LISA: The Painful is one of my favorite games ever made, so this rating is a surprisingly bitter one that I'm forced to make.

The story? Oh no nothing's wrong there. Everything writing-wise, both old and new, are top notch. The secret content is beautifully written (here's a tip, try resting at the very first campfire once you've acquired all the boat parts in Area 3) and it ties together well into the secret content of LISA: The Joyful - Definitive Edition. All in all, it's a great package deal.

but

This Unity remake is marred by a number of minor flaws that all come together to make certain experiences feel less... weighty. Many of the sound effects feel less punchy than they used to. Some of the battle animations happen too fast. Some attacks don't even register properly, meaning certain storytelling moments in combat (which I will not spoil) lose the weight and impact that they had previously.

It's genuinely unfortunate that I have to discuss this at all because I am incredibly sympathetic to Dingaling and Serenity Forge. Remaking an RPGMaker game in Unity while retaining the feel of the original game and allowing for Austin to use the new engine for some new, creative sequences (see my earlier hint if you would like to learn more). Even so, it's a criticism I really hoped upon release that I wouldn't have to make.

They're still patching the game, so it's not as if these problems will necessarily be around forever, and hell, the overworld itself is translated near flawlessly. It's just in combat where the problems lie. I really hope it gets fixed up so I can give this version of the game the five star rating it deserves.

So which should you play? The original? Definitive?

Honestly, I would almost argue playing both. Do one run in the original game, then do a run in Definitive. Definitive adds new content that is 1000% worth playing despite the hiccups, but I think that a first time player would be losing something if they only played Definitive and not the legacy version. It's a tough sell, but I think this game is just that good. I literally played it twice in two days. It's the kind of game I relish.

But I think it's time I give LISA a rest....

is what I would say if I didn't have something to say about the Joyful!!!

The Painful journey to Oblivion

Lisa: The Painful is the sequel to Lisa: The First which I also made a review, you can find it here if interested.

Let me start with a question: Is it painful to enjoy something that hurts? In Lisa, what doesn't hurt you makes you stronger and what does hurt you drags you deep into the abyss. It's a paradoxical pleasure between finding the right spot of comfort and experience. Not deliberately hurtful at least to us, nor "enjoyable" for someone that doesn't just get it. It's the same feeling as watching a sad movie, why would you ever want to cry all by yourself? It makes us think beyond what we're used to, get us outside our comfort zone for a while and experience a tale that can sit with us or leave as it came.

The Painful tell us the story of Brad Armstrong, a lone drug addict dealing with his troublesome past that suddenly finds the cure under the apocalypse: A girl in a world without women. Brad sees this girl not as a way to re-populate the world, but as a opportunity to protect her from the cruel world outside the comfort of home. During Brad's many blackouts due to his drug addiction, finds out his girl was gone. With nothing to lose, Brad sets up on an adventure to save his "child" which he called: Buddy. One of The Painful many strenghts is the setting or the place where these events occur: Olathe. A rural town, well not anymore since it has become a desolated desert in the middle of nowhwere, ruled by anarchy and the survival of the fittest. Little to no civilizated people exist, and the ones that do are under a group meant to survive among themselves. It's common for any apocalypse setting to enphatize on the sense of survival, a basic instinct among humans and animals but with The Painful there is a catch: It's a land were women doesn't exist, thus dooming humanity to extinction. A treat that doesn't differentiate from good nor evil. But it can be cured, this is where Buddy comes into play.

During Brad's journey he'll encounter a colorful cast of characters that will either help him, for self-fullfiling purposes or lunatics which will attack at sight. Most RPGs tend to rely on mythical or unexplainable creatures; your gods, your slimes, your demons, your monsters, etc. But The Painful keeps itself grounded and personal when it needs to, doesn't it? I'm lying! Fish Lawyer, Furry Artist, Bear-Man, Tiger-Man, Duck-Man and Queen (Man) can all be in your party. You get the idea. The Painful doesn't take itself serious all the time, as it finds the right moment to have jokes and moments were it knows it can't get playful with you. All characters have something meaningful to say, specially with the Definitive Edition which expands on this aspect in particular. Now it's not just about the journey itself, it's also about the little moments you share with your party; see them grow and fight alongside you but keep it mind these are total strangers that you've never met before. Everything culminates in a wacky, varied yet believable cast of characters that I personally grew up to love even if Brad can only exchange a conversation or two with each of them.

