai called Darth Vader. With no one left to oppose him, Palpatine rebuilt the Republic into the first Galactic Empire, with himself as Emperor and Darth Vader as his personal enforcer..

In both Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor, you play as a Jedi Knight named Cal Kestis, who as previously mentioned is a survivor of Order 66. Back in Fallen Order, he and his friends found and destroyed an artifact showing the location of every Force user in the galaxy. This was important, because the Empire is still hunting down and executing the few survivors of Order 66, and converting the few "neutral" Force Users into Sith Inquisitors. Also, Cal attempted to fight Darth Vader. Emphasis on the word "attempted." Cal is meant to be a fairly average Jedi. He's a good swordsman, his Force powers are strong enough to compete with most other Force Users, and he has a knack for improvising and adapting to his opponents mid-battle. But Darth Vader is the strongest Force User in the galaxy. Darth Vader's entire purpose, narratively speaking, is to be an absolute menace that puts the fear of death in the heroes. You see Darth Vader approaching, you run. Don't fight him. You will not win. 

Jedi Survivor takes place five years after the first game. Cal is now working with Saw Gerrera, leader of a rebel group trying to overthrow the Emperor. Meanwhile, his old friends Cere, Greez and Merrin have all gone their separate ways. The game starts with a tutorial mission in which Cal and a crew of Saw's rebels kidnap an Imperial Senator and steal confidential information, right in the middle of Coruscant (the Imperial capital). This mission shows off all the main mechanics of the game, from combat to puzzle solving to climbing sections. One thing I like about the game is that Cal starts off with all the movement upgrades from the previous game already unlocked, such as double jumping and running on walls. The tutorial ends with a boss fight against a Sith Inquisitor known as the Ninth Sister, who was actually a major villain from the first game. In this game she gets bodied, because Cal has spent the five year time skip training and perfecting his abilities, and the Ninth Sister did no such training in the meantime. And that's actually a good way to show both narratively and mechanically how much stronger Cal has grown in the transition between games.

The mission ends in a bust, as four out of the five rebels assisting Cal are killed in action and the senator is killed as collateral damage. Cal and the last surviving rebel, a gunslinger named Bode, barely escape from Coruscant. Unfortunately, Cal's ship, the Mantis, is damaged in the escape. Before he crash lands, Cal redirects the Mantis onto an Outer Rim planet called Koboh. This wasn't a random landing spot, for Cal knows that one of his old friends lives on Koboh. So he's hoping that said friend will help him repair the Mantis. The Outer Rim is essentially the Wild West in space. While it's technically a part of the Empire, it's so far removed from "civilized society" that criminal organizations and bounty hunters are allowed to do whatever they want with very little consequence. In the case of Koboh, the locals are routinely bullied and harassed by a bandit gang called the Bedlam Raiders. What makes the Raiders dangerous is that they got their hands on Separatist technology, and thus have access to Battle Droids. And the higher ranking Raiders have figured out how to make their own Lightsabers. But anyway, the game starts for real here.

Jedi Survivor has open-world exploration across five different planets. Though truth be told, it is very obvious Respawn put most of their effort into Koboh. It is by far the biggest planet you can explore, has by far the most number of collectible items and is one of two planets that allow Cal to ride on the back of an animal to cover greater distances. But back on subject, Cal can check his map via a helper droid called BD-1, and said map will highlight the location of the next story objective in gold. But there is nothing stopping you from ignoring the main story and exploring the wilderness. Even during high-stakes missions that seem like they would be time-sensitive, there is nothing stopping Cal from taking a lengthy detour to grab a new outfit or fight a secret boss. 

Cal clashes Lightsaber blades with a Bedlam Raider. Image found on starwars.com 

Speaking of fighting bosses, the single best thing about both Fallen Order and Jedi Survivor is the combat. Cal is armed with a Lightsaber, obviously. He can use it both as a melee weapon and to deflect laser blasts from enemies back at them. Additionally, he can use the Force to grab enemies and objects and throw them around, or throw his own saber like a boomerang. He can even use the Jedi Mind Trick to manipulate enemies into fighting each other. Cal feels powerful when you mow down hordes of Stormtroopers or Raiders, which feels appropriate. Cal may be only an "average" Jedi in terms of raw power, but even the weakest Jedi will be leaps and bounds more powerful than a regular soldier. The only people who can give Cal a challenge are either other Force Users, armored mechs or giant monsters. So naturally, almost every boss encountered in this game belong to one of those three categories. The only exception to this rule is an Imperial Stormtrooper named Rick the Door Technician, who is a joke boss clearly meant to be a pushover that goes down in exactly one attack. All things considered, Rick is an excellent example of how to do a "joke boss." Like, you find him at the end of a grueling gauntlet in which you fight through an army's worth of Imperial forces, and by the time you reach him you should be low on healing items. So when a boss health bar appears at the top of the screen, you get filled with a brief sense of dread until you realize that the boss is literally just a dime-a-dozen Stormtrooper that's no different from the ones you've been slicing through the whole game. And they gave him the most normal sounding name in the history of Star Wars.

While it is true that this is a Souls Like, and thus has a stamina-based combat system, Jedi Survivor is meant as a "baby's first" Souls Like experience. For example, the way this game handles stamina is very forgiving. The stamina equivalent of this game, the Force, only drains when using either a strong attack or when using a Force Technique. Basic attacks actually charge up Force instead of draining it. Additionally, blocking is given its own dedicated meter that does not affect the Force meter in any way. As long as the block meter isn't completely empty, Cal can keep blocking attacks. Speaking of blocking, tapping the block button right before an attack hits will parry it, which does not drain the block meter and has a chance to knock the attacking enemy off balance. How strict the timing is varies based on the difficulty you are currently playing on. Speaking of which, the fact that Jedi Survivor even has multiple difficulty settings further reinforces the idea that it's a baby's first Souls Like. Most games in this genre don't even have adjustable difficulty, since a lot of these games advertise themselves as a deliberately challenging experience meant to push your skills to their limit. But there's absolutely no shame in playing on a lower difficulty setting. In fact, as long as you are not in battle, you can change the difficulty whenever you want. I started the game on Jedi Master mode (the equivalent of hard mode), but brought the difficulty down to Jedi Knight (the equivalent of medium difficulty) and found the game more enjoyable from then onwards.

