31.8 hours played
Written 25 days ago
[h3] The Short Version [/h3]
Perhaps the best “Earthbound style RPG-maker game with themes of mental health” ever made. It predates the “quirky indie comedy RPG” trend that [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/391540/Undertale/]Undertale[/url] set by a full 9 months, but with a very distinct, hard-R setting that distinguishes it from a mere [i]Earthbound[/i] or [i]Undertale[/i] clone. This game feels like if [i]Bojack Horseman[/i] took place in the [i]Mad Max[/i] universe.
[h3] The Longer Version [/h3]
[i]LISA: The Painful[/i] (hereafter [i]LTP[/i]) is perhaps one of the finest video games I’ve ever played. Like the previous comparison to [i]Bojack Horseman[/i], [i]LTP[/i] is equal parts hilarious, horrific, and humbling the whole way through. In [i]LTP[/i], you control an ordinary nobody named Brad Armstrong, trying to survive in the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Olathe, Colorado after a world-ending event known as THE FLASH has killed all women in the world. However, after after someone important to him ([spoiler][strike]his daughter?[/strike][/spoiler]) is stolen by the evil warlord, Rando, Brad embarks on a heroic quest to rescue them from certain danger. This world is simply too dangerous for somebody as defenseless as them, and after all, [spoiler][strike]this is Brad's last chance.[/strike][/spoiler]
Gameplay is typical turn-based, RPG-maker styled menu navigation, but with a twist. Certain characters (like Brad and other recruitable party members) have unique combat combinations that are mapped to the WASD keys during battle and can be input for extra damage. So in this way combat continues to feel engaging, even after 20+ hours in the Olathian wastelands. Combat is also engaging in that it’s uniquely punishing as well. If not prepared with healing and offensive items, ordinary groups of enemies can flatten an entire party and give the player a “game over.” This also goes for exploration: if players are not careful, they can simply wander off of a cliff and die instantly. So even when exploring the overworld, players can never truly feel “safe.”
Nevertheless, [i]LTP[/i] manages to keep this punishing game feel in check by being… f*cking hilarious 😂 Enemy NPCs have ridiculous names like “Cheese Legs,” and the character who tutorializes to you, the one and only Terry Hintz (!) leaves little posters hung around the opening area where he signs his name in increasingly punny ways like “Terr Bear” and “Sweet Terry Wine.” This absurd commitment to whimsical dad-jokes is what makes LTP get frequent comparisons to Undertale. However, [i]LTP[/i] differentiates itself from its cutesy, pixelated indie brethren by wholeheartedly embracing the violent setting of post-apocalyptic Olathe. As a result, while [i]LTP[/i] may at first superficially appear similar to a game like [i]Undertale[/i] or [i]Earthbound[/i], by the game’s conclusion, [i]LTP[/i] feels a lot more like you’re playing [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/219150/Hotline_Miami/]Hotline Miami[/url], [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1150690/OMORI/]OMORI[/url], or even Mortis Ghost’s [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/3339880/OFF/]OFF[/url]. This difference in tone is made incredibly clear in one of the game’s earliest scenes, where Brad arrives home one afternoon after getting in a fight with some neighborhood bullies, [spoiler][strike]and Marty Armstrong wins his father-of-the-year award[/strike][/spoiler]. Over time, I was incredibly thankful that this game is rendered in blocky, “Super Mario style” graphics. Never in 1000 years would I want to see the gnarly, unpleasant story of [i]LTP[/i] rendered in 4K hyperrealism.
To finish this review, I’ll say this as my final compliment to the game. In 2020, as COVID was forcing us all into our homes, I began playing [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/2531310/The_Last_of_Us_Part_II_Remastered/]The Last of Us 2[/url] (TLOU2) on PS4 as soon as it released. I was incredibly excited to see how the first game was followed up, and I got [u]even more[/u] excited as the story continued to unfold, because it promised to venture into similar themes that [i]LTP[/i] did. However, when the final credits finally rolled on [i]TLOU2[/i], I felt… somewhat underwhelmed. I reflected on the themes of [i]TLOU2[/i], and how those themes were dramatized in the gameplay of Druckman’s work. I thought about how things like love, devotion, sacrifice, and redemption can be beautiful, amazing things that bring out the best of humanity and lift us all up higher. But they can also be ugly, terrible things that turn people into monstrous distortions of who they believe themselves to be. And as I sat with [i]TLOU2[/i] for the following weeks, I was finally able to put my finger on why I felt the way I did in 2020:
“[i]Lisa: The Painful[/i] did this idea better. And Austin Jorgensen did it – essentially [i]by himself[/i] – in 2014.”
Brad/10.
