Lies of P (Neowiz Games/Round8 Studio). Let’s talk more about it. People love it; I hate it. Who’s right? Ha! That’s just my cold opening. It’s not right–well, the first part is, but the second part is more complicated than that. Yesterday, I gave my impressions of the game past the demo, and now I want to talk in-depth about the fourth chapter boss and the beginning of the fifth chapter.
Before I get there, though. I could tell that my interest in this game was waning when I opneed a huge shortcut right before the boss–and I didn’t care. I was like, “Oh, nice”, shrugged my shoulders, and moved on. I didn’t even care because I was numb from the horrors of that area. Which, by the way, several others in the RKG Discord have agreed was unfair. So I’m not the only one who hated this area. I don’t need the validation, but it’s nice to know I’m not the only one.
*SPOILERS*
When I went into the boss, I was worn down. I was deeply unhappy about the area, and I was not ready to fight a boss. I summoned NPC specter and went through the mist door. Or whatever it’s called in this game. It was this huge, bloated version of the archbishop, and I took him down pretty handily on my second try. I felt cocky right up until the point where the cutscene came up and the second phase started. Sigh. Of course there’s a second phase. I should have known because there was a creature that dropped down a a hole at the beginning of the level, and I said to myself, “That’s clearly the boss” and then promptly forgot it.
The butt of the archbishop opened up and a snaky angel slithers out. This is basically Ornstein and Smough in one. The archbishop is the Smough of the couple whereas the snaky angel was the Ornstein. And the boss fight was utter bullshit. Here’s the issue. I never learned the moves of the archbishop. He has this tongue sweep that applies decay (which, as I mentioned in the last post, and that’s always followed up by another tongue action. And he has a two hand sweep thing that I could never learn to deflect. He has other moves as well, but those are the two that people said you should try to bait out.
I could never get the deflect. Or even a good block. Because even if I managed to block the first attack, I could not get hte second and/or third. My health bar was decent, but I was still getting decimated. One of my least-favorite things about this game is that the boss gets health back if it attacks you (and the attacks land) while a section of its health bar is light red. You have this, too, but it doesn’t really matter as much because it’s so easy for you to die.
There is just too much shit in this game. As Zoe said in the video I posted yesterday, they love their systems. They really, really, really love their systems, and they want you to love them as well. Less is more sometimes, which is something they don’t understand.
By the way. I was watching the stream that Lord Londo (Luke) and Lady Priscilla (Ellen) from OutsideXtra in which they played the second part of the demo that culminated in the Scrapped Watchman boss fight. But they were playing it in the real game, not the demo, I think? I’m not sure any longer. The reason I wanted to say that was because the attacks look like the attacks I remember from the demo, but did not see in the actual game.
So maybe I did just git gud? I dunno. Or maybe I had a beefder weapon? I really don’t think I did at that point. Though I was using a different weapon–the police baton versus the greatsword. Maybe that was the difference.
At any rate. I fought the archbishop and the angel again and again and again. I fought them for four hours on day one and maybe 25 tries. I got to two slivers of health on one try, but then did not get close ever after. Even with the Specter helping out. Honestly, the Specter did more walking around slowly than actually attacking. Plus, they don’t know to get out of the way of the red attacks.
By the second day, I was freely Googling ways to beat this boss. Throwables was the answer, so I started farming for Thermite (fire bombs) and Throwing Cells (electriticy bombs). This was in two different areas. I thought I could only carry five because someone said to bring in five, but then I realized I could bring in six of each. This is important as you will see in a second.
I could not get the attacks down. And I realized that I had actually been lucky in breezing through the game up to that point. So many people emphasized that perfect blocks were important, but I had not found them to be so up until this point. I had gotten by with blocking in general and quickly attacking in return. I did not dodge much because that’s close to useless. You can upgrade it, but at this point, I had not yet. And I wasn’t going to be able to do it before defeating the boss I was struggling against.
Everything I hate about From games was in this boss fight. Oh, and I could not get another heal before this boss fight, either. I had five and one that was a gradual restoration of health that was less than useless. I needed three or four heals for the first phase, whic meant that the second phase was over in a few seconds because I had no health left.
The boss had infinite stamina whereas I did not. I had a decent amount because I had been leveling it up, but I still could not handle if he did two three-arm-swing combos in a row. My specter did their best, but I just could not get the handle on this boss. At all.
By the second hour of the second day, I was done. I hated this boss, and it was just a matter of pride that kept me going. I didn’t feel as if I knew it any better than I had when I first started fighting it, and that went double for the second phase. The first phase I could do, but, again, I only had one heal going into the second phase–at best, two. And the specter rarely went into phase two with more than a quarter of their health.
So, One of the videos I watched said to bring in Thermite and use that. I farmed that and also Throwing Cells. This was in two different areas. One good thing about farming was that I was able to level up quite a bit and to get more Star Fragments–the item you need to summon a specter. I got six Throwing Cells and six Thermites. I had levels for days and Star Fragments out the wazoo. I summoned the specter and started the fight the way one of the videos suggested–by throwing two Thermites at the boss. That made him catch fire and did crazy damage.
Once the fire subsided, I threw two more at him. Then, I fought him regularly and with the help of the Specter, got the first phase done pretty quickly. I went into the second phase with four heals and the Specter had half-health. That’s the most they’d had in quite some time.
I hung back and let the Specter handle the first attacks of the angel as the video suggested. Then, I went to the other end, the end I knew best, and threw two more Thermites in the face of the anchbishop. My last two Thermites. That plus the Specter plus my occasional hit got the boss down to roughly a quarter health. Then, the Specter died, and I quickly threw a Throwing Cell in his face. It does Blitz, which is electricity, and takes a large chunk of health off. I quickly threw another one, and then another. I kept throwing until finally, incredibly, the health bar was gone. I had used all 6 Thermites and 5 Throwing Cells to beat the boss. It was not a noble win, but it was a win, nonetheless.
I felt empty once I was done. No joy. No triumph. A tiny bit of relief, but that was it. It was a bullshit boss fight, which I won in a bullshit way. And the next area was even more bullshit than that. I’ll get to that tomorrow.