A lot of games these days have various endings depending on the choices you make along the way. Some have many and some just two. You'll usually find a good ending and a bad ending. One of these or a separate ending altogether can even be what is called the true ending, which is sort of the intended ending from the writers side. In my playthrough of Lies of P I ended up with the bad ending.
Three endings
I knew from the get go that the game had different endings and that they were tied to the choices I make along the way. Specifically they're tied to how much you lie or tell the truth throughout the game, which makes sense for a game based on Pinocchio. At least that's what I can surmise from the fact that basically every choice is between telling the truth or lying. I did a mix throughout the game by basically making the good and right choices throughout the entire game.
By doing this I somehow ended up with the bad ending. I haven't looked up all of the endings so I can't really say for sure that this is the true bad ending but it really did feel that way. At the end after beating the last boss I met Geppetto, the puppet maker, who wanted me to give him my mechanical heart so he could make me into a real human boy. That's Pinocchios greatest wish after all so I decided to go for it.
In the pursuing cutscene we get to see our character die while Geppetto puts our heart into what looks like a new doll. The screen fades and we then see Geppetto and this boy, which is now our new human boy character walk out of the Krat Hotel with every single NPC we met throughout the game being dead. Now I already knew that Geppetto was evil so it wasn't a big surprise but this is what makes me say that this is the bad ending. It has to be. There's no way an ending where literally everyone dies isn't the bad ending.
Now this didn't hit me hard in anyway. Getting the bad ending in a game can sometimes feel a bit crappy after spending a lot of time with. Especially if you end up growing attached to the characters in the game. It's not like playing the Witcher 3 for 150 hours and getting the bad ending which would probably make me want to kill myself. It's just fine.
I haven't decided if I want to play NG+ yet to chase after the other endings. I'm guessing there's an ending for making almost only lies and one for telling only the truth. If the game was less linear and didn't take 25+ hours to finish I probably wouldn't hesitate. There's other games I want to be playing after all.
Disappointing last boss
One thing I can say for sure is that the last boss is a total disappointing. He had two phases and his first phase was a total pushover. On all of my three attempts I made it through without barely taking any damage. I had to give it three attempts before I managed to take down the second phase. There's some weird arena wide AOEs that kept taking me by surprise here. Still, it was so easy I was almost expecting there to be a third phase. There wasn't and the game just ended on a disappointment right then and there.
I did however notice when browsing through the achievements I missed that there is one boss or enemy called the Nameless Puppet who I haven't fought. I have no idea if this is a well hidden boss, if he's maybe tied to a specific ending or if he's a NG+ boss. I hope I find him if I decide to play through the game again.
I'll probably be back with a full review of the game once I've gathered my thoughts properly.
All images in this post are screenshots taken by me.