🎥Lies of P Overture DLC EPISODE 15 (Finale): Arlecchino the Blood Artist

As the Overture DLC reaches its climax, Pinocchio and Lea confront a villain unlike any other...

Boss/ending spoilers follow:

I mean... you saw it, right? There aren't many words for how completely over-the-top that final confrontation is. I meant what I said in the episode about feeling serious dread facing down the final boss of a piece of DLC, and having only recently had my world turned inside out by Shadow of the Erdtree's Promised Consort Radahn, I was braced for a very serious scrap indeed. And by golly, I got one.

That said, I think this final boss fight compares favourably to that of the Elden Ring DLC. Arlecchino is extremely exacting, with moves so rapid and screen-filling they're almost impossible to read more than a microsecond ahead of time, but it didn't feel too unfair. The biggest aggravation to overcome was his initial phase 2 combo, working that out felt almost more like a puzzle game than an action RPG.

I love the character design on show here, a kind of steampunk Joker by way of General Grievous, the rear sawblades are hilarious, and the theatre of the fight is impeccable. Like Radahn, this is a battle against a previously-encountered enemy restored to past glory, but while I never felt very strongly that Radahn had to be defeated (beyond the obvious wish to finish the DLC), I couldn't wait to see Lea and Pinocchio wipe the insufferable smirk from Arlecchino's unbearable face.

From a technical standpoint too, this fight is extremely impressive. The bespoke visceral combo-attack is a thing of beauty. The use of colour, the voice lines, the music, it's a cracking example of game design firing on all cylinders.

I think narratively, this is a good ending to the game too. Although it's set in the past, it managed to answer a lot of questions and fill in many blanks regarding the base game. It was more like a plot-advancing flashback than a prequel, really. Obviously 99% of the storylines end up in tragedy, but that's par for the course - have you really finished a soulslike questline until you see the NPC flop over dead, dropping a crucial piece of lore? It's a good ending for Pinocchio himself though, and for that I'm grateful.

Perhaps because fewer people have played it, or because I was on board right from the game's release, I feel a weird sense of ownership over Lies of P compared to say, Dark Souls or Bloodborne, which are games I am associated more closely with online. Is it weird to feel proud of a game I had nothing to do with making?

In any case, I will really, really miss this game. The wait for the sequel is going to be tough. Thank you for coming along for the ride. Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 begins on 9 January!