YMMV / LISA

Entire Trilogy

• Complete Monster: Dr. Yado is behind the events of the entire trilogy. Having participated in the project that created Joy, Yado was the only one who figured out how to control the resulting Joy Mutants. This discovery gave him a massive god complex, and he immediately went to mutate the other scientists so they wouldn't figure him out. With the help of Buzzo, Yado introduced Joy as a drug to start turning humans into his mutant slaves. In order to speed up the process, he triggered the Great White Flash, killing off all women and destroying society. The only survivor, his pregnant wife, was hidden away so she could give birth to their daughter, Nancy, whom Yado would use to start a war to kill or mutate every surviving man. When the time came, Yado killed his wife and let Brad find his daughter, whom Brad renamed Buddy and became extremely protective of; this led to Brad slaughtering the entirety of Rando's Army and many others before mutating. Noticing that Buddy had taken Joy herself, Yado left messages pushing Buddy to kill as much as possible in hopes she would mutate. When cornered, Yado attacked Buddy with his strongest mutant before finally getting killed by a disgusted Buzzo.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • If there's a story-driven indie game (especially if it's an RPG) that makes it big, then expect LISA fans to go and flaunt how their game is better because it's "deeper". Undertale in particular is a prime target, as both take inspiration from EarthBound but have polar opposite themes. The fact that it released around the same time as The Joyful did only serves to intensify this rivalry. That being said, some fans of both series do get along quite well, making it closer to fandom Vitriolic Best Buds.
  • With The Last of Us, due to having a similar premise (a post-apocalyptic wasteland that follows a Deconstruction of the Papa Wolf trope tasked with protecting an important little girl), which often leads to debates over which game did it better. Not helping things is the disparity in production value and the fact that TLoU would go on to suffer Hype Backlash. The release of The Last of Us Part II only served to heat the debate up further, as not only does it once again share a premise (this time with The Joyful, as both follow the previous game's shell-shocked female lead as they go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge), but it infamously fell victim to boats of controversy surrounding its plot, themes, and production, much of which has been validating to some fans of the LISA series.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • As mentioned above, the LISA fandom's relationship with the Undertale fandom is rather vitriolic. For every feuding fan, there's likely to be another who enjoys both games and fandoms. Crossover art between the two series is also rather popular (namely NCHProductions' Interlopers series) and has led to fans of Undertale checking out LISA, and vice-versa.
  • LISA fans are quite chummy with OFF fans, as both are Surreal Horror RPG Maker games that deconstruct their genre. It also helps that both have large communities of fangame developers.
  • With Fist of the North Star, given that it was one of Dingaling's main inspirations for the game, and that it features many Expies of characters from the manga.

LISA: The First

• Breather Level: The Gold Statue Palace, for a little while anyway. The peaceful white world would count, except that everything is so idealized and friendly it's impossible to trust.
• Demonic Spiders: A more literal version than most; the game is entirely combat-free, except for the awful fucking spider-things with Marty's face for a body. They don't cause harm, but they'll send you back to the start of their maze
• The Woobie: All the evidence that can be gleaned from the game shows that Lisa has had a really, really horrible life.
  • Jerkass Woobie: Despite the revelation in Painful that she manipulated Buzzo in one of her attempts to get away from her father, it's hard not to feel sympathy for her. The only other person in her life- Brad - failed her, and her father hurt so severely that she decided to kill herself at a very young age. It also doesn't help that nobody but Brad attended her funeral.

LISA: The Painful and LISA: The Joyful

• Accidental Innuendo: Hawk Hollywood's defeat quote can come off as weirdly (and somewhat amusingly) sexual.
  Hard times, daddy! HARD TIMES!
  • Garth’s final line to Jack in their campfire scene comes across as a lot dirtier than (possibly, this IS Garth we’re talking about) intended. It doesn’t help Brad wakes up to some "used" magazines afterward.
  I cannot wait to crush your innocence.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Brad: Scumbag who objectifies Buddy as much as anybody else or a Papa Wolf turned Well-Intentioned Extremist? Or both?
    • Does Brad really love Buddy? Or does he only think about her as his second chance for failing Lisa?
    • Did Brad care for Rando at all? There are signs that point in both directions.
  • Buddy: Strong-hearted little girl desperate to reclaim her life and step up as the mother of the new world no matter what she must endure, or spoiled Rebellious Princess who blames Brad for all her problems so she won't have to admit she was safer in his care? Interestingly, the Joyful goes for a combination of these two interpretations: Buddy is incredibly strong and very capable by herself, but rather than grow as a person she clings onto the negatives of her life and blames Brad for everything that went wrong, even when it becomes increasingly clear it's because of her own compulsiveness. One of the final boss phases is her addressing this.
