LISA: The Painful RPG | a Review
originally published on 24/08/2020;
Hello everyone, I am the wounded G.E.M.Simov, a pained fellow who cried himself to sleep many days in a row after establishing that someone did nothing wrong but got his dreams shattered completely. Today, I will talk about the game that features that someone, and it’s called “LISA: The Painful RPG”.
Simple review details - I rank games on an out of 10 basis, granting up to 3 points in 3 categories, as well as a last, single point from my own self, depending on my experience with it. Also, I am a gameplay designer and a writer so I got the credentials to talk shit.
Gameplay
The game is a tad more different from most RPGs out there, because it is, first and foremost, a 2D sidescroller. It was made using one of the many RPG makers, notorious for being used to make JRPG games (Japanese roleplaying games, or at least RPGs inspired by the Japanese style of RPG). It being a sidescroller makes it quite unique, when it comes to games made utilizing the aforementioned engine collection.
Of course, that is not the only thing that makes it unique. First off, the game has two states - the exploration state and the combat state. The exploration state is the state of the game that the player will spend more time in, as there simply is not enough combat to be experienced, although that is not a bad thing.
The exploration state allows the player to, most often, move to the left or to the right, with some situations in which the player might also be able to go down or go up. The player does not move incredibly quickly, in fact, their character moves somewhat slow, but that is remedied at a certain point in the game through the acquisition of an item that effectively doubles the player’s speed and allows them to jump over small gaps, opening up new areas for exploration.
It should be noted that the player can fall off ledges, and, if they do, they get a game over screen, needing to start over at their last saved game. This is one of the examples of why the game bears the title ‘the painful RPG’.
The exploration state of the game also features interacting with other characters, items and objects. Interacting with items results in them being picked up, and, in some cases, something else happening afterwards. Interacting with objects most often results in a small change of the game world, which could either lead to the player gaining access to new areas or the player gaining, or losing, something.
Interactions with characters are typically short conversations which require almost no input from the player, although in some rarer cases the player has the opportunity to make a choice that affects their character for the rest of the game. These choices are almost always a choice between one bad outcome and another bad outcome. Another reason why “LISA: The Painful RPG” bears its title.
As a result of interacting with other characters, the player can obtain items, lose items, gain new members for their gang, or lose members of their gang. The gang is something that is exclusively, almost, dedicated to combat, as the player can visit certain locations and use certain objects to arrange their team.
A player can have up to four members of their gang in their team. The team is the set of gang members who take part in combat, if it were to occur. Each gang member has a different set of skills, each is a unique character with their own story, and each has his own reasons for following the main character.
Some gang members have stunningly great combos with other gang members, while others do well just by themselves. In general, the game offers the reward of greater performance to the player, if the player bothers to manage their gang and figure out who meshes well with who.
Each gang member can also level up, unlocking new skills and becoming stronger overall. The same goes for the main character, who has, by far, the most skills out of all the gang members and is strongest, stat-wise, in the gang.
Each gang member can use up to four items, which provide a certain bonus to their stats, and might have a unique effect. These items can be found by exploring the world or interacting with other characters. A well geared gang member is going to perform a lot better than a poorly geared gang member, but the difference is not so great so as to not allow a gang member lacking in gear to be used, in case of emergency.
Now, onto combat. “LISA: The Painful RPG” is the only JRPG, excluding “LISA: The Joyful” to have ever made the turn based combat of JRPGs interesting and bearable, after the first three fights. As the reader might know, in JRPGs combat goes as follows:
1 - The player begins combat.
2 - The player decides what each character in their team will do.
3 - The player lets the turn end.
4 - At the end of the turn, the characters do what they were commanded, by the player, to do, and so does the enemy, in an order determined by a stat.
5 - Repeat points 2,3 and 4 until either all characters die or the enemy dies.
This style of combat, while offering a certain measure of depth and complexity, becomes very stale after a while. Imagine my shock, ladies and gentlemen, when I discovered that “LISA: The Painful RPG” has more inputs than just the commands that dictate what the characters do? Imagine how pleased I was when I found out that some characters have a mechanic that allows the player to press certain buttons, and then the character performs a type of attack, and, if a number of attacks are performed in a certain order, a finishing move is used?
The depth and complexity of the combat just blasted through space. No longer is the player doomed to sitting and waiting for things to play out - the player takes part in the action, performing moves as if they are the main character of a Jackie Chan movie, doing martial arts, and ending the combo of moves with a symbolic Kamehameha wave. How cool is that?
The addition of this mechanic, which I will simply dub the Martial Arts mechanic, is a great thing that Austin Jorgensen did, as it gives the combat the layer of player engagement that it desperately needed to make it more interesting, and more worthwhile to play. But that is not all that has the player on the edge of their seat at all times.
Introducing: Biting and breaking necks! The instant death mechanic that kills characters PERMANENTLY!
You heard me right, folks, this game has a mechanic that allows some enemies to instantly kill any character, for good. No resurrections, no revives - the guy is DEAD, affected by a unique status that says “DEAD”. Good thing is that only a certain type of enemies can perform such maneuvers. Even better thing is that, due to the fact that only a certain type of enemies can do this, it makes that type of enemies all the more threatening.
