Part way thru the Lies of P demo - it's damn good (pc/steam)
Highly recommend trying this out. Mechanics are all solid, and it really wears the inspiration on its sleeve. It feels exactly like a mix of bloodborne and sekiro, in that its parry mechanic is sekiro. The bloodborne rally mechanic is back, with the added twist that you only get a chance to regain health if you've blocked an attack without perfect parrying. It's not as crisp as a FromSoft game, but for a first try new ip, it works real well. Gotta start somewhere
Level design is solid - windy enough to be fun to explore, but easy enough to understand so that you don't get lost. The mana system is pretty standard, and the prosthetic arm abilities that I've tried out are pretty cool.
The world seems really cool. The flavor text, cool setting, and a bonkers reimagining of pinnochio really works well.
Performance is stellar, and this is a damn demo! I'm running 5600g with a 6600xt, and I've got it locked to a smooth 75fps. It could probably go higher, but I'm playing it on a 60hz tv.
And get this - there's been basically no stutter. My frametimes are consistent as hell. It runs shader compilation in the beginning of the game, but it only took about a minute. A demo of a pc port running well? Fucking ludicrous!
Definitely keep this on your radar if you like FromSoft game design.
Thanks for this write-up! I saw some people playing demos on Tiktok live and thought it was a sequel to Bloodborne. Excited for anything that falls into this genre especially with that setting.
I got to the boss (I haven't beaten it yet) and so far I'm a little disappointed by the demo. It seems like a high quality game, but it just doesn't have much going on to set it apart from a FromSoft game. I mean it has some slightly different combat mechanics, but other than that it doesn't seem very unique. The setting is inspired and it does a good job of evoking a similar atmosphere as Bloodborne, but I wish the game had more going on other than trying to copy Bloodborne.