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But Pinoccio and dark-fantasy setting absolutely fascinated me and I decided to give it a chance
And now looking for more souls-likes, coz Lies of P is absolutely awesome as a game and as a gateway to genre
I am not an expert in this but DS3 and elden ring are always a decent start. alden ring offers a vastly different game play than the rest of the DS games, The newest release of Lords of the Fallen is also a decent game to get into.
Games like KH2 and DMC3 have far superior combat that actually respects your time, unlike the Soulslike genre where you are constantly encumbered by restricted gameplay options, yet enemies have so many options that it feels like you are playing a completely different set of rules than the enemies.
This game in particular is a chore, because the developers took every opportunity to make the game cheap and as frustrating as possible in the interest of making it "difficult".
Enemies have options? What options do enemies have that beat your own? You're ignoring the fact that you have perfect solutions to all the "questions" that enemies ask.
DMC combat is different and not at all focused on difficulty. DMC also has a huge difference between the player character and the enemies.
Lastly, it's quite interesting how you decide to quit soulslikes after playing the one soulslike that gives the most options to the player, while simultaneously complaining about having no options. Sounds like you refused to both learn the game and explore what it has to offer.
You mean enemies flying across the screen with tracking moves, stunning/interrupting you with every and any attack, or enemies being able to have unblockable attacks and grabs? These are all examples of bosses having far more options in-game than you have. Hell, most bosses can inflict status ailments more times than you can purge them, so even enemies have more of the equivalent of status items that you have.
Characters in Soulslike games have incredibly limited options in combat, because the developers intentionally deprive you of these options to create artificial difficulty. In this game, you either perfect parry or block most of the time because dodges get destroyed by delayed attacks and the absurd tracking. Most of the legion arms are useless in fast-paced combat. The weapons are VERY imbalanced and strongly favor fast-weapons with little to no trade-off. In DMC, Vergil and the bosses feel extremely balanced, and the boss fights actually have a good back-and-forth where the enemies have a good balance between attacking and getting opened to prolonged attacks. In this game, it takes forever to get enemies into the staggered state, and before that there are few openings to let off more than 3 attacks.
How can you even compare the flexibility in DMC3's combat to Lies of P? DMC3 has actual combos that require skill to execute, unlike Lies of P and most Soulslike games where the difficulty disappears after you memorize all of the enemies' moves. Lies of P is even more annoying because bosses have too many moves, and the game wastes your time by making you fight 2 phases where each phase has dramatically different movesets.
Lies of P gives artificial flexibility by locking most of the useful mechanics behind lengthy upgrades (legion arms are virtually useless outside of the last tier). Also, the lack of a poise means that gameplay options are EXTREMELY limited to just spamming fast attacks or playing with slow weapons and attacking once after an opening. The items are just gimmicks which is not bad except for the fact that they limit how many of each item you can carry into battle. At least with DS2, there was much more genuine ways to play the game because armor, weapons, dual stance, and other builds varied each playthrough. In Lies of P, I genuinely don't understand why anyone would want to play this game a second time, because the combat becomes a chore.
So your point is that enemies have ridiculously hard to deal with options or that their options are many? Both of these would be wrong. Most enemies in the game have one basic option which is to attack and possibly some other utility such as running fast like the corrupted zombie enemies.
Bosses are meant to have more options than normal fodder enemies. I don't see what your point is by listing what bosses can possibly do.
What you seem to be missing is understanding of how soulslike combat design works, which is having a small set of very impactful options for both the player and the enemies. Whatever you choose in any situation will be important and you should consider what you're doing. Everything any enemy ever does pushes you towards taking a certain action. Going off what you listed:
Tracking moves are meant to cover the player's ability to move aside.
Getting interrupted means you haven't accounted for the sort of opening you have or if you have an opening in the first place.
Unblockable attacks are meant to cover the player's ability to simply block. You deal with them by perfect blocking. This is nothing more than a skill check and many of these moves can be dealt with without perfect blocking as well.
Grabs are meant to beat blocking and perfect guarding. They also test whether you're paying close attention. You can dodge or run out of the way.
Status ailments are meant to check whether you're failing a lot, relying too much on block or not using proper defensive equipment. Dealing with this is obvious.
How are these examples of bosses having far more options than the player? The player just has different options, all of which result in a HIGHLY unfavorable situation for the boss. The bosses don't block your attacks, most of their moveset can be dealt with by simply perfect blocking. Perfect blocking builds their stagger, which leads to a setup where you can obliterate their health. Additionally, you have multiple easy defensive options tied to Fable Arts, such as:
Endure - Enters a stance that ignores attacks for a short time and then gain poise for a while.
Absolute Defense - Enters a stance that perfect blocks attacks for a short time, including unblockables.
Guard Parry - Parries an attack, which cancels the attack, breaks the boss' poise, makes the player invulnerable, deals high damage, deals high stagger damage and an additional property that depends on the weapon used.
These are just some defensive options listed. I haven't mentioned the many powerful offensive Fable Arts at all. It should be obvious how ridiculously powerful something like Guard Parry is. Bosses don't have access to moves as powerful as that.