New to Jedi Survivor are the Stances. Stances change Cal's fighting style and modifies the shape of his Lightsaber's blade. Also, with the sole exception of Single Blade Stance, all of the Stances are based on the fighting styles of fan-favorite characters from throughout the franchise (Darth Maul, Ahsoka Tano, Kylo Ren, etc.). Cal can only equip two Stances at a time, though he can swap them out at Meditation Points (the main checkpoint of this game). Each Stance comes with its own set of attacks, defenses and combos. Keep in mind you don't start with all five Stances available. You start with two and unlock the other three throughout the main story. That being said, none of these Stances are spoilers, since they are all over the marketing and serve as the main "sales pitch" of the game. While Jedi Survivor doesn't use stats like a normal Souls Like, the Stances all play like classic Souls Like archetypes. Just to give a few examples, Cross Guard Stance is your big heavy Strength Build with slow but powerful swings, Dual Wielding is like a Dex Build with high speed and mobility but poor defenses and Blaster Stance is your long range "archer" build.  Returning from the first game are Single Blade stance and Double Blade stance. The former is literally just Cal's move set from Fallen Order, while the latter is a Darth Maul inspired fighting style that can clear out crowds of enemies with wide reaching spin attacks.

The second best thing about Jedi Survivor is the customization. You can change Cal's hairstyle, what kind of facial hair he has (if any), his outfit and his Lightsaber's appearance. In fact, finding new customization options for Cal's appearance is the main collectible in the game. The Lightsaber customization is especially thorough. Not only can you change the color of the blade, you can swap out each individual part of the hilt. Those being the blade emitter, the switch, the grip and the pommel. You can even change the materials used the Lightsaber's construction, which changes both the color and the textures on the hilt. You can make it look wooden, metallic, plastic or any combination of the above. Some materials like Beskar Steel even have unique patterns on them. The pistol used in Blaster Stance can also be customized with similar options to the saber itself. The only restriction on the saber customization is that you cannot make your Lightsaber have a red blade during your first playthrough. This is mostly for lore reasons, seeing as how only Force Users who have been corrupted by the Dark Side have red blades on their Lightsabers. And Cal hasn't been corrupted (yet), so no red blade for him.

One odd design choice is how this game handles currency. Because unlike every Souls Like game ever, Jedi Survivor doesn't have a universal currency. Each merchant has a special collectible item associated with them exclusively, and the only reward for defeating enemies are Skill Points. Skill Points are used to unlock new abilities and techniques for Cal, or to improve the powers he already has. Almost all of the merchants only sell cosmetic items for either Cal himself, his Lightsaber or for BD-1. The only merchant who does sell items with actual impact on gameplay is a retired bounty hunter named Caij, and even then she only sells ammo types for Blaster Stance. Personally, I don't really like how every merchant gets their own unique currency that only they will accept. If they really wanted Skill Points and "merchant money" to be separate resources, they could have just called the latter Credits and have that work as a semi-universal currency. Especially because Credits already exist as a universal currency in the Star Wars universe. 

Back on the subject of the actual story, Cal and Bode meet up with one of Cal's old friends, Greez the four-armed alien gambler. During the 5 year time skip, Greez settled down on Koboh and opened up a bar called Pyloon's Saloon. This saloon serves as the main base of operations for Cal and his friends, at least while they are on Koboh. Greez agrees to repair Cal's ship and even shows Cal his private stash of ship parts for just the occasion. This event leads to Cal accidentally discovering an abandoned Jedi temple, whose caretaker droid is somehow still active. This droid is Zee, and she reveals that her old master was an ancient Jedi named Santari Khri. Santari, along with her best friend Dagan Gerra, discovered a mythical planet called Tanalorr. Tanalorr is hidden inside a nebula, and cannot be accessed without a special compass.

Cal and Night Sister Merrin. Image found on starwars.com

So Zee tells Cal and Greez about Tanalorr, and our plucky protagonists see an opportunity. Greez is interested in Tanalorr because Tanalorr is said to be filled with riches. Cal is interested because he's losing faith in his ability to fight the Empire. After all, he has been working with Saw Gerrera for over 5 years and despite their best efforts, the Empire isn't slowing down. But a hidden planet that the Empire can't access is the perfect place to raise a new generation of Jedi, or at least develop a new rebel base. So Cal investigates the key to finding Tanalorr. During his travels he wakes up Dagan Gerra, who was stored in stasis this whole time. Dagan is an accidentally funny antagonist. This man woke up after a 200+ year long coma, learns about the destruction of the Jedi Order, and immediately falls to the Dark Side. Like, Dagan literally modifies his Lightsaber to produce a red blade mere seconds after being released, while in the middle of a conversation with Cal. Now granted, some later flashbacks reveal he was corrupted long before being put in stasis. But still, bleeding out your Lightsaber to produce a red blade is one heck of a first impression. Anyway, Dagan is the main antagonist for this game, as most of the plot is spent racing against Dagan to get to Tanalorr first. Cal and his friends want to use Tanalorr as a sanctuary, Dagan wants to use it as the birthplace of an Empire of his own. Letting Dagan get there first would be replacing one tyrant with another. And because I don't have a better place to mention it, be prepared to hear the word "Tanalorr" a lot. Everyone (Mostly Dagan) brings it up in conversation so often that if you were to make a drinking game out of it, you would get hospitalized.

Cal's journey brings him to Jedha, a desert world where Merrin, Cordova and Cere have been running a sanctuary for persecuted Force Users called the Hidden Path. Cere and Cordova are two of the last surviving Jedi Masters (and act as mentor figures to everyone else), while Merrin is a Night Sister. The Night Sisters are technically Force Users, but the way they use the Force is completely different from everyone else. Think of it like this. Jedi and Sith are samurai IN SPACE, and they use the Force to do better samurai stuff. Night Sisters are witches IN SPACE, and they use the Force to do better witchcraft. Anyway, Merrin will assist Cal in battle while he's on Jedha, immobilizing enemies with her witchcraft and opening up portals that he can jump through to quickly travel across greater distances. Also there's a romantic subplot between Cal and Merrin, as the two clearly have feelings for each other despite coming from very different cultures. It's an alright romance, nothing too annoying, gross or problematic about it. But this is coming from a guy who generally dislikes romance in media, so take anything I say about romance in general with a grain of salt.