  • Marty: Did he really turn over a new leaf, or was he only trying to gain Buddy's trust and convince Brad to spare him? Also, given that he's clearly incredibly guilty for what he did to Lisa, has he either made a genuine Heel–Face Turn or is Secretly Selfish and like Brad, does he, too, see the opportunity of being a father to Buddy as a second chance to redeem himself in his own eyes and get rid of the guilt he has.
  • Most of Brad's gang due to a game mechanic that causes extra dialogue to be tacked onto their end quotes. These lines are added to whichever party member is speaking first when confronting Brad at the end of the game. Even nonsensical characters like Buckets or Harvey can come off as predatory due to this mechanic.
  • Some have interpreted Rando less charitably than others. Specifically, his actions in Joyful and his statement that he was complicit in the plan to kidnap Buddy. Is he telling the truth or is he provoking her into killing him? It's also possible that with Buddy's drug addiction, she could have hallucinated it to justify her violent actions.
  • Dr. Yado: Was him being unable to look Buddy in the eyes as he threatened to kill her when she confronts him at the end of Joyful out of him genuinely not wanting to fight Buddy due to her being his own daughter, or because he is genuinely afraid of her?
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Buddy is considered this, especially in The Joyful, where she Took a Level in Jerkass; whether you like her or hate her is dependent on if you see her actions as a natural progression of her character arc.
  • Buzzo is in a similar boat. Initially bordering on scrappy status, The Joyful gave him a backstory explaining his actions, as he was Lisa's boyfriend, who was used by his girlfriend in order to escape her abuse. In addition, he manages to save Buddy from a mutated Brad, and kills Sweetheart and Dr. Yado. His backstory and redemption gave him many more fans, though some still believe that his actions are wholly unjustified, and that it should have been taken out on Marty instead of Brad. Funnily enough, the Definitive Edition actually seems to address his unsympathetic points.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • The crossdresser who subjected a bunch of men to act as furniture. His whole area is rather disturbing, has a rather squicky achievement associated with it, and he threatens to fight you after you take his mags... but nothing comes out of it.
  • Gary The Hot Soup literally appears out of nowhere in The Joyful, just to stop a truck with his barehands, and take on both Buddy and Rando.
  • For as epic of a fight that it is, the fight with the Manifestation of Marty in the Definitive Edition of Painful leaves the player with more questions than answers, namely how Brad is able to bring his gang members into a hallucination he's having and why they get Killed Off for Real if they die fighting him. It also doesn't really inform the player about anything they didn't already know or expand the story, aside from revealing that Brad learned the Armstrong Style from his grandfather.
• Breather Level:
  • The EWC area provides a safe place to sleep (if you're a wrestler), a way to grind other party members, a new party member that's one of the few genuinely nice characters, and is mostly comical in tone throughout.
  • The Fishman Village. Aside from a hallucination of Lisa, it has a very light-hearted and quirky tone, no real fights whatsoever, and allows you to undertake an amusing sidequest to get one of the funniest party members in the game.
• Cheese Strategy: In The Painful, the combination of Birdie Hall and Terry Hintz has been shown to easily trivialize even the toughest boss fights. Birdie's Gasoline Spit attack inflicts a status that makes the enemy weak to Fire attacks, while Terry's The Hottest Dance is the most powerful Fire Attack in the game. Paired together, the two can easily kill everything from Joy Mutants to the brutal bonus boss in a couple of hits. Fly Minetti is often combined with the two to ensure that the frail Terry doesn't get hit by stun-locking enemies with his Puke skills. As a result, many fans will look down on those who use such a party. Tellingly, this composition suffered a large Nerf in the remake, as Birdie and Fly’s status as Joy Addicts was fixed, and Gasoline Spit’s TP cost was raised, and in combination with the alteration to TP, it’s impossible to use Gasoline Spit turn one without burning a somewhat expensive whiskey.
• Common Knowledge:
  • Many players believe that a character's luck stat increases their chance to survive the Russian Roulette segment. This is not the case. Everyone has the same probability of winning or losing—a full 50/50.
  • Queen Roger is often assumed to be a trans woman unlike the other crossdressers and prostitutes in the game, and fans typically refer to him with she/her pronouns. This is incorrect, as Austin Jorgensen has said that trans women disappeared with all women after the Flash, meaning that Roger identifies as a man one way or another if he is still around.
