The first one is basically a good Yume Nikki clone. You’re wandering through the dreams of a girl who is being abused by her father. The ending, like Yume Nikki, is suicide. (You don’t have to play it to understand the series, tbh it’s better to just watch a YouTube long play)
LISA: The Painful is probably one of the best video games ever made. You have Earthbound style RPG mechanics, with “comical” status effects. The game mechanically simulates addiction in a way that makes sense - the gameplay aligns with the story telling. Playing without the drug “Joy” makes you feel the urge to take it, to make just this one battle better knowing the consequences.
There’s also so many complicated feelings about being a dad, and intergenerational trauma, and how in trying to protect those we love we can hurt them. It’s such a fucking deep and smart game - something that stands as art. I don’t understand why more people aren’t talking about the series or making more things that are truly like it.
It’s a very good game. Very, very good. Pain Mode joyless is a challenge, and joy is super rare in The Painful. I suggest only playing on Pain Mode though. It feels like that’s how the game was intended to be played.
The Joyful was ok. It is still good, but nowhere near as good as The Painful.
There’s also a fan game called The Pointless that is supposedly pretty good, but I haven’t played it.
Also, last year they did a very limited run vinyl soundtrack, WHICH INCLUDED A DOWNLOAD OF THE FUCKING MASTER .FLAC FILES!!! How cool is that!? I am so happy to have snagged it as soon as it was announced.
The game’s soundtrack is soooo good. Everyone loves “Work Harder” and “666 Kill Chop Deluxe” but “Voices” is a perfect ending.
I’ve heard of it before and considered playing it, but I have a tough time committing to play a game with sexual violence as a theme. It’s nothing against the game, which looks interesting. If anyone knows of a good let’s play for the series, I’d love to experience it in some way, even if it’s a dulled experience.
I can usually read anything without having issues, but I just read the tropes page for this and this depressing game lived rent-free in my head for too long. And some of the themes are things I can usually read about no problem but actually seeing? Not sure if the game would show it on-screen, but if it did I know I would handle it poorly. Finally, I usually do not want to engage with fiction that depressing, and I am already familiar with some of the themes in real life so I don’t need a good art game to teach me about it or make some commentary. Dark things are usually not cathartic for me, just another painful reminder about the bad things in the world. So I am going to avoid this series and I think others might have the same reasoning. Of course, I’m aware others can like it and that’s totally fine! For others, it can be a good story or help them work through their own traumas. I understand how this series probably has lots of value. It’s just extremely not for me.
I think the things that make it as good as it is, are the things that also make it really difficult to play and recommend to people.
When I think of sexual violence being handled in video games, I think of True Crime: Streets of LA and the weird gross animation for you to interrupt, or the way that everyone laughs at the Daedra in Morrowind with the necrophilia line. (Or hentai games, but that’s a dark world) Drugs are minor joke items in most games, even with games that have addiction mechanics don’t make your time harder for not doing drugs.
The surrealism and comedic relief break up some of the despair. There is also a lot of catharsis in it. Probably the most important scene in the game is when you confront your father, who is an unspeakable monster, and the player is given a choice whether they want to kill him or not. Regardless of what the player chooses - the character cannot forgive him and will attack. It’s a false choice, which ties so well into the themes of trauma and powerlessness. There’s something about that that is so honest and validating.
