00:00.00
Dave
Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you are listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it and discuss. My guest today is a friend of the show host of pixel project radio podcast and Armstrong style fighting master Rick Firestone rick welcome back

00:23.63
Rick
Hey Dave it's good to be back as always. I'm excited about this episode. This is one of my favorite games of all time.

00:32.90
Dave
Hell yeah, awesome I mean it's no secret. No coincidence why you're on this episode in particular. So I already knew that it's a game that you really liked. I'm excited to dig in with you today. The game today is Lisa The Painful. Which is an rpg developed and published by Dingaling Productions for pc in 2014 with ports to just about every console after that and I want to make a note Dingaling Productions is mostly a one-person effort with game design art composition and writing all credited to 1 person, Austin Jorgensen. So another one of these small team solo developer type projects here. Always kind of a miracle that games are able to be made by just one person.

01:19.28
Rick
Yeah, and for the definitive edition that just came out a couple months ago at the time of recording that was involved with he was involved with serenity forge so they did ah I don't know all of them off the top of my head I know they did Doki Doki Literature Club plus.

01:29.98
Dave
Right.

01:37.79
Dave
Right? Yeah they're a publishing studio that's worked with a couple other games that I've done on the show I think they're involved with but death's gambit. Yeah, so some pedigree there as a publisher with serenity forge. So ah. If this is your first time listening to the podcast. First of all, thank you for stopping by here's how spoilers work on the show. We're not going to spoil the story of Lisa The Painful or the prequel and the dlc for it. We're not going to spoil that stuff in the non spoiler portion of the episode. We're going to warn you when the spoilers are going to begin. You can also check down in the show notes for a timestamp for when that starts. So if you don't know what Lisa The Painful is we have some elevator pitches. I have a very very short one I'm calling this earthbounds evil twin or maybe it's. Evil descendant or something like that Rick what's the elevator pitch for lisa The Painful.

02:34.20
Rick
Okay, Dave would you believe me if I said I tested this on a real elevator on a real person. I like that your first response was okay and not yes or no, you're just hard, no cell immediately.

02:38.54
Dave
Okay I would you wouldn't lie about something like that.

02:52.87
Rick
Okay, it's pretty short. It's not as short as yours but it's pretty short Lisa The Painful is a game of excess. It is excessively dark, excessively challenging and excessively funny. Can a broken desperate man become whole in a world where optimism ceases ? Is it possible to rebuild the world and oneself?

03:10.46
Rick
I wholeheartedly recommend Lisa to jrpg fans who are looking for a challenge, a laugh and introspection. Yeah.

03:15.12
Dave
Yeah, all of those things are totally true and we'll talk about all of those challenges of the game itself. The challenges. The characters are going through the introspection that the story would suggest and of course the laughs that we had along the way. So I played this on pc. It took me 14 hours to beat and I just want to make a note here. I did not play Lisa the first and I did not play The Joyful Dlc ah, but we will reference those in the spoiler section I did read up on what happens in those. So Rick I know you've played this more times than I have. Ah, how long does a playthrough take? Did you play the prequel and the dlc?

03:56.49
Rick
Ah, so this most recent playthrough of The Painful I did everything except for the new secret boss in the definitive edition and I really took my time and tried to gather as many characters as I could find as many secrets and easter eggs as possible. And my playthrough was about sixteen and a half hours long so not not that much longer than yours. I did play The Joyful right afterwards. Ah before this show got to see that to completion which was really nice. Um, and I have the first one just released on steam like I think.

04:27.94
Dave
Yeah.

04:30.84
Rick
Last month ah but I have spoiled it for myself in the past but I haven't actually played it yet.

04:37.86
Dave
Gotcha gotcha. So when we talk about our personal histories with Lisa The Painful here my personal history stems from talking with you about the game. So let's get yours first. What initially brought you to this game because part of the reason I played this is. That it's a game that you think really highly of.

04:59.80
Rick
Yeah, so I distinctly remember ah how I heard about Lisa it was ah I I know I I know your reaction is going to be ah I heard it through video game Dunkey. Ah, he released a video about it.

05:15.81
Rick
In early January of 2017 and what Dunkey is really good at doing in his videos and especially that one is distilling these gains into their most irreverent ah sections and and jokes and and scenarios without spoiling much of anything.

05:34.87
Rick
Like without context you have no clue what's going on and it was the same with Lisa so I was like oh this game is hilarious I'm going to I'm going to download it and play it and I downloaded it on like the worst laptop ever and I played it and I was like I didn't get very far even because I didn't know it would be so hard.

05:49.47
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

05:51.25
Rick
And at the time I just put it down I was like I can't do this. I finished it some years later and really really enjoyed the experience and then I played it. I think this was my third full playthrough of The Painful so not like. Ah, crazy amount of time but enough to see just about everything I think.

06:10.53
Dave
Yeah, that makes sense and yeah, we we have our back and forths about donkey I do really enjoy what he has to say and the things he highlights in the videos I just think he's putting on a voice and you're not going to change my mind but I like Dunkey what he does and I have seen. Clips at least from his video about this game in particular. So for me, what brought me to Lisa The Painful is like 2 major things number one talking about it with you because you're one of the only people out there in our you know, shared friend group and stuff like that. Was talking about this like six months ago basically um and then the other thing was I heard it on Cane & Rinse they covered it and they hated this game but the reasons that they hated it kind of piqued my interest a little bit. They didn't like how cruel it was and i. Listen to that and I was like I kind of have different tastes than the people on this podcast. I might want to check this out someday. I also listened to your episode on pixel project radio with Charlie, a former guest on this show. What's up Charlie and then you actually gifted this game to me on steam I was. Thinking about when I bought this all right Rick gave it to me. What a coincidence we're going to talk about it on the podcast. So I made sure to put it on the backlog resolutions list for this year with that challenge. We're doing it in my Discord server where people are trying to make dents in their backlogs. This was one I made sure to put on the list.

