Pinocchio Doesn’t Just Lie — He *Learns* To
Pinocchio Doesn’t Just Lie — He Learns To I spent six hours trying to get past a single enemy in Lies of P: a hulking, clockwork Stalker named Mad Donkey, swinging a rusted railroad spike like it wei
Pinocchio Doesn’t Just Lie — He *Learns* To
I spent six hours trying to get past a single enemy in Lies of P: a hulking, clockwork Stalker named Mad Donkey, swinging a rusted railroad spike like it weighed nothing. My third attempt ended with me accidentally backstabbing a crate instead of him. Fourth? I got parried so hard my puppet’s jaw snapped off mid-swing — and the game kept it that way, jaw dangling, voice glitching into static for the next ten minutes. That’s when it clicked: this isn’t just Dark Souls with puppets. It’s Pinocchio as a trauma simulator — all wood splinters, bad decisions, and the slow, awkward dawning that maybe honesty isn’t the best policy… at least not when you’re made of scrap metal and existential dread.
Krat Isn’t Gothic — It’s *Broke*
Forget “gothic fog.” Krat feels less like a haunted painting and more like a city that ran out of money halfway through renovating its own soul. Think peeling Art Nouveau wallpaper over exposed brick, gas lamps sputtering weak yellow light over cobblestones slick not with rain but with something thicker — oil? Ergo residue? Regret? The Alchemists didn’t just build a city here; they built a Ponzi scheme disguised as progress. Ergo isn’t magic — it’s currency. And puppets aren’t servants. They’re gig workers with mandatory obedience clauses. When the Puppet Frenzy hits, it doesn’t feel like a curse. It feels like union busting gone horribly, biologically wrong.
You notice it in the details: a broken street sweeper puppet frozen mid-motion, arm raised, broom still hovering. A café sign swinging loose, spelling “CAFE” one second, “FEE” the next. This isn’t set dressing — it’s narrative shorthand. Krat isn’t crumbling because evil won. It’s crumbling because the system was always rotten, and the Frenzy is just the final audit.
Your Nose Grows — But Only If You *Choose* To
The lie mechanic isn’t a gimmick. It’s the game’s spine — and its most frustrating, brilliant, occasionally stupid design choice.
Early on, Hotel Krat’s front desk refuses entry unless you “truthfully” state your purpose. Say “I’m here to see Sophia,” and the door locks tighter. Say “I’m delivering a package for Antonia,” and the guard blinks, nods, steps aside. No cutscene. No fanfare. Just a quiet, slightly embarrassed click of gears disengaging.
But lying has weight. Each time you do it, your “Lie Gauge” fills. Fill it too much, and your puppet starts glitching — limbs stutter, vision distorts, stamina drains faster. Worse: certain NPCs remember. Tell a lie to Red Fox early on, and he’ll call you out later — not with moral outrage, but with weary, pragmatic disappointment. “You said you weren’t looking for Venigni. Yet here you are. Again.”
It’s not about “good vs. evil.” It’s about cost. Is saving five minutes worth losing 20% stamina for the next boss? Is sparing a minor character’s feelings worth making your jump animation lag for three seconds? I lied to save a shopkeeper from a Stalker — then died two rooms later because my dodge timing was half a frame off. Was it worth it? Hell if I know. But I felt it.
Combat Feels Like Fixing a Broken Music Box — With a Hammer
This isn’t Elden Ring’s ballet. It’s Nioh’s angry cousin who took shop class and failed. Your weapon, usually a modified wrench, pipe, or ornate cane, has weight. Swings clunk. Recovery is deliberate. Parrying isn’t about pixel-perfect timing; it’s about reading wind-up animations like body language. A Stalker doesn’t lunge — it leans, shifts its center of gravity, decides.
And then there’s the gear system. You don’t just upgrade weapons — you rebuild them. Find a broken piston? Slot it into your left arm to gain a short-range shockwave. Scavenge a cracked lens? Fuse it with your right hand for a brief, blinding flash. Most upgrades are situational, temporary, and often break after three uses. I once spent an entire hour hunting down a rare spring component just to unlock a single, 1.2-second stagger effect — only to lose it to a stray hit from a sewer rat.
It’s deeply unbalanced. Sometimes you feel unstoppable. Other times, you’re humbled by a trash can that somehow dodges your every swing. But it works, because it mirrors Pinocchio’s journey: clumsy, improvised, held together by hope and duct tape.
The Real Horror Isn’t the Petrification, It’s the *Bureaucracy*
The Carcass, humans twisted by the Petrification Disease — are tragic, yes. But what sticks with me isn’t their grotesque forms. It’s the paperwork.
In City Hall, you find memos stamped “PRIORITY: LOW” next to reports titled “Incident Report: 47th Case of Unregulated Ergo Leakage (Slum Sector Gamma).” In Venigni Works, blueprints show “Phase 3 Compliance Adjustments” — meaning “remove safety interlocks to meet Q3 quotas.” Even the Black Rabbit Brotherhood’s hideout has a ledger, meticulously tracking “Carcass Disposal Fees (Per Unit).”
The real monster in Lies of P isn’t the Archbishop turned abomination or the King of Puppets. It’s the quiet, systemic rot of institutions choosing profit over people — then blaming the victims when things go sideways. Pinocchio doesn’t fight monsters. He fights the consequences of decisions made in boardrooms lit by flickering gaslight.
So… Who’s This Actually For?
Not for people who want a smooth, polished action RPG. Not for fans of lore dumps served on silver platters. And definitely not for anyone allergic to frustration — or to the kind of storytelling that trusts you to piece things together from a discarded diary page, a half-erased chalkboard, and the way a puppet’s voice cracks when it says “father.”
But if you like games that feel handmade, rough edges and all, and stories where morality isn’t black and white but varying shades of tarnished brass? If you’ve ever stared at your own reflection and wondered how much of what you say is true, and how much is just keeping the gears turning? Then yeah. Lies of P might just be the weirdest, most honest thing you play this year.
I still don’t know if Pinocchio becomes “real” at the end.
I’m not even sure what “real” means anymore in Krat.
But I do know this: the first time I told a lie just to avoid a tedious conversation with a side character — and watched his shoulders slump, not in anger, but in tired recognition — I put the controller down. Sat there. Didn’t move.
That’s not a game moment.
That’s a thing that happened.
And honestly? I’m weirdly grateful for it.
References & Further Reading
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