There's one thing that both Brad and his father Marty have in common: they both failed twice as fathers; Lisa and Brad, Rando and Buddy. A really brutal story where even redemption is drowned by the pains of the past.
The cycle of abuse continues, even if you think you've broken it. That's what makes it so insidious. You think you aren't being abusive at all, but your child clearly bears the scars.
Being forced to play literal Russian roulette for your characters lives in the game... is the closest I’ll ever get in my sheltered life to knowing how unimaginably agonizing that situation actually would be, it’s utterly terrifying
LISA resonates a lot with me because I saw a lot of my own dad in Marty than I was ready to. He grew up in a small european town and my mom said his parents beat him a lot, and a lot of that stuck with him. He never laid a finger on me but he was almost impossible to talk to, We couldn’t communicate with eachother without him lashing out in frustration, which eventually led to conversations with him turning into a dangerous minefield where I needed to figure out the right thing to say during his lectures/rambles without making him explode. So most of my memories with him are me cowering around him like a kicked puppy or something. But at the same time, I have a lot of good memories with him because he still tried to be a good father to me despite the shitty hand he was given. He taught me how to ride a bike and eventually figured out that a good way to communicate ideas to me is through movies, so I’ve seen a lot of classic movies through him. I’m still in contact with him, LISA’s ending makes me want to tell him that he was a good dad im the end.
Well shit this hits close to home...real dam close thankfully I told mine I love and appreciated him before he died only time I've ever seen his eyes get a little watery
If you haven't yet, I'd communicate all of this to him. I'd say he deserves to know how he shaped your life and that you know that he did his best, despite perhaps not being as good as he should have been or he hoped to be.
My dad is like that aswell, down to the detail of the parents (well really, only or mostly my grandad, he was a massive piece of shit and I’m glad my grandma eventually divorced him) and the small European town. I still can’t think of certain parts of my life without getting angry, but life grows around grief and expands it
@@saschaberger3212earlier this year youtube was full of p0rnogr4phic ads and ones that showed the murder of unarmed innocent people within the first 5 seconds(the unskippable part), reported all of them. IF I ever got a reaction it was “the runtime of the ad has passed so we dont have information on it anymore” Like the internet rememberes everything except for Google’s advertisers😂🤦🏻♂️ The only thing they care about has been clear for long.
A brief summery for those curious: Brad's trauma comes from his sister and his father. After their mother was out of the picture Marty replaced her with his daughter, and would "assault" her repeatedly. Brad was beaten by their father regularly and told that he was pathetic. Marty would also force Brad to "assault" his sister as well. Eventually Lisa convinced the boy who is in love with her to mutilate her face in an attempt to stop the "assaults" it fails and she ends herself. Brad blames himself and his father for what happened and probably hates himself and hates his father more than anyone else.
No, I doubt that Brad ever did anything to Lisa. He probably watched it happening though. But If that was the case, he would have many sexually explicit hallucinations about her. But every time he sees her, she's in a place he can't reach, as if he can't do anything but look at her. He blame himself for not saving her, the entire focus is more on his father, the secret boss fight has more dialogues about the horrible relationship between the.
Probably one of the only games that caused me to actually pause and stare at my screen either before choosing or after making a choice lmao, the mortons fork goes hard especially when choosing between a party member or potential mutilation
I am an absolute sucker for this game and its ending still gets me hard. I chose the "hug" ending (because I felt so bad for Brad and thought he deserved at least something close to closure before the end) only for Brad to cry, look at Buddy, and asks one simple question. "Buddy, did I do the right thing?" I bawled my eyes out over that. It still gets me.
I dont think it would ever be as popular. Undertale is pretty jovial about everything about itself. the Lisa games, by sheer themeing alone, filters any of the people who could have virally spreaded it like they did Undertale.
I really enjoyed Lisa, but it's not super hard to see why Undertale blew up as much as it did compared to it, largely because it's not nearly as openly bleak and crass as Lisa.
Until today, I actually did not know anything about this game, other than the visuals. It looked uninteresting and possibly edgy. Now I see that it deserves the title of "spiritual earthbound successor" that undertale is often given. This game feels more deserving of that title.
My favorite RUclipsr talking about my favorite game? Man... LISA is the ONLY game that made me genuinely CRY like a baby once I finished it, both The Painful and The Joyful. What a blast
I think that the fact this game, set in such a dreary, depressing world through the eyes of a broken man, still being able to have it's own recogniseable sense of humour is one of my favorite things about this game. The humor and tragedy never actually clash with eachother but mesh together quite well. From going to fishman court and winning(?) without even trying, to the minigame in the beehive where you seduce clients to get money (And the Queen Roger party member), to literally *any* scene with Nern, it's a really fantastic flow that never distracts from the story, and yikes... What a story it is.
18:16 - Marty will never accept responsability. That is what's most painful. Shit still needs to happen, and if Brad don't swallow Marty's responsability in the form of *guilt*, Brad is dammed. But if Brad doesn't take the responsability (guilt) from his father's actions, he'll be blamed anyways. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.
My mom grew up in a dysfunctional family and she stopped contact and thought she end the generational trauma. But now I am scarred by her actions, the countless times she put me down, verbally abused me and hit me. It's a really sad reality I had to come to terms with after getting out of my delusions and feeling like I am myself, with an opinion and some sense of personality. I will have to live now with all the struggles I have caused by it. I thought a lot about if I wanted to raise children, however it seems like a way to ignore my own problems and continue the generational trauma in some way
theres a french rpg i played way back called OFF. it tackles a lot of ideas, the impact of progress, the inherently illogical way society must exist. what got me the most was how the playable character betrayed me in the end
Using humor as a coping mechanism was something I've never heard of as a point. So genius. Even the soundtrack shows signs of this. From offputting gibberish like "bloodforsx" and "F#-k you", to tracks like "Boyohboy". Like telling you things will not get better, and that's ok.