07:46.29
Dave
So that got me to play it and to do our little opening thoughts here before we dive in proper I like this game. Um I thought number one as a comedy. I think it's really funny and it's really well written and that kind of stuff is kind of hard to do in video games. Ah,, there's lots of memorable characters and of course memorable moments for lots of different reasons. Um I was also surprised by how good I thought this game was from a mechanical standpoint as an RPG. I did not expect that I thought it to be. I thought it would be simple or kind of busted. And it's not.. It's actually pretty solid. Um, there are some things when we get to the spoiler section. I have some questions about the story because there's some things that just don't line up to me and there's some things where I don't know what the developer is trying to say. Here I don't know what this game is trying to say about certain things. Other things I'm very clear on what it's trying to say and I like some of the messages that's going on here. Um, and I like some of the themes. Overall good experience I did have a good time with it. What would you say here at the top?

08:58.13
Rick
Yeah, well first of all to all listening just know that if you ever want Dave to do an episode on something all you've got to do is ah, buy it for him and you know the guilt takes care of itself. Ah no I'm I'm just kidding I am glad that you.

09:12.13
Dave
That's right?

09:16.41
Rick
Really wanted to do an episode on this though. Um I you know I already said that this is one of my favorite games of all time and I wasn't sure about that going into it. I know I knew that I liked this game a lot and when I went to replay it for this show. I kind of just started thinking like you know I really like this I this is hitting a lot of what I look for in games and in game stories and by the time I finished it I was like yeah this is no contest top 3 I mean top 5 top 3 it it all changes depending on the day sometimes but it's it. It really stands out to me because it is a game that isn't afraid to touch on themes that many other bigger developers certainly shy away from and it doesn't pull its punches. And it's just very unapologetic in its presentation and how it decides to cover these things. Um, to that point I listened to the Cane & Rinse episode too, I'm a huge fan of Cane & Rinse and you know what I love about this game is.

10:25.94
Rick
It can spawn these sorts of discussions. I didn't think anything that they said on that show or that episode I should say was off base at all. I thought everything they brought up was very fair. It just came down to a matter of taste and that's part of what makes this game so great as a work is it can spawn these conversations. It's not just a 1 and done thing where people you know I yes, that's right? or no, that's totally not right. There's so much of a gradient here and I mean I think Jorgensen did brilliant work.

10:56.19
Dave
Yeah, I agreed that this game is one that, like I already knew going into it , was going on in these places and that's why it was like well this should be something to talk about on the show because it's a game that spawns conversations. If. And no matter who plays this game or what kind of games they like and what kind of themes they like their games to touch on this game is going to spawn some conversations so also shout out once again to the retro hangover review crew for lots of conversation when this was the game of the month and it just lined up perfectly that we could play and talk with them. And also get ready to do this episode here today. So we're going to have a lot of things to talk about especially in the spoilers section. But before we get there. We do have a lot of non spoiler ground to cover. So we're going to listen to some music. Fantastic music in this game comes back and sets up the story. Of Lisa The Painful.

11:57.60
Dave
In Lisa The Painful you play as Brad Armstrong Brad is a middle aged martial arts instructor in a post-apocalyptic wasteland called Olathe. That's how I'm going to choose to pronounce it. Early in the game you see a flashback scene. Where it establishes some of Brad's backstory in his childhood. He's bullied. He's abused by his father. His father's an alcoholic Brad's life sucks. Flash forward to the modern day. Brad is addicted to a drug called Joy and he goes out into the wasteland. The post-apocalyptic wasteland. And he finds a baby girl out there and this is notable because the apocalyptic event in this game's backstory which is called the flash killed all the women in the world. So finding a baby girl out in the wasteland is a big deal. Brad knows. This world full of only men no women at all is not a safe one for a baby girl so he decides to raise her in secret he names her Buddy and Buddy grows up under Brad's protection in his house. Ah, but you can tell that there is some kind of tension there that she wants to go out and see the world one day Brad returns home from going out and you know doing whatever people do in the day to day in this world he comes home. He finds Buddy is gone and all his friends are dead outside of the house.

13:29.10
Dave
And so he's off on the quest to find her and that is where we're gonna like to stop talking about specific story events for now. But that is the story setup for this game and I got to say I knew this was going on. I think this is a really interesting setup for a Post-apocalypse story. There's so much. Post apocalyptic media out there that this like you know world of men basically and some of the things this game touches on is masculinity and things like that. Um, with this baby girl I thought this was a unique start for this story.

14:05.96
Rick
Very much so it's one of those story setups where if you say it out loud to somebody that is unfamiliar with it. It's going to raise some eyebrows right? This is a kind of recommendation where you have to really know somebody before recommending it. I would have never recommended this to you? um.

14:12.88
Dave
Um, yeah.

14:22.54
Rick
Like before we got to know each other um because you know on its face. It can sound misogynistic. Um spoiler alert. It's really not it really is not at all and as you mentioned it does one of the secondary themes in my opinion in this game is. This idea of the dark side of masculinity and although we do get 1 very amazing little hub where it's just ah I don't know just neutral masculinity just dudes working out. It's pretty great.

14:52.94
Dave
Yep.

14:55.85
Rick
But it's ah it's It's a very bleak game.

15:00.63
Dave
Yeah that's ah, that's one of the main kinds of tones that this story takes is like different situations that come up if you think of it as the bleakest thing that could happen. You're probably not going to be too far off from what actually happens in the game. Although I will say this to the game's credit and you just said this too so agreeing with you here is the premise that there is 1 woman in a world. Not 1 woman 1 girl in a world full of men where there are no other women. Um. You could take that in a lot of super fucking bleak directions and this game really doesn't to its credit now the other games especially the first one. It's not the same premise but it does take that kind of subject material in a direction that I don't think that I like and I don't really want to experience that for myself. But this game here The Painful really doesn't and also worth noting I think I heard that um the developer doesn't I mean doesn't really recommend people play the first game all that much. So. Take their word for it I just read a synopsis of it. This game here I think toes the line on that particular thing well enough and it gets pretty fucking bleak in other areas for sure.