The bulk of the game's first two acts consist of Cal, Bode, Greez and Merrin traveling from one planet to another. They try to track down the compass leading to Tanalorr before Dagan Gerra can, while fighting off both the Empire and the Bedlam Raiders. Truth be told, this part of the story is kind of weak in my opinion. Throughout this part of the game I felt like I was just going through the motions instead of getting properly invested in the story. The most interesting thing that happens in this part of the plot is Cal fighting this dude called Rayvis, who is the leader of the Bedlam Raiders and Dagan's right hand man. There are two reasons why I like Rayvis. The first is that he is a Gen'Dai, a species of alien that was declared non-canon back when Disney bought the legal rights to the Star Wars franchise. But obviously, the Gen'Dai were made canon again for this game. Which is good, because the Gen'Dai are a cool idea for a Star Wars creature. The Gen'Dai are essentially a mass of rapidly growing nerves and flesh who live inside suits of armor. The armor they wear gives them a humanoid shape, but without it they become an eldritch blob of fleshy tentacles. Anyway, these guys are one of the few aliens that can survive being cut by a Lightsaber because their rapid growth allows them to heal even the most severe injuries. Which means that the Gen'Dai as a species work well as boss monsters. The second reason I like Rayvis is because he's voiced by D.C. Douglas, who also does the voice of Albert Wesker from Resident Evil. And I think that's kind of funny, because Rayvis' villainous monologue that he says at the start of his boss battle feels like something that a Resident Evil villain would say before transforming into a horrifying meat monster. Which fits oddly well, since the Gen'Dai are an entire species of meat monsters.

So I'm going to fast forward to the most interesting thing that happens in the story, which unfortunately requires me to put up a spoiler warning. You have been warned. So Cal manages to defeat Dagan Gerra and find the compass leading to Tanalorr, so he heads back to Jedha. Cal and friends had agreed to expand the Hidden Path to Tanalorr because of how well-hidden the planet is. But then the game hits you with a plot twist. Bode, the gunslinging rebel that's been helping Cal on his adventure was not only an Imperial Spy this whole time, he was also a fallen Jedi turned Sith Inquisitor. So Bode steals the compass and assassinates Cordova, because he's the only person smart enough to reverse engineer the compass. He also exposes the Hidden Path on Jedha to the Empire, and uses the ensuing chaos to flee the scene. Cal gives chase and gets into a boss battle against Bode, but no matter how good the player fights, the duel is scripted so that Cal always gets knocked unconscious while Bode escapes.

The game does something really cool once Cal is defeated here. It takes you to the Game Over menu and asks you to hit the respawn button like it does when the player dies under "normal" circumstances, but when you do, you're not playing as Cal anymore. You're now playing as Cere, who has a completely different move set from Cal. She only has one Stance (Single Blade), but Cere's version is both faster and stronger than Cal ever could be. Her Force Powers are also a lot more powerful. If Cal is meant to be an example of an "average" Jedi, Cere is an example of an "exceptionally strong" Jedi. She isn't as powerful as someone like Starkiller, Darth Revan or Darth Vader, but she is pretty close to them. Which is impressive, since two of those characters are from Star Wars Legends, a sadly no longer canon spin off series where everything in the Star Wars universe is cranked up to eleven. But speaking of Darth Vader, guess who shows up to shut down the Hidden Path?

We get a boss battle against Darth Vader himself, and he is by far the hardest fight in the game. And the funny thing is, Darth Vader doesn't even know about Tanalorr nor does he care to know. Once again, Darth Vader is an outside-context problem that puts the fear of death in everyone involved. Case in point, while Cere is fighting for her life, Vader is lazily deflecting her blows with only one hand, and only takes the battle seriously when Cere manages to wound him halfway through their duel. It's an almost perfect fight, except for one little thing. If you die to Vader through normal gameplay, you have to do the fight again. But if you empty out Darth Vader's health bar completely, instead of dying like a normal boss, Vader stops holding back and finishes Cere with a one hit kill move. I feel like they should have done the Sekiro thing where if you manage to "beat" the unbeatable boss you get an extra cutscene, but still allow the story to progress if you die through normal gameplay. Especially because the Bode fight I literally just described does exactly that. I prefer the way Fallen Order handled the concept of a "lore-accurate" Vader fight better, because in the first game, Vader was straight up invincible. Nothing you could do in the first game could hurt Vader, so the only way to "defeat" him was to run away while he stalked you like a horror movie monster. Because as far as the Star Wars galaxy is concerned, that's what Darth Vader is. That being said, I still enjoyed Jedi Survivor's Vader fight, and it's tied with the Rayvis fight for my favorite boss battle in the game.

Cal prepares to fight a squad of Stormtroopers using Double Blade Stance. Image found on steamdb.info

So Cere and Cordova are dead, and Cal swears to get vengeance on Bode for ratting them all out. And Cal is so outraged by Bode's betrayal that he starts using the Dark Side of the Force, which anyone with even a basic knowledge of Star Wars lore knows is very much a bad thing. But I do like how the Dark Side is used in gameplay as a kind of super mode for Cal. While "Embracing the Dark" Cal automatically switches to Cere's move set and his damage output goes through the roof. Basic enemies like Stormtroopers die in one hit on even the highest difficulty, and the much stronger Purge Troopers and Security Droids go down in two or three hits. His Force powers get upgraded as well, letting him Force Choke enemies and crush droids and mechs with ease. Additionally, Cal can use the Force to slow down time itself while embracing the Dark Side, which allows him to either heal with no consequences or get some free hits in on his hapless victims. Cal could actually freeze time before this point, but the ability felt lackluster prior to the Dark Side upgrade. Also, you remember when I said that you couldn't make Cal's Lightsaber red for lore reasons? The real reason is that while "Dark Side Mode" is active, Cal's Lightsaber changes from its usual color to red, and it returns to its original color once the effects wear off.