  • For a time, it was rumored that Buckets could survive Permadeath attacks just like Brad. This is demonstrably false, as he’s just as vulnerable as everyone else, and the source of this claim is often cited to be a Good Bad Bug that kicked in on Buckets.
• Contested Sequel: While still considered solid in its own right, many fans generally agree that Joyful is rather weak when compared to Painful. Fans often cite the lack of party members and sacrificial choices, as well as less memorable characters and (to some fans) a less likable protagonist as the reasons that this game falls into this territory.
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • RT. A homeless, old, and dirty looking man packing a bag with many nonsensical objects that somehow emit fire beams, flash bangs, venom, etc. He's easily one party member capable of tanking.
  • Sindy Gallows, the 2nd ranked warlord on the list. He manages to survive being flayed alive, hanging from a noose, and then being riddled with arrows, and is implied to have single-handedly killed off most of his former gang members who have all turned on him, and then he manages to awaken from an apparent state of death to confront Buddy, giving her one hell of a fight.
• Creepy Cute: While the Joy Mutants are, for the most part, absolutely horrifying, two of them manage to stand out by actually being kind of cute.
  • Henry Wyatt. His hairstyle, beady eyes, and Cute Little Fangs endear him to many fans. Having a sympathetic backstory thanks to being the brother of a potential party member definitely helps.
  • Bobby from Joyful. Aside from the silly name, his walrus-like body combined with an absolutely dumb Playful Cat Smile gives him an almost cutesy appearance.
• Demonic Spiders: The snake enemies found in the Playground deal high damage for how early they're fought in the game and can inflict the poison ailment, making you burn through your resources before you can even fight the Joy Mutant Charmy (who is located at the end of the area and is required to be fought to advance the story).
• Draco in Leather Pants:
  • Brad. There is a firm Misaimed Fandom that staunchly refuses to see Brad as a Villain Protagonist, interpreting him as a constant Papa Wolf who just does what he needs to save his daughter. Brad is certainly a complex individual with a dark past, but many come out feeling Brad is a more spotless protagonist than he truly is.
  • Buddy is this to a lesser extent due to many feeling she's less sympathetic than Brad, but you will still see many trying to justify Buddy's deeds as being completely the fault of Brad or Rando.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • In spite of his initial uselessness in gameplay, Terry is seen as the most memorable companion Brad can have, being amusing and one of the most genuinely nice characters in the game as long as you don't give him to Columbo.
  • Many other party members get lots of love from the fanbase. Birdie is liked because of his kind, funny personality on top of being a downright Game-Breaker for fire-oriented players. Olan has his fans for being a solid party member on top of being geniunely nice. Garth is well-liked for his interesting design and character. Tiger Man is liked for being a badass with a cool design. Harvey's got some fans for being the only true nonhuman party member on top of being absolutely hilarious. And finally, Nern is loved for being one of the most funny characters in the game.
  • As far as Joy Mutants go, Henry Wyatt is easily the most popular of the bunch due to his somewhat cute design and sympathetic sidequest.
  • Big "L" Lincoln, the top of the warlords list in The Joyful is seen as one of the coolest characters in the entire series, and for good fucking reason. He's an eight foot tall wolf-headed (or masked) man with insanely powerful wresting abilities with a rocking awesome theme and a sick leather jacket.
  • Before Big Lincoln, Hawk Hollywood was a well-loved warlord, mainly because of his hilarious scenes.
  • Sindy Gallows, the second warlord after Big Lincoln, is also notable by the fans, mostly because of his Moment of Awesome, which he fights Buddy while his neck is hanging from a rope, with several arrows craved in his body... and he was still able to be a tough oponent!
    Sindy Gallows: Hey, kid. I didn't get on that list by being a Goddamn pussy. I'm #2 in the world. You want my spot? Try and take it, bitch.
  • Gary the Hot Soup, as minor as he is, has a decent following for his goofy design and for somehow surviving getting beaten by Brad so he could appear as a somewhat competent miniboss in The Joyful.
  • Johnny Walrus, a member of Vega Van Dam's gang encountered in Joyful has a notable amount of popularity due to a bug that makes him completely unkillable, leading him to being labeled a Memetic Badass.
  • Clint Moss, a member of Rando's army that can easily be interpreted as The Dragon to Rando due to acting as his mouth piece, being his personal driver and being the only member in the last phase of the fight against Rando's army that stands his ground and tries to put up a proper fight in spite of the odds.
• Even Better Sequel: Painful is considered this to the first game, with more engaging gameplay and characters.
• Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory: The track on the OST that plays in areas where Dr. Yado can be found playing his trumpet is named "God's Call". In religious texts, trumpets were used by angels to signal the apocalypse, which ties in with Dr. Yado's plans for the world.
• Fanfic Fuel: There are a great deal of party members that Brad can recruit who already suffer from Joy addiction. Given that taking Joy guarantees the user will eventually mutate no matter how little they take, fans love to make hypothetical art of what said gang members' mutated forms would look like.
• Fanon: While each of Brad's party members get their share of love throughout the fanbase, it's very common to portray Brad's "canonical" party as Terry, Nern, and Olan in fanart.
• Fashion-Victim Villain: Try taking Dr. Yado seriously when all he wears is a pink shawl with incredibly tacky lime green polka dots.
• Game-Breaker:
  • While Birdie's offense isn't particularly impressive, he has some extremely useful support abilities. Gasoline Spit makes enemies more susceptible to fire, which is used by many offense oriented characters, including the required Brad. This damn near trivializes almost every fight in the game due to the massive damage output. There's also Secret Stash, one of the game's only group heals, and Lil' Diddy, which can cure many debuffs. He can also use Swig to restore TP easily, making it easy to use these moves frequently. There’s a good reason as to why many challenge runs forbid the use of Birdie.
  • Fly Minetti. He’s already a solid party member, with great agility and a regular attack that can hit all of his foes without the use of SP. What makes him so useful though is his Puke and Super Puke abilities. While they can inflict Rage and Stink, the fact that it can stack many other valuable status conditions such as Paralysis, Poison and Blindness on to the opponent makes them some of the most powerful moves in the game, and one of the primary reasons as to why status-stacking is so powerful.
  • In Painful, the disadvantages of taking Joy generally outweigh the advantages. In Joyful, however, Joy has no adverse effects, no bearing on the ending, comes with the added benefit of refilling your HP, and is far more plentiful than any other healing item in the game. This is intentional, since the enemies are much harder than in Painful, and the ending depends on Buddy having taken Joy at some point.
• Goddamned Bats: The Marty spider hallucinations aren't terribly difficult to beat in combat, but they're big wastes of time due to barely dropping any experience points. They're also rather difficult to avoid in the overworld.
• Good Bad Bugs:
  • A few characters (Rage Ironhead, RT, Garth, Sonny Backluwitz, Birdie Hall, and Fly Minetti) are programmed by the game to themselves be Joy addicts, but due to being grouped separately from Brad and the rest of the addicts, unless you specifically mod the game, will never actually suffer the effects, effectively turning them into clean characters. Some of these, like Birdie Hall and Fly Minetti, are outright considered Game-Breaker tier, while others like RT are also very useful. This bug was unfortunately fixed in the remake.
  • Another Joy-related bug comes from Ajeet. He's supposed to only join if you have taken Joy less than twice barring Buzzo's force-feeding, but he'll only refuse to join you if you've taken it exactly twice. Take Joy three or more times, and he'll gladly join you. Note that this only applies to the Legacy Edition, as it's fixed in the Definitive Edition.
  • Due to a quirk of the way RPG Maker VX Ace's AI algorithm handles enemy attack move priority^note All enemy moves are assigned a priority value from 1 to 10, with higher numbers meaning the enemy is more likely to use them. However, when picking a move to use, the game will only ever pick from moves with the highest listed priority and the two below it (ex. if you have a move with priority 5, a move with priority 3, and a move with priority 2, the move with priority 2 will never be picked), about half of the enemies with moves that can permanently kill off your party members will never actually use them in normal circumstances.
  • During the psuedo-combat encounter against Scott Lawson, it is entirely possible for Brad to miss his Groin Attack, only for Scott to act like he just got kicked in the groin.
  • In the Legacy Edition and older versions of the game, dismounting the bike the instant you finish climbing up a rope will, if you time it right, let you keep the increased speed and have it apply to you climbing ropes.
• High-Tier Scrappy: You'll likely get a lot of dirty looks if you say that you use Birdie Hall and/or Fly Minetti. Both are incredibly powerful support members, with the former learning the Game Breaking Gasoline Spit and the latter learning Puke abilities, which are arguably the biggest factor behind status stacking's immense power. Several Self-Imposed Challenge runs forbid the use of these two. To a lesser extent, Terry gets hit with this as well, since 'grind Terry to level 25 then spam Hottest Dance' is a bit of a Cheese Strategy even without Birdie.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Larry Stinz’s entire gag in Joyful was a purported Easy Mode that ended up being a prime case of Easy-Mode Mockery. Come the Updated Re-release of Painful and Joyful, genuine easy modes were added to both games.