16:24.35
Rick
Um, yeah, as much as I Love this game going back to the idea. It's a qualified recommendation. Um, and this is not going to be to some people's taste and that's okay, ah you you needn't subject yourself to things that upset you if you don't want to. I mean there's a time and a place for everything right? You know. Discomfort challenges us to grow. But sometimes you have to protect yourself First. So as much as I adore this game I would never you know if somebody said look I Just that's just a little too bleak for me, it's too dark I that'll mess me up. Okay, like that's totally fine.

17:01.21
Dave
Yeah, this ah so this is a black comedy and you said in your elevator pitch that it is extreme like all of those aspects and I totally agree with you too. It is super dark and it's also very funny. So. It does a good job in my opinion of having both, which you know a lot of darker comedies will be kind of dark but also or really funny. You know, not weighing down both sides of the scale. That's not how scales work. Not ah you know tons of weight on each side of the scale but they seem to balance each other out. This is super dark. Super funny. So let's talk about that. Um, let's talk about the serious things first then we'll talk about this game's sense of humor. Um, I mentioned that this game takes that.

17:55.72
Dave
Last woman on Earth theme and does not go in like all of the directions that it could to its credit. There are a lot of other things that it does go really heavy into very prominent uses or allusions to addiction tons of gore. Sexual assault child abuse suicide. All of those things. So right now just saying if you don't want to hear discussions about those things. Don't listen to the spoiler section of this episode and don't play this game just straight up if those are things that you don't want in your game. Or your media do not play this game because it will go really heavy into those.

19:26.27
Dave
Now for me personally, I am okay with the media depicting these things and I think that this game does some interesting things with those things but it's a pretty mixed bag in my opinion. There are some aspects of it that I don't like. I don't like the jokes. Maybe they're surrounding it or I just don't like how the game is handling that but it's not like you know picking and choosing. It's not like I like the all of the addiction content in the game and I don't like the child abuse stuff. It's really. Mixed bag of how they handle it even within the same type of content I think ah like this is a really dark premise for a story and you said earlier Rick the game doesn't pull any punches and it does not so it's it's. Kind of realistic in some ways about how people might act in like the mad max apocalypse. I just think that some things are handled with respect that they should be handled with and there were sometimes when I was like that's a really childish way of presenting this thing. But it's a really mixed bag even within the same types of subjects.

20:43.58
Rick
Okay, that's I think that's fair I would be interested to hear as we move forward what you felt was maybe a bit too childish or a bit too distasteful I think something to keep in mind. Especially if you're teetering on whether or not you would like to play this game. And I mean I don't know what this is saying anymore. But you never know Depiction does not equal endorsement, right? Not everything awful depicted here is an endorsement and it's not depicted in that way. I mean if that were the case I don't think either of us would really be into this game.

21:08.87
Dave
Right.

21:22.20
Rick
Right? It's not. We're not into it for like the torture porn or you know for for any hateful reasons it it uses everything to an effect whether or not that effect works for you comes down to I think personal taste and you know like we've said like 5 times now that's.

21:23.65
Dave
Okay, right.

21:38.71
Dave
It will also depend on maybe some background with things like this and thankfully I don't have a lot of personal experiences to connect with the things that are going on in the game. So I'm more I guess open to seeing what the.

21:39.31
Rick
That's fine. You know.

21:57.70
Dave
What the game or how the game is going to present these things. Um and we'll definitely dig into that in the spoiler section. There's a lot to talk about with where this game goes sometimes so talking about that serious content and now shifting over to the comedic side of the game. Where I think this is legitimately one of the funniest games I've ever played while also going into all of those deep dark corners of Humanity. Um I don't remember the last time a game made me laugh this much maybe since ah like playing west of loathing or something like that. Very very funny.

22:36.43
Rick
It really is but where west of loathing is more ah, irreverent and silly sort of like ah a closer to Monty Python on the spectrum. This is. It's very clever and it's.

22:40.78
Dave
Yeah.

22:51.27
Rick
It's absurd. But I would n't know that I would call it irreverent. It does get irreverent I suppose but it doesn't have the silliness that west of loathing and python have ah like for example, 1 of my favorite ah comedy bits in this game is you stumble into a place that is full of men who love their hair.

23:07.97
Dave
Um, oh yeah, but.

23:09.94
Rick
They love their hair. They're very proud of it and you walk up to them and the 3 leaders they're like oh well hey there fella high. It's nice to see you, I know why you're here. Well we'll just let you on back here. We're all hit and then they notice that you're bald and they just stop and they're like bald you come into our club

23:28.27
Rick
With no hair you Dandy fuck and then a boss battle immediately ensues where the three of them have merged into a hair monster that is giving you the middle finger. But.

23:34.56
Dave
Yeah, yeah, and then if you light them on fire their hair disappears and they're significantly weaker as a boss fight. I thought that it's a great bit right there and that's the one that I was thinking about highlighting in here just to showcase like this game.

23:43.39
Rick
Yeah.

23:54.26
Dave
Sense of humor Also in that scene there is a drawing of a butt on the wall below these guys and there's a person just with their nose stuck up in the drawing of a butt so kind of yeah, kind of that a reverent sense of humor there. 

24:06.36
Rick
Um, yeah, he's really up in there.

24:12.69
Dave
It's really funny. It's really well-w writtenten. Um I think that ah Jorgensen has a real knack for naming every character's name. There's a bunch of gangs in here. The gang names are so creative and funny every time I meet a new gang.