Lisa was a work that entered my life at the exact right time. It was an immeasurably powerful narrative and the themes at work resonated so deeply with me that I spent many moments throughout my time with it in tears. The depth of the characters and the way it keeps things focused on what matters most of all- its themes of trauma and attempting to break the cycle. Easily one of my Top 10 favorite games, because of all of that and more 💖💖💖
When this game came out months after the time the Last of Us did made me honestly feel insulted. People give a lot of accolades to TLoU, but I always saw it as a blockbusterfication/misrepresentation of real suffering mixed with a very over-cinematic base game. Lisa, I feel deserved everything TLoU got. I know it's not a AAA game, but I find the real pain and messages given masterfully in Lisa with a very similar story to TLoU so much more wrenching and teaching and most of all Sincere.
Yea, and it doesn’t help that TLOU was made with horrid intentions in mind. The Lisa series is painfully overlooked. Which was why I was so happy to see this video pop up in my feed. It’s been years since I last engaged with it, and this truly was a walk down memory lane.
@@ladyviren What were the "horrid intentions?" Edit: since you haven’t responded in several days I’m going to go ahead and assume that there weren’t any.
Never got the idea that first TLoU game was about showcasing realistic suffering. It's moreso an examination of our motivations to continue carrying on. We don't see self-destructive behaviors or sit with the depressing moments, Joel's journey deliberately quickly moves past moments of reflection. The payoff is that speech with Ellie at the end where he's giving a mature response about finding reasons to carry on, while she's grappling with inconsistencies of his account of the fireflies, her recent loss of purpose, and knowledge that he used similar justifications that pushed Tommy away. I liked the first game cause it let you come to your own conclusions about Joel's actions and whether you interpeted that as a cynical or optimistic view of the human condition. 2 goes against this message but there's enough evidence for me to believe that they didn't go into 1 intending Joel was meant to be a villain. There were a few father daughter apocalypse games at the time. I appreciate what they were trying to be their own thing with their own message. These 2 games were in development before the success of Telltale's Walking Dead and I think it's a real shame that because of the coincidental timing that we fell the need to compare them. I consider all 3 good stories. (And indie games were only just beginning to get mainstream validation back then. Lisa never stood a chance)
Ouf. This game messed me up. Hysterical, genuinely creepy, and heartbreaking. I'm almost mad at Dingaling for doing such a damn good job screwing with my emotions.
Lisa is one of those games I think about a lot, even years later. I can’t say I’ve ever had such an experience with a game as the first time I played Lisa, I literally ended the game and just sat there for a while. Beautiful game.
The moment you mention about moments when someone backed into the corner by trauma, I knew EXACTLY what you meant by that, because I've been there, and maybe still is if the trigger exist... Like, the moment you just went "Fuck it" then all of a sudden you've realized, what you've done is twisted... Maybe I'll go check this game when the chance arise, thank you Max! Stay yellow!
Choice is a thing, a good thing. I would like to argue for the ignorance of an individual to not even have the concept that there is a choice available. As a person who struggles with a difficult upbringing, I have found that there have been multiple instances when I actually could have done something either differently or at all. The trauma from my youth made me unable to even see the options. Intention and understanding is not universal and if someone is standing around when something happens, that person could be me. I don’t mean to leave it all up to you and I certainly am not waiting for you to fail, I’m so busy being in shock and scared as hell that I just didn’t know I could help. As a child I couldn’t and I return to that place when i feel threatened. It’s not even me it’s my subconscious which enters a kind of survival mode (something like if I just lay low maybe it won’t happen to me too). I hope that makes sense to anyone reading this. It’s not an excuse this is what I observed in myself through friends who knew better and did better than me. I feel regret because I consider myself a good person. Therefore I try to change. It’s a process that I’m still working on. Thank you for choosing to take the time to read this. Good luck out there.
yeah. Like I know I got into my abusive relationship as a result of the abuse from my mother. I could've made choices to protect myself but I was completely ignorant of those choices. However I did do what I knew, survive. In that survival I did things that... while not condemning, don't make me look good. And then I see similar patterns play out in others, notably, particularly in men. Like... genuinely good people becoming "bad" in those moments. And it's tricky because often times, their bad behavior is in direct response to flagrant mistreatment. Like I know when I looked up a video game account to see if she had lied to me, it was in direct response to her repeatedly telling me one thing then doing another with respect to that game. What she did was genuinely awful. Yet what I did was inappropriate. Now I realize that if a relationship gets to that point, leave. Don't even try.
You like Lisa the Painful because is a good game with heartbreaking story and shows the struggle of pain, attachment and loss I like Lisa the Painful because I'm a masochist and the cheapness of the game mechanics makes my blood boil with rage We need therapy, bro
What’s becoming very crazy to think about is how good you’re gaming content is Max. You and I couldn’t be farther apart socially from what I’ve gathered but, Jesus Christ you’re respect for gaming and being objective is amazing. Found you thru your “most profound” series and you’ve really done an amazing job creating critical thought style videos around gaming and it’s been missing in the medium for a long time. Keep killing it Max this video was a killer for sure
I just assume the question of "why u make so many silent hell vedios?" is serious and not a try to blame him for a hyper fixation,I deal with a question like this as if it's just a ginune question
The thumbnail unintentionally made me laugh. Theres just something humorous about a guy sitting down with a bunch of arrows sticking out of him and to the left of him there’s big bold words saying “PAINFUL”
my man... I just started this video and was in a different tab when you said "i murdered my wife" and i've never switched back to a video faster... Well played sir.