  • Salvation Black’s Spoof Aesop being “No race jokes, please!” ends up being reinforced by the Updated Re-release removing the chimpanzee sound effect during that line and slightly altering Rick Junior’s sprite.
• I Am Not Shazam: To those who were oblivious to the first installment of the trilogy - the living girl Brad was searching for was Buddy, while the actual Lisa is Brad's late baby sister. This is most likely due to Sequel Displacement caused by Painful.
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: One of the complaints about Joyful is the lack of length it has, even next to the significantly longer Painful.
• Low-Tier Letdown:
  • Pretty much anyone with a pre-existing Joy addiction, simply because of how badly withdrawals gimp characters. Characters who specialize in damage, such as Queen, Buckets, and Tiger Man, get hit the worst. The only addicts to get out of this unscathed are Carp, due to his utility having next to nothing to do with sheer offense (he can poison foes and directly debuff enemy stats like agility or attack, and even under withdrawal deals respectable damage) and Garth (who’s a Support Party Member, and whose sole attack already deals low damage in exchange for inflicting poison).
    • Tiger Man is perhaps hit the worst by Joy addiction. All of his skills are just progressively more powerful attacks, and he lacks any support options outside of applying bleed to enemies, making him a liability whenever he's in withdrawal. Worse, you can only use him after beating him as an actually somewhat difficult Optional Boss, meaning that you need a really solid party just to get him. On top of that, he suffers such an extreme Redemption Demotion that, out the gate, he's really not doing all that much damage at all for a level 15 character, and all three of the available weapons for him to use kinda suck. All this makes for a character that rarely sees much use from most players.
    • Clint Olympic is very difficult to recruit, costing a whopping 500 Mags for recruitment, which is more than the amount of Mags needed to recruit all of the other Mag-required party members.^note Rage, Garth, and Ollie ask for 70, 150, and 2 mags respectively, while you need to buy Olan a drink, Carp some Green Paste, and Jack some Playing Cards, which costs 20, 50, and 200 mags respectively, bringing the total to 492 mags And all that money gets you is what's essentially a poor man's Brad (the protagonist of the game), having weaker attacks and stats. And since he also suffers from Joy addiction, you can’t use him as a back-up version of Brad either. While he has more Area of Effect attacks, several other party members, namely Fly Minetti, have access to stronger variants of these attacks, while having other useful skills and better stats to boot.
    • Dick Dickson suffers from Joy addiction, but compared to most other characters with it, his damage output isn't very impressive when he isn't in withdrawal to compensate. This isn't helped by the fact that there are only three options for boomerangs, his weapon of choice, and the two purchasable ones aren't much stronger than his starting boomerang. His Party Time buff is quite useful, and isn't affected by withdrawal, but he's something of a one trick pony in that regard, and it's often better to use that character slot for someone more versatile.
    • Thanks to the remake fixing the bug meaning he was clean, RT is hit hard. RT’s main claim to fame is being a Mighty Glacier with Powerful, but Inaccurate elbow drops, and can inflict a decent amount of status effects thanks to Duffie and his sleeper holds. Unfortunately, withdrawal tends to nuke his accuracy to oblivion, making him rarely hit, if at all, and what attacks to land being rather weak. Even in the status department, he’s beat by Ajeet (who can inflict most of the same statuses with his free, always accurate poke attacks), Fly (who can both poison and stun with the various effects from his puke attacks), or Ollie (whose powder attacks are always accurate and his gunfire skills inflicting a variety of negative effects in AOE attacks).
  • Crisp and Buffalo both suffer from Late Character Syndrome, being recruitable in Area 3, when you've probably already got a set strategy. Buffalo is somewhat redeemed by his high damage output, large selection of skills, and by virtue of being a mandatory recruit, but Crisp is fairly well-hidden and has three skills, one of which almost never hits. Crisp would get some buffs in the remake, allowing him to apply oil and various other useful status effects, but his late appearance still makes it difficult to find much use for him.
  • Ollie Nickels has a tremendous repertoire of skills, but he has three problems. First, despite being a skill-based character, his maximum SP is so low he'll be dry after two or three turns, meaning you'll be constantly burning items to keep him firing. Second, he suffers from Depression, which gimps his already-unimpressive stats further. Third, he's only available at the end of Garbage Island. By the time you've reached Garbage Island, you're guaranteed to have recruited Harvey Alibastor, and you also have access to Fly Minetti, both of whom fill a similar niche but are just better overall. He was slightly buffed in the remake, now running off of TP, but his depression remains.