24:31.83
Dave
I Wanted to know what they're called Oh you're called the schoolboy shufflers. But that's cool. You guys are called the banana splits with a Z. That's awesome like every time I love it. Oh.

24:43.90
Rick
Yeah, and the character names too. I mean there are some sillier ones like ah Tommy Dinkle which are I actually I think those are in The Joyful but things like that and then you, you've got party names like Crisp LeDaddy and ah.


25:01.69
Rick
You know it's really good Bo Wyatt and ah it's yeah he's he's got a real knack for language not not in the same way that like you know and another game that I resonated with in a very similar way to this. Ah, if that tells you anything is disco elysium many of.

25:21.28
Rick
Ah, very similar themes. Ah it's he doesn't have a knack for language in the same way. It's more so like the sound of language rather than the cadence and the flow of writing. It's just you know, sticky and Rick like those are your childhood. Best friends.

25:40.96
Rick
Crisp La Daddy and spaghetti and cheese legs the dog . He's just good with words that sound funny.

25:49.18
Dave
Yep yeah I was going to say if you need a 1 liner or you need someone to give someone a funny name. This is the person you should hit them up with. Um, and then situations that you find yourself in are often absurd, funny. Thinking about like there's ah, a place with a fast food restaurant that I thought was just fantastically funny. Um, the music too plays into the sense of humor. We'll talk about the music in a little bit but just want to give it ah a little tease here at the beginning. And then ah, your party members that you pick up can often be really funny if you get a chance to sit and talk with them, so give an early shout out to Nern who is one of my favorite characters in here for just being very funny every time he talks.

26:38.69
Rick
Yeah, Nern is a big favorite of mine. A big favorite in this recent playthrough was Harvey Alabaster who is a fish lawyer. It is as ridiculous as it sounds. He's a fish lawyer that is able to do debuffs via legal. Ah.

26:56.32
Rick
Briefings I suppose and wields a machine gun.

27:01.80
Dave
Ah, van and now you reminded me of the scene where you meet Harvey and how funny that scene was so I don't know. I assume you agree with me here that this game handles that yo-yo between super funny and super bleak. Like pretty well.

27:20.90
Rick
It's really remarkable. It knows exactly when to take itself seriously and when not to you know you get towards the end There's this whole ending sequence where it's quite serious and things are really ramping up. There's no there's really no humor to be found. Ah, but you know sandwiching. But. Between some of these really difficult choices and grim moments. You'll just, I don't know, you'll run into somebody. That's just standing by a cliff and you'll talk to them and all they have to say is Holla Holla if you hear me really need to get that off my chest and then they just die. That's it.

27:55.38
Dave
Yeah, yeah, it's really good and 1 more thing to mention about this story. I'm glad you mentioned choices there in that bit because that's part of what you're doing here. This is an rpg I wouldn't call it a choice based rpg but you will find yourself with.

27:55.52
Rick
It's crazy.

28:14.57
Dave
Choices to make throughout the game that have very serious consequences here. So I just wanted to shout out what kind of Rpg this is. You are playing as Brad not yourself, you can choose choices for Brad but.

28:32.11
Dave
This is not a branching paths type of story. This game has a particular story to tell. Um, there are multiple endings in this game I know there are in The Joyful.

28:45.00
Rick
Um, there ah the ending is going to be the same. You can get different epilogues depending on what you do.

28:49.84
Dave
Epilogues. Yeah, okay, right? So the story that you're going to play through here is going to be the same regardless of choices that you make but you do have choices to make throughout the game that will affect your experience. We'll say and some of them are quite shocking. But yet Also funny now that I think about it, you know what happens later in the game if you choose to sacrifice something of yourself.

29:16.32
Rick
Yeah, absolutely I am. I'm really looking forward to getting into the spoiler section and talking about some of these.

29:21.56
Dave
Absolutely yeah, so we've talked a little bit about the story and the 2 tones that the game takes. Let us listen to some music when we come back, we'll talk about visuals and we'll talk about that soundtrack. So first of all talking about how this game looks. It's a side scrolling pixel art rpg it was made in. I can't remember what it was made in game maker or rpg maker, one of those so it has that look to it and I think that the pixel art is really really expressive. Here it plays into the comedy. No 2 characters seem to look alike in this game. You can tell that a lot of detail went into designing these people and some of the places that you go to. I really like how this game looks.

30:12.17
Rick
Yeah, he's really working well within I think it's Rpg Maker. He's really working well within the constraints of that system and you know it's It's not supposed to be a super pretty game but the pixelated and ah the limitations. Really give it some life in certain scenarios like how player characters or not player characters. How Npcs will move when you know those shift by like one pixel and it makes things really really subtle in a way that you wouldn't expect in something like this and you're exactly right? It's very Expressive. Ah.

30:47.93
Dave
Yeah, just how like again there seem to be no reused character ah sprites throughout the entire game. People are really memorable. So if you need to go find somebody again, you kind of remember who they are and maybe where they are.

30:48.10
Rick
Almost shockingly so.

31:07.49
Dave
Ah, everyone has their nipples showing no matter what they're wearing in this game which I thought was an ice comedy touch always made me laugh. Go into a room like yep, all of them too. Just got the ponchos no undershirt nothing like that ponchos that rise up like to their upper chest and that's all. Ah.

31:25.70
Rick
Um, yeah, the wild fashion sense in this game is off the charts.

31:27.70
Dave
Yeah, so it's I don't have a whole lot to say about it visually other than it's expressive and it helps make a lot of the characters memorable. Um, the environments that you're in are kind of say- looking but you're progressing through a linear path. So it's not like you're going to really get lost on a semi-linear path but you move from key hub area to key hu area. So it's not like you're going to be like oh I don't know if I'm in area 1 or 3 right now. It's not like that. So. I forgive it for having these things look kind of samey. What's not the same is the soundtrack. Let's talk about the soundtrack and I'm glad you're here Rick because maybe you can help me put words to some of the feelings I have about the soundtrack here. The first thing I want to shout out. Is that if you take 1 look at this game you see how relatively you know air quotes simply. It looks like you might assume that the soundtrack is the same and it's not. There are 97 tracks on the Youtube playlist and if someone told me. That this game uses every known instrument in the world I would believe it for a second and then I'd be like ah that's a lot of instruments. What do you mean, but that should give you an idea of how diverse this soundtrack is.