The big finale of Jedi Survivor is a three-phase, 2vs1 boss battle with Bode, right inside the heart of Tanalorr. Merrin will help Cal during the first two phases of the battle, but the final phase is a 1vs1 duel. This fight is nowhere near as dramatic or as difficult as the Vader fight, but to be fair, any battle with Vader is going to be both more dramatic and more difficult than anything else in the game. Bode starts the fight with his own version of Blaster Stance, though he later switches to a Dark Side-boosted version of Single Blade Stance for the final phase. It's an okay fight. Not too easy, not too hard. That being said, I find it amusing just how easily Bode goes down when you use Dark Side Mode, and the transition between second and third phase is scripted so you have no choice but to embrace the Dark Side. Like, from Bode's perspective, he isn't the final boss. Cal is, and Embracing the Dark Side is Cal's version of a second phase. Bode's like a Souls Borne character without the resurrection ability, fighting an unwinnable battle. The only thing I will overtly criticize here is that Tanalorr itself is a disappointingly boring planet to explore. It consists of a shoreline leading up to a temple, and the temple's interior serves as the final boss arena. That's it. There's no collectibles or hidden super bosses or anything like that. 

But why did Bode betray them all in the first place? The reason is because he has a daughter named Kata, and he made a deal with the Empire. Bode would work as a spy and in exchange the Empire would spare Kata's life. However, after learning about Tanalorr, Bode decides to betray both the rebels and the Empire so he can raise his daughter in peaceful solitude. Which doesn't strike me as particularly smart. Like, Tanalorr is a whole planet. You don't need an entire planet to raise one child. He could easily just raise his family on one side of the planet and let the rebels/Empire do their thing on the other. But then again, Bode's entire characterization post-betrayal is a real-time reenactment of Yoda's warning to Anakin back in The Phantom Menace. "Fear leads to Anger. Anger leads to Hate. And Hate leads to Suffering." Bode is so scared of losing Kata that he betrays everyone who has ever helped him. When his former friends confront him, he lashes out in anger. His anger turns to murderous hatred because he now views literally everyone in the galaxy as a threat to Kata, and any threat to his daughter must be destroyed. And in his hatred, he frightens and almost kills Kata while fighting both Cal and Merrin at the same time. In the end, Bode is killed by Cal and Kata is shockingly okay with that. Even before this point, Kata agreed with Cal and Merrin that what Bode did was morally despicable. Imagine being such a bad father that your only child not only agrees with your killers that you were a terrible person, but said killers adopt your kid and turn out to be better parents than you ever were. Massive L on Bode's part. 

The game ends with Cal, Greez and Merrin hosting a funeral for all their fallen friends (and Bode). They decide to build a new home on Tanalorr and adopt Kata into their found family. The Empire still doesn't know about Tanalorr, and the Bedlam Raiders are scattered and leaderless due to the deaths of both Dagan Gerra and Rayvis. It's a bittersweet ending, all things considered. And overall, I found the game to be okay and almost good. There is just one problem I neglected to mention, in addition to my smaller critiques. This problem is so great that it needs its own section in the review.

Jedi Survivor is not a well optimized game by any stretch of the imagination. I ran into a plethora of technical problems that dragged the whole experience down. The game crashed on me twice, the first time being during the tutorial. I also experienced a glitch on two separate occasions where Jedi Mind Tricks stopped working, forcing me to restart the game until they did. Some character models didn't load in correctly, causing random body parts to become invisible. Enemies would sometimes get stuck inside walls and if it wasn't for Cal's ability to grab enemies with the Force, I would not have been able to get those enemies unstuck. That last one is especially bad because a battle isn't considered "finished" until all enemies involved are dead. The framerate would also frequently dip during the more intense cutscenes or when traveling between areas. On top of all of this, the game has a 150+ gigabyte download size, meaning this game by itself took up almost a whole third of my PS5's active memory. If the game ran perfectly and didn't have such glaring tech issues, I would have given this game an easy 4 out of 5 stars. But the tech problems are so great that the game fluctuated between a 3 star rating and even a 2 star rating. And you want to know the real kicker? From what I've heard other reviewers say, apparently the PC version has even worse technical issues than the PS5 version. I can't say for certain but if that's that's true, that's a real shame. 

As for presentation, I consider Jedi Survivor to be fairly average. The whole game is fully voice acted and sports motion capture animation for all the main cinematics. But the graphical quality isn't particularly impressive by itself. It's a nice looking Star Wars game for sure, but it does that thing that a lot of Triple-A games do where they try really hard to look photo-realistic but lack either the technology or the budget to pull it off properly. This game looks like your stereotypical Triple-A game. This isn't a compliment nor is an insult. I just wish the game had more of a visual identity of its own. All the games using Capcom's RE Engine do a better job at the "realistic" art style, just to give a comparison. One thing I like is that the camera work in the cinematics. It does the thing that the modern God of War games do where the camera shows everything in a long take format (meaning no sudden changes in the camera angle). Additionally, the camera is slightly shaky, creating the illusion that they were recorded by an onset cameraman. It makes the cinematics feel, well, cinematic. If there was a new theatrical Star Wars movie with this kind of camerawork, I would actually really enjoy it.

The sound design is good. Not only do we have all the classic Lightsaber/Blaster sound effects that we all know and love, there's also a fun little quirk with changing the Lightsaber's color. Each color changes the sound of the "hum" the blade makes when the saber is activated. The voice acting is also generally pretty good. I especially like Merrin's voice, because she speaks in a Slavic accent. I don't know exactly if it's supposed to be Russian or some other variant of Eastern European, but either way it makes her sound like she came from a completely different culture from everyone else. It also makes her sassy remarks even funnier. But I do want give my compliments to Scott Lawrence, who does the voice of Darth Vader in this game. He does such a good job sound-a-liking the iconic Vader Voice used by the late James Earl Jones that at first I thought that it actually was James Earl Jones himself doing the voice. It's not, unfortunately, but like I said, Scott Lawrence does the character justice. Speaking of voice actors, there's a side character named Turgle. Turgle has no plot relevance whatsoever besides handing out the occasional side quest. And you know who they got to voice this goofy frog-looking alien man? Richard Steven Horvitz, a legendary voice actor well known for roles such as Zim from Invader Zim, Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, and Dag from Angry Beavers. I was not expecting to see Richard Steven Horvitz in a Star Wars game, but it's cool that he's here.