  • Rage Ironhead is easily the least well-regarded of Brad's early party members, including the initially-useless Terry. 70 mags is a steep price to pay for that early in the game, especially since the much more useful Olan is right there and much cheaper to recruit. Terry, Olan, Nern, and even Fardy all have their unique niches as party members, but Rage is effectively a weaker version of Brad, and joins at a fairly low level to boot. It's not all that unheard of for savvy players to hire him specifically so they have someone to sacrifice to Buzzo and keep an arm. He’s even worse in the remake, as while in the original game a Good Bad Bug meant he was basically a clean character, said bug was fixed, rendering him an even worse Brad thanks to also dealing with Joy addiction, without any of the ludicrous power of fellow addicts on Joy or without withdrawal like Queen or Buckets nor any utility aside from damage like Carp’s debuffs and poison or magic attacks like Brad’s fireballs.
  • Fardy Hernandez. Sure, he’s a required party member and later grants you the ability to warp to any area, but he’s just plain awful in combat. His average-at-best stats are heavily marred by perpetual Depression, and he has only three attacks: his weak standard attack, Weep (which, while healing SP, induces Crying on Fardy), and four levels of Truck Slam. While Truck Slam is a powerful attack that can induce Fallen on all foes, its poor accuracy and high SP cost make it outclassed by Brad's Head Slide, which you'll unlock around the same time you get Fardy. Unless you’re only using required party members, there’s pretty much zero reason to use Fardy.
  • Percy can heal, do decent physical attacks, and has a basic set of Fireball attacks. The problem is, while he might bring versatility, it comes at the cost of him being a Master of None. Notably, you're given Percy right before Buzzo's first Sadistic Choice and the mandatory Russian Roulette sequence, meaning that most vets will just use him as fodder to avoid losing an actually useful character.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Big Lincoln is the number one Warlord in Olathe, and the fandom loves to play him up as such. For starters, there's the fact that he just attacks Buddy from the shadows without saying a word; his toadies have done all the building up he needs. There's also the fact that he's wearing a wolf mask and biker gear and his theme is an electric guitar pro-wrestler-intro-style song called "All-American Badass". But best of all is that his most commonly used attack is not described as "Big Lincoln performs a power bomb" or "Big Lincoln does a piledriver" like other characters; it's described as "Big Lincoln sends you to Hell." Because of this, the fandom loves to portray him as literally having the power to send people to Hell with a single touch and generally being unstoppable.
  • In the same vein, Sindy Gallows, number two on the list is seen as one of the most badass characters in recent memory. Why? Well, when you find him, he's already been killed- riddled with arrows by some cultists and hung from a post. He killed around twenty of these guys (who are somewhat strong) by himself before he was put down. And the crazy part? He still isn't fucking dead! He even fights you in his current state and puts up a good fight, somehow. " I didn't get on the list by being a God damn pussy" indeed.
  • Johnny Walrus became this due to a Game-Breaking Bug where if you didn't assasinate his partner, he became invincible, essentially making the fight unwinnable. This has since been patched, and he is now as vulnerable as his partner.
  • Gary the Hot Soup, who is notable for surviving getting beaten up by Brad so that he could stop your truck in the next game and fight you again. The fact that his theme is titled 666 Kill Chop Deluxe and that he’s actually decently challenging this time around definitely helps.
• Misaimed Fandom: Despite the game's intended messages, many feel Olathe would be an awesome place to live (Since there's few women and it's heavily Darwinistic) and that Brad is a badass who just wants to save his daughter.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Marty being an asshole and child abuser is bad enough, the Joyful DLC reveals an even more sinister and painful truth. He corrupted Brad, forcing him to take drugs and alcohol AND THEN rape Lisa (or have Brad watch him rape his sister)...that has to take the cake.
  • While the bulldozer massacre scene in Painful is mostly Played for Laughs, it also signaled how low Brad had sunk, as he was casually crushing innocent construction workers for more power (EXP). And then there’s the scene where he ends up killing his party members, potentially including Shocklord, who is completely unwilling to even hurt Brad.
  • Buddy leaped right into this when she forced Rando to help her kill Lardy Hernandez, who was a major shipper of necessities, and Mr. Beautiful, a kind pacifist leader. Granted, a major factor for this and Brad's above rampage was their incessant usage of Joy, but it’s still kinda sickening.