Compared this to The First, The Painful includes a new combat system which let's you slay everyone in your way with your fists. It follows the typical JRPG combat system; Stats, characters and attacks. The Painful adds an interesting system of combos only made for Brad which unlike the main attack, they deal extra damage. For example: "A, B, B" is the command where you throw a fireball, but if you feel confident it is possible to extend it as I said before to: "X, X, A, B, B" or "Y, A, A, B, B" always respecting the right command to the activate set attack. It's not as deep as I thought it would be at the start but extra damage is extra damage; the classic risk/reward balance. Outside combat, the exploration is set in a 2D plane all the time, unlike most top-down RPGs. This sets right for The Painful in particular, as the map is as linear as it gets with some secrets in between. That isn't bad per-se, not at all as verticality also help the maps feel bigger in a sort of weird match between a limited in movement platformer and a RPG. With Lisa there's always a catch, the little devil in the details is that mix between platformer and RPG is both a blessing and a curse, why? It is possible to die if you are not careful, from falling in a bottomless pit. Instant "Game Over", goodbye 1 hour and a half of process. Pain Mode it's the so-called "hard mode" in The Painful but it is not hard, is terrifying. It will only let you save once per "Save Point". So be extra careful while exploring Olathe if you chose Pain Mode. In case you skipped the text box to which warns you about Pain Mode, don't worry as save points are unlimited so you can save as much as you want. I started with Pain Mode, and even if the game is fairly short, some stupid deaths made me question if going forward without a guide was a good idea.

Pain comes in many forms, so does the decisions you'd have to make moving forward. You don't win, and at some point you'll lose someone or something you value precious beyond battle. It is as easy as letting it go, but hard as is to accepting that it is no longer with you. That is Pain. One of The Painful most devastating features is that your never feel safe. From anything, fron anyone. Everything here is meant to hurt you one way or another, because Brad isn't the chosen one in this story he is but a mere puppet driven by his mere instincts. Don't expect a hero which wants to save the world, he's just human hopelessly needing something to cling on. He's not instrinsically evil either, as it is easy to empathize with him.

The Painful for me is interesting to analyze from an outsider perspective, as someone that never played the original on PC back when it come out. So my feelings are quite fresh, and as a game as old as 2014 it holds up incredibly well to this day. It is a must for any RPG fan looking for something different. You like Fallout? Here. Earthbound? It might interest you. Omori? Absolutely.

I think a lot of the changes the ‘Definitive Edition’ makes end up laying the lore and themes of the game on a bit too heavy-handedly when the narrative structure of the original still blows my mind to this day at how delicately it’s all written; it’s one of the greatest and most sensitive stories about breaking the cycle of abuse ever to use and deconstruct the RPG medium, balancing on a proverbial metatextual tightrope.

This means that when there’s campfire conversations that explicitly mention crucial character connections that the player was best off figuring out for themselves, I can’t help but wonder if this is really the best way for a new player to experience the story of LISA (the truth is that it’s best experienced by streaming it in a discord call with your friend who knows the ins and outs of the game far better than you ever will, gently nudging you in the right directions to experience everything you should experience.)

However, I am not a new player, I am the hyperfan you stream the game to on a discord call, and the character exploration provided with the Definitive Edition hits the empty spots in my soul just right. It’s pure indulgence, but it’s my indulgence. That’s also how I feel about the secret boss, which I wish I could talk about, where 3 hours of tearing down the brick walls of LISA’s thematic and visual cohesion Gorbachev-style culminates in some of the most beautiful, gut-wrenching cutscenes I never even thought the game was capable of dishing out. It heaves under its own weight, nearly to the point of collapse, but just when you think you’ve reached some golden shining core at the centre of the story about the beauty of the world and the people within it, LISA rips you back to reality and dumps you back in Olathe, and you think to yourself: “I need a fucking cigarette right now.”