32:50.15
Rick
It's ah and it was composed by Jorgensen as well. So and to my knowledge I don't think he's like a trained musician or anything I just you know he knows what he's listening for. He knows what he likes . What I appreciate about the soundtrack is it is so reflective of the world that we're in, you know we're not going to be hearing.

32:51.53
Dave
Yeah.

33:07.76
Rick
You know, like string quartets and I don't know Lynyrd Skynyrd in this and although I there probably are some like there's tons of wrestling references in this game to like real world wrestlers I wouldn't be surprised if there's like classic rock references that I missed but the the music is so crude and rude.

33:16.17
Dave
Yeah.

33:26.82
Rick
And nasty. It's it's kind of perpetually like wiggling its fingers at you or like biting its thumb at you and you know farting while it does it but you know that that makes it sound like it's juvenile but it's not. It's well constructed. It's a really really really good soundtrack even when it's.

33:44.82
Dave
Yeah, there's a lot of intentionally off-putting music and especially in like ambient tracks. There's a lot of songs in here that have actual you know, catchy hooks and things like that to them. There's a lot of ambient background tracks too and a lot of those are kind of uncomfortable.

33:45.90
Rick
Purposefully being discordant.

34:04.52
Dave
That fits in with the world of the game though. The game is set in a very uncomfortable place. Um, what kind of stands out to me are when the game has these really pleasant sounding songs like ah like summer love which is one of the first songs you'll hear and it's just this very pleasant. You know, slow melody um, really enjoyable to just sit and listen to and then there's a couple other songs I wanted to shout out for being how do I want to word this? um.

34:38.66
Rick
Before you go on Dave what I love about summer love ah, it's a really wonderful track. It's kind of like the song of the track like the theme song if you could call any of them one just a really nice mellow trombone. You know it's vibey. Ah, but.

34:41.46
Dave
Um, yeah.

34:54.87
Rick
There are interjection interjections of just these noticeably louder drum kit fills in between the trombones. You know you've got the bod up up boot up dub it up up but up but and it's like holy Moly where did that come from and that's like.

35:01.29
Dave
Yep.

35:12.50
Rick
1 That's kind of setting you up for what this game is going to be right? your expectations can never be too set and 2 It's like it's just so comical to hear that it comes out of nowhere. You know, right? off the bat. This game is going to be pretty funny.

35:26.77
Dave
Yeah, and speaking of funny the the other songs that I wanted to shout out is songs that are extremely fucking catchy when they have no right to be catchy with what they're you know, constructed from so. Maybe the most famous song from the soundtrack other than summer love would be work harder which takes a voice sample of a dude grunting in shen mu two and sets it to a beat and it becomes legitimately one of the catchiest songs I've ever heard I have spent the last. six months walking around my house doing the grunt to the beat of the song to the point where my wife finally gave in and she started doing it too just so she would not go crazy or something like that. Um, that song is fucking ridiculous I'm going to make sure I put that song in before this section. So that people know what we're talking about here but I don't know what? What do you have to say about working harder because it's insane.

36:30.35
Rick
Oh, it's hilarious. This is it. It's tucked away in one room. Well it's like maybe it's like 1 big room of the game. You could miss it and it's just a bunch of dudes that are just like working out their bench pressing dressers and.

36:41.91
Dave
Yeah, ah.

36:47.75
Rick
Car tires and cars doing squats ah with like I think the full title of the song is work harder not smarter and they're just talking about like muscle Freedom Jacked Let's go power in it. It's like this just like the outside has gone so off the rails. The.

37:06.80
Rick
Masculinity has gripped them such that it's become extremely toxic and hostile and here they're just they. They're just being dudes. They're just working out. Um one one hilarious thing about this song is in the definitive edition.

37:23.90
Rick
It kind of got neutered a little bit because they couldn't get the rights to shenmue. At this point you know I I'm pretty sure it was a rights issue anyway. So Jorgensen called up the voice actor or got into contact with him somehow explained the situation and dolan's voice actor re recorded a grunt.

37:26.23
Dave
Right.

37:40.49
Rick
And that's in the definitive edition now. It's like he's much older at this point. So it's much weaker. It doesn't have the vigor behind it. So it's a bit of a bummer but how cool like he's like oh the rights have expired all right I'll just sidestep the whole company.

37:48.21
Dave
Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, just get this guy to rerecord it what twenty twenty years later or however long. It's been since Shen Mu two came out. Yeah, that's it's good I love that story.

38:05.32
Dave
And I love that he was able to salvage that song because it is it like when you walk through that I knew about the song before I played the game I had listened to it hundreds of times before I started playing and but I still didn't know when it was going to come up so you walk through the door and the the starts going I'm like oh shit. It is and I can only imagine someone who's not already familiar going in there be like what is this place? What is this game?

38:34.33
Rick
It's spectacular and there are so many moments like that within this soundtrack. Um, he also makes a lot of use of reusing different tracks at different speeds. It's extremely slow, a little bit slowed down, a little bit sped up.

38:46.28
Dave
Yep.

38:50.65
Rick
Um, maybe even backwards at some point I'm not really sure and I don't know if you know this but the trumpet theme that you know it's It's constantly in various stages of being fed up and slowed down that da da da da da da da That's technically that's diegetic.

39:01.91
Dave
Here.

39:08.31
Dave
Right? right? I did hear that I I didn't know it when I was playing but I did hear that after the fact. Yeah.