Though a couple of the lisa fangames are alright, the one i actually would reccomend with my whole being is lisa:, the pointless, its themes are very different, but it is completely fascinating and i think has very potent and interesting philosophical themes. As well as one of the most fascinating antagonistic forces in all of gaming. Its set in the same world, but is very distinct and i think it deserves more love just for its fascinating take on the lisa setting.
I believe it's Squatch Gaming that did some very good essays on both Pointless and if I remember correctly, The Hopeful. Worth checking out if you like the franchise, as both take radically different spins. Both are in the air about teased sequels, but we'll see as time goes on.
I'm quite the fan of hopeful as well, but I do understand people's heavy appreciation of the theme of looking for something better that pointless has. Undone recently came out and it's pretty much universally regarded as Joyful but better.
There are many avenues but I appreciate the ability of games specifically to serve as a reflective space to process real life emotions and events. Balancing the subtle illusion of reality.
Its a beautiful realization to choose your own way, everything is a choice no matter the emotional circumstances, hopelessness is a choice, and hope is a choice, choosing to move forward and be better is a choice, I own the book a mans search for meaning but Lisa was able to make this feeling resonate alongside the conversations Ive had with my friends, there is the choice to use a crutch to cope, but theres also the choice that will come when you leave it behind so you can walk on your own 2 legs, I am learning alot about myself in these last few months, I could regret to not have done it sooner, but I dont, I am making the most of what I can do with my life right now, I am making peace with my mistakes and not allowing myself to wallow in the bitterness that held me for so long, I can be happy despite everything and do what I want to do
Yoo, someone talking about Lisa, let’s goo lol. Found out about this around when it came out through watching nicob play through it and I made sure to buy it myself when the definitive released. Love this dark as hell, silly as hell story.
You’re soothing voice and deep subjects you traverse often help guide me in my depression and make it a bit more bearable lets hope there’s enough videos to keep me in there to hang in there
Silent hill is such a treasure one of my biggest art inspirations. The trauma of seeing it raped and deformed in the more recent iterations and movies was enough for me. It’s like the ability to portray what silent hill was has been taken out of the minds of people that existed in the 90’s and early 2000’s, now it’s just a ghost 😢
I had this game in my library for years and never got around to playing it - when I saw you post this I went and binged both Lisa: the Painful and Lisa: the Joyful and now I'm back.... gosh what an experience these games were. I have gained complicated feelings for a pixelated fat, bald, bearded, arm-less man specially when he's wearing lipstick that I truly don't know what to do with now.
I see similarities between Brad Armstrong and Harry Mason. If I think back, I don't remember many characters like that. The one that comes closest to me is Rooster Cogburn.
Brad is the name of my father. He is a bald man and has 5 children with 2 different women. He suffers from trauma (I will not talk about). He used trauma to destroy the relationship with our family. I haven't visited my father in over 6 years. But I understand forgiveness starts with finding it for yourself and becoming aware of it.
this was a lovely watch. an old friend of mine held lisa: the painful dearly, and this reminded me of him telling me to not play it because of some things i had recently been through. he's probably right, but i still really enjoyed this video on its themes.
Having controls that feel too good can midigate the horror aspect. The feeling of helplessness in my opinion adds to the intense bits of gameplay. But the controls should still be good enough that it feels like I'm fighting the monsters and not the controls. If they do it right it will be more emersive.
First: The exploration of a young girl's mind damaged by trauma to try and find hope only for there to be none left. Painful: The journey of a man to rescue his daughter, overcome his trauma and try to be a good father despite his horrible childhood only for him to ultimately fail at all three despite trying as hard as he could in the darkest of places. Joyful: The quest of a girl to try and carve her identity in the only way this world knows, violence, and to realise that even if it didn't seem that way at the time, her father did genuinely care about her. *Vegaful: haha funny braindamage man with bowler hat obliterate people with rake DSDS*
Here's a suggestion, Max: a video that gathers all the final messages from your videos, but focusing on the authors and people who brought the ideas worked on in the games, animes, etc., as well as their works, something like a reading guide to the philosophies and subjects of the games that you've already talked about. Excelent video!
Reminds me of the manga Boku to Issho, were two brothers get kicked out of their mothers house in the countryside by their stepdad after their mother dies, and the eldest decide to try their luck in Tokyo were they meet a street urchin and start hanging together. It contains many characters and addresses many issues, always with a lot of humor that sometimes falls into the ridiculous when the characters try to cope with their trauma and shortcomings. I reccomend it a lot.
It's so convenient that these depictions of trauma always circle back around to the traumatized being solely responsible for resolving what was done to them, what was allowed to be done to them. Small wonder then that so much of therapy seems to revolve around coping. But is shame really what they're coping with, or is it having to live with the knowledge that no matter what, the outside world will never take responsibility for its part? I've never felt any shame for what's happened to me. Why, don't you?
Because that's the big lesson: there's no way to become "normal" once you've gone through enough trauma. It's sad, and it's unfair, but that's reality. It's kind of like how a lot of males who were molested as children grow up to be molesters themselves. They didn't deserve the horrible act in the first place but only the individual's efforts can prevent falling down a spiral of trauma and doing the same horrible thing to someone else. Sure, it isn't "fair" to have to live with horrible trauma and be held responsible for it's terrible effects, but the only other choice is ignoring the effects and spreading the same style trauma to someone else to make things feel "fair", which also isn't fair. Basically, the skin-deep modern internet understanding of second-to-second fairness is very flawed as nothing in life is truly fair and therefore everything is. You just have to do your best with your own shitty hand you were dealt, which you can't control, because no one can.
