Lisa: The Joyful

released on Aug 24, 2015

DLC for Lisa

Traverse the world as Buddy. Stake your claim and make your mark. Prepare for the worst, because this is the closing chapter of Lisa


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Wow! I sort of really quickly ripped through this and it still left a mark on me. I'm a tiny bit confused, probably because I haven't played Lisa: The First, but also the lack of knowledge and being forced to just exist in this world sans context I think has some value to it.

Great game, great story. Sad!

Even after playing through the main game twice, I was SO psyched to keep getting more I hopped right into the DLC sequel. The sequel is quite different in structure, storytelling nuances, and even gameplay mechanics, I thought it was a fantastic follow-up that does a good job of giving a conclusion to the story-line set up in the first game. It's worth noting that this game is a fair bit shorter than the first, taking me only 3-ish hours, so if you're someone who evaluates games by a pure cost/price ratio, the DLC may feel like a rip-off at $5 compared to the main game's $10. I certainly thought the game was worth the cost because the gameplay is good fun and the story is very well done. If the main game were $15 and the DLC were $10, I'd have some more reservations, but the whole package for $15 I think is a perfectly fair deal for an indie game.

ANYWAY, the plot of The Joyful (the previous game having the original subtitle "The Painful") follows the young girl from the first game, Buddy, now that she is on her own. In order to make sure no one ever messes with her again, she sets off on a quest in the Eastern part of Olathe (so no revisiting old areas) to murder everyone on "The List," a giant wall between East and West Olathe with the names of the most powerful warlords on it. However, despite Buddy's quest being explicitly focused on violence where Brad's was implicitly focused on it, Buddy's quest has a much different dynamic because her quest's goal is so different in goal, and because of who she is. Both stories are commentaries on the cycle of abuse, and Buddy's is used to comment upon Brad just as hers is used to comment upon his.

The first big mechanical change, which isn't really emphasized, is that while Joy is still a mechanic, Buddy isn't an addict from the start and there is no narrative consequence for taking it. This was likely done because, due to Buddy's big secret that she's the only girl in the world, she can't trust anyone for pretty obvious reasons. Buddy is on her own for basically the entire story, which makes the way she has to fight a lot harder, so the auto-crits that Joy gives you are really valuable to not die all the time. This said, I played through it assuming taking Joy would change the ending so I didn't take any, and I thought the game was really fantastically challenging in how I had to manage health resources and single-use weapon items. Although if you want something a lot less challenging, Joy is kind of a must-use thing.

Buddy being on her own is made more interesting in battle because of the new gameplay mechanics introduced to how she does her best attacks. For starters, she uses TP, not MP like Brad does, so she needs to deal and take damage to use her special attacks. From the start, Buddy can use a skill to inflict bleed effects by doing a small mini-game a bit like Elite Beat Agents by pressing the action button again as the circle closing in hits the middle circle. It takes a lot of timing to get down, but getting good at it is really important because you NEED to inflict as much damage as possible. Where the first game does a good job to showing the player how important status effects like stun, fall, poison, and others can be, Buddy's quest really forces the player to use bleed, poison, fluster, and Buddy's other statuses she can inflict to get any possible edge she can on her opponents. I really loved how much more engaging these mechanical shifts made the combat in this game, and I really didn't mind the lack of other party members as a result of it.

Verdict: Highly Recommended. It's an evolution from the first in more ways than one, but it pulls it off brilliantly. Really the only bad thing I can say about it is that it's a bit too short because I just kept wanting more game to play when it was all done XD . If you like LISA, you will likely really enjoy LISA: The Joyful as well.

this shits depressing as hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!

LISA the Painful is really special to me, and while the DLC follow-up is good, it doesn't reach the same heights. That being said this is still a great epilogue, just with some flaws.

This review contains spoilers

Before starting I should say I adore Lisa the painful and I love Buddy as a character, but with that being said I was super disappointed coming off the incredible ending of painful and coming into this. The combat could have taken the oppertunity to be even more brutal than the original since you have much less lenience with how you use your turn, but the lack of allies means battles rarely have stakes and the game practically forces you into using joy which trivializes combat for the majority of the game. I enjoy the story when it's about Buddy attempting to kill every leader in the wasteland and gradually becoming more monstrous and more like what brad became, but the ending decides we need to take a hard left turn into the lore of the wasteland and why things are the way they are which frankly aren't needed and replace the mystique of the setting with a little more disappointment. Ultimately, it feels like an expansion made more out of obligation than an actual desire to create it.