• Narm:
  • Can be invoked by the player in both Painful and Joyful. In the former, you can do a sidequest on Dismal Island that allows you to permanently change your name to “Sexy Boy” (or some other stupid four-letter word)^note In the Definitive Edition, it is a simple text choice rather than a word editor, so you can't put your own word in., and from that same sidequest you can get a dress that Brad can wear, which changes the overworld sprite as well. As for Joyful, you can get a Terry Hintz mask that you can wear throughout the game. The Ax-Crazy Buddy doesn’t look so menacing with a dumb looking mask modeled after a middle-aged loser, does she?
  • How is the Vicious Cycle of parental abuse that Brad and Mad Dog partake in that comes up during their campfire scene in the remake symbolized? A spider with a grinning version of Brad’s Armstrong Style/Bite icon instead of a Marty head running across the bottom of the screen.
• Nightmare Retardant:
  • Wally's laugh is absolutely terrifying unless the player realizes it's a remixed and pitched-up version of Goose's laugh from Top Gun.
  • The moaning noise that Mutant Brad makes in Joyful is creepy and morose...until you realize that it's just a slowed-down version of Vega Van Dam's "Ayy!" sound effect when he applies Super Cool to himself.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Most of the genuinely funny scenes in the game are from one or two time minor characters, such as the guy that randomly kicks Brad in the balls in one area and Gary the Hot Soup's random appearance in the Joyful.
  • Most of the cast in general who aren't main characters count as this, even the important ones. Wally? Hawk Hollywood? Every single warlord in Joyful? Any particularly memorable joy mutant? All leave a unique impression behind while only appearing just before their fight. Even a good chunk of the party members arguably count; you can count how many of them appear in more than a single scene or as a seemingly-ordinary NPC before their recruitment on one hand, and even less who have much to do besides be party members after.
  • Olan Hoyt gets an extremely poignant Day in the Limelight during his campfire chat which also serves as a What the Hell, Hero? moment for Brad after getting him addicted to Joy, since he leaves the party and becomes a Joy Mutant due to going over his Despair Event Horizon.
• Player Punch: All over the damn place. Almost too many to list.
  • Your party turning on you in the finale.
  • A powerful, long-standing party member dying from a perma-kill attack can elicit a level of remorse and grief like no other game can.
  • Terry coming back as a boss fight if you sold him to Columbo. He's been turned from an innocent, dorky man into a bitter, pain-obsessed monster. Oh, and he's also extremely hard.
  • Being forced to beat Buddy into unconsciousness to kill Marty even if he deserved it.
  • Rando's death via Buddy killing him.
  • The battle against Mr. Beautiful, a man that's set up a peaceful colony. Mr. Beautiful himself outright refuses to attack until he's low on health, and the dialogue between him and Rando (who are implied to have been friends) are painful.
• Ron the Death Eater:
  • Some have interpreted Rando's intentions for Buddy as being villainous or even lustful so as to justify the deeds of either Brad or Buddy.
  • On the opposite side of his Draco in Leather Pants status, Brad sometimes has people ignore his past traumas and redeeming qualities in favor of the argument that everything Buddy does in The Joyful is his fault, despite The Joyful itself arguing otherwise.
  • Buddy's actions in Joyful are sometimes assumed to be her acting with a clear head and firmly grasping the Jerkass Ball and Villain Ball, even though the game establishes pretty early on that she's suffering from the onset of violent thoughts that all Joy users have and isn't thinking straight. Besides that, this perspective largely ignores the fact that almost all the men she meets wants to assault her, which gives a pretty good reason for her to be hostile.
• Rooting for the Empire: The Rando Army gets this reaction, especially considering that even if a lot of the ground forces are corrupt, Rando himself is genuinely nice.
  • Some of Olathe's other warlords are also given this reaction, Big Lincoln and Mr. Beautiful especially.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: The Joyful is much more difficult than the Painful, and it basically hits the ground running. Buddy starts off the game rather squishy and early on you will have to rely on Rando to get by until Buddy gains some levels. And then Rando abandons Buddy, horrified at what she's become, leaving Buddy to complete the rest of the story solo. Worst of all, Buddy's strongest and most reliable sources of damage require laser-precise Action Commands to actually do any amount of worthwhile damage and inflict bleeding and her Leech Bomb and Sleep Bomb, working on chance, so repeatedly missing them turns every boss into a Marathon Boss. For reference, Joy was something of a Game-Breaker in the Painful and narrative wise, you are encouraged not to use it. In the Joyful, Joy becomes essentially mandatory to completing the game, which makes getting the Flowering Ending added in the remake that much more difficult since you have to do it Joyless.
