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.
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.