@@NilsKofoed Nah, there's plenty of alternatives. For starters the system can be strengthened to prevent as many people from being traumatized to begin with and concessions can be made to accommodate and compensate the ones who slipped through the cracks. If we have hundreds of billions of dollars for other people's wars you damn well better believe we can find the funds for this. Sure, that might not be fair to the taxpayer, but you really can't compare an individual's trauma to marginally higher taxes levied across an entire society.
@@TheJofurr Nah, measures like that can prevent future instances trauma which I do think is a good thing, but that isn't the same thing as getting rid of a person's pre-existing trauma. Currently, there is no way to erase pre-existing trauma; you can do the work and find healthy ways of coping with it or let it destroy you and others around you, that's about it. And again, I think more funding for trauma treatment and prevention is a good thing, but dumping money on a problem doesn't really make it just vanish like magic. Otherwise, all the celebrities and CEOs who rose to the top from traumatic lives would probably become better people the richer they get but, in real life, usually the exact opposite happens and the only ones who live healthy lives do so because they choose to address their trauma in healthy ways.
I dunno man. What gets knocked over needs to be put back at the end of the day, wether it fell because it was outside your control or because you didn’t do enough. Hold on and hope for smoother waves.
@@No-longer1 Life doesn't run on "should" or "deserves" and it never will because that's not what people, at their core, really desire. I think it's healthier to accept that then wait for the apologies from those who have wronged or hurt you that will never come, but maybe that's just me.
You can have as good an attitude as you want but when your choices are between sh*** and death where do you go? Is it supposed to be some sort of consolation to die or face the same cycle of misery with a smile on your face? Should we imagine Sisyphus happy? The people in the Goulags? ... If we did we should we be fooled into thinking it's true happiness? Because it sounds a lot more like Stockholm syndrome to me.
You're never that limited tbh. Unless you're in prison. Also, you're confusing things, it's not about being happy all the time, but finding a way to accept the situation and seeing things whit a clear vision, if that leads to contentment rn that's just one more thing
The quote at the end is nice but hardly how it works in real life. As some of the most life altering descisions we make don’t happen by choosing what would be best, they get made in an instant or in a reflex and then we get to choose how we feel about that..
This game has been one of my favorite games for years. I always try to shove it down people's throats. The influences of this game on my life is kind of insane to be honest
What indie games have impressed you the most?
0:33
1000xResist!
Undertale I think still holds a special place for me, nearly 10 years later.
katana zero for me
@@maxderrat Katana Zero, Loved the concept and reminded me why I loved indie games.
There's one thing that both Brad and his father Marty have in common: they both failed twice as fathers; Lisa and Brad, Rando and Buddy. A really brutal story where even redemption is drowned by the pains of the past.
The cycle of abuse continues, even if you think you've broken it. That's what makes it so insidious. You think you aren't being abusive at all, but your child clearly bears the scars.
Well at least Rando turned out a good person even though Brad ignored him when he needed him the most
if generational abuse was a spectrum on one side you’d have marty and on the other rando, with brad being right in the middle
Brad done best he could do given the broken world he lived in.He never failed Budy.
@@kacpadestro8086 he didn’t do his “best” he failed miserably as a father by being a junkie, drunk and keeping secrets from her.
Being forced to play literal Russian roulette for your characters lives in the game... is the closest I’ll ever get in my sheltered life to knowing how unimaginably agonizing that situation actually would be, it’s utterly terrifying
One doesn't know how good they have it until they see how bad others do. We must be grateful for the cards we've been dealt in life.
LISA resonates a lot with me because I saw a lot of my own dad in Marty than I was ready to. He grew up in a small european town and my mom said his parents beat him a lot, and a lot of that stuck with him. He never laid a finger on me but he was almost impossible to talk to, We couldn’t communicate with eachother without him lashing out in frustration, which eventually led to conversations with him turning into a dangerous minefield where I needed to figure out the right thing to say during his lectures/rambles without making him explode. So most of my memories with him are me cowering around him like a kicked puppy or something.
But at the same time, I have a lot of good memories with him because he still tried to be a good father to me despite the shitty hand he was given. He taught me how to ride a bike and eventually figured out that a good way to communicate ideas to me is through movies, so I’ve seen a lot of classic movies through him.
I’m still in contact with him, LISA’s ending makes me want to tell him that he was a good dad im the end.
If you haven't yet, then there's nothing like the present! Regardless of his reaction, I'm sure it would mean the world to him
Jeez, that reminds me of my dad.
Well shit this hits close to home...real dam close thankfully I told mine I love and appreciated him before he died only time I've ever seen his eyes get a little watery
If you haven't yet, I'd communicate all of this to him. I'd say he deserves to know how he shaped your life and that you know that he did his best, despite perhaps not being as good as he should have been or he hoped to be.
My dad is like that aswell, down to the detail of the parents (well really, only or mostly my grandad, he was a massive piece of shit and I’m glad my grandma eventually divorced him) and the small European town.
I still can’t think of certain parts of my life without getting angry, but life grows around grief and expands it
Having to censor a hanging pixel figure while there are complete monetized doom eternal playthroughs. Those rules make no sense RUclips
forget that, neither ought to be censored to oblivion
You only want to hide violence if you're being violent.
I can watch black ops 2 and the black ops 3 campaigns,and watch assassins creed valhalla and ghost of tsema too.
You can hear 1000s of useless hate speach videos too.
=probably why no curseing.
@@saschaberger3212earlier this year youtube was full of p0rnogr4phic ads and ones that showed the murder of unarmed innocent people within the first 5 seconds(the unskippable part), reported all of them. IF I ever got a reaction it was “the runtime of the ad has passed so we dont have information on it anymore” Like the internet rememberes everything except for Google’s advertisers😂🤦🏻♂️ The only thing they care about has been clear for long.
