I picked this game up during the steam summer sale based on the recommendation of @Danger and I'm encouraging y'all to pick it up since it's on sale on steam this week. It's basically Earthbound if John Waters/David Lynch co-wrote it and put it in a mad max setting. In a world without waifus a man is on a quest to protect his musume. It's a sidescrolling RPG with some really gnarly decisions where you have to decide between losing a limb or your allies/NPCs/etc. When you heal at a campfire, you could potentially lose an ally/items/money/etc. The protagonist is a drug addicted karate dude who discovered the last woman on earth and raised her as his daughter only to find her captured by an evil motorcycle gang. Every decision has its consequences and can have an effect the world.
I picked this game up during the steam summer sale based on the recommendation of @Danger and I'm encouraging y'all to pick it up since it's on sale on steam this week. It's basically Earthbound if John Waters/David Lynch co-wrote it and put it in a mad max setting. In a world without waifus a man is on a quest to protect his musume. It's a sidescrolling RPG with some really gnarly decisions where you have to decide between losing a limb or your allies/NPCs/etc. When you heal at a campfire, you could potentially lose an ally/items/money/etc. The protagonist is a drug addicted karate dude who discovered the last woman on earth and raised her as his daughter only to find her captured by an evil motorcycle gang. Every decision has its consequences and can have an effect the world.
It's also worth checking out the first (free) game Lisa "The First" if you haven't done so yet. It's more in the style of Yume Nikki which might put off some people, but it's definitely worth playing if you want more context to what is going on.
Me and my sister played this game for the hell of it, and it's incredibly depressing and fucked up, but also hilarious and light-hearted at other times. The game's quality is pretty high, as we've only encountered a few incredibly minor and un-noteworthy bugs throughout it.
In summary, if you need a game that'll throw your emotions in a roller coaster, consider picking up a copy of LISA today.
Side note: While reading the reviews for this game, I came across the term "A world without waifus". Just to note, This isn't an anime about kiddie-fiddling; It's about making the choice between preserving human morals, or saving the human race.
Throughout the game, Brad (The man you play as) refers to Buddy (The girl you're saving) as his daughter. He also mentions the prospect of a second chance, which my sister who has played the first game tells me is actually a reference to when Brad was caring for his now dead sister, Lisa. While playing, I always felt as though I was on Brad's side, and considering all of the fucked up shit that happened/happens to him, it only cemented that notion further. However, towards the end, I began to realize that there was no truly right way to solve this predicament. In short, this game is incredibly fucked up in so many ways you'll never understand unless you play it. It also has many hilarious moments in it that make you forget for a fleeting moment that this game is incredibly depressing. All in all, this game made me emotional, and I consider it high-art.
I finished this game and it.. Made me feel pretty bad.
I don't know if Brad was a monster for what he did for Buddy, it was obvious that he had a lot of problems. Learning that Rando was your student was also pretty heartbreaking. Marty, Rando reveal, Buddy's Hugging/Refusing to Hug, killing your Companions, the waves of enemies, the ending.
The fact that Buzzo was working to text Joy with Yado for military use - the Next game which was teased is real and I am definitely going to throw more cash at Dingaling for his work.
I thoroughly enjoyed this game - the color palettes chosen were fantastically for the environments (Bloodwood Trees Area comes to mind), battles which are actually quite challenging but beatable, beautifully stylised and reminiscent of a fever dream 16-bit RPG along with the major environmental changes which kept each place unique.
Best Enemy by far for me had to be the ending boss at Seesaw Valley (Mr. Perfect?)
Reviving this long dead thread because this is my favorite game series of all time (yes, really) and we need to be talking about it.
I replayed the Painful recently, and one thing I remember people constantly complaining about was the game's difficulty level. Pain mode is deliberately a nightmare, but the game's Normal mode is just... normal. I had very little difficulty getting through it; the boss that gave me the most trouble was Satan, but that's to be expected.
Also, how many people have played the other games in the series (Lisa the First and Lisa the Joyful)? The Painful is obviously the best of the three, but the First and the Joyful have a lot of great content that people don't discuss enough.
Also, how many people have played the other games in the series (Lisa the First and Lisa the Joyful)? The Painful is obviously the best of the three, but the First and the Joyful have a lot of great content that people don't discuss enough.
I tried playing First but it wasn't as interesting as Painful. I liked the ideas it had, but it didn't really hook me. I quit at that cave with the Marty spiders.
I tried playing First but it wasn't as interesting as Painful. I liked the ideas it had, but it didn't really hook me. I quit at that cave with the Marty spiders.
Everyone quits at the Marty cave, honestly. It's an epidemic.