On top of that, these enemies, who can instantly kill a character, are supposed to be scary, unsettling, threatening. If they did not possess that mechanic, I doubt their menace would have carried over into execution as well as it currently is. This is incredible enemy design, making the player capable of losing party members in combat.
Other JPRGs do not even dream of allowing this. The player’s party never gets in trouble, and even if the members are ‘dead’, they can be brought back by a rest or something else. In “LISA: The Painful RPG”, however, that kiddy stuff is gone. Dudes can actually die! That is another reason why the game is dubbed as ‘The PAINFUL RPG’.
This game has so much to offer in exploration of the world, in gameplay, in interesting characters, in secrets to discover, in a combat system that feels good - this is what I want to see more of. 3/3
Presentation
“LISA: The Painful RPG” is made by Austin Jorgensen. He is one man. He did get funded through Kickstarter, but he is just one man. And yet this game looks very good! It makes use of pixel art, but the shift from top-down to sidescroller has made the environments so much easier to navigate through, as well as to differentiate them from one another, that it is quite impressive how different “LISA: The Painful RPG” looks when compared to “LISA: The First”.
This game utilizes pixel art, but each character is unique, each character has their own flavour, and, even if some of them have similar accessories, their body types, the way they speak, the way they move, the way they fight - those are all different, making every single encounter a treat.
“LISA: The Painful RPG” has this look of desolation and emptiness, which is incredibly fitting, as the setting is one of a post-apocalyptic world in which there are no women. It would look empty and desolate, would it not?
The music in this game is phenomenal. There are tracks which sound as if they were made exclusively for the laughs, there are tracks made for areas that are not even important, and said tracks are never heard again, there are tracks which sound incredibly memorable, and yes, there is a track that samples Delin, from Shenmue II, grunting. The music in this game is phenomenal.
The quality of sound extends over to the rest of the game as well, not only to its tracks. Every little jingle, every sound, is crisp, appropriate and, quite honestly, perfect. There’s a sound for almost everything in the game, and it is golden when a character has a reaction, coupled with a small sound effect.
“LISA: The Painful RPG” has the best quality it could have achieved with the aesthetic it has chosen to go for. 3/3
Story
“LISA: The Painful RPG” has a story that covers the same topic as “LISA: The First”, only this time they are a lot better conveyed. The main character is Bradley Armstrong, a man who has developed his own martial art and called it Armstrong Style. Brad is the older brother of Lisa, who ended her own life as a result of the abuse she suffered at the hands of her father.
An indeterminate amount of time after Lisa’s suicide, a great flash occurs and all women in the land disappear. Years pass, and one day, while consuming a drug that makes one happy, Brad hears the cry of a baby. He finds a baby girl, and resolves he will raise her and make her ready for the brutal world out there.
Of course, things don’t go as planned. Brad’s manner of raising a child is heavily affected by what he, himself, has experienced during his own childhood, and, even though he tries not to be like his father, his dependencies on drugs and alcohol get in the way and make it harder. This is made even worse by the fact that he feels the need to hide the girl from everyone, as he fears they would just tear her apart.
Worse comes to shove when one day she disappears, and one of his friends, with his last breath, lets Brad know that someone came for her. This makes master Armstrong of the Armstrong style to go off on a quest to find his daughter, which takes him through the land and has him fighting countless enemies, as well as meeting many men interested in joining him.
The game portrays a world that has lost all of its women quite well, although it is coupled with absurdity and dark humor. The explosion of activity and the many factions that start duking it out in hopes of getting their hands on the girl is also realistic, as who would not want to groom their own bride after years of having been unable to even look at a woman?
The game’s story tackles the issues of abuse, trauma, PTSD, guilt, love, the imperfection of humanity, the need for freedom, the need for independence. “LISA: The Painful RPG” is so full of content, of food for thought, it’s just incredible. This game is nigh impossible to speak of badly. 3/3
Legendary Point
Does this game get the legendary point, so craved and wanted by all and none at the same time?
Does this game, the ass of which I’ve kissed so many times by now that my mouth is brown with its chocolate-tasting poop, deserve the point of excellence that I can give it? YES. I don’t think I need to say much, but let me be clear.
I love the post apocalypse. I love stories about people, I love human struggles. I love grand questions that have no right answers. I love RPGs. I love exploration of fantastical worlds with strange entities that seem to make no sense, but the more you explore the more sense they do make.
“LISA: The Painful RPG” is amazing. 1/1
Conclusion
10/10. The second perfect rating I’ve ever given to a game, “LISA: The Painful RPG” gets what it deserves. This is a game I want to recommend to anyone who ever tells me they play games, this is a game I want to talk about more and more, a game I want to experience more and more - it’s such a fantastic piece that I simply cannot get enough of it.
I tuck it under my belt, another shining achievement that I proudly display. I must be going senile, because any time I look upon it I am blinded by its perfection, and I can’t help but smile, even if my eyes hurt from the brightness of this masterpiece.