A brief summery for those curious:
Brad's trauma comes from his sister and his father.
After their mother was out of the picture Marty replaced her with his daughter, and would "assault" her repeatedly.
Brad was beaten by their father regularly and told that he was pathetic.
Marty would also force Brad to "assault" his sister as well.
Eventually Lisa convinced the boy who is in love with her to mutilate her face in an attempt to stop the "assaults"
it fails and she ends herself.
Brad blames himself and his father for what happened and probably hates himself and hates his father more than anyone else.
HOLLLLLLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY SHIT
No, I doubt that Brad ever did anything to Lisa. He probably watched it happening though. But If that was the case, he would have many sexually explicit hallucinations about her. But every time he sees her, she's in a place he can't reach, as if he can't do anything but look at her. He blame himself for not saving her, the entire focus is more on his father, the secret boss fight has more dialogues about the horrible relationship between the.
Lisa is still one of the most touching and brutal games that is out there.
Probably one of the only games that caused me to actually pause and stare at my screen either before choosing or after making a choice lmao, the mortons fork goes hard especially when choosing between a party member or potential mutilation
I am an absolute sucker for this game and its ending still gets me hard.
I chose the "hug" ending (because I felt so bad for Brad and thought he deserved at least something close to closure before the end) only for Brad to cry, look at Buddy, and asks one simple question.
"Buddy, did I do the right thing?"
I bawled my eyes out over that. It still gets me.
It sucks that this game isn't as popular as undertale. This game really is a life changing experience
I dont think it would ever be as popular. Undertale is pretty jovial about everything about itself. the Lisa games, by sheer themeing alone, filters any of the people who could have virally spreaded it like they did Undertale.
I really enjoyed Lisa, but it's not super hard to see why Undertale blew up as much as it did compared to it, largely because it's not nearly as openly bleak and crass as Lisa.
Until today, I actually did not know anything about this game, other than the visuals. It looked uninteresting and possibly edgy. Now I see that it deserves the title of "spiritual earthbound successor" that undertale is often given. This game feels more deserving of that title.
@@basklisk The idea that Lisa looks uninteresting from the outset is baffling. What do you think looks 'interesting'?
@@blinkyy1088 it's just personal taste, it's not that deep.
My favorite RUclipsr talking about my favorite game? Man...
LISA is the ONLY game that made me genuinely CRY like a baby once I finished it, both The Painful and The Joyful. What a blast
Exactly my reaction when I saw this I’m so happy he got round to playing this
Same. Joyful was a bit of a mixed bag, but the ending with the "fight" against Brad was so devastating to me, absolutely worth it.
@@sweetwheatsyJust hearing "He's My Dad" is enough to make me wanna cry
0:34 oh boy that escalated quickly
🤣
Imagine if Max's wife saw this part😂
@@monlei1020 i bet he asked her before making that joke... thats a little too dark hahaha
I think that the fact this game, set in such a dreary, depressing world through the eyes of a broken man, still being able to have it's own recogniseable sense of humour is one of my favorite things about this game. The humor and tragedy never actually clash with eachother but mesh together quite well. From going to fishman court and winning(?) without even trying, to the minigame in the beehive where you seduce clients to get money (And the Queen Roger party member), to literally *any* scene with Nern, it's a really fantastic flow that never distracts from the story, and yikes... What a story it is.
18:16 - Marty will never accept responsability. That is what's most painful. Shit still needs to happen, and if Brad don't swallow Marty's responsability in the form of *guilt*, Brad is dammed. But if Brad doesn't take the responsability (guilt) from his father's actions, he'll be blamed anyways.
Dammed if you do, dammed if you don't.
For me personally indie games are like one of those things that always will and always do find new ways to innovate
Always has been !
My mom grew up in a dysfunctional family and she stopped contact and thought she end the generational trauma. But now I am scarred by her actions, the countless times she put me down, verbally abused me and hit me.
It's a really sad reality I had to come to terms with after getting out of my delusions and feeling like I am myself, with an opinion and some sense of personality. I will have to live now with all the struggles I have caused by it. I thought a lot about if I wanted to raise children, however it seems like a way to ignore my own problems and continue the generational trauma in some way
theres a french rpg i played way back called OFF. it tackles a lot of ideas, the impact of progress, the inherently illogical way society must exist. what got me the most was how the playable character betrayed me in the end
purification in progress...
I remember playing this game when it came out and being severely caught off guard by how both funny and depressing it is
Using humor as a coping mechanism was something I've never heard of as a point. So genius. Even the soundtrack shows signs of this. From offputting gibberish like "bloodforsx" and "F#-k you", to tracks like "Boyohboy".
Like telling you things will not get better, and that's ok.
Lisa was a work that entered my life at the exact right time. It was an immeasurably powerful narrative and the themes at work resonated so deeply with me that I spent many moments throughout my time with it in tears. The depth of the characters and the way it keeps things focused on what matters most of all- its themes of trauma and attempting to break the cycle. Easily one of my Top 10 favorite games, because of all of that and more 💖💖💖
Let's see how Carl Jung fits into this
0:52 oh, that was faster than I imagined..
:P
When this game came out months after the time the Last of Us did made me honestly feel insulted. People give a lot of accolades to TLoU, but I always saw it as a blockbusterfication/misrepresentation of real suffering mixed with a very over-cinematic base game. Lisa, I feel deserved everything TLoU got. I know it's not a AAA game, but I find the real pain and messages given masterfully in Lisa with a very similar story to TLoU so much more wrenching and teaching and most of all Sincere.
Yea, and it doesn’t help that TLOU was made with horrid intentions in mind. The Lisa series is painfully overlooked. Which was why I was so happy to see this video pop up in my feed. It’s been years since I last engaged with it, and this truly was a walk down memory lane.
