I'm playing Lies of P for the first time! I love a good souslike but I never buy a game for over $20, I just can't justify the expense when I can barely afford food for my cat. So I've been wanting to play it for years, patiently waiting for a deep sale, knowing how much everyone raves about how great of a game it is. But since it is such a beloved title, it has stayed expensive (I still haven't played Elden Ring for the same reason). LoP did finally go on sale for $30 recently - half off with no DLC. And it probably won't get any cheaper than that for another couple years. I couldn't resist so I splurged and got it.
small note.
And yes, I wholeheartedly advocate for pirating anything and everything one can. I never even watch a movie or TV show unless it's pirated. But I don't have a PC capable of running games and there's no piracy on console, so to my bitter shame, I do buy games.
I'm only a couple hours in having just started playing it yesterday, so I can't give a fair assessment yet, but I am definitely enjoying it so far.
I like the "guard regain" mechanic for earning back hp via attacks, encouraging pro-active and aggressive playstyle, like Bloodborne had and did, but with LoP tying the health-regain specifically to damage you take while guarding (blocking) which BB did not have is a cool way of doing it. Kinda like having your cake and eating it too wrt pushing that fast and aggressive play while also retaining blocking as a valid, even necessary form of defense. It's very satisfying combat, responsive but weighty enough to feel the oomph, "crunchy."
I haven't figured out the handle/blade mix'n'match mechanic yet (it was only just now introduced) but it looks interesting and promising, same with the legion arm mechanic and to a much smaller degree the "defense parts" which breaks up the way armor traditionally worked. The aesthetic isn't quite as cool as I remember Bloodborne's in terms of weird, dark, victorian-gothic vibe, but I wouldn't expect it to be, with LoP leaning a little more towards steampunk rather than cosmic horror. That's not to say the artistic design isn't great, because it is, and there's plenty of room for either aesthetic to flourish, so we'll see. Level design is extremely important to me, though I guess that's true for most people, and I know that's supposed to be one of the reasons Lies of P is considered such a great game, so I'm looking forward to seeing what they do with that.
Anyway, I'm stoked to finally be playing it. (Do people still say "stoked"?)