Tips for beginners in "Lies of P":

"Lies Of P" is undoubtedly a sophisticated game. However, despite its strong emphasis on combat, it is also burdened with rather opaque mechanics that are likely to confuse both newcomers to the Souls series and experienced Souls veterans. This guide will specifically provide you with hints for everything that is not directly related to combat.

Because even though this game is challenging, there are certainly ways to make it considerably easier for yourself. We will guide you through all the things you want to know about Lies Of P. From the best way to traverse the world, to leveling up your P-Organs more quickly, and even managing your weight more efficiently - this guide will provide you with the right start!

Watch Your Weight

As with a true FromSoftware game, weight plays a rather significant role in how you, well, roll. The heavier you are, the slower your movement will be. You have a handy weight tracker in your status menu, which displays your current level of burden. Additionally, we have also provided a table for quick reference.

Under 30%	Light
Under 60%	Standard
Under 80%	Slightly Heavy
Over 80%	Heavy

And that can pose quite a significant issue when facing certain enemies. Your dodge rolls can become particularly unwieldy at certain weights. What's worse is that when you find better defensive equipment, it always weighs more. Without exception. Some of the most effective amulets can also be quite heavy.

To keep your weight in check, you can do the following things...

• Don't bring a second weapon to battle. These will just weigh you down, and if you are staying on top of your weapon sharpening, they aren't necessary.
• Don't neglect your capacity stat. Even if you are planning to use light weapons, you are going to want to make sure you are consistently investing in capacity so that you can equip the better Defense Parts.
• Make use of the Carrier's Amulet. It will greatly increase your weight limit.
• Use a weaker Cartridge (or none at all) and just carry more Ampoules to compensate for your lower resistance.
• Use the Left Arm Of Steel Legion Arm. Your beginner arm is lightweight and until you get the latter unlocks in the game the other Legion Weapons are pretty ineffective anyway.

When it comes to the ideal weight, we recommend the "Standard" weight, which is more than sufficient in most situations. A light weight certainly has its advantages, and there are some boss battles where it's worth switching to a light weight. However, for the most part, you don't gain enough benefits to justify the associated effort. A normal weight is a good compromise and provides you with enough flexibility to try out different weapons and amulets. A slight overweight is still manageable, but you may find that faster enemies pose more difficulties for you. A heavy weight is completely unbearable.

Always Be On The Lookout For Shortcuts

If you're a Souls veteran, you won't need to be told this, but these games are designed to unfold as you play them. You will open gates, lower ladders, and raise bridges to create routes that allow you to travel quickly from one place to another.

If you come across various paths and the one you choose turns out to be the main route, you should turn back and explore the alternative path that you skipped. It may lead you to a treasure or a shortcut. You really don't want to miss out on these opportunities as they can make a difference between having to fight through an army of puppets or simply taking ten steps through a gate to reclaim your lost Ergo.

Don't Be Precious With Your Items

Apart from a few select items, you will gain access to most consumables throughout the course of Lies of P. However, you should exercise caution when it comes to Quarz, Cranks, and Full Moon Shards (the latter being the final moon shards). Everything else can ultimately be acquired through the shops in the hotel.

So, you don't have to "save" vials. Don't torment yourself over Hidden Moon Shards or Half Moon Stones, and don't hesitate to throw a saw blade at a puppet's head. You won't receive any accolades for hoarding these items, so just use them when you feel you need to.

Rare Ergo is a different story! You can exchange your rare Ergo for a substantial amount of Ergo or trade it for special weapons and items. Ergo is not hard to come by in Lies of P, so we would recommend not using it for a quick Ergo boost. You can identify rare Ergo by its location in your bag. It has its own section aptly named "Rare Ergo" (what a surprise).

Souls-like? More Like Saws-like!

If you've played a FromSoftware game before, you know they like to sprinkle a few ambushes here and there. You know, to keep you on your toes! Well, Lies Of P has decided to instead lay down a two-inch thick layer of them. Ambushes are everywhere in Lies of P. If you see an enemy with their back turned to you, you can bet there's a puppet hiding in the alcove beside them. Another surprise attack lurks around every corner.

But don't worry, just when you're getting accustomed to the multitude of sadistic ambushes, the game will get more creative with them. Are you crossing an acid puddle on a narrow bridge? Watch out, someone will shoot at you and make you fall into it. Are there explosive barrels lying around? Just wait, someone will rush out and make them explode as you pass by. There are two ways to deal with these frequent ambushes.

• Listen carefully. Often the game will give you audio cues that something isn't right.
• Identify the thing in the environment that could cause you the most harm and ask yourself, "What could they do to force me into that thing?"
• Oh, as a bonus third point, just never, ever trust corners. Corners are the devil.

Keep your eyes open and be constantly vigilant because Lies of P is trying to lure you into an ambush!

An Empty Belt Is An Efficient Belt

In Lies of P, you have an Upper Belt and a Lower Belt. You also have an Extra Pouch. By pressing up on the directional pad, you can select an item from your Upper Belt, pressing down on the directional pad allows you to use an item from your Lower Belt, and holding down the "Interaction Button" grants access to your Extra Pouch.

So, should you probably load up those belts with any items that could be useful in combat, right? Better safe than sorry, right? Well, maybe, but before you do that, consider the following: If you only have a sliver of health left and a boss is charging at you, is it a good time to rummage through your pockets? We would argue that in this case, it would be better to reliably use a Stim Cell.

