When Lies of P first came out back in 2023, the Soulslike genre was already getting crowded. Everyone and their dog was trying to chase what FromSoftware built with Dark Souls, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring, and honestly, most of them just ended up feeling like cheap imitations. Lies of P was one of the few that actually managed to stand on its ownnd now Lies of P: Complete Edition has arrived on Nintendo Switch 2, bringing Round8 Studio’s dark take on Pinocchio to Nintendo’s newest system.
Round8 Studio did not just copy the homework here. They took the formula everyone else was chasing and gave it a personality that feels distinctly its own, from the grim reimagining of a children’s story to a combat system with enough original ideas to avoid feeling derivative. The Complete Edition bundles in the base game, the Overture expansion, and every improvement made since launch, and it is a genuinely impressive package.
Let us get the technical side out of the way first, because that is what a lot of readers are here for. Yes, there are some compromises bringing a game this visually demanding to a hybrid system, but Switch 2 handles it far better than expected. Between docked and handheld play, there are multiple performance profiles to choose from, and the post launch update did a lot of heavy lifting to smooth out some early rough patches, particularly for portable play, where things had apparently been a bit of a mess before Round8 Studio got their hands back on it. For anyone chasing the best possible frame rate, there is an option built for that, and it makes a real difference in how responsive the combat feels when fighting groups of enemies or squaring off against one of the game’s bigger bosses. There are trade offs in visual fidelity to get there, sure, some softer textures here, a bit of simplified lighting there, but nothing distracting enough to take away from the experience. Loading is fast on both the original and Complete editions, stability holds up throughout, and the game rarely if ever chugs even when things get chaotic on screen. Motion blur can also be turned off entirely now, a small addition that is nonetheless welcome, and HD Rumble adds a nice bit of feedback during key moments without being overbearing. None of these changes are individually massive, but stacked together they make this feel like a proper, considered port rather than something rushed out the door.
Alright, technical stuff done, let us actually talk about why Lies of P works so well as a game, because the performance options would not matter much if the experience underneath was not worth playing.
It would be easy to write this off as just “dark Pinocchio” and move on, but that undersells what Round8 Studio actually did here. Lies of P borrows the bones of Carlo Collodi’s original story and rebuilds them into something considerably grimmer. You are dropped into Krat, a once prosperous city built on an energy source called Ergo, which allowed the inventor Geppetto to create an army of mechanical puppets. Those puppets ran the city, did the dangerous jobs, kept everything humming along, all while bound by rules that stopped them from ever hurting a human.
Then, of course, everything falls apart. The puppets turn violent in what becomes known as the Puppet Frenzy, and a plague called Petrification Disease starts turning the remaining citizens into monsters. Into this mess wakes P, a puppet built by Geppetto with an ability none of the others have: he can lie. Guided by a mysterious voice named Sophia and a small lantern companion called Gemini, P sets out to find his creator and figure out what actually happened to Krat.
One of the strongest aspects of the game is that it does not lean entirely on the cryptic, piece it together yourself style of storytelling that a lot of Soulslikes fall back on. There is plenty of that here too, sure, item descriptions and scattered lore for those who want to dig, but the characters get real room to breathe as well. Hotel Krat becomes your hub between missions, and the survivors gathered there give the story a much more personal touch. Many of your conversations boil down to a simple choice: tell the truth, or tell a kinder lie. It is a clever way of taking Pinocchio’s most famous trait and turning it into a genuine question about what makes someone human, whether comforting someone with a lie can sometimes be the more decent thing to do. Your answers actually matter too, shaping relationships, unlocking extra content, and steering which ending you land on.
Now let us talk combat, because this is where Lies of P earns its reputation. Every swing feels weighty and deliberate without ever feeling sluggish, and the game demands you actually learn what you are up against rather than button mash your way through. Blocking converts a chunk of incoming damage into Guard Regain, which you can win back by pressing the attack rather than retreating, so the whole system rewards staying aggressive. Perfect Guard takes this further, letting you completely no sell an attack at the right moment while chipping away at an enemy’s weapon and stagger meter. String enough of that together and you can knock an enemy into a Groggy state, opening them up for a devastating Fatal Attack. It is a rhythm that clicks in a way few Soulslikes manage, and once it clicks, it is hard to put the controller down.
