LISA: The Painful

Modern indie games could learn a lot from Lisa.

Lisa or Lisa: The Painful is an indie game that, as you probably already know, is heavily inspired by EarthBound [Mother 2 ギーグの逆襲] and Mother 3. Knowing this, before I played it, caused some mixed reactions from me. On the one hand, I love those games and consider both of them to be absolute, all-time favorites, and would love to play more games like them. However, because I loved them so much, I felt that anything trying to invoke that same idea would fall short, and make me wish that I was just playing those games instead. Nostalgia can only take you so far.

However, thankfully, I was wrong. The most important thing to say about Lisa is that, though it is greatly inspired by the Mother series, it becomes a game entirely of its own over its short playtime. It accomplishes so much in ten short hours, and none of those things are "making me wish I was just playing EarthBound [Mother 2 ギーグの逆襲]. Not by a long shot.

The best thing about this game, by a long shot, is its world. Out of all of the post-apocalyptic games I've played, none of them have worlds that feel as real as this one. This is partially because so many details are left out; the cause of the apocalypse is only hinted to in vague words, the actual location of the setting is never revealed, and the time period, from what I recall, is ignored entirely. The player is simply dropped into a world that has collapsed, and the events of the game begin. There are people and monstrosities and relics of past human civilization everywhere in this game, but they all call back to one thing: the world has become completely hopeless after whatever catastrophe ending the world as we knew it.

The post-apocalyptic events of this game are fairly believable too. For anyone who is unaware, the basic premise (and I am trying to avoid as many spoilers are possible) of the game is that, at the beginning, there are no women left alive in this world. It is a world entirely comprised of men, so, logically, there is no hope for the future of humanity. That is, until the player character discovers a baby girl and raises her in secret. Long story short, someone else discovers this child, and gets ideas about the future of humanity. It's as horrific as it sounds.

The sickening, disturbing nature of this narrative shapes the tone of the entire rest of the game, which leads me to the next best thing about this game: the narrative. This may be the most well-told story in any video game I've played. It's certainly the best in a game of this type. What makes this game so special, and what makes it a narrative about as good as Silent Hill 2, is that it handles its heavy subject with care (for the most part). This is a game that deals heavily in sexuality and how sex would be treated in a post-apocalypse and this subject is never treated crudely or as a source of humor. Even in the more absurd sequences, and there are a few, the player is meant to feel sick and repulsed. In this world, sex is vulgar. It's a weapon. The overarching narrative revolves around this disturbing evolution of sexuality and it is handled very well.

There are lots of little side events and stories in this game too. Some of them are more serious, and some are light-hearted. Only a few feel out of place. The more lighthearted ones are a neat break from the morbid, painful main narrative and some of them can be genuinely funny. It's not often that I call a video game funny, but some of the story sequences (both main and side) actually involve some pretty hilarious jokes. Occasionally, these side events will just be stupid; one in particular is so needlessly morbid that it really detracted from the game for a while. Thankfully, I got over it.

The ending, story-wise, is excellent. It's an incredibly touching series of events that may leave the player feeling pretty empty. It's a bold way to end a game like this.

In short, the writing in this game is great, and that alone makes it worth playing. I've been waiting a long time for a more story-driven game to excite me again, and a lot of them, like To the Moon and The Last of Us, fell short, primarily because the narrative wasn't good enough to balance out lackluster gameplay. Thankfully, this game's writing is more than enough to hold it up, but the gameplay is pretty exciting too.

Anyone who has played the aforementioned Mother games will recognize the combat system here, as it is a pretty straight-forward turn-based RPG. There are, however, some nice touches that make the gameplay pretty engaging.

First, and most importantly, are all of the recruitable characters. There are so many of them. There are tons of optional ones and some are much harder to get than others. I loved seeing all of the different characters, each with their own little backstories, and each with a legitimate role in the world. They all have different moves, with different fighting or support styles, so this game has the potential for a lot of replayability just in trying out all of the different characters. This game does actually have a couple of ways to lose characters permanently, including perma-death. I will discuss both ways of losing characters in further paragraphs.

The combat in this game is actually pretty interesting. One big difference between this game and the JRPGs that it is based on is that this game has very few random encounters. They're only in three or four areas throughout the game, and they're never very difficult and they don't give much experience. Therefore, most of the combat in this game comes from story fights or side event fights. This means that for a lot of the fights, the intensity level is very high. There are very few fights that you can casually button mash through; most will require some degree of strategy. This is a neat change from most JRPGs because it ensures that the player is not zoning out in combat or going on auto-pilot.

Lots of the boss fights are very difficult, and, later in the game, quite a few of them will have perma-kill moves. As in, a party member killed by that move does not come back to your party and cannot be revived. This is a mechanic that adds some serious intensity to these battles; you never know when an important party member might be gone for good, or when you'll have to load an older save to rescue them. I managed to make it through the whole game, on Normal Mode, without losing a party member this way, but I did have to reload a few times to save them.

Another gameplay mechanic that can lose party members for you is the resting system. Most resting points are open-air firepits, and resting there could trigger a random event. Sometimes this means everyone getting a status condition and sometimes it could mean a companion abandoning the party permanently. Even resting becomes risky in this game, so the intensity doesn't really lower for most of the playthrough. There are some safe places to rest, though, so there will be some relief occasionally.

There are lots of events throughout the game that help keep the gameplay interesting. You'll be asked to make some incredibly difficult decisions that can affect the player character or the companions. There are a lot of optional fights that often serve to further develop the universe or story, and these make for some of the best moments. There are so many secrets; secret items, characters, equipment, story segments. The amount of optional content in this game is unbelievable, and helped make this feel like a real, fully developed world. The bicycle, motorcycle, and truck keys add some quality of life improvements that make the game both more playable and a little more exciting; the motorcycle segments feel like setpieces for a more cinematic game and they're just really fun, even if they sometimes have pacing issues. There is a Russian Roulette sequence that is incredibly tense but made for a really memorable moment.