So, instead of loading up your belts, you should consider keeping only Stim Cells in one of them. This way, you can quickly heal yourself in a dire situation without ever having to worry about selecting the wrong item.

That being said, there is no reason not to load your Extra Pouch with Cleansing Vials, Resistance Vials, and throwable weapons.

Plan Your Approach

If there's one thing that Lies of P gets right, it's the level design. There are typically multiple intersecting paths. However, this isn't just to provide the player with a variety of nooks and crannies to search for treasures (although you should definitely keep an eye out for those goodies), but it's also a way to give you the opportunity to take out enemies that might otherwise be a bit tricky. Often, there is an optimal route that can give you a significant advantage.

We've already mentioned that this is a game full of ambushes, but if you carefully plan your route, you'll often have the opportunity to get the jump on your opponent. Here are some tips...

• Lies of P will give you ways around ranged enemies, so if there isn't enough cover to approach a group of ranged foes, look for a path around. You will probably find one that can get you right up against their backsides.
• Preoccupied enemies will often stay pretty locked into what they are doing. So, make them a low priority. Slumped-over Puppets will only attack if you get close to them.
• When you have two paths, and you don't know which one to take, try taking the one that takes you up. Often the higher route will give you an opportunity to take out enemies from above or eliminate snipers.

In Example...

After defeating the first boss in Lies Of P, you will come across an area where there is an alley with a puppet standing in the middle of the path. Next to this alley, there is a lower area where a puppet is banging against a door, and another puppet slumped in the corner (this one is easy to overlook). You have two options to deal with these three puppets. You can jump down to the lower area and confront the puppet banging against the door, or you can confront the puppet in the alley.

The correct order here is to go through the lower area, first taking out the slumped puppet in the corner and ignoring the busy puppet banging against the door. Once the slumped puppet is dealt with, you should attack the door-banging puppet from behind, then go up the stairs and sneak up on the puppet in the alley from behind (who is still facing the entrance) and attack it from behind. By choosing this approach, you will be able to eliminate each threat without...

Above all, you should carefully observe your surroundings and plan accordingly. Even the weakest puppets can become a problem if you're cornered and surrounded. Work smarter, not harder.

Upgrading Your P-Organs Wisely

After defeating the Donkey Boss and rescuing Geppetto, you can officially use the collected Quartz to enhance abilities through the P-Organ system. These are not small, modular improvements but significant enhancements that can dramatically improve your combat skills and survival in the world of Lies of P. Here is a brief explanation of how the system works. Then we will show you how to make your upgrades more efficient...

When you enter the P-Organ Activation screen, you will notice that there are five "phases" of activation. However, you only have access to the first phase initially. Each phase has four available P-Organs corresponding to an ability. When you select a P-Organ, you will see that there are two slots. You can fill a slot with a Quartz Crystal. While filling a slot, you will see that there are various upgrades to choose from. There are five tiers of abilities, but you can only access the tier of ability that corresponds to the highest unlocked P-Organ phase.

Once you have unlocked two P-Organs, you can progress to the next phase. In the third phase, you will need three Quartz Crystals to unlock a third phase P-Organ. In the fifth phase, you will need four Quartz Crystals for a single P-Organ.

Here's the trick: You unlock an additional phase when you obtain every two P-Organs, regardless of which phase they belong to. This means that you can reach Phase 5 much faster if you focus on acquiring P-Organs from the first two phases. As good as the abilities of the P-Organs may be, the abilities of the inserted Quartz Crystals are often equally effective.

As much as we think that faster unlocking of the fifth phase is the best strategy, you may still want to consider acquiring the "Enhance Pulse Cell Recovery 2" in Phase 3. Yes, it costs an additional Quartz Crystal and slows down your pursuit of Phase 5 a bit, but it also gives you an extra Pulse Cell, and you can never have enough of those.

You want to gain access to the Tier 5 abilities as quickly as possible. By exclusively upgrading the first two phases of P-Organs, you will unlock the fifth phase with 16 Quartz Crystals. If you were to unlock two P-Organs in each phase, it would cost you 20 Quartz Crystals. That's worth several valuable Quartz Crystals from boss enemies, folks!

When In Doubt Hoof It!

If you're getting battered and injured, and your Pulse Cells are running low, you can always just... run away. Enemies will only pursue you up to a certain point. So, if you find yourself in a bad situation and getting overwhelmed, you can create some distance and escape. By the way, this also applies to most mini-bosses. Although the game may trap you in certain areas with some of them, for the most part, you can retreat if things go sour.

Hell, even when things are going well, you can create distance, heal yourself, repair your weapon, and then face the tough villain again in a better condition. Taking distance doesn't mean you're giving up. If a particular semi-boss is giving you a lot of trouble, you can also get really sneaky and find the point where they refuse to follow you. This way, you can land a few hits, then run back to that point, wait for them to retreat, and then attack again when they turn their back. It may be dirty, but it's also effective.

Furthermore, if you know that you're near a stargazer and haven't encountered one in a while, which is likely the case, you can take a little risk by bypassing a group of enemies and then activating the stargazer. You shouldn't feel obligated to attack every enemy you encounter. There is a time to fight and a time to run away.

Although it's sometimes best to keep your distance, ultimately, you should deal with those mini-bosses. Firstly, once they're dead, they won't be resurrected, making exploration easier, but also because they often spoil you with fantastic rewards! So, consider running away as one of many approaches, not your only approach.