39:09.60
Rick
That's being played in the world and I. I didn't know it until this past playthrough and it kind of blew my mind. It. I mean I don't know how I feel about the explanation but that's pretty cool. You know because you hear it constantly and there's I mean there's a reason for it. How about that? That's it.

39:27.85
Dave
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's super cool and I did want to shout out just how often that theme gets reused and other melodies get reused and varied throughout different situations too. But that one.

39:45.92
Dave
Like it rivals like final fantasy for reuse of themes and variation throughout the game. It's kind of crazy how often they do it and how many different tones that one melody can take.

40:00.98
Rick
Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think there's maybe 1 track in the entire game I'm not really a big fan of and that would be the fisherman's village. Ah, it's just or excuse me, the fish men village. Ah, it's just a bit much. But

40:13.76
Dave
Right.

40:18.38
Rick
You know most players probably won't even see that area unless they're using a guide.

40:26.91
Rick
Is that a spoiler?

40:29.56
Dave
No, I was trying. I think you have to go there in the main quest you have to get it. You have to get something there now.

40:35.69
Rick
Um, no no you the only reason you go there is ah to get Harvey and to get the map to ah I think to get Bo.

40:43.53
Dave
Right? Okay, all right I'm gonna cut that then that is not helpful. Um, we will just leave it at you being right? Yeah, 1 other song I wanted to shout out because I love this song too and it's it's.

41:00.50
Dave
Kind of an example of another thing. The soundtrack that I really like is there's a song called the Highway King that also uses vocals in a really different way. The Highway King is using like this super digitized voice That's ah like not smoothly jumping between notes. It's very abrupt. Shifting between pitches is still super catchy and I really love that So I wanted to shout that out and I think that this game does a great job of using vocals in a lot of songs or sounds that are filling the role of vocals. Maybe I don't know if they're actually voices that are super digitized or not., But it's weird and it's off-putting but it's super catchy which I think is emblematic of a lot of the music.

41:46.29
Rick
Yeah, high waking and I am Satan are both tied for 2 of my favorite tracks in the game and they both use vocal samples in a different way highway king to me sounds like it uses the same synth patches as the rugrats like that kind of like it's 90% somebody just going Bob.

42:05.82
Rick
But but then there's like 10% of like a belch quality to it. You know what? I mean it just I don't know any as soon as I heard it I was just taken back to you know Tommy pickles.

42:09.96
Dave
Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

42:17.92
Dave
Ah, the second time today I've had the rugrats brought up in different situations. Maybe that's a sign. Yeah, my dog's bed is really sunken in and reminds me of stew. Pickles's bed in that show is just like an outline of his body in a T pose.

42:20.67
Rick
For real.

42:32.97
Rick
Well, he has lost control of his life.

42:36.94
Dave
That's right, He has yeah much like everybody in this game. So um, the other thing to just reiterate about this soundtrack and sound effects too. I suppose that Ah, the fact that this is so weird there. It's such a nontraditional sound to the whole thing that it can play into both parts of what the story is Accomplishing. Can play into the comedy and then it can get scary for what this soundscape can do um it really sets the tone of the places that you're In. And I think it's just really well done.

43:14.63
Rick
Yeah, here.

43:17.24
Dave
So let's take this chance to listen to a bit more and let's talk about what it's like to actually play Lisa The Painful so in Lisa The Painful. Let's start with what it's like to just move around an explorer in the world to just set what. Your exploration is going to be like it's from a side scrolling view which is not usual for rpgs like this and from a side scrolling view. You are introduced to a little bit of platforming and can't jump but there are a lot of. Ledges to drop from ropes to climb you get a bicycle at some point that helps you get over little gaps in ledges. There's fall damage. There's instant death if you fall too far or fall off of an edge into a you know a bottomless pit or something like that. So. A lot of areas. There is this kind of like traversal element trying to figure out. Okay I see a treasure up there. How am I going to get to that thing or there's a door. How am I going to get there? How mean to get down to this place without dying stuff like that. So what did you think about the act of exploring the world and doing this? Kind of light platforming here.

44:31.60
Rick
Um, so the platform itself you know I don't mind. It's slow. It's methodical. Um or maybe methodical is not the right word. Maybe it's just slow. I'm fine with that. You know I wasn't I wasn't looking for a heavy platforming challenge here.

44:41.83
Dave
The.

44:48.38
Rick
Ah, you'll appreciate this actually. I thought of this on the way home today. This game is like the platforming itself and how sometimes it can feel directly antagonistic if you remind me of dark souls a little bit. Um, so I haven't played dark souls more than.

45:00.79
Dave
Oh yeah, yeah.

45:06.54
Rick
Probably a combined total of 2 hours across all 3 games I I am continuing to try that's another conversation though, but like every clip I see of it is like somebody trying to like you know, get away from a boulder or an enemy in a very specific way but the boulder will just graze them a little bit and knock them off into a chasm and they die.

45:25.60
Dave
Oh yeah.

45:25.80
Rick
And that's hilarious to me. Ah and like the same thing will happen here. You'll just be walking. You'll go since this game progresses screen by screen. You know you have to reach the end of the right side of the screen and then you immediately spawn on the left side of the next screen you'll be walking and all of a sudden the next screen is just a cliff and you just fall off.

45:42.81
Dave
Yeah, some of it is funny and like I'm glad you recognize the humor in Dark Souls because there's a ton of it there and a lot of that same thing is there. I agree with you that I see an item down there.

45:44.71
Rick
And it's game over. That's really funny to me.