Cal and BD-1 looking at the sunset on Koboh. Image found on starwars.com

So would I recommend Star Wars Jedi Survivor? No, or at least not at full price. I bought my copy of this game during a sale that brought the price down from $70 to $20 USD. And I feel like $15-$20 is the ideal price range for a game of this quality. Paying $70 for an otherwise average video game based on a preestablished franchise with glaring performance issues is too much money. Then again, asking for $70 for any video game is quite the demand, and I feel like the game needs to be as close to perfect as possible to justify that kind of price. Especially when other Souls Likes are typically priced between $40-$50. But honestly speaking, even if the game ran perfectly, I don't think I was in the right head space to enjoy it properly. I've been feeling burnt out on Star Wars content for a while now. So let me ask you a question. What exactly is a Star Wars fan exactly? The biggest problem with Star Wars as a franchise is that there is so much "stuff" with the Star Wars brand on it that you cannot possibly be a fan of EVERYTHING Star Wars related. Especially since each "thing" in the franchise has wildly inconsistent quality. For everything as good as say, Star Wars: Andor there is something as bad as The Star Wars Holiday Special. Jedi Survivor feels like it's the middle of those two extremes. Like it's not even close to the best Star Wars video game, but if it's also nowhere near the worst. It's a perfectly average, some would say mediocre experience. One might even call this game "mid." I give Jedi Survivor 3 stars out of 5. 

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor is the property of Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment. Star Wars (the franchise) is the property of Disney. None of the images used here were created by me. Please support the original creators.

Lies of P is Peak Pinocchio Fiction. A very "honest" review.

 If you told me five years ago that the closest thing we would ever get to a Bloodborne sequel is a weird Pinocchio game, I would have called you mad. But here we are, with a review of Lies of P. Developed by Round8 Studio and published by Neowiz back in 2023, Lies of P is a Souls Like, but it is not a Souls Borne. What's the difference you ask? Well, Souls Borne refers to the dark fantasy/gothic horror action roleplaying games made by From Software. A Souls Like is a game not made by From Software but still inspired by From Software's signature style. There are many Souls Likes out there, some being of better quality than others. But out of all the Souls Likes I've seen, Lies of P comes the closest to recreating the "From Software Magic." Which feels like a weird thing to say, because this game's sales pitch is "What if Pinocchio was in a Gothic Horror setting?" and the game takes that premise 100% seriously. A quick disclaimer before we begin. I played Lies of P on a Playstation 5, and thus can't speak for its performance on an Xbox system nor on PC. Lies of P is also rated M for Mature by the ESRB because of violence and mild profanity. Reader discretion is advised.

Lies of P official box art. Image found on Wikipedia.org

In case you (somehow) don't know what Pinocchio is, it's an Italian fairy tale originally written by Carlo Collodi back in 1883. The original story was about a wooden puppet that came to life and had to learn basic life lessons like "stay in school" or "don't tell lies." It was later adapted into a Disney movie that wounded up becoming the most famous version of the story, because 1940's era Disney movies had a habit of being more popular than their inspirations. And in case you don't know what Bloodborne is, it's a Gothic Horror action game about a monster hunter tasked with exploring a Victorian city overrun by a variety of nightmarish monsters, ranging from werewolves to cultists to literal aliens. It's regarded as one of the greatest Playstation Exclusive games ever made, and depending on who you ask, it's one of the greatest games in general. I bring all of this up because Lies of P pulls heavy inspiration from the original fairy tale as well as from Bloodborne.

Just so everyone is caught up on what a Souls Like is, it's a subgenre of action/roleplaying games that is characterized by five main characteristics. Firstly, Souls Like games use a stamina based combat system. What this means is that every action, from swinging your sword to casting a magic spell, spends stamina or some equivalent thereof. Stamina recharges automatically as long as you aren't doing anything strenuous. Secondly, these games have you collecting a universal currency that is used both to buy items from merchants as well as to unlock upgrades for your character. This currency is collected by defeating enemies, but if the player's character dies for any reason, they drop all unspent currency that they were carrying on their person. This is not the end however, for if the player returns to where they died, they can recover the lost currency and add it to whatever they got in the time since their previous death.

Thirdly, games of this nature give you a limited number of healing items  which refill automatically when you rest at a checkpoint. Fourthly, the main method of progression involves exploring labyrinthine levels in search of boss monsters to fight, either because they block the way to the next level or because they have an item you need for something. The boss monsters will more often than not be the highlight of the game, and most Souls Likes live and die by the quality of their boss battles. And finally, Souls Like games like to be cryptic and mysterious in their story-telling, often hiding story-relevant information in the descriptions of collectibles, hidden details in the environment or easily missed conversations with the occasional friendly bystander. There are other things that most Souls Likes have in common, such as a poison swamp level or a "level up lady" but the five points are the most common characteristics. Additionally, a Souls Like doesn't need to do all five of these things to "count" as one, though it does need to do at least three of them. All of this is important because Souls Likes sadly cannot be judged in a vacuum. Any time a new Souls Like releases, the question on everyone's mind is always "Is it as good as From Software's stuff?" After all, From Software's style is so specific and niche that anything imitating it will have no choice but to compete against its inspiration. So expect me to make comparisons frequently in this review. 

Lies of P takes place in the City of Krat, a bustling metropolis that discovered a borderline magical source of energy called Ergo. An inventor by the name of Geppetto used the Ergo to create puppets so advanced that not only can they move around without the aid of strings, they can even develop minds of their own. In other words, the puppets are basically robots in all but name. So naturally, the citizens of Krat use the Puppets for manual labor. Construction work, law enforcement, house cleaning, things along those lines. There was just one problem. An incident known as the Puppet Frenzy led to the overwhelming majority of puppets going rogue and killing their masters. There is only one thing that can stop the puppets, which is ironically, another puppet. So a mysterious fairy named Sophia awakens Geppetto's magnum opus, a concerningly lifelike puppet boy named Pinocchio, and orders him to destroy all the other puppets and save Krat from total annihilation. The game starts here.

Like almost every Souls Like, Lies of P starts with the player choosing a class. There's only three to choose from, and the decision admittedly is not that important. The classes determine what weapon Pinocchio starts the game with and what his starting stats are, though he can acquire the other weapons later. And unlike every other Souls Like in existence, Lies of P has no minimal stat requirements. As soon as you pick up a weapon, you can start using it. It may not do that much damage if your stats aren't leveled up properly, but the fact that every weapon is at least usable the moment you pick it up is a nice quality of life feature. Speaking of stats, one minor critique I have is that the stats are oddly named and not exactly intuitive at first glance. Let me give you an idea of what I mean. In most Souls Likes, there's a stat that improves your character's skill with heavyweight weapons like war hammers and great swords, a stat that improves lightweight weapons like bows and daggers, and a stat that improves magic. These stats are usually named Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence, or at least some synonym for those three terms. Lies of P calls these stats Motivity, Technique and Advance. These stat names don't exactly roll off the tongue that well. Again, this is a minor nitpick.

