Reviews VideoGame / Lisa

I don't know, I don't wanna be rude or confrontational, but this review feels more like it was written in anger or out of frustration than as a genuine critique of the work. I mean, you're glossing over major facets in the story to nail themes and then acting like those themes are all that's there. Yes, "sexual abuse and drug addiction is bad" is a message in the game, but the whole story is an extensive character study on Brad, why he has an addiction, and how being abused has shaped him into the man he is, not to mention the entire game's look into cyclical nature of abuse, how abuse can be unintentional and how forgiveness can be impossible. You're ignoring everything else, settling on the broadest stroke without thinking about what they mean or what they imply and then complaining that there's not anything else despite readily admitting to having ignored what else is there. Also getting "men are terrible" out of the story doesn't make any sense, Rando, Brad, Buzzo, Marty and all your party members are all equally male, and are all different degrees of villainous and heroic with different motivations, and are we to believe that the apocalypse would be better if it was all female? The game freely admits to parodying hyper-masculine/machismo stories, which have nothing to do with being male, and everything to do with tying your entire identity to how you're perceived in relation to your gender. Also, literally the only woman in the second game spends it trying to decide her own fate and avoid being a commodity, not to mention the only person explicitly shown to be a victim of sexual violence is a man, I don't see how it's indulging in anything it condemns. I'm sorry if this came off antagonistic or rude, I just really felt that ~100 words that admit that they ignored the vast majority of the game is not the review this, or any, game deserves.

I'm thinking it through and I want apologize for the "out of anger or frustration" part, that was unwarranted and, ironically, came out of my anger and frustration. I still stand by the rest of my comment, but that wasn't cool, sorry.

You have to be really reaching to claim the story is trying to say "men are bad".

Also, the title of the review makes no real sense when it provides only one example, one that's in a completely different genre. Pretty much the only thing Lisa and Always Sometimes Monsters share mechanically is the engine used. Just another review that makes me wish for a 400 word minimum instead of maximum, I guess.

I was with you until you brought up Always Sometimes Monsters is an adventure game, not an RPG

How does being an rpg contribute to anything? Which of this games do you enjoy for its gameplay?

The rape isn't even that gratuitous (there are threats of it occasionally, and there is homosexual offscreen goings on ONCE), and one of the biggest points of the games is that a lone woman in a post-femicidal world isn't a victimized commodity, but another person with free will, failings, and desires. The message has more to do with growing up, self-worth, gult, and selfishness than any of the superficial gender messages. Not to mention the use of humor and characterization seems to keep investment for most people, especially in the second game. (Admittedly, the First was a bit clumsy, and the Joyful mostly relies on investment in the Painful to retain investment.)

Also, "Everything is terrible forever, Fuck You," should be on a T-Shirt. I want to wear that. Someone write Dingaling.

Honestly this reads like someone who didn\'t play the game. It\'s about as accurate a description of the Painful (haven\'t played the First so I won\'t comment) as the kind of reviews those Christian movie review sites put out that just count the swear words as if it means anything to the quality of the work.

This review doesn't make any mention of the first Lisa game at all, which leads me to believe that the whole point of the series was lost on the reviewer. The point isn't to say that abuse, rape, etc are bad. We know that already. The point of the games is to show what happens to someone who is abused their whole life and is never given a proper way to deal with it or any kind of reprieve from it. Lisa commits suicide. Brad runs from home and turns to painkillers, later Joy, and becomes abusive himself. Buddy flees from Brad every chance she gets, because to her, a world of men who want nothing more than to have their way with her is preferable to staying under Brad's roof any longer. It's showing that even if you really do love someone, it doesn't mean you can't still hurt them. It's showing that you can try your whole life to overcome your past, to be a better person than you were brought up to be, to give someone the childhood you never had... and that you can still fail at all of it. The game is much more complex than you give it credit for, and it's not just dark for the sake of being dark. It's actually one of the more fascinating explorations of abuse that have been put out in a long time, and deserves credit for showing another way that the results of abuse can manifest in a person.

I also have no idea why you recommended Always Sometimes Monsters, as it's completely different content entirely and not an RPG. ASM is a good game, and is pretty realistic, but it doesn't address the same topics as Lisa and isn't comparable to it in any way. Overall this review just seems kind of harsh for no reason, with a weird plug to a totally unrelated game.