All of this is just to say that you actually do have many tools at your disposal.
Dodges don't get destroyed by delayed attacks any more than perfect guarding gets destroyed. If you missed the button press because of the delay, then you've failed any of these choices. Tracking also doesn't affect dodges if timed properly, since you have iframes.
The legion arms could have been better, I agree. Although there are very useful ones.
The game actually favors heavy weapons. They have better block properties, better damage, better stagger and aren't actually that much slower unless you compare them with the dagger. Weapons are balanced and most of them can be used to great effect.
Soulslikes also have back-and-forth. In fact, that's what the entire combat system is built on. It's just harder to ignore the enemy's turn. Mentioning back-and-forth and then also mentioning that you're getting interrupted means you're not respecting the back-and-forth.
There are very few games where difficulty does not disappear after memorizing stuff.
Why are you comparing DMC to Lies of P? The combat systems have very different goals.
I've already mentioned how soulslikes rely on a small set of impactful options in combat. There's more emphasis on knowing how many attacks you can get in during any one opening. It creates a situation between you and your opponents where you have to carefully gauge what they're doing and what you can do to combat that. Defensive actions are significantly faster (instant) than offensive actions so you can always defend at the last second. You have stamina as a currency, using it for offensive and defensive actions. The important part is to balance aggression and defense so you can properly use your tools. This also means that walking around attacks is extremely powerful since it costs no stamina and no time, letting you pull off much stronger offense. Obviously, this is why tracking moves exist.
DMC relies on player expression. There aren't many tactical choices to make beyond basic positioning logic. Enemies are simple and non-threatening, including bosses. Considering the ridiculous amount of freedom the player has regarding movement, defense and offense: You can teleport, dodge, dash, jump, double jump, your attacks are fast, have powerful disruptive properties and so on. All of this costs nothing. The game is thus mostly a sandbox for the player to express themselves and do cool stuff to the enemies. If the game's system wasn't obvious enough in encouraging this, there's also a style meter.
I'm not saying one is better than the other. They're quite different and it's up to preference on what you like. You clearly prefer DMC.
Most useful mechanics aren't even tied to the Legion Arms. The best Legion Arm (Pandemonium) is immediately powerful.
It's the Fable Arts that are the most useful (outside of your core mechanics) and they're quite accessible. A lot of Fable Arts also have poise.
The items aren't very gimmicky, they mostly just deal damage. You have skill tree upgrades that can enhance that capability.
There's a lot of room for experimentation with different weapons in this game.
I was able to get very far into the game the first day I played it and because of the story along with the setting/scenery I was intrigued in the game. I tried DS2, 3 and ER before but I would give up because of the grind. I got up to NG+5 or 6 on gamepass on LoP.
Something about not being given the option for a mage build and forcing me to play a melee character along with the mechanic of the legion arm(I used the piano wire arm the entire time) kept me going.
There's something comforting about listening to the records you get and just enjoying the beautiful music after suffering at the hands of the bosses for so long hahaha! the music in this game is so special, I love it.
The story and the characters in general are very compelling too. you dont know if you can really trust them or if they are just using you. ( and of course when you beat the game you realize their intentions )
Typically somebody tried to criticise you by accusing you of 'giving up' which is just another way of pointing towards 'skill issue'.
It's always the case when you talk this way about a souls-like.
You're right though, and I'm half way through new game +, I enjoy the game but hate many aspects of it.
At some point with every boss in the game it comes down to having memorised the parry timing and managing to execute the parrys with their clunky parry system.
You're right about the two phase boss being ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, too.
You have to get so robotic at the first phase that you have basically all of your resources left for the second, usually much harder second phase, as to even attempt it in order to memorise and practice (the parry and dodge timings mainly, of course) you have to slog through the first phase every time. A complete disrespect of the player's time. Especially when the second phase boss pulls out the grab move you've not yet seen before and kills you from 75% health remaining.
Dying to a move you haven't seen before is fine, as long as the price to see it is not your effort and time.
This is just another layer of what I call the '♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty'. These games ask less of your skill and more of your patience, perseverance and time.
Maybe that's why die hard souls-like fans are so precious about defending them; the truth is - they are not HARD for the sake of DIFFICULTY as they would want people to believe, having many of these titles 'under their belt', but they are marathons of time and feats of memory.
Many times I've died because I just couldn't quite remember, for example, the parry/dodge timing on hit number 3 of 4 in attack sequence 5 of 9 on phase/moveset 2 of the boss encounter, especially when many attack sequences can look similar because they are essentially just swinging at you in different ways.
Lastly I'll add this: When an enemy telegraphs an attack, and then lingers the attack in the air for some time before striking, only to strike quickly moments later, that is the game designers simply lying to you about an attack, is a cheap way to add more ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ difficulty, and the only more blatant way for a developer to admit that they don't actually know how to make a game hard without relying on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you over would be if they were to actually just blindside you and say, push you off a high ledge to your death with a hidden enemy that jumps out at you. But of course they do that in this game, too.
All of these points are subjective and they boil down to one thing: This genre isn't for you. Just stop playing if you don't like it.