For as rough as the First is, it's still a favorite of mine. The Painful is the best game by far, but the First did a lot of really interesting stuff with pretty limited gameplay. I also think you miss a lot in the Painful if you don't play the First beforehand - everything Brad does always comes back to Lisa and Marty, and there's very little of the both of them in the main game, so it's easy to miss it.
By far the most depressing part of the series was the Brad "fight" in Joyful where he hugs you and beats himself up. And it came right after poor Rando died. That shit hurt. As fucked up as Brad was and despite initially using her as a means of atonement you could tell Brad came to really care about Buddy.
I replayed the Painful recently, and one thing I remember people constantly complaining about was the game's difficulty level. Pain mode is deliberately a nightmare, but the game's Normal mode is just... normal. I had very little difficulty getting through it; the boss that gave me the most trouble was Satan, but that's to be expected.
I picked Painful on my first playthrough unaware that it limited saves so it was definitely challenging but I was still able to recruit every single companion and keep them alive (Russian Roulette was a living hell though) so I dunno. I think as long as you've a strategy that makes battles easier (ie, oil+fire spam) instead of just trying to use your favorite characters it helps a lot.
Also, how many people have played the other games in the series (Lisa the First and Lisa the Joyful)? The Painful is obviously the best of the three, but the First and the Joyful have a lot of great content that people don't discuss enough.
I went into the first after having played Painful (but before the DLC) and yeah I don't think I'd recommend it, at least not to fans of the latter games. You didn't learn anything not made clear in Painful and as good as the fucked up atmosphere the gameplay was mostly just running from one place to another (and of course the fucking Marty cave). It's free and short but it's not easy to get through.
I went classic - Terry, Olan, and Nern. It's a pretty solid setup, and there are very few situations where their combined skills don't work. The only brief change I made was in the battle with Satan, where I swapped Nern for Birdie. The intent there was just to kill Satan quickly by combining Birdie's oil with Brad, Terry, and Olan's fire attacks, and it worked pretty well in the end.
the Brad "fight" in Joyful where he hugs you and beats himself up. And it came right after poor Rando died. That shit hurt. As fucked up as Brad was and despite initially using her as a means of atonement you could tell Brad came to really care about Buddy.
Not gonna lie, that battle turned me into a sobbing bitch. Especially the part where his name changes to say "Dad." Brad was a pretty horrible guy, but I do believe that, even if it came from a selfish place, he did truly love Buddy by the end, but only when it was too late to fix his mistakes. So fucking brutal, man.
On that subject, one thing I really loved about the Painful and the Joyful was how many people compared Buddy to Lisa, even if they never said it out loud. Brad, Marty, Buzzo, possibly even Rando - whenever they looked at her, they only ever saw Lisa, and they really treated her like a replacement for her. And all that while Buddy has never even heard her name, let alone found out who she was and why she was so important. It's fucked.
I went into the first after having played Painful (but before the DLC) and yeah I don't think I'd recommend it, at least not to fans of the latter games. You didn't learn anything not made clear in Painful and as good as the fucked up atmosphere the gameplay was mostly just running from one place to another (and of course the fucking Marty cave). It's free and short but it's not easy to get through.
I think I'm biased because I played the First, well, first. I played the original Lisa when it came out in 2012 - I was a pretty avid RPGMaker fan - and it was an instant favorite. It's undeniable that the gameplay is pretty rough - being heavily inspired by Yume Nikki while also trying to tell a relatively linear story does not a cohesive game make - but the music, artwork, and story itself were so fantastic that I could hardly bring myself to care about the lackluster gameplay (even in the wake of the dreaded Marty spiders).
That said, if you play the Painful first, it's definitely a case of early installment weirdness. The Painful is an Earthbound-style RPG with incredible gameplay mechanics that manages to inextricably connect its story to its gameplay, and the Joyful follows in those same footsteps, although to a lesser extent. In comparison to those two, the First is just confusing.
The Joyful is a pretty good sequel all things considered, but it definitely needed more time in the workshop. It's too short and feels a bit abrupt, which makes sense - it's, what, a 5 hour sequel to a 20 hour game? I enjoyed it, but I think it really really needed to have more in it.
Birdie is probably the most broken character in the game so long as you have someone that can use fire. It's insane how much he can trivialize some of the later bosses, but I guess that's kinda offset by the permadeath system.
For reference, I had a similar team, except I used Nern because Nern had great healing abilities.
So has this guy made anything else since LISA? Or was he lost to TDS as well?
I gotta say, as depressing as this game was, it was very well-made. You can tell it was made by someone with a vision and a passion for RPGs and knew just how to twist conventions to either tell a joke or deliver a gut-punch.