46:02.46
Dave
If I just jump the way it is right now I'll probably die so I have to figure out how to get down there. There is that kind of figuring out how to get from place to place for sure. 1 thing that helps is that your movement in this game is kind of tile based. So if you press if you just press the d'pad once in a direction you'll shift over one space instead of like incrementally or smoothly moving across it. We'll say so if you're just going willy-nilly, especially when you're on the bike. You can just ride off the edge of a cliff and die especially because this game likes to put ladders. On that last space right before a cliff. But if you're just careful about it. You'll be fine for most of these anytime it happens to me I was like yeah I was just kind of holding it not really paying attention so this didn't really bother me.

46:51.99
Rick
Um, and and use you develop a feel eventually of like when to let go based on how many more tiles you need to move you mentioned the bike and um, you know we didn't.

46:56.39
Dave
Yeah.

47:04.61
Rick
Get to the tutorial of this game but this game has a bit of a tongue in cheek way of tutorializing things. But when it wants to show you how to do something I can think of 2 specific examples. Does it really? well. The bike is a good example. So when you get the bike. Um, you have to fight something to get to the bike and then the bike is up. On top of this platform once you get to it. You can't jump down because there's an object like ah like a piece of trash. That's just in your way so you have to go to the right to go to the next screen and when you get to the next screen immediately. You drop off of a ledge. But. You don't fall to your death you hop across the gap which you cannot do if you're on foot so that is the gains way of teaching you like hey you are going to need to do this here like let us show you in a very safe way that this is how this game is going to handle traversal and I think that's really cool. Um, now.

47:44.30
Dave
Right.

47:58.57
Rick
Like you said there are also a lot of like ah ladders and ropes that are at the very edge of the off of Cliffs and if you fall well Oopsie daisy but ah yeah I I don't know I really appreciated that and ah yeah I I actually never mind. Sorry.

48:19.18
Dave
Yeah I Appreciated the the teaching the game does too and again I didn't really mind anytime I fell off to my death. It was usually my fault or it was like a hey I Wonder how much fall damage I take if I jump down here to this place way below. Oh It killed me Well that was my fault for jumping that far. You know I didn't feel like this was unfair in the slightest. Really so and I like when games have a little bit of a puzzle to get to a treasure that they show you in plain sight and this game does that a lot So I enjoyed that. Um, you'll get into combat pretty often here and it's worth Noting. It is an rpg that looks like rpgs that have random encounters but this game only has a few sections that have random encounters The rest of the time you can see people. There are some ambushes. But. A lot of times you can see people before you fight them so you can at least know you're going to fight a lot of the times when you get into combat it is turn based but instead of being like the you know the final fantasy method of turn based or something like that in this game Everybody queues up. They move all at the same time and then you click execute and then everybody, your team and the enemies all attack in the order of their speed or their agility. Whatever the stat is that governs it. Um I thought this was cool to give you a little bit of extra strategy about what.

49:51.88
Dave
Commands You assign to what character and yeah, this ah this combat system has a lot more to it than I expected going into it which was a nice pleasant surprise for me.

50:07.56
Rick
Oh yeah, 100% if you are somebody that ah tends to feel that jrpgs ah become mash x to attack simulators then this is going to be something that scratches your itch for you. You have to like what you said. True turn based where everybody inputs their actions and then they go based on speed or agility. So you have to plan then you don't get the luxury of saying like well Youna goes next and then waka after her and then the enemy. So I have time to heal and attack you have to. Be preemptive and proactive about it. Ah, which you're going to want to do anyway because this game places such a massive emphasis on buffs and debuffs which again, that's another big complaint that people hear a lot about jrpgs. And it's funny. There was actually a conversation going on in Moon’s server with a friend of the show Moon and I don't know if she was participating or not but somebody somebody was talking about how they didn't like Jorgensen because he made a jrpg even though he is a self-proclaimed disliker of the genre. And that was like you know as somebody that loves the genre. He made a damn good one even if he doesn't like it and ah I think that's I mean that's part of it too right? I mean a lot of final fantasy games become at a certain point you just attack attack attack. Even if you get paralyzed attack attack attack poisoned attack attack attack silenced attack attack attack.

51:24.21
Dave
Yes.

51:40.60
Rick
Here You can't do that like here if you are drunk if you are blinded if you're pissed if you're you know wary? Ah, whatever, hilarious status effects. You have that really really matters and you can't just ignore it or you very likely will die.

52:00.90
Dave
Yeah, the game places a huge emphasis on status effects both from your side and on the enemy's side. I'm looking at the wiki right now and there's got to be like 50 status effects here. There's just an insane amount of things that can go wrong for you and for the enemies. So I am one of those people who even like some of my favorite games. 1 of the things that sucks is that you're supposed to get excited about learning a new skill that might be a debuff on the enemies or a status effect but you know when it's you know a really tough enemy or a boss fight. The final boss etc. You're not gonna be able to use those things on them. So what's the point you can only use them on the enemies. You don't need them and Lisa The Painful is not like that. Ah you can use most of these on most characters. They all have their own resistances and things like that. But

52:55.96
Dave
There's a secret like Mega boss that I fought in here and I was able to use status effects on them and I would not have won straight up without using those status effects so shout out to the emphasis. It's ah it's a nice anecdote that the ah the developer is a. Someone who doesn't like the genre because it seems like they fixed a lot of the things they probably don't like about some of the other games here. So It ends up being a super strategic combat system and that is also important because it's a tough combat System. You really have to be on like with your skills and your status effects because I don't know if the average enemy is probably not going to party wipe you but you can get some nasty status effects from them. They might kill character items, especially ones that like revive characters and healing items are pretty scarce. So You really have to be on top of things and if you get hurt too badly. The only way to reliably heal up the whole party is to rest and a lot of the places you can rest are very unsafe to do so so it all goes back to being very mindful about what you do in Combat. And I Love it So much.

54:17.94
Rick
Exactly so this is a game of balancing risk and reward even if those ah random encounters or those guys that ambush you which like going back to the dark souls thing like the humor of dark souls. You'll see an item you'll walk 2 steps to pick it up and a guy wearing it. Literally nothing but a football helmet will just dive bomb you and suddenly you're in a fight. Um, ah, but you know he might not wipe your whole party. But if he knows one of your guys. Suddenly you've got one man down and what are you going to do like resources in this game are not plentiful.

