Heartwarming / LISA

"You're my little buddy."

Despite the nonstop parade of depression, horror, and human depravity, LISA does manage to have some rare moments of pure heart warming goodness.

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LISA: The First

• When Lisa sees her mother and everything is calm, at least until she turns around.

LISA: The Painful

• The intro montage of Brad with Buddy. Despite everything that's happened to him, Brad really does try to Raise Buddy right. Even if it doesn't exactly work out in the end.
• Early in the game, Columbo ambushes you and gives you a choice to either give up Terry Hintz (an ineffectual companion), or your entire inventory at that point. Performing the latter will not only let you keep Terry Hintz, but having him in your party before the The Very Definitely Final Dungeon elicits a very heartfelt and tear jerking declaration of his friendship to Brad.
  • Retroactively, meeting Brad or Columbo is possibly the best thing to ever happen to him. Locating his village in Lisa: The Joyful, you find that he has a Friendless Background and copes with his depression by making a false kingdom, which ultimately fails. His life turns around, for better or worse, once Brad enters his life. Depending on the choice with Columbo, he'll either become a good friend of Brad and eventually become a powerful ally who becomes protective, or a ruthless gang member with Columbo, who despite meeting with bad people, at least made friends and didn't seem to have a problem fitting in.
• How some of the characters react to Brad in the end on his way to take on Rando's army to "rescue" Buddy.
  • As mentioned above, Terry Hintz sees Brad as a really good friend and prefers not to harm him, but works up the nerve to do so only because he believes he is what stands between hope and Brad's selfishness. Sadly, he doesn't want to fight him and will often waste turns.
  • Some of the characters genuinely believe that killing you is the right thing to do if it means to ensure Buddy's survival, and by extension, humanity as a whole.
  • Rage Ironhead makes his intentions known to you. He wants to have sex with Buddy. But even then, he still wastes his turns crying and refusing to fight you, indicating that it was just a Jerkass facade and he really does care about you enough to hold back.
  • Shocklord is genuinely happy to be with Brad and apologizes for any screw ups he made during the tag team tournament. He'll also not only be sad to fight Brad at the end, but he'll also beg the other party members to stop.
• In the ending, you have the option to have Buddy hug a dying Brad. Even in the chaos and tragedy of the whole scenario, they're still father and daughter.
• Rando's army. They never heard Rando talk before. When they did, they felt so moved by how weak he sounded, and yet they remain fiercely loyal to him and seem to genuinely want to protect Buddy. That's right, despite this gang being filled with ruthless thugs and murderers, they respect their leader, and feel like what they're doing is the right thing for the future of humanity, and they fought to the bitter end.
  • One prominent example to note is Clint Moss, who seems to be a sort of protege or confidant to Rando. During the final battle, Clint isn't scared or crying like the rest of the Army; he's determined to protect Rando and Buddy.
• A young Brad Armstrong, working as a karate teacher, finds one young boy watching a class as Brad approaches him. Poor kid seemed lonely and was suffering from a speech impediment, so Brad decides to teach him the Armstrong Style. For free. He even adopts him too... even if it did end sourly.
• In a surprise twist of events, Marty Armstrong of all the disgusting people present, and the source of Brad's psychological troubles, is the one who shelters Buddy, takes care of her, and even became a better parent in days. He felt immense guilt for his actions on his past-daughter, Lisa, and attempts to atone for them. He even attempts to protect Buddy from Brad in his drug-crazed state, even as he's dying.
• If you choose to do so, protecting party members by sacrificing your arm is a tough call, but does leave you satisfied that you protected a friend.
  • Then it gets twisted later on. You have to decide between amputating Buddy's nipple, or having your current party wiped out. Choosing the latter disgusts Buzzo so much that he asks if you really want to go through with it.
• While resting, there is a small chance that a random party member will leave in the middle of the night, never to return... and it's never Terry.
• Columbo's request to have a race with Brad. This was a genuine fun thing for him to have with Brad, as he lied to him about there being a boat, just to ensure that Brad would have this race with him. He would express his regrets about mistreating Brad, as well as his gratefulness for honoring him with this race, before taking his own life.
• There's a new campfire scene in the Definitive Edition in which Brad spends the night talking with Terry Hintz. Brad expresses some doubts regarding his involvement with Buddy, and confides in Terry with this vulnerable moment. Terry, having been alone most of his life, is sincerely touched that Brad would trust him enough to open up about himself, even just a little bit. Terry gives a big, genuine smile at the moment.
  Terry: I think deep down you have a good heart. So try to listen to it more.
  (Beat)
  Terry: Here's a hint.
  Brad: Hmm?
  Terry: Do you know when your heart cries the loudest?
  Brad: ...No.
  (Terry goes in to give Brad a big hug)
  Terry: When you can barely hear it because all the chaos in your head is fighting against it.
  Brad: *Blushing* Now I... REALLY regret saying anything...
  Terry: Hahaha!
  (Brad stays silent... then quietly leans into Terry)
  • What makes it more heartwarming is remembering Brad's never been hugged before, yet Terry did it so freely.
  • Following this little conversation, the track "Blue Spotted Cheetah" begins to play; a very somber, yet oddly comforting ambient song that echoes out while the camera slowly pans into the peaceful night sky. It's also worth noting during this scene that as the camera is moving upwards the hallucinations of Lisa begin to disappear, as if Terry's words hit Brad so hard that, even for a brief moment, all of his trauma faded away.
    • This moment ends up becoming a lot more bittersweet in hindsight, though, given what happens at the end of the game.
  Just promise me, Brad.
  Don't turn into a monster... like everyone else.

LISA: The Joyful

• If you tell Rando that you trust him, he'll carry Buddy around on his shoulders!
• Not having your mask on will have any NPC attack you without a second thought. The exception? Salvation Green, of all people.
• Buzzo protecting Buddy. He even takes on Sweetheart (not an easy battle. It cost him an arm), and encourages Buddy to take the vaccine so she doesn't become a Joy mutant.
  • You can find Buzzo's gang hanging around at a hidden room. They welcome you in and even let you take one of their masks. Talking to them, even without a mask, has them make it clear that they won't touch you, because Buzzo said so.
• Even though Buddy was driven to murder Rando, even if it was out of mercy, it is comforting to see the Free ending shows a pile of dirt with Rando's mask on the cross, implying that Buddy gave Rando a proper burial, in spite of her lashing at him.
• In what looks like the typical Running Gag of making the player climb up something for a ludicrous amount of time to only be confronted with a literal middle finger, the Joyful gives this sequence but finds a genuine thank-you note from Austin Jorgensen. Yes, there's still a middle finger statue nearby.
• The final battle with Buddy's memory of Brad. Also a Tear Jerker, as the battle has Brad heal you, refuse to fight you, cry deeply, and tell you he misses you. The most heartwarming and most tearjerking part? When Brad's name changes to "Dad".
• If you get the "Leave Them" ending in LISA: The Joyful, then the LISA series ends on a somewhat happy note. Despite everything, Buddy makes it out alive, and hope for humanity does still exist in the form of a small child sitting next to Buddy. It proves that even though this series has been almost nothing but suffering and despair, that the chance for a new start still exists, and that the future can still be different.
  • Considering that having a child means she must have had sex, and that Buddy would murder anyone that tries to rape her, it means that Buddy is possibly in a loving relationship with someone else.