@@ladyviren What were the "horrid intentions?"
Edit: since you haven’t responded in several days I’m going to go ahead and assume that there weren’t any.
@@ladyvirencommenting just to leanr about the "horrid intentions"
Never got the idea that first TLoU game was about showcasing realistic suffering. It's moreso an examination of our motivations to continue carrying on.
We don't see self-destructive behaviors or sit with the depressing moments, Joel's journey deliberately quickly moves past moments of reflection.
The payoff is that speech with Ellie at the end where he's giving a mature response about finding reasons to carry on, while she's grappling with inconsistencies of his account of the fireflies, her recent loss of purpose, and knowledge that he used similar justifications that pushed Tommy away.
I liked the first game cause it let you come to your own conclusions about Joel's actions and whether you interpeted that as a cynical or optimistic view of the human condition. 2 goes against this message but there's enough evidence for me to believe that they didn't go into 1 intending Joel was meant to be a villain.
There were a few father daughter apocalypse games at the time. I appreciate what they were trying to be their own thing with their own message. These 2 games were in development before the success of Telltale's Walking Dead and I think it's a real shame that because of the coincidental timing that we fell the need to compare them. I consider all 3 good stories. (And indie games were only just beginning to get mainstream validation back then. Lisa never stood a chance)
Being a triple A game doesn't mean anything
Ouf. This game messed me up. Hysterical, genuinely creepy, and heartbreaking. I'm almost mad at Dingaling for doing such a damn good job screwing with my emotions.
Lisa is one of those games I think about a lot, even years later.
I can’t say I’ve ever had such an experience with a game as the first time I played Lisa, I literally ended the game and just sat there for a while.
Beautiful game.
You should play the fan games! Lisa the Pointless, Lisa The Hopeful, and Lisa TheUndone are fantastic experiences
The moment you mention about moments when someone backed into the corner by trauma, I knew EXACTLY what you meant by that, because I've been there, and maybe still is if the trigger exist... Like, the moment you just went "Fuck it" then all of a sudden you've realized, what you've done is twisted...
Maybe I'll go check this game when the chance arise, thank you Max! Stay yellow!
Every time I see brad covered in arrows I immediately start crying. Such a powerful game :(
Choice is a thing, a good thing. I would like to argue for the ignorance of an individual to not even have the concept that there is a choice available. As a person who struggles with a difficult upbringing, I have found that there have been multiple instances when I actually could have done something either differently or at all. The trauma from my youth made me unable to even see the options. Intention and understanding is not universal and if someone is standing around when something happens, that person could be me. I don’t mean to leave it all up to you and I certainly am not waiting for you to fail, I’m so busy being in shock and scared as hell that I just didn’t know I could help. As a child I couldn’t and I return to that place when i feel threatened. It’s not even me it’s my subconscious which enters a kind of survival mode (something like if I just lay low maybe it won’t happen to me too). I hope that makes sense to anyone reading this. It’s not an excuse this is what I observed in myself through friends who knew better and did better than me. I feel regret because I consider myself a good person. Therefore I try to change. It’s a process that I’m still working on. Thank you for choosing to take the time to read this. Good luck out there.
yeah. Like I know I got into my abusive relationship as a result of the abuse from my mother. I could've made choices to protect myself but I was completely ignorant of those choices. However I did do what I knew, survive. In that survival I did things that... while not condemning, don't make me look good. And then I see similar patterns play out in others, notably, particularly in men. Like... genuinely good people becoming "bad" in those moments.
And it's tricky because often times, their bad behavior is in direct response to flagrant mistreatment. Like I know when I looked up a video game account to see if she had lied to me, it was in direct response to her repeatedly telling me one thing then doing another with respect to that game. What she did was genuinely awful. Yet what I did was inappropriate.
Now I realize that if a relationship gets to that point, leave. Don't even try.
You like Lisa the Painful because is a good game with heartbreaking story and shows the struggle of pain, attachment and loss
I like Lisa the Painful because I'm a masochist and the cheapness of the game mechanics makes my blood boil with rage
We need therapy, bro
This game was one my first steam games, I love this game so much. Wish it would receive more love
What’s becoming very crazy to think about is how good you’re gaming content is Max. You and I couldn’t be farther apart socially from what I’ve gathered but, Jesus Christ you’re respect for gaming and being objective is amazing.
Found you thru your “most profound” series and you’ve really done an amazing job creating critical thought style videos around gaming and it’s been missing in the medium for a long time.
Keep killing it Max this video was a killer for sure
0:20 bro can not even have his own hyperfixation lol
I just assume the question of "why u make so many silent hell vedios?" is serious and not a try to blame him for a hyper fixation,I deal with a question like this as if it's just a ginune question
@@omegagamer9465 cause is peak gaming
@@yopoxikeweapescai9066 good enough reason for me
I needed this, thanks max
The thumbnail unintentionally made me laugh. Theres just something humorous about a guy sitting down with a bunch of arrows sticking out of him and to the left of him there’s big bold words saying “PAINFUL”
Lisa's probably the only game I can truly say changed me as a person. This was an excellent video on it!
my man... I just started this video and was in a different tab when you said "i murdered my wife" and i've never switched back to a video faster... Well played sir.
YOURE TEARING ME APART LISAAAA
Though a couple of the lisa fangames are alright, the one i actually would reccomend with my whole being is lisa:, the pointless, its themes are very different, but it is completely fascinating and i think has very potent and interesting philosophical themes. As well as one of the most fascinating antagonistic forces in all of gaming.
Its set in the same world, but is very distinct and i think it deserves more love just for its fascinating take on the lisa setting.