• Sequel Displacement: Has sort of occurred with Painful displacing The First. A good chunk of the fandom has no idea that this game had a Yume Nikki-esque predecessor. This often leads to the I Am Not Shazam described above, with many people mistaking Buddy for the titular girl when they first stumble upon the series. Many fans who played Painful first, however, often find out about The First, and play that in order to learn a bit more about the series' lore.
• Squick:
  • Near the construction zone in the second area, you can find a house owned by a cross-dresser who uses live people as furniture. Most are just tables, chairs, and the like... then you enter a back room and find out one of them is being used as a toilet. Ugh. There's even a Steam achievement for seeing this, appropriately titled "No... It can't be..."
  • You can get a "Nugget" that you can rub on yourself, giving you the Stink condition. Said nugget appears to be a lump of fecal matter, so you can essentially rub poop all over yourself. Eugh...
• Take That, Scrappy!: For people that found Buzzo's Freudian Excuse in Joyful inadequate, the Flowering Epilogue in the Definitive Edition addresses this, with Buddy ripping apart the excuse and pointing out that he hasn't personally suffered as much as her and Brad to justify his actions.
• That One Sidequest: The Russian-Roulette sidequest is feared and disliked due to the RNG based nature of it. While the rewards are nice (1500+ mags, a decent pistol and Buckets), the chance of either losing a useful party member in your party or a backup one for later is incredibly high, especially considering that there are thirteen roulette players, giving you a 1/8192 chance of not losing any party members, roughly the same odds as if you were to find and successful catch a shiny Pokemon in the classic games. Oh, and the final encounter takes two shots to the head to kill. Either prepare to savescum like there's no tomorrow, or kiss a handful of your gang members goodbye.
  • To make matters worse, savescumming is impossible on Pain Mode, eliminating the only possible thing to counteract the permanent loss of a party member unless you either deliberately go without saving besides, or revisit the roulette game sporadically between saves after unlocking it.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • The Rando Army. Despite being stated to be the biggest, strongest, gang in all of Olathe by the game itself, they surprisingly don't have that much presence in the game's plot, and they are mostly irrelevant after Area 2.
  • The Warlords in Joyful. Aside from Mr. Beautiful and Lardy Hernandez, little to no information is given on their importance and role in Olathe's society aside from them being shown to both be powerful and having a lot of men under their control.
  • In Joyful, Buddy very briefly comes across a pro-Joy Mutant cult which has seemingly killed Sindy Gallows for trying to wage war on the mutants and also seem to have knowledge of Dr. Yado. Even the Joy Boys, the biggest Joy shills in the game, don't actually seem to support the existence of the Mutants themselves. It would have been really interesting to see what led them to think this way and what their relation to Yado is, but Buddy just kills them and moves on.
• Unfortunate Character Design:
  • Arty's elongated leg, due to its positioning and pose, looks like a giant penis. Him having a massive, smug grin on his face and being very vulnerable to Flash does not help his case.
  • The "Mindless Sheep" mutants found in the Resort Island look an awful lot like walking testes.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Brad for some. The central issue being that his controlling and overly-protective treatment of Buddy would be a genuine flaw in real life, but in a horrifying post-apocalyptic world where there are no women and rape-happy monsters (human or otherwise) rampage about, it feels more like common sense.
  • Buzzo's scrappy status was meant to be rectified in Definitive with Buddy's "The Reason You Suck" Speech, but it ultimately ends up pushing him into this for some people. The fact that she's acting like she knows more about Buzzo's relationship with Lisa than she possibly could (down to blaming him for Lisa's death when he had nothing to do with it), combined with the fact that she decides to deliver it while Buzzo is mortally wounded and in the midst of a joy-induced breakdown, just makes it seem incredibly unwarranted and out of left field. There's also the fact that it's coming from, well...Buddy, and a lot of the points she makes (such as being motivated by hate and revenge and refusing to accept responsibility) could just as easily apply to her considering the context.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: There are those who feel Buddy is this. Aside from the points mentioned under Unintentionally Sympathetic (which make her look like an Ungrateful Bastard to some), there are players who feel Buddy is a just plain nasty person, especially after all the horrible stuff she does in The Joyful, most of it without any Freudian Excuse or extenuating circumstances like Brad (and to a lesser extent, Buzzo) had.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The whole womenless wasteland thing from the two games made some people interpret it as being a feminist or anti-feminist allegory. However, Word of God says that LISA is not intended to have an agenda or message and he doesn't take either side of the 'debate'.
• The Woobie: It's safe to say that at least half of the cast qualifies, either as straight-out examples or as Jerkass Woobies.