LISA: Definitive Version is the up to date assortment of LISA: The Painful, initially launched in 2014 through RPG Maker, and its sequel, LISA: The Joyful. These new releases are prolonged with new quests, bosses, and secrets and techniques. There’s even a brand new issue mode alongside Regular and Painful; Painless, for individuals who simply wish to expertise the story.
Olathe has skilled a mysterious phenomenon; the ‘White Flash’ has worn out all ladies, crumbling society because it was beforehand recognized. The protagonist of LISA: The Painful, Brad, is a sufferer of this new society, hooked on a drug known as Pleasure. When he stumbles throughout a child lady, who he names Buddy, he raises her and retains her protected from the broader society. Earlier than lengthy Buddy goes lacking and Brad units out to seek out her, occurring a rampage of homicide and destruction to get her again.
Selecting up the place the primary recreation leaves off, LISA: The Joyful options Buddy as the principle protagonist and different characters from the unique aiding her on her path. Our protagonists aren’t going through their struggles solo, and you’ll recruit teammates to bulk out the get together.
Group members all have completely different fight specialties. Brad is a karate grasp, whereas within the sequel Buddy’s most well-liked weapon is a knife. Each recruitable teammate additionally has their very own specialty, and we have been drawn to some preventing kinds greater than others. Levelling characters up means they study extra abilities, that are utilized by spending TP or SP. Battles might be actually powerful, and there does appear to be a pointy issue spike in each video games, even enjoying on Regular as we did.
Character design borders on grotesque at occasions, including to this sense of unease, and the soundtrack is commonly grating, particularly in battle. Characters are annoying, even these you recruit to your get together, and it actually feels such as you’re caught with them with no higher choices. Identical to you may think about it might be in an actual apocalyptic scenario, you need to cope with what you’ve acquired.
The video games introduce some fascinating stat modifications which we’ve not often seen earlier than; withholding Pleasure from Brad causes him to enter withdrawal and tanks his stats. Characters can get the Crying stat, which impacts their accuracy. Others are ‘Bizarre’, ‘Melancholy’, and ‘Mega Cool’; there’s 5 pages of standing results within the glossary, so it feels the chances are nearly infinite. This can be a minor gripe; there are simply too many, and none are defined when in fight or the true world, not even the primary time you expertise them, so it actually takes going into the tutorial tome (discovered by the merchandise menu) to determine what an impact truly does.
There are some actually uncomfortable themes all through each of the LISA video games, each opening with a reminder that the protagonists are over 18. This warning doesn’t make these emotions go away, and we discovered that there was a normal sense of unease all through your complete playthrough – however then, that is wholly intentional. Neither of those video games are sunshine and rainbows, so it does its job completely. LISA: Definitive Version will depart you pondering for days after completion concerning the complexities of the human situation. It’s a deep expertise packaged in a grotesque and uncomfortable recreation.