Pinocchio running towards a monster called a Carcass. Image found on SteamDB.info

Lies of P has the aforementioned stamina-based combat system alongside a few quirks. Firstly and most obviously, you can mix and match different weapon parts to make new weapons entirely. Almost every weapon you can find has two parts, a blade and a handle. The handle changes what attacks and combos you can perform with the weapon while the blade changes the range and type of damage. This is honestly a brilliant system. If you like the move set on one weapon but need to change your damage type to counter a particularly challenging enemy or boss, all you have to do is swap out the blade for something else. Heck, there are some weapons with really good blades but really lame handles, almost begging you to try switching the blades onto something else. For example, the Salamander Dagger is a superheated knife. It's one of the first weapons you get that can deal fire damage, but the Dagger suffers from lack of range. But say you put the blade of the Dagger on the Handle of something like a spear, and suddenly the dagger's blade is now a superheated spearhead. Another example, the Great Sword of Fate has one of the longest and damaging blades in the game, but normally is very slow. But if you put that blade on a rapier's handle, your attacks will become a lot faster without sacrificing power or reach.

The second quirk of Lies of P's combat is its parry and stagger system. There are three ways of preventing damage; blocking, parrying and dodging. Blocking is the easiest to do. Just hold down the appropriate button and Pinocchio will use his current weapon as a makeshift shield. If he gets hit while in this stance, he'll lose some health (but not as much as he would if the hit was unblocked). Parrying is much better than blocking but is more challenging to do consistently. Basically, tap (don't hold) the block button right before the attack hits Pinocchio and he will deflect it perfectly. This does no damage to him at all, builds up Stagger (which stuns the enemy when maxed out) and even has a chance to break the enemy's weapon. Dodging is simply running or jumping out of the way. This also doesn't hurt Pinocchio in any way. In fact, from the start of the animation to the end of it, Pinocchio is invincible. Which means that if you time it right, you can dodge through enemy attacks and follow up with a counterattack of your own. Mastering this game's combat relies on being able to tell which attacks are safe to block, which ones are easy to parry, and which ones can be dodged through. Most enemies and bosses have what are called Fury Attacks, where their body glows bright red right before delivering their most dangerous attack. Fury Attacks cannot be blocked, but they can be parried and dodged.

The third quirk of Lies of P's combat is how it handles healing. At first glance, Pulse Cells (this game's main healing item) works like any other Souls Like heal. It's limited in use but recharges when resting at a checkpoint. What makes Lies of P unique is that if you run completely out of Pulse Cells, you can recharge one of them if you land/block/parry enough hits while fighting enemies and bosses. This is a perfect compromise between the limited healing of the subgenre's standards and the more forgiving healing items of Bloodborne. It also allows you to be more frivolous with your healing, because if you're good enough at the game you can just recharge your Pulse Cell mid-battle.

The final quirk of the combat is the Legion Arm. Pinocchio's left arm is the only part of him that is truly mechanical, and as such it can be customized with various gadgets, Sekiro style. The Legion Arm gadgets are the game's equivalent of magic spells, being either long range projectiles or utility powers meant to compliment specific fighting styles. These gadgets can range from a grappling hook that can pull enemies towards you (or vice versa), a shield that greatly enhances blocking, or a literal handgun. Legion Arms have limited energy, however, so they should be used sparingly. Additionally, only one Legion Arm can be equipped at a time, unless you unlock an upgrade that removes this restriction. Speaking of upgrades, in addition to Ergo as the main currency, there's a second currency called Quartz. Quartz can be used to unlock more specialized upgrades like extra Pulse Cells and a higher chance to stun enemies. Quartz can be found in treasure chests or as a reward for completing side quests.

Pinocchio being given the choice to lie or tell the truth about an aging woman's appearance. Image found on IGN.com

The main thing setting Lies of P apart from other Souls Likes is the way it handles dialogue and morality. Arguably the most well-known thing about Pinocchio is that his nose grows whenever he tells a lie. This game's Pinocchio technically doesn't do that, though his shadow does get longer with each lie. Multiple times throughout the game, the player needs to choose whether or not to tell the truth. To make sure the player can't cheat and look up the consequences for lying or speaking honestly, the game puts a 10 second time limit to pick a truth or lie. You would think that telling the truth would be the "morally good" option every time, considering this game is supposed to be a Pinocchio adaptation. But Lies of P has a hidden stat called Humanity, which not only determines how close Pinocchio gets to becoming a real boy, it also determines which ending you get. You gain Humanity in one of four ways; telling lies, solving riddles, listening to music records and helping your friends with their problems. Telling lies is the easiest way to gain Humanity, and the game's best possible ending requires you to be 90% Human or better. You don't need to tell a lie EVERY time if you want this ending, though doing so is the easiest way to get that much Humanity in the first place. 

That being said, the lies in this game aren't particularly malicious. Most of the time, when Lies of P's Pinocchio lies, he does so to avoid hurting someone's feelings or to protect someone else. I think the best moment that showcases how lying can be a "good" thing in the right context is a side quest involving a sickly grandmother. She is dying of an illness called the Petrification Disease and wants to see her baby grandson one last time before she passes. The real grandson is dead, murdered by rogue puppets. However, Pinocchio can find a defunct, baby-shaped puppet and pretend that it's her real grandson. The grandmother is going blind because of her illness and can't tell the difference. But in this instance, Pinocchio lies to give this poor woman some much needed closure in her dying moments. 

Another example of how lying can be a "good" thing is when first meeting a shady merchant named Alidoro. Alidoro is this game's version of Honest John, a talking fox that deceived the original story's Pinocchio with delusions of fame and stardom. Here, Alidoro is a merchant wearing a canine mask who asks you where Hotel Krat is. Hotel Krat is the main hub world of Lies of P, and all of Pinocchio's friends take shelter there as it's the only real safe zone. Lady Antonia, the owner of the hotel, explicitly told Pinocchio not to let any strangers find the hotel. So in this case, Pinocchio lies about the hotel's location to protect his friends from a dangerous-looking stranger. Alidoro still finds the hotel no matter what, it just takes him longer to do so if you lie to him. 