I thought LISA: The Painful had bared its soul to me and shown me everything it had, and I’d nearly finally chewed on it enough to let it out of my system, but Definitive Edition brought it back to make me cry one last time for good measure. Forever the best RPG ever made.

this is a from the ground up remake of the original 2014 release with a focus on accuracy, quality of life changes and content additions that flesh things out just a bit more
on all those fronts this was a success
it's been a minute since i've went through this game completely, but with the exception of the, frankly, butchered rendition of Work Harder (it's not the sample, it's a remade song now and it sounds significantly worse) i didn't notice a singular thing out of place
i've read about people noticing the combat was somewhat slower due to some minor animation changes but as someone who is incredibly impatient at times and doesn't dig turn based rpg combat most of the time i had no issues here
the core game is retained, the content alterations are extremely minimal and no one is gonna notice it or care
quite literally a singular bit of a sprite alteration (a black character in a flashback joke scene had his lip color altered to not resemble a minstrel caricature), some punching sounds that i never noticed and another singular sound effect (there's a power ranger riff group that appears, and while they're making poses and doing their intros the sound of a monkey plays over the black ranger's dialogue which was changed to a goofy elephant sound)
which are at bare minimum whatever changes and at best (the ones with these little marks next to them) worthwhile changes that maintain what was funny about their contexts without the out of place racist elements

so don't feel like you're missing out if you buy this
it includes the legacy versions of the game if you're dying to see what they're like
but new content like extra campfire conversations that really flesh out your party members are things you'd be missing by making that decision
if you owned this before, you get the definitive version for free
which was a good excuse for me to revisit this absolute fucking masterpiece of a game

classic example of something that has a lot to talk about, but because it's something that is still relatively obscure i really don't want to
you really should just fucking play it
the power this narrative has still stands strong, it's an oppressively bleak treaty on the cyclical effects of abuse
it's also mad max meets mother 3 with a soundtrack that sounds like literally nothing else
the game happens to be mechanically deep and compelling on its own, but as the best games do the narrative and gameplay cannot be separated
few games avoid ludonarrative dissonance as well as this game does
extremely absurd, very funny, and really fucking painful

one of my favorite youtube videos is hbomberguy's essay on this game and its dlc sequel, which to me is the defacto "i wanna know what is going on with this fucker" bit of content i'd throw anybody's way
at some point he says something along the lines of "this game will directly inspire a future 'best game ever'" and i fully agree
it is a must play, and with it on all platforms you cunts have no excuse anymore

Unironically one of the most painful video game experiences in my life.

This game does that one thing, which I love very much: it mixes stupidity with seriousness, and it mixes these two things ABSOLUTELY GREAT.

I laughed from the jokes and almost cried like a little baby from the plot. I mean, seriously, this game almost traumatized me, and I'm the dude, who's seen a lot of awful shit in his life.

The gameplay may be too harsh, but you'll or get used to it, or drop the game entirely. These RPG Maker games, you know...

There're also a lot of annoying moments, which may prevent you from beating the game, but there's only one way to deal with it: struggle, bitch. Just like Brad does.

Oh, by the way... Don't forget to beat The Joyful after The Painful. It'll break your mental health completely!

I really respect how committed the devs were to making this game as accurate to the original release given this is a ground up remake. Most of the game is perfect and an overall upgrade besides the combat, which loses a lot of the style the original had and is keeping me from actually recommending this over it.

Probably the most outstanding issue with the combat is the action text. The font is way too big compared to other UI elements, when you hit multiple enemies it can completely cover the screen, it goes over other menu boxes and is completely out of sync with actions as they happen. Certain moves also just have the text completely missing i.e. “_ is astounded by your stupidity” or “_ doesn’t want to do this”. The text that indicates damage taken or status ailments is also animated way slower compared to the original and is probably the cause of battles feeling way slower paced than they used to. The transitions after battle always feel a lot more abrupt than they did and the victory menu feels really buggy. The one great thing I can say about it is the animated backgrounds are a really nice addition.

People have also been complaining about the sound effects for Brad’s punches. The devs clearly wanted to distance this from the stock RPGMaker elements and I respect this decision. I think the new particle sprites are incredible and the new sound effects are mostly okay but the punch sound effects, as well as the sound effect for Brad falling flat on his face outside battle, feel considerably less satisfying.

