Normal Adult Luke
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🎥Lies of P Overture DLC EPISODE 15 (Finale): Arlecchino the Blood Artist
🕑 Added 2025-12-26 15:00:15 +0000 UTCAs 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!
Comments
E-J Burr
Woohoo for 33 coming along :)
Tony B
Congratulations! I apologise in advance but I’m about to go off on one about other post-DLC bits you didn’t (and in fact largely couldn’t) get to, but the TL:DR is: that was great, I love this game and it’s DLC similarly, and I can’t wait for their Oz. Looking forward to your new year Expedition. So first just to cover off a couple of bits from the end of the video: completing the DLC is the trigger for everything you did in the past becoming “official”, so as you may have noticed Spring has now got the bell collar on in the present day too. Also, the golden seed you planted by the tree has grown, becoming a little ornament you can place on the record player. There are also some bits in the main game that change if you play the DLC at the point it becomes available (after the assault on the hotel, so before heading down to the Relic of Trismagistus to find the sub). The simplest is that Antonia’s final letter (the “Cherry-scented letter”) gains a second page, offering further encouragement of the difference Pinocs can make - this one may update in your inventory anyway. The extremely long final conversation with Arlecchino in the Arche Abbey can be made even longer too - by wearing Lea’s outfit he’ll realise the connection and that you were the other combatant in the final fight, and discuss that battle with you. Lastly, and probably the biggest, is that the memories on the beach while approaching the abbey get a couple of changes - this is the moment I hinted at wanting to bring up in my comment way back on the second episode. The penultimate one gets a bit of a reaction from Gemini that isn’t there originally, while the final one gets a completely new voiceover from Lea with a more positive - and directed at the player character on the beach rather than just a memory - discussion of the past events. I’d probably recommend tracking a video of this down if you’re not going to play through again.