One thing I need to mention about Lies of P is that has a few quality of life features that made the experience much more manageable. You see, Souls Likes have a reputation for being really hard. And some nerds online get real mad if you suggest ideas to make the experience more enjoyable out of a misguided fear that such features would "ruin the challenge." Lies of P is a hard game, but its quality of life features don't ruin the challenge. They make getting back to the fun parts after a Game Over less stressful. Here's an example. This game's currency is called Ergo. You get Ergo every time you destroy a puppet or kill a living creature. You lose Ergo if Pinocchio dies. But say you die to a boss. In most Souls Likes, you would need to scramble to the exact spot in the boss arena you died previously to get your currency back. In Lies of P,  lost Ergo is placed just before the entrance of the boss arena, completely removing the added hassle of getting your stuff back while a boss tries to squish you like a bug. Like most Souls Likes, there are optional side quests where you help the few friendly characters with a problem. Unlike most Souls Likes, Lies of P puts special icons on the level select menu to remind you of those side quest objectives. Now this isn't perfect, because if you never meet the character face-to-face and progress the story too far, they might leave before you can even talk to them. But once you actually find the side characters and talk to them, you don't have to worry about forgetting where they are or what they want. If you really struggle with a specific boss, you can summon an entity called the Specter to assist you. The only time you can't summon the Specter is during the first boss (the Parade Master) and the final boss, as you are expected to deal with that on your own.

But this brings me to my biggest criticism of Lies of P and the primary reason I cannot justify giving it a 5 star rating. This game doesn't have a pause button. I can forgive Bloodborne, Elden Ring and the Dark Souls trilogy for not having a pause button. But I cannot forgive Lies of P for not having the ability to pause the game. Why, you ask? Contrary to what sweaty edge lords on the Internet will tell you, the Souls Borne series not having a normal pause button is NOT a deliberate design choice on From Software's part. It was a necessary sacrifice because of the unpredictable nature of Souls Borne multiplayer. In From Software's games, another player can summon you into their world (or vice versa) either to help out with a boss battle or to challenge you to a duel. This can happen at any time, thus every player's game needs to be compatible with an "always-online" server, and thus the game can't be paused reliably. After all, how can you get hundreds of thousands of players across the world to pause the game as a community? The answer is you can't. Thus, the pause feature was axed from the Souls Borne series. Lies of P doesn't have ANY multiplayer components to speak of whatsoever. Which means that Neowiz and/or Round8 either forgot to include a pause feature or they excluded it deliberately in a misguided attempt to make the game harder. The former scenario would be outrageously amateurish for what is otherwise an extremely well polished game. The latter scenario tells me that Neowiz values the opinion of the aforementioned sweaty edge lords too much. It's especially bizarre because the previously mentioned quality of life features prove that the devs not only like Souls Likes, but took the time to find ways to make the experience smoother. You would not believe the number of times I had to forfeit a boss battle because something in real life needed my attention, something that could have been solved with a pause feature.

Speaking of bosses, Lies of P has about 27 bosses in total. And overall, I'd say it's a fairly good lineup. Generally speaking, all enemies in this game are divided into three categories. Humans, Puppets and Carcasses. What's a Carcass, you ask? Mild spoilers here, but the Puppets aren't the only creatures powered by Ergo. If a human who was infected with the Petrification Disease consumes Ergo, they are cured of the disease, but start mutating into a hideous monster called a Carcass. Basically, Carcasses are magical zombies. These categories are important to remember because certain weapons and items do more damage to one category than the others. Puppets take extra damage from electrical weapons, while Humans and Carcasses take more damage from fiery and acidic weapons, respectively. But anyway, I generally prefer the Puppets and Humans as far aesthetics go. The Puppet enemies are all wonderfully designed and are wholly unique to Lies of P, being robotic abominations whose limbs and bend and rotate in ways no human can. Human enemies are the rarest of the bunch, and almost all of them are based on characters from the original Pinocchio story. But Carcasses feel the least "unique" of the bunch, as most of them look like fairly stereotypical From Software monsters. Which is to say, lots of body horror and grotesque monstrosities.

Unfortunately, there are bosses I think are annoying and could benefit from a rework. For example, one boss that I didn't really care for is Laxasia the Complete. This warrior woman is a two phase battle. In fact, most bosses in this game have two phases. The problem is that First Phase Laxasia and Second Phase Laxasia feel like two completely different bosses that were crudely combined together. In her first phase, Laxasia is an armored knight who swings a big heavy great sword around. She occasionally supercharges her sword swings with lightning and her armor leaves her invincible from behind (forcing you to fight her head on), but is otherwise inoffensive with easy to learn attack patterns and no annoying gimmicks. She's not too easy, not too difficult. 

But in her second phase, Laxasia removes her armor, equips a shield and starts moving around with the speed of an anime character. The rhythm of the fight completely changes, and not for the better. She moves around so fast she might as well be teleporting, and she can now fly so high up in the air that the camera struggles to keep her in view. Honestly, you could split these two phases into separate bosses, with Second Phase Laxasia being some kind of optional super boss placed at the end of a hidden level, and the whole game would have a better boss roster. I mean, Laxasia is already doing the whole "beautiful warrior woman who is much harder to defeat than any other boss in the game" thing that From Software likes doing in their own games. The difference is that From Software makes their "beautiful warrior women" bosses optional and puts them at the end of a hidden level. Laxasia meanwhile is absolutely mandatory, with no way to skip over her fight if you want to progress the story.

The introduction to the Black Rabbit Brotherhood, one of the main bosses of the game. Image found SteamDB.info

But you know who doesn't need a rework? The Black Rabbit Brotherhood. This is easily my favorite boss in the game, both because of their design and because of the battle itself. First a little bit of context. In Krat, there is a group of elite warriors called the Stalkers. The Stalkers were formed to be an anti-puppet militia force in the event the puppets turned hostile. The Black Rabbit Brotherhood were a group of Stalkers that went rogue, and now they antagonize human and puppet alike in the name of causing mischief. The battle itself is a what's called a gank fight, where you must face multiple opponents simultaneously. Unlike most gank fights in the Souls Like subgenre, the Black Rabbit Brotherhood is actually fun. A problem with a lot of gank fights in other Souls Likes is that it is difficult to learn attack patterns when there are three or more attacks coming at you at the same time, all from different directions. The Black Rabbit Brotherhood circumvents this problem by doing two things. First, only the Eldest Brother has a health bar, meaning that you have to concentrate on him specifically in order to defeat the whole Brotherhood. Secondly, the younger Brothers (of which there are three) drop in one at a time and leave after a short while, ensuring that you only have to fight an absolute maximum of two Brothers at a time.