Then there is Weapon Assembly, one of the standout systems in the whole game. Every standard weapon splits into a Blade and a Handle, and you can mix and match freely. The Blade decides your damage type, elemental properties, and reach, while the Handle decides your moveset, attack speed, and how your stats scale, and the combinations you can come up with are genuinely wild. Slap a heavy Bone Cutting Saw Blade onto the Handle of a Puppet’s Sabre and you get something with way more reach than it has any right to have while still moving fast. Pair a Salamander Dagger Blade with a Big Pipe Wrench Handle and suddenly you are setting enemies on fire from a distance most weapons that size have no business reaching. It is the kind of system that makes you want to experiment constantly instead of just chasing the biggest number on the stat sheet, and every component comes with its own special Fable Art on top of that, so even a weapon combination you build purely for fun can end up carrying you through a tough fight.
P also gets access to the Legion Arm, a mechanical prosthetic with several swappable configurations. Puppet String lets you yank enemies toward you or launch into an aerial strike, Flamberge unleashes a stream of fire, Aegis gives you a defensive option that can absorb hits and blast back, and there are a few more besides, each opening up a different way to approach a fight. Combine that with a fairly standard Soulslike progression system built around Ergo and a passive skill tree called the P-Organ, and you have got a huge amount of room to build P however you like.
None of this would matter if the bosses were not up to snuff, and thankfully they are. Fights against the likes of the Scrapped Watchman or the King of Puppets will absolutely test what you have learned, though the game is kind enough to offer adjustable difficulty for anyone who wants to focus more on the story and world than getting stomped repeatedly. You can also summon a Specter using Star Fragments to help even the odds during tougher encounters, which is a nice touch for anyone who wants a bit of backup.
The Overture expansion, included here as part of the Complete Edition, adds a whole extra chapter, taking you through coastal ruins and flooded workshops while filling in more of the backstory behind Ergo itself. It brings new weapons too, including a genuinely fun Gunblade that mixes swordplay with explosive ranged attacks, along with new bosses that come with some suitably dramatic music behind them.
And speaking of the world, Krat itself might be the biggest reason to keep playing. Every district has its own identity, from the elegant, ruined architecture of the City Centre to the industrial nightmare of Venigni Works, all furnaces and toxic waste and malfunctioning machinery. The Grand Exhibition shows off what Krat used to be with its galleries and glasswork, while the Barren Swamps are just as miserable as they sound, full of fog and discarded puppet parts. The level design loops back on itself constantly, opening shortcuts as you progress in a way that makes exploring genuinely satisfying rather than a chore.
The sound design deserves a mention too. Learning to recognize an enemy by the noise it makes is honestly just as important as watching its movements, and there is nothing quite like the sound of a Perfect Guard landing exactly right. The boss music goes big when it needs to, while Hotel Krat’s piano pieces give the whole game a quieter, more melancholy side. Songs like “Feel” linger well after the controller has been put down.
Lies of P: Complete Edition is a genuinely impressive package on Switch 2. Round8 Studio took a genre that was in danger of becoming stale and carved out something that stands proudly next to the games that inspired it. The combat is precise, the weapon system rewards experimentation, and the whole Pinocchio angle gives the story an emotional core that a lot of Soulslikes never bother reaching for. There are visual sacrifices made to get this running on a hybrid system, particularly if you push for the highest frame rate in handheld mode, but those trade offs never got in the way of what makes this game special.
With the full original adventure, Overture, and everything Round8 Studio has patched in since launch, Lies of P: Complete Edition is about as complete a package as you could ask for. Whether you are already a Soulslike veteran or just looking for a well told action RPG with combat this satisfying, there is very little reason to skip this one. Lies of P was already one of the better entries in this genre when it first launched, and on Switch 2, it has found a new home where it still shines just as bright. Highly recommended.
Disclaimer: A review key was provided