Whether these aspects get changed or not will depend on if I recommend this over playing the original. The new campfire conversations are a decent addition but they kinda kill the pacing a bit, and some of the dialogue just feels like out of place fanservice. I really loved the new superboss though and I like that it feels tucked away so new players probably won’t find it on their first playthrough. Overall I am happy that this remake exists and the game is finally playable on consoles, I just feel it could’ve had an extra lick of polish before release.

LISA: The Painful RPG is a tricky one because the overt difficulty in the gameplay is not as hard as it first seems but the narrative difficulty is very challenging to this day. I was happy to revisit the game through this Definitive Edition, including playing a "Terryful" run where I get Terry to a high enough level to use his overpowered ultimate move and bring those skills to vanquish the game's superboss.

As for the new content, I think the new additions are mostly unnecessary and sometimes hurt the game's excellent pacing. Does that ruin it? Not really. It's still LISA, one of the best RPGs around. I know I'll be playing this one again.

Lisa: The Painful è un giavellotto d'acciaio incandescente scagliato a tutta forza verso il giocatore, nelle cui più profonde viscere penetra e si contorce, amplificando il dolore man mano che la storia progredisce.
Esistono tanti videogiochi capaci di colpire nell'animo, magari tramite l'esplorazione di tematiche personali o risvolti narrativi che aumentano l'empatia verso certe scene, ma mai come in questo caso burattino (il protagonista) e burattinaio (il videogiocatore) condividono la stessa anima, nella - quasi assente - gioia e nel - frequente - dolore.

L'intricata e complessa trama di questo indie, sequel spirituale di "Lisa: the first", ruota attorno a Brad Armstrong, un uomo burbero, solitario e dall'oscuro passato, che vedrà sconvolgere la sua vita in seguito alla scoperta di una neonata abbandonata in un mondo post-apocalittico, in cui follia e depravazione hanno avuto la meglio su ragione e umanità; Brad decide dunque di "adottarla" per tenerla al sicuro, ma, diversi anni dopo, questa ragazzina verrà rapita. Il protagonista, uomo ormai divenuto vecchio e stanco, deciderà di intraprendere un lungo viaggio per, a suo dire, trovare la giovane e salvarla dallo sfruttamento del mondo.
Ciò che colpisce maggiormente di tutta questa drammatica epopea è proprio la caratterizzazione di Brad, che per il suo ruolo nella narrazione dovrebbe essere considerato un eroe, e probabilmente è proprio quello che crede di essere, ma se osservassimo con uno sguardo più distaccato il susseguirsi di eventi e scelte, capiremmo quanto in realtà dovrebbe essere considerato alla stregua dei più beceri villain, e ciò si riflette parecchio sulla vita di tutti i giorni, su quanto sia relativa la barriera che separa il bene dal male. Quanto diritto abbiamo di decidere anche per i nostri cari cosa sia giusto o sbagliato? Non è la stessa "protezione" una forma di violenza? Oltre a questi concetti, il protagonista di LTP viene presentato come un uomo estremamente fallibile, un drogato, una persona che fa di tutto per farsi detestare ma che, al tempo stesso, pretende l'amore e l'affetto di chi gli sta intorno.
In sostanza, Brad siamo noi!
Chi per un aspetto e chi per un altro, troverà parecchia affinità con un personaggio di fantasia, colui il quale sarà chiamato a compiere diverse scelte morali che, per quanto non avranno ripercussioni sulla storia, saranno drasticamente importanti a livello di gameplay; in questo modo non è tanto il gioco a soffrire, ma siamo noi, persone reali, a subire le conseguenze delle NOSTRE scelte. E non si parla di cose di poco conto, ma di eventi che porteranno a interi rimescolamenti delle strategie messe a punto dall'inizio del gioco.

