#(I had a lot of help from my throwing items and Aegis shield though xD)

[ideas-on-paper]

Real Boy ending, Golden Lie & NG+ death counter

(Nothing special, just a few final comments on my NG+ playthrough)

[MAJOR Spoilers for Lies of P]

When Geppetto calls Pino a puppet after you give him the heart:

It was at this moment that Pino knew: He fucked up.

(It does confirm that Geppetto sees P merely as a puppet though - when he is talking to "his son", he is really talking to Carlo's heart.)

But hey! I finished my second Lies of P playthrough! Wohooo!!!

It's a bit of a bummer that I wasn't able to get the Golden Lie in this playthrough either though, despite technically having more humanity points than the last time. (Also, if I ever do a third run, I'm gonna go for the Free from the Puppet String ending, so I won't get it then either.)

However, I think I may have an idea what the reason for this is: As far as I can tell, the pop-up message "Your heart is pounding" only is displayed after you gave Sophia peace. I only got it two times in my first playthrough, after listening to the last two records, which wasn't quite enough to unlock the Golden Lie. However, even at the point when I long should've exceeded the humanity points necessary for it, I only got "You feel warmth" in my second playthrough. This is because I chose to let Sophia live the second time around, for roleplaying reasons. I was playing a Pinocchio who lied on every possible occasion, but who didn't have the heart to kill any person he was close to. (The cruel irony being, due to his inability to see any evil in his beloved father, he ultimately ended up killing all the people he cared about.)

So, if you want to get the Golden Lie, you have to give Sophia peace. I thought the choice with Sophia only affected the ending, but apparently not.

As a result, I had never seen the description of the Golden Lie before, so I googled it. And, as with so many items, it actually contains lore-relevant information:

"There are two kinds of lies. Yours is the lie that makes your nose long." The boy loved the fairy tale about the wooden puppet's adventure. At least the wooden puppet's father was kind.

Since I wasn't aware of this, I had assumed the fairy tale of Pinocchio being Carlo's favorite book was just a really good fan theory, but this pretty much confirms it. Also, judging by the wistful remark "at least the wooden puppet's father was kind", I think Carlo's heartfelt wish was just that Geppetto would love and appreciate him, deep down.

Last but not least, I'm pretty proud of myself that I finished the game with just 16 deaths in total, 9 of which were from boss fights - discounting the Nameless Puppet of course, since I didn't fight it in my second run. (Once again, I did the boss fights without Specter for my own fun, since they're a bit too easy for my taste otherwise.)

I'm actually sort of curious: Has anyone else managed to beat the game with less than 20 deaths? (I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if there are pro gamers who can finish the game with below 10 deaths, but just out of curiosity. ^^)