I believe it's Squatch Gaming that did some very good essays on both Pointless and if I remember correctly, The Hopeful. Worth checking out if you like the franchise, as both take radically different spins. Both are in the air about teased sequels, but we'll see as time goes on.
I'm quite the fan of hopeful as well, but I do understand people's heavy appreciation of the theme of looking for something better that pointless has.
Undone recently came out and it's pretty much universally regarded as Joyful but better.
@@Phe0niz I liked hopeful, but I just never found myself as attached to the characters as I did in pointless.
@@Phe0niz I haven't heard of that one I'll have to suss it out.
Lisa the hopeful is pretty good too
The last console I owned was an N64 when I was a kid! I'm not a gamer but I really love this channel.
So there.
One of the few games that make me genuinely tear up.
The way that it makes you feel brad's emotions in firsthand, it's like you actually lived them.
This was an amazing video Max. Always loved lisa the painful. Defs the best analysis ive seen of the games
There are many avenues but I appreciate the ability of games specifically to serve as a reflective space to process real life emotions and events. Balancing the subtle illusion of reality.
this is the video i’ve been waiting my whole life to watch in a shower in the near future
Manifestation of Marty took me 6 hours 😭
Its a beautiful realization to choose your own way, everything is a choice no matter the emotional circumstances, hopelessness is a choice, and hope is a choice, choosing to move forward and be better is a choice, I own the book a mans search for meaning but Lisa was able to make this feeling resonate alongside the conversations Ive had with my friends, there is the choice to use a crutch to cope, but theres also the choice that will come when you leave it behind so you can walk on your own 2 legs, I am learning alot about myself in these last few months, I could regret to not have done it sooner, but I dont, I am making the most of what I can do with my life right now, I am making peace with my mistakes and not allowing myself to wallow in the bitterness that held me for so long, I can be happy despite everything and do what I want to do
eh. There's a certain point where there is not a choice
@@jeffreychandler8418 idk what u mean by that or which part of this ur referring too but you do you king
One of my favorite youtubers covering my favorite game was an absolute treat. Thank you!
I am so glad you did a video on LISA games. I always recommend this game.
This is a fantastic review. Thank you very much for sharing.
I played this game nearly a decade ago. I will never forget it.
You nailed it out of the park with this one, Max. Always great to watch your stuff.
0:34 f in the chat for his wife
This was beautiful!
I love Lisa so much. I finished the series recently and this video was really nice
Is it sad that LISA was key in my teenage years? Still think of it and play it alot.
It was the exact same for me, it shaped me a lot in late highschool
"Medical intervention" he says.
Yoo, someone talking about Lisa, let’s goo lol. Found out about this around when it came out through watching nicob play through it and I made sure to buy it myself when the definitive released. Love this dark as hell, silly as hell story.
Thanks Max, ill give this one a try!
I love your videos my man. Been a subscriber for a while. Keep up the amazing work.
Its crazy your talking about this game. I've been playing it for years and it's still one of my fav's.
That quote to end and fade out hurt me in the right way.
The original games description really tells you everything you need to know, "The miserable journey of a broken man."
Informative as always.
You’re soothing voice and deep subjects you traverse often help guide me in my depression and make it a bit more bearable lets hope there’s enough videos to keep me in there to hang in there
Damn fine video you got there Max. Glad more people are giving this the attention it so rightly deserves!
You murdered your wife already? My man is attempting the Sunderland Speedrun
It makes me happy you're still going stronger than ever as a content creator, after all these years
Thanks Pavl, and thanks for sticking with me for as long as you have. You have no idea how much it means to me.
Absolutely adore your videos man. Spectacular analysis!
Silent hill is such a treasure one of my biggest art inspirations. The trauma of seeing it raped and deformed in the more recent iterations and movies was enough for me. It’s like the ability to portray what silent hill was has been taken out of the minds of people that existed in the 90’s and early 2000’s, now it’s just a ghost 😢
My heart literally skipped a beat at that intro 💀
13:45 - So it's Fear and Hunger all over again...
To be fair, LISA: The Painful came out a few years before Funger
I had this game in my library for years and never got around to playing it - when I saw you post this I went and binged both Lisa: the Painful and Lisa: the Joyful and now I'm back.... gosh what an experience these games were. I have gained complicated feelings for a pixelated fat, bald, bearded, arm-less man specially when he's wearing lipstick that I truly don't know what to do with now.
I see similarities between Brad Armstrong and Harry Mason. If I think back, I don't remember many characters like that. The one that comes closest to me is Rooster Cogburn.
Lets gooooo LISA video!!! 🔥🗣🗣🔥🔥
Brad is the name of my father. He is a bald man and has 5 children with 2 different women. He suffers from trauma (I will not talk about). He used trauma to destroy the relationship with our family. I haven't visited my father in over 6 years. But I understand forgiveness starts with finding it for yourself and becoming aware of it.
And 0:34 was a curved ball I didn’t see coming. 🤣😂 You spent a significant effort clarifying that curved ball immediately 😂
this was a lovely watch. an old friend of mine held lisa: the painful dearly, and this reminded me of him telling me to not play it because of some things i had recently been through. he's probably right, but i still really enjoyed this video on its themes.
Well damn now I gotta play this game and cry my eyes out
As always excellent.
Thank you kindly!
How did you send this a day ago when this video has only been out for a few seconds 💀💀💀
@@vladtheimplier267Time travel alchemy ego
@@vladtheimplier267patreon benefits I guessing
@@vladtheimplier267 Alchemy 😎
Thank you so much for this video. But also, Terry Hintz for life.
Having controls that feel too good can midigate the horror aspect. The feeling of helplessness in my opinion adds to the intense bits of gameplay.