Lisa: The Painful, a differenza del suo predecessore, si presenta come un gioco di ruolo a turni occidentale, con piccoli elementi platforming, parecchio ispirato nelle meccaniche e nell'assurdità di certi combattimenti ai capolavori di Shigesato Itoi, ovvero i Mother.
Sebbene le lotte in sè per sè siano molto basilari, con qualche piccola apprezzabile eccezione, a rendere il gameplay loop più vario e divertente ci pensano i nostri compagni di squadra. Il nostro party sarà composto, come in molti giochi di questo tipo, oltre che dal protagonista, da tre individui, che possiamo "arruolare" nel nostro team tramite o, semplicemente, un pagamento, oppure piccole quest secondarie a loro collegate. Il mondo di gioco sarà pieno zeppo di possibili componenti del party, quindi non solo potremmo spezzare la "monotonia" della quest principale andando a svolgere attività differenti, ma in più avremmo una maggiore personalizzazione dello stile di combattimento e delle tattiche di gioco. Ogni npc avrà le sue peculiarità, talvolta nonsense o esagerate, e sarà sempre un piacere intercambiarli per provarli in battaglia.
Altra peculiarità di LTP è la sconfinata lista di bonus e malus, che fortunatamente non bisogna imparare a memoria grazie ad un piccolo reminder durante le lotte, alcuni dei quali rappresentano status più classici come "rabbia", "ustione" o "sanguinamento", mentre altri si differenziano per il loro "realismo", come per esempio "ubriachezza", "astinenza" o "imbarazzo" e così via. Purtroppo però solo pochi sono gli status realmente importanti e più frequenti in battaglia, dunque non sarà possibile creare build ad hoc per sfruttare al meglio determinati malus o bonus.

Il comparto artistico di questo gioco mi lascia interdetto: se da una parte mi sento di lodarlo per la sua capacità di creare scene suggestive, talvolta anche molto disturbanti, con pochissimo materiale a disposizione, dall'altra parte non posso che mostrare un certo disappunto nel vedere una scarsa varietà sia di ambientazioni che di nemici. Una parte interessante di questo setting distopico era la presenza di creature (un tempo umane) mostruosamente deformate; si aveva dunque la possibilità di creare un proprio vasto catalogo di atrocità viventi in stile "Fear & Hunger", ma ciò non è avvenuto. I nemici diversi dai semplici umani incattiviti, anch'essi dal design non troppo brillante, sono troppo pochi e molti sono simili tra loro. Stesso discorso, con ancor più convinzione, va fatto alle ambientazioni che, ok che si tratta di un setting apocalittico in cui tutto è appassito, ma riproporre per 10 ore di gioco praticamente gli stessi asset con colori e filtri leggermente diversi viene a dar noia.
Fortunatamente, in questo caso, viene in soccorso il buon level design a distogliere l'attenzione del giocatore.

Tirando le somme, Lisa: The Painful è una perla rara che, sebbene sia imperfetta, nessun amante del videogioco in quanto arte dovrebbe lasciarsi sfuggire, anche se la difficoltà, pur regolabile, potrebbe risultare proibitiva per la maggior parte delle persone. Ma si sa, il fallimento fa parte della vita e tutto quello che possiamo fare, come il nostro Brad, è cercare di accettarlo, per il bene nostro e di chi ci sta intorno.

"You don't understand. I've been dead for 35 years. Today is the day I live."

I don't have the right words to describe my feelings towards LISA: The Painful. It's impacted me on such a deep level that I don't know how to formulate the right sentences in the right order to explain it. It's a deeply personal game to me, a game that feels like only I and a niche of others could love. It's as if on some level, it understands me. And yet, it challenges my own beliefs. My own morality. It's one of those pieces of media that leaves me reflecting with questions of, "what would I have done? What could have happened to prevent all this?". It's one of the rare few video games that's left me reflecting like this — a sign of a great work.

And this is coming from a game with a fucking talking fish lawyer. This game is stupid, it is SO STUPID—

I really don't think I could do it justice here in this format, so I'll keep this brief. LISA: The Painful is a gift. It's simultaneously one of the most soul crushing and gut-bustingly hilarious games I've ever played. It has some of the craziest, coolest, absolutely bonkers music in a video game. It's a nightmare, it's a trip, it's an must-have experience. Not everyone will love it. Some may find it annoying. But with all my heart, I love it. You might love it too. Go play it and find out for yourself.