The ending sequence, from a gameplay perspective, is a little too easy. The actual hardest boss is optional and before the final boss and is a really fun, nerve-wracking event that could potentially wipe out your companions. However, from a story perspective, the whole sequence is incredibly heart-breaking and made up for the lack of challenge. It's very creative and bold and well worth the often difficult fights to get there.

It's very difficult to explain a game like this. The words I've written here don't say enough; this game is something very special that can only really be experience to be understood. But all in all, it's a well-written, fun JRPG-wannabe that will be an emotional trainwreck. You will walk away as sad as you are disgusted.

I love the "earthbound inspired rpgmaker game about depression" games and this is my favorite of them. This is also very, very different from these games in every single aspect. This is my favorite game of all time.

This game will always find new ways to punish you, to toy with you, to screw you over. The games aesthetics and narrative fit the gameplay excellently and don't even get me started on the sountrack of this game. I have played many games with great soundtracks over the years. Lisa the Painfuls OST is the only OST out of any video game i have willingly listened to on Spotify more than once. It is weird, unique and just oozes with personality and fits this surreal game perfectly. One slight issue with the soundtrack is how often some of songs are used, but I really didn't mind when the OST is that good.

Speaking of issues about the game, there is one, but a major one: map design. Yeah, the game is a post-apocalyptic hellscape, but the areas are sometimes barely indistinguishable because most of the map looks exactly the same with different colors. Traversing these areas wasnt the best either, because that also was just climbing ropes, climbing some more ropes and oh my god how many ropes are there. It does get better halfway into the game with getting access to the bicycle, but until getting the bicycle the repetitiveness was bad enough that i took a break halfway into the game.

That being said, lets talk about story. The story singlehandedly fixed that one issue I had with the game, because suddenly after one point (if you play the game you probably know what I am talking about) i didnt notice it at all, because the story reeled me in that much. I don't have many words to describe the story other than "holy fucking shit,,, man". This game makes you feel things that other games struggle to make you feel. This game will make you think about things you really don't want to think about. The story is sad, uncomfortable and sometimes downright repulsive. And I loved it, I love this story so much, one of the few games that I wish i could experience for the first time again. It’s one of those stories where the game makes you question your actions and make you doubt in if you are doing the right thing and it does that excellently.

Also for a sidenote (because this part isnt that long and I don't know where exactly to put this) this game is hilarious. This is the funniest game I have ever played, by a looooooong shot. If nothing else, this game will at the very least make you laugh. Its good enough that I started exploring areas, talking to all kinds of different characters for the sole reason of finding all of the jokes the game has to offer. Really gives charm to this silly little game.

One last thing to talk about the gameplay is there is a LOT of things to do here, giving it a lot of replayability. because you will Not get everything in the first playthrough because of the sheer amount of content. Hell, I tried getting everything, going to every single door and I still missed a bunch of the side content, there is that much. This also majorly helped with the lackluster map design, because i stopped differentiating areas by the design, I started differentiating them based on what side content and characters there were in the area.

Overall, this game while not perfect, is the best rpg I have ever played. It's a one of a kind experience, this is one of the few games I have played where there genuinely isn't a game that i can really compare it with, it is *that* different, *that* out there. Yeah some aspects of the game are comparable with others but this game as a whole is just truly magical. Be it the story, the music, the humor, the characters, the gameplay - there will be something in here that you will enjoy.

In terms of Rpg mechanics, it's pretty standard (make sure you get Birdy on your team, he's OP), but you don't play this for the gameplay, you play it for the story.
I don't wanna get into major spoilers, but let's just say there's some point in the story where you stop agreeing with the Brad, the main character. It's similar to Breaking Bad or Taxi Driver where you lose your sympathy for them because at some point, they cross a certain line. For everyone, that line is gonna be different, but they do eventually cross that line. The guilt that Brad feels for his past mistakes overwhelms him to the point of irrationality. I have to add, the way the story is delivered here is genius. There's the stuff that happens in real time, and then they're the backstory stuff, which is done in these kinda interruptive sequences, but they never feel out of place. It always feels like the backstory somehow progresses the main story right up until the climax, which is just insane. And the ending... Eugh, just sends shivers down my spine when I think about it.
Lisa's atmosphere is depressing. There are some lines of dialogue that just really hit you in the chest and exemplify how horrible the world they inhabit is. I feel like that aspect of utterly depressing reality is missing from a lot of other Post-Apocalyptic pieces of art. Of course it is post-apocalyptic, so there are guns, drugs, gangs, and big machinery, but it has this nasty nihilistic attitude towards.
Don't worry though, because there are some jokes to break the mood. Surprisingly, all of the jokes land.
This game would suck if it didn't have good music, but it actually has some killer music. The songs are simple, sure, but they elicit the appropriate mood for each area they're in. My favorite song is probably the main theme. It has a nostalgic sheen of a good vaporwave track while still fitting into the context of the story.
Buy the game, it's worth it.

This game was not a punch in the face, it was a beatdown, a knife to the heart. This game busts into your house, breaks everything, pisses on the floor and spits on you, then leaves. There could be a lot to say about the "content" of the game, the music is fantastic, the combat is good, the graphics, dialogue and humour are all fine. But, it really dosen't matter, because this game is not a "game", its the concept of human suffering personified into a work of art, pure, uncensored, unadulterated pain.
Its just too real, man.

It is insane how horrible this game makes you feel. Top tear

The most depressing game I have ever played. It's ironic to recommend it. If you liked Earthbound you will have to buy this one along with LISA: The Joyful + amazing original soundtrack.