Also, the Black Rabbit Brotherhood is one of the few bosses that gets a rematch. The rematch plays out in the reverse order of the first battle, with the younger Brothers attacking first and the Eldest only joining the fray once the younger Brothers have been defeated. But even in the rematch, the younger Brothers take turns fighting you and are generally passive when it's not their turn yet. I think the devs knew deep down that the Black Rabbit Brotherhood was the best fight in the game, as not only do they get a rematch in the first place, but these guys were all over the pre-release marketing. They even have what is by far the coolest intro cinematic in not just the game, but possibly out of all Souls Likes. These goofy mad hatter-looking rabbit boys start their fight in the rain, carrying a literal open coffin with the word "LIAR" spray painted on the inside, and they invite Pinocchio into it as a morbid taunt. The Black Rabbit Brotherhood manages to be the perfect blend of stylish and intimidating.

On the subject of level design, Lies of P is oddly linear. Most levels are a narrow set of paths with the occasional shortcut to an earlier part of the level. That being said, I like how the levels make enough sense geographically that you can see previous or upcoming levels in the distance if you can get to a high enough vantage point. Speaking of presentation, let's get the most obvious thing about this game out of the way. This version of Pinocchio looks like an anime pretty boy. In fact, this is by far the least puppet-like interpretation of the character. I know that Humanity is supposed to represent the process of becoming a real boy, but Pinocchio looks like he's 3/4ths of the way there already. Literally the only thing robotic or mechanical about his appearance is his left arm. This isn't exactly a criticism, it's just an observation. Neowiz legally cannot make their version of Pinocchio look like the Disney version nor can they use something similar to Guillermo del Toro's design. While the concept of Pinocchio is public domain, specific designs of the character are not. Essentially, you can make your own version of a living Italian puppet, as long as your living Italian puppet doesn't look like Disney's version. Or Guillermo del Toro's version. Thus, we got anime pretty boy Pinocchio. 

In terms of music and sound design, Lies of P has what might just be the best soundtrack in Souls Like history. Not because of the regular boss battle music, which is about you expect for a game of this nature (intense orchestra with vaguely Latin sounding choirs). But because of the music records. I previously mentioned that listening to music records gives you Humanity. Speaking as a firm believer that making art (both visual and audible) is one of the most important aspects of the human experience, I approve of the implication that listening to music makes your more human. Jokes aside, the record songs are all brilliantly performed classical symphonies. Not all the songs have lyrics, but some of them do. Some of the songs are even sung in French. The main highlight of the soundtrack is a song called Feel. It's one of the first records you can find, and it leaves quite the first impression. Feel is a somber melody performed mostly by piano with some jazz instruments to back up the pianist and the lead singer. Feel is the closest thing Lies of P has to a theme song, and whenever I heard the song I felt the need to stop what I was doing and just enjoy the tranquility of the music.

Pinocchio being grabbed by the Scrapped Watchmen, one of the first bosses encountered. Image found on SteamDB.info

The actual sound effects are also quite good. Just to give a few examples, the parry sound effect is a crisp and clear *clang* and walking on different surfaces (wood, stone, metal et cetera) produces different footstep sounds. One sound effect that I particularly like is Pinocchio's various noises. Pinocchio is pretty much a mute protagonist, only speaking when the player is given the option to pick a truth or lie. But when he's fighting, you can hear different grunts as he uses his weapons and dodges enemy attacks. These grunts sound mechanical when Pinocchio is low on Humanity and gradually sound more organic and "natural" as his Humanity increases. The voice acting is also surprisingly competent. The main highlight of voice acting has to go to Arlecchino, the King of Riddles. He sounds a little goofy when you first encounter him as he speaks almost entirely in rhyme. But after you learn that he's (technically) responsible for every bad thing that happened in Krat, he becomes a lot more sinister. I also like Venigni the Inventor, who speaks with an over-the-top Italian accent and is the only character who speaks with said accent.

There's one last thing I want to say about the game before I share my final thoughts. Lies of P has a New Game Plus mode, letting you replay the entire game with a fully upgraded Pinocchio. To make sure that the game is still a challenge, every boss receives a boost to their health and damage output. There are also special Golden Records that can only be collected in New Game Plus mode, and these songs are remixes of preexisting songs. The other big change in New Game Plus is that the captions are changed slightly. You see, in a first playthrough, whenever any of the Puppet bosses speak, it sounds like robotic gibberish and the subtitles get distorted into an incomprehensible mess. In New Game Plus, the captions are fixed, you can now understand what the Puppet bosses are saying as they fight you. The actual plot of the game won't change, but it is a neat idea.

Overall, Lies of P is a great Souls Like. It does a lot of things right, both in terms of innovating on the Souls Like formula, and in terms of being a new adaptation of a classic fairy tale. But the inability to pause the game (and with no multiplayer functions to justify its absence) does drag down the game's overall quality. Despite that glaring issue, the rest of the game is polished enough to be a worthwhile experience. Ignoring the game's status as a Souls Like for a second here, it's the best Pinocchio game I've ever played. Granted, it's the ONLY Pinocchio game I've played. And truth be told, the sales pitch being so absurd yet taken so seriously is what drew me to the game in the first place. But either way, I give Lies of P 4 stars out of 5. I'd love to see what Neowiz does next, especially since the devs have expressed interest in doing Souls Like adaptations of other fairy tales. Mild spoilers here, but after the credits roll Lies of P ends with a teaser for a Wizard of Oz themed Souls Like starring Dorothy. And personally, taking classic fairy tale characters and filtering them through the lens of dark fantasy and gothic horror is an idea I approve of.

Lies of P is the property of Round8 Studio and Neowiz. None of the images used were created by me. Please support the original creators.