Although for me, gameplay is king and systems will trump over the story and graphics of a game, LISA is a case that reminds me how I play games to escape reality and its brutal problems. I'm not a big fan of games that relate the sorrows and tribulations of people in our modern society - or in a realistic past. Games that deal with heavier subjects are things that I don't tend to consume, no matter what genre they belong in. LISA was no exception, presented as an earthbound-inspired RPG with a ton of party members and systems like using russian roulette to power-up your character, I didn't get very far in it and didn't enjoy my time with the game overall.
You play a guy named Brad who got beat up as a kid and had abusive parents, I guess? In a post-apocalyptic world where there are no more women. You find a baby girl - which at least hints to the existence of two ladies in the world - and she gets kidnapped. You move around in a platformer RPG - complete with losing health if you jump from too high a ledge - and talk to people and fight thing, from what I've seen. The battle system is kinda interesting, since most characters have various movesets and abilities. Brad uses WASD comboes - a bit like Xenogears - that can be combined into special attacks. I've also recruited some hint guy that gave useless hints, dealt no damage at all and was all-around useless. An event early on in the game asked me to choose between having him killed or losing all my gear.
But that's pretty much it. I don't play certain type of games, no matter how well-made they are. I have to say that LISA caught my attention a bit, but actually playing it didn't feel fun at all. There were no 'random' encounters in the segment I played and the only party member I had was terrible - on purpose, I'm sure. I felt that the rest of the game would be a mixture of what I'd already seen - soulcrushing moments, very difficult decisions where you lose something no matter what you do and maybe interesting situations with okay-ish party members that have personalities and stories. But the game didn't grab me in a positive way. The gameplay was weird and the story beats were kinda off-putting. So I stopped.
