Lisa: The Painful - Review (Part 2 of 4)

Lisa: The Painful - Review (Part 2 of 4)

On September the 15th, 2017, at 5:06 I finished Lisa: The Painful, Before you can understand Lisa II, you need to understand Lisa: The First.


THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR LISA:THE FIRST AND MINOR SPOILERS FOR LISA: THE PAINFUL

I would like to start off this part with a trigger warning, Lisa: The First covers many extremely dark themes, with rape, abuse and suicide being the main ones, if these topics unsettle you then you may wish to not continue.

Now the warnings out the way, let me explain what Lisa: The First is. The design idea and games mechanics is based off the old 2003 game, Yume-Nikki in which there is no combat, only exploration and light puzzle solving based off locational puzzles and items, more point and click than RPG.

Lisa Armstrong

Marty Armstrong

The game itself is littered with horrific visuals and sound effects, including 'jump scares' done in audio form, with random piercing notes breaking silence the further through the game you go. This audio shows the player what Lisa is feeling, as Lisa: The First is the ONLY game in the Lisa series in which you control Lisa as a protagonist. Another interesting point to bring up is the cast for Lisa, in which I mean the characters, voice acting is done in a Banjo-Kazooie style, only not in a charming or funny way. There are only 2 characters for the majority of the Lisa, these are Marty (Lisa's father) and Lisa herself (The protagonist). There are several scenes in the game where a crowds of people are simply just Marty. All character are Marty. All dialogue is from Marty, Lisa cannot escape him, every corner, every turn, every corridor, every door. Marty is almost always present, even in spider-form midway through the game, Marty's crude head appearing on spiders, showing that Lisa cannot even escape him in nature, in caves, in green fields, anywhere. The other character, if shown a picture, would seem fairly comedic, but, as a matter of fact, is the complete opposite.

His name is Tricky Rick. He will only appear in Lisa: The first. His head is shaped like a phallic object, and he spurts various suggestive dialogue such as: 'You know you have to swallow me. Get over it.' 'I like friction. Oh. And i'm a sensitive guy too, but you already know that.' This is heavily implied to be an hallucination, however also gives hints into Lisa's abuse. We know from the opening Marty locks Lisa into her room and won't let her out, he also beats her, and implies worse will happen, and the inclusion of Rick as an illusion makes sense to be Marty's member, something Lisa can't forget, throughout the game Lisa will have to kill Rick to proceed, for example, slashing him with a razor, smothering him with a plastic bag, and so on. It's also worth noting the last room you see Rick in is also phallicly shaped.

These themes of rape are also intensified by the final act of Lisa. The penultimate room is evidence of this, to enter you need to shove a sword into the crotch of Marty's Statue, and opening the door, Marty will appear, as a huge pulsating lump, the only way to continue, and finish Lisa, is by entering Marty. I feel as if this sentence sums up the themes of rape well.

Lisa does a very good job of setting the tone of the other Lisa games too, with a 'plot' being almost non-existent. The games aren't plot driven, they're character driven.

So you've done it. You've solved all the puzzles in Lisa and your in the final room. You've been with Lisa as she's heard and experienced many horrific things, and the puzzles themselves being in Lisa's mind, I think she's trying to solve herself, trying to find out what's wrong with her. And in the final room it all comes to an end. In one ending Lisa accepts that Marty cannot leave her, his abuse will always stay in her mind, as this finally happens, all the textures in the game turn into Martys face, followed by a game over screen.

The final (true) ending to lisa is an addition onto the first ending, showing the Lisa has already accepted Marty as being omnipresent to her, and this is further down the line. It's Lisa's mother standing in a white room, telling her she's didn't want to leave, didn't want to die. She turns around, and has Marty's face. The floor falls away to show Marty again, with Lisa being the only non-Marty object. Every memory Lisa has, including her mothers face, has been replaced by Marty. Everything she knows and remembers has been replaced by Marty. She cannot escape him.


On the opening menu to Lisa: The Painful, we find out what happened to Lisa.

Throughout Lisa: The First, though he's mentioned by game, but never seen. Brad Armstrong has been trying to save his sister, Lisa, from Marty, as a training Karate student, he could beat up anyone his age, he can't save Lisa from his own father. Either being too scared to beat him up, as it's shown he has also been abused by Marty, or that Brad had never been empathetic, so therefore can't save Lisa. It's heavily implied Brad was the first person to find Lisa's corpse. That imagine will always haunt Brad. This is the most important piece of information in the Lisa games. This site, of his sisters hanging corpse, will change Brad's life forever. And the worlds.
-Cassi
(Thanks for reading.)