Read my review on the original game for my thoughts on just the base game.
As far as everything new in this game, they are alright for the most part. There are some various UI changes and such that I'm not personally a fan of though thats just the nostalgia speaking. I was also frankly disappointed by the lack of changes to original experience. DE was marketed as having a somewhat substantial number of “New Quests” yet as far as tangible additions to the game go, all they actually added was one new boss, one new enemy, some extra tutorial stuff (that is thankfully optional) and a number of campfire scenes. Outside of that they fixed some of the many glitches in the original.
Credit where credit is due though, the content surrounding the new boss is absolutely amazing. The campfire scenes are also for the most part, solid additions to help flesh out some of the cast. Overall a solid experience that is just as good as the original.

This was my second playthrough of the game after going through the original way back when it was released. The first time around, I was really surprised, and I wondered how my impressions would be the second time around once the element of surprise was removed. I still ended up really enjoying this game.

What I really picked up on this playthrough is how much this game was a satire of the "Sad Dad" genre of games. The game has a lot of fun playing with tropes that, at the time, weren't tropes at all. Characters unload a litany of trauma and tragedy to an almost silly degree. Flashbacks from failed bulldozer drivers and inept assassins accompany fights. Most enemies have hilarious final dialog at their final deathblow. Six years later, critics would be whipping themselves in penitence of executing goons in Last of Us 2 while I had been mourning the death of The Shocklord at my hands for years.

I found that the humor of this game still worked well even on a second playthrough. The humor ranges from silly to downright vile. It doesn't waste an opportunity to put a joke or a gag in a character or area. The jokes are also usually pretty short, so even if one doesn't work for you it's over in a moment and it's on to the next joke. When it comes to humor in games I tend to like this approach the most.

Even though humor is so prevalent this game is most known for how grim and dark its story can be come. The trigger warning list on this game would be a mile a long as it deals with issues of addiction and abuse (physical, verbal, and sexual). It can come as a bit of a shock when the game decides to get serious because it goes so deep into it, but what I appreciate about the humor is that I feel these serious topics are never the butt of any joke.

Are these really serious topics handled with grace and tact? As someone with some personal experience with addiction its a hard thing to translate into a game, and I often wonder if we should really even attempt to. I do like how this game handles it though. The abuse elements feel a little cliche, but maybe that's the result of a decade of every other game being about trauma so that the topic itself is worn thin and reduced to schlock.

The game also has a unique look and sound to it. The character sprites I love. They're a mixture of Earthbound but have this almost doodle quality to them. Placing the game on a 2D plane makes it stand out from the zillions of other RPG Maker games out there. The soundtrack is frenetic and jumps wildly between genres. It is at times goofy, groovy, and harsh.

The gameplay also has some interesting mechanics. Party members can differ in how they play. Some characters play by inputting combo commands a la Xenogears. And just like Xenogears this gets old after about 10 minutes, but thankfully there's only a few areas in the game where there are random encounters. There's a lot of interesting emergent gameplay elements at play too. The second time around in this game I was definitely playing it just for the world and the story. The RPG portion was underwhelming.

This is a really special game and even though I have some slight gripes I can't help but love this disturbing and also delightful game.

Not to sound dramatic or like ubiquitous, but it really is a masterpiece.

I played through this probably over 5 years ago and that playthrough I really ripped through it in a few days, I mean the world is just so fun to explore its wild.

I thought I'd go faster this time, but I actually was able to explore MORE. I feel as though I saw things fresh, and just more.

Just really a good game. Funny. Heartbreaking.

Haven't played Lisa: The First, but I'm on Mac, so Idk if I'll be able to. Onto Lisa: The Joyful!

I... I have so many thoughts.

I played the original version of LISA, and it's one of my favorite games of all time. This is technically a replay. The story, characters, gameplay and just everything about it made it one of my favorite games of all time. That all holds up with the Definitive Edition. This game feels special to me. It holds a place in my heart. I think it will affect me, subconsciously or not. It's not flawless, as I felt Area 1 could be a bit better, but this game is just- just AMAZING. I can hardly recommend it enough. I'm sobbing writing this review. Please, please, PLEASE play LISA: The Painful. If you liked OMORI, then I'm sure that you will love this game