cjmelendez_
It isn’t often that I come across a game that manages to incite melancholic feelings ten minutes in and then successful, well-timed fart jokes shortly after. LISA: The Painful RPG has sadly flown under the radar from most gaming sites – whether that can be attributed to its end of the year release or simplistic visual design, I don’t know. Written and directed by Austin Jorgensen of Dingaling Games, LISA manages to squeeze an amazing amount of diverse, even conflicting themes, together into one of the year’s most clever games.
LISA follows the story of Brad, a troubled man with a severe drug addiction to a substance known as Joy. After an unexplained apocalyptic event left the world in ruin and without any women at all, society devolved into a state of chaos, with desperation, perversion, and nihilism driving many of its remaining members. Brad’s story begins as a child, showing that his problems began at an early age with an abusive father that cared more for the television than his own son. Shortly after the game’s intro, player’s are introduced to an older Brad, one that has taken to drugs to drown his sorrows. During one of Brad’s walks, he stumbles upon an orphaned baby laying on the ground. That baby is soon named Buddy, and to Brad’s discovery, the world’s last known female.
Several minutes into LISA, I knew that this game was something special. After finding and naming Buddy, a short scene depicting the passage of time plays, showing Brad and his friends raising her in secret. It’s a touching scene that has no dialogue, but is endearing and sad and in its own way; it sets the tone for the rest of the game, which also provides a hefty serving of dark humor. Brad’s story begins when Buddy is kidnapped and cast into a world of only men. As you can expect, this isn’t a light-hearted story and buddy wasn’t kidnapped for something as innocent as ransom.
Developed in RPG Maker, LISA is 2D retro RPG. As is its world, the gameplay can be a little oppressive as players will be not be spared by a low-level difficulty. You’ve got the RPG basics to manage: weapons, skills, limited energy for special attacks, and numerous stats that can be improved with items, leveling up, or new equipment. Combat in LISA is turn-based, with an interesting spin on Brad’s general attack that lets players manually do special skills, but with extra damage per hit. Over the course of the game, Brad will come in contact with a diverse cast of potential party members that he can recruit by doing a range of odd and random tasks, and each brings their own special personality to combat.
Items in LISA range from mundane items to oddities such as horse jerky, sweatbands with fire damage, greasy ponchos, and kung-fu scrolls. Stats are tied to a character’s level and equipment found or purchased from vendors in one of the game’s many towns. Settlements and towns sometimes offer respite from the outside world with places to sleep (an act that recovers an entire party’s health and skill points, but also includes randomized, potentially damaging events such as getting robbed or having a party member kidnapped) and save.
Despite LISA‘s fairly challenging gameplay, the game is generous with its amount of manual save areas. This is especially appreciated due to the amount of times players will face a difficult fight shortly away from a save, meaning death shouldn’t be too troublesome. And if it weren’t for the abundance of saving areas, the frustration caused by accidentally falling off a ledge (something that happened to me a lot due to a lot of ledges being one step next to a ladder or climbing spot), would have been exponentially increased.
And while on the topic of LISA‘s negatives (those ledges being my top complaint after a few technical issues were addressed while I was playing the game for review), it’s worth mentioning that having been made in RPG Maker, LISA‘s display options aren’t spectacular. The game outputs at a resolution of 480p, and while it has been updated to offer better performing (although still inconsistent) full-screen options, players should expect this and as well as wonky key mapping and partial controller support (though neither seems necessary).
Decisions in LISA affect the overall world and Brad as a person, shaping him either as a bad, idealistic man, or someone truly hoping to change for the better. In-game events that test Brad’s morality come in the form of personal-sacrifices. In one such scene, Brad can either have a party member killed or lose an arm, permanently and negatively affecting his stats. Permadeath is also a possibility for Brad’s party, with the chance of this occurring when facing high-level foes. Additionally, Brad’s addiction to Joy has an impact on his performance, with withdrawal symptoms occasionally crippling his attack and defense during battle. Do you indulge in his addiction, or strive to be a better man? A better father? It’s up to you.
The world of LISA is one that’s filled with strange and humorous sites and characters. From a secret lab underground filled with mutated humans displayed as art, to a man-whore house where Brad can take part in pleasure combat, to a group of Power Ranger knock-offs arguing amongst themselves, because Pink Ranger is a lazy jerk – one of LISA‘s most impressive elements is just how erratic it can be. Playing LISA is like walking through an Rated-R version of Adventure Time; the humor is so successful because it’s unexpected – bizarre. The game’s darker elements, which are genuinely disturbing, are nicely contrasted by the game’s humor as well, often walking hand-in-hand – not an easily accomplished task but done exceptionally well here.
Humor aside, LISA stands on its own with a grim story that will genuinely tax players with conflicting emotions, sometimes due to them having to make difficult choices. Its basis is a tale that gamers will be experienced with due to the rush of disturbed father figure games we had last year, but LISA distinguishes itself from the likes of The Last of Us by giving players choice. Choice, but not without sacrifice as the game actively punishes Brad for trying to do the right thing with permanent stat losses, visual disfigurement, and increased difficulty. This element is worthy of analysis alone as sacrifice is a prevalent theme in LISA; one that intrinsically ties the gameplay and story together.
LISA: The Painful RPG is the kind of game that doesn’t come along often. It’s wonderfully weird and as dark as it is humorous and endearing. Sporting a kickin’ soundtrack as well, LISA is all around a game that a lot of care went into crafting, and despite how unforgiving it can be it’s hard to not recommend this game (especially since it only costs $10 on Steam). Filled to the brim with secrets and easter eggs, there’s some good replay value as well. Just buy it, man.
(8.5 / 10)
Great
(8.5 / 10)