But the controls should still be good enough that it feels like I'm fighting the monsters and not the controls. If they do it right it will be more emersive.
Still haven't finished Joyful. This makes me want to. Great vid Max.
YESSSS MORE LOVE FOR LISA
fantastic
thank you
LISA VIDEO!! LISA VIDEO!!
More people need to play this game
Lisa the Vegaful put next to the original trilogy is the best depiction of trauma on your channel
First: The exploration of a young girl's mind damaged by trauma to try and find hope only for there to be none left.
Painful: The journey of a man to rescue his daughter, overcome his trauma and try to be a good father despite his horrible childhood only for him to ultimately fail at all three despite trying as hard as he could in the darkest of places.
Joyful: The quest of a girl to try and carve her identity in the only way this world knows, violence, and to realise that even if it didn't seem that way at the time, her father did genuinely care about her.
*Vegaful: haha funny braindamage man with bowler hat obliterate people with rake DSDS*
So excited for this one. This game is trully such a creepy and painful experience.
Here's a suggestion, Max: a video that gathers all the final messages from your videos, but focusing on the authors and people who brought the ideas worked on in the games, animes, etc., as well as their works, something like a reading guide to the philosophies and subjects of the games that you've already talked about. Excelent video!
will never skip a video on LISA. My favorite game ever
Reminds me of the manga Boku to Issho, were two brothers get kicked out of their mothers house in the countryside by their stepdad after their mother dies, and the eldest decide to try their luck in Tokyo were they meet a street urchin and start hanging together. It contains many characters and addresses many issues, always with a lot of humor that sometimes falls into the ridiculous when the characters try to cope with their trauma and shortcomings. I reccomend it a lot.
God, I love Lisa the Painful so fucking much and it's a shame that the game was overshadowed by Undertale just one year later.
It's so convenient that these depictions of trauma always circle back around to the traumatized being solely responsible for resolving what was done to them, what was allowed to be done to them. Small wonder then that so much of therapy seems to revolve around coping. But is shame really what they're coping with, or is it having to live with the knowledge that no matter what, the outside world will never take responsibility for its part?
I've never felt any shame for what's happened to me. Why, don't you?
Because that's the big lesson: there's no way to become "normal" once you've gone through enough trauma. It's sad, and it's unfair, but that's reality. It's kind of like how a lot of males who were molested as children grow up to be molesters themselves. They didn't deserve the horrible act in the first place but only the individual's efforts can prevent falling down a spiral of trauma and doing the same horrible thing to someone else. Sure, it isn't "fair" to have to live with horrible trauma and be held responsible for it's terrible effects, but the only other choice is ignoring the effects and spreading the same style trauma to someone else to make things feel "fair", which also isn't fair. Basically, the skin-deep modern internet understanding of second-to-second fairness is very flawed as nothing in life is truly fair and therefore everything is. You just have to do your best with your own shitty hand you were dealt, which you can't control, because no one can.
@@NilsKofoed Nah, there's plenty of alternatives. For starters the system can be strengthened to prevent as many people from being traumatized to begin with and concessions can be made to accommodate and compensate the ones who slipped through the cracks. If we have hundreds of billions of dollars for other people's wars you damn well better believe we can find the funds for this. Sure, that might not be fair to the taxpayer, but you really can't compare an individual's trauma to marginally higher taxes levied across an entire society.
@@TheJofurr Nah, measures like that can prevent future instances trauma which I do think is a good thing, but that isn't the same thing as getting rid of a person's pre-existing trauma. Currently, there is no way to erase pre-existing trauma; you can do the work and find healthy ways of coping with it or let it destroy you and others around you, that's about it.
And again, I think more funding for trauma treatment and prevention is a good thing, but dumping money on a problem doesn't really make it just vanish like magic. Otherwise, all the celebrities and CEOs who rose to the top from traumatic lives would probably become better people the richer they get but, in real life, usually the exact opposite happens and the only ones who live healthy lives do so because they choose to address their trauma in healthy ways.
I dunno man.
What gets knocked over needs to be put back at the end of the day, wether it fell because it was outside your control or because you didn’t do enough. Hold on and hope for smoother waves.
@@No-longer1 Life doesn't run on "should" or "deserves" and it never will because that's not what people, at their core, really desire. I think it's healthier to accept that then wait for the apologies from those who have wronged or hurt you that will never come, but maybe that's just me.
One of the greatest games and soundtracks ever.
This is the only game that I've started a second playthrough right after finishing it. One of the few games that can be as funny and brutal as it is
I’m all for more people finding out about Lisa
You can have as good an attitude as you want but when your choices are between sh*** and death where do you go? Is it supposed to be some sort of consolation to die or face the same cycle of misery with a smile on your face?
Should we imagine Sisyphus happy? The people in the Goulags? ... If we did we should we be fooled into thinking it's true happiness? Because it sounds a lot more like Stockholm syndrome to me.
You're never that limited tbh. Unless you're in prison.
Also, you're confusing things, it's not about being happy all the time, but finding a way to accept the situation and seeing things whit a clear vision, if that leads to contentment rn that's just one more thing
Oh man, after hearing you talk about the Marty fight, I really feel like I need to go back to play the Definitive Edition now!
The quote at the end is nice but hardly how it works in real life. As some of the most life altering descisions we make don’t happen by choosing what would be best, they get made in an instant or in a reflex and then we get to choose how we feel about that..
Man i dont even know what this game is but it looks pretty intense. You made a great video here nice job
I can't believe he to censor the opening title screen of Lisa the Painful. Who hurt youtubes advertisers that it's come to this?
This game has been one of my favorite games for years. I always try to shove it down people's throats. The influences of this game on my life is kind of insane to be honest
Love how you used some tracks from hotline Miami in your different chapters. Matched very well