54:34.39
Dave
Um, yep.

54:51.96
Rick
This is not a game of collect and hoard the gill and elixir you can't do that. Um, and to your point Dave he fixed Jorgensen fixed a lot of the things about jrpgs that maybe give them a in my opinion unfair reputation of being kind of mindless. Once you get it. You know, halfway through the game you can't do that here. You always have to be weighing. What is the risk versus reward should I rest here? Yes, no should I use my last revive item if I don't know what's coming up. There might be more random battles, might be a boss I don't know and.

55:24.51
Dave
Yeah.

55:30.45
Rick
I Mean that's great I'm with you I I love it I Love that it's asking me to be really considerate and careful.

55:36.90
Dave
Yeah, hundred percent and one of the other things that makes you be really considerate and careful about basically everything you do is this game has a lot of. I'm going to phrase it as antagonistic mechanics towards somebody who wants an easy ride. There are risks associated with certain things that you do and then there are some things that are just straight up like a fuck you to the player from time to time. Some of these things just to go through them quickly and then get our thoughts I mentioned in the story section that Brad is an addict. There's a drug called Joy that he's addicted to. There are other characters that are Joy addicts and if you don't give them joy. They'll go through withdrawals. And withdrawals will really. It's like a super debuff on the character reduces their stats and it makes it so that they can't do some of their moves in combat you can remove that by giving them Joy which is actually a massive buff but there is a story reason. Why you may not want to do that. So there's that there's the ins and death falls. We talked about before this is not a game where you can save anywhere. There are set save points. So if it's been 10 minutes since you saved and you fall to your death. You gotta start back from that time you saved there.

57:07.21
Dave
Moves that enemies can do not all enemies but like bosses can do and story events that will permanently kill characters. This is a game that has permanent death in it now. It can't happen to Brad but it can happen to your other party members. So I don't know. This is something that I think is pretty divisive out there. I Want to get your thoughts on the permit kill stuff. But also maybe like the Joy addiction mechanic too.

57:38.35
Rick
Ok, um, so it's a lot to break down. I think my global feelings about it is this : if Jorgensen created this such that it wasn't this antagonistic and hostile towards you it would be thematically bereft.

57:40.77
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

57:56.33
Rick
Why is Brad a middle aged alcoholic who is also addicted to joy? Why would he not get withdrawals? Why would he not or why would he be in physical peak form right? This whole area is extremely hostile. Why would you be safe sleeping outside? Every single time it doesn't make a lick of sense. Um, the there is 1 moment in the game literally one that I think is an objective fuck you to the player that I I like it but I also hate it. Um, but yeah.

58:26.56
Dave
Yeah, ah I think I like it because I got lucky I'll say that.

58:34.78
Rick
Yeah, that is the one area where I'm like yeah dude like save scum like just do it. It's fine. But if you know the insta death ah perma death was something where at first I was really not feeling but they give you upwards of 30 recruitable characters. So you're never.

58:52.94
Dave
Um.

58:54.50
Rick
It would be astonishingly unlucky if you lost so many people that you were just really boned by the end.

59:06.63
Dave
Yeah I agree with you basically on all fronts there. Um, this game can seem like it wants you to fail. But there are things that offset it like you said like you might have characters get perma killed but you'll pick up. Like 3 more characters in the next town like if you're exploring around. Well we'll say but you get enough characters to offset that if you're someone who doesn't want anyone to die and you reset in fire emblem when somebody dies. Then yeah, you're not going to like it because it's probably going to happen. But. I don't know, I think that it does reinforce the setting of the game in a way that is additive to it all kind of like you said it's a dangerous place, bad things happen to basically everybody why would everything be perfectly fine for Brad and the traveling party. Just because you're you know your video game protagonist or something like that sleeping outside is something that ah you mentioned I mentioned earlier that you can rest to regain your health. The only safe place to do that is in very infrequent ins or some other places you might unlock. A lot of times you'll find campfires though and you're free to sleep there but something bad might happen in the night someone might Rob your stuff someone might kidnap 1 of your party members 1 of your party members might just leave. They might say okay well you know we've had our fun I'm out and they're gone. So it's.

01:00:35.35
Dave
Discouraging you from doing something that wouldn't make sense for the characters to be doing in a way that I thought helped the story and we'll talk about it in the spoiler section but some of these other things that happen that might seem player Antagonistic Reinforce Brad's story and the story of everybody else in the world too. So I'm with you. I think this is good even if it doesn't feel good when a character gets perma killed.

01:01:01.66
Rick
Dave you left off the worst thing that can happen to you when you rested a campfire. No, no, no, that's one of the best things no dave the worst thing that can happen to you man in the middle of the night right? as you're waking up.

01:01:07.41
Dave
Nern might talk to you but okay.

01:01:18.27
Rick
Some guys standing over you cheeks to cheeks if you will and lets out a big fat fart on your face. Oh really? yeah dude you wake up and there's just a dude that's standing over you and you just hear like a little poot and then he just runs away nothing bad happens at all. It's just.

01:01:22.62
Dave
Oh that never happened to me. Yeah.

01:01:36.58
Dave
Ah.

01:01:38.30
Rick
It's just one of those really silly things.

01:01:39.64
Dave
That is one time I woke up from resting when a guy with a baseball bat just hit Brad in the face and he lost permanent stat points because of that so that was fun, but it's funny. Both of us laugh when we say that. So.

01:01:50.89
Rick
Ah, it's so yeah, even I mean the game expects you to lose stat points. So like you're you're going to be fine. It's not a game of big numbers. I think the max level is like 25 you know and you will be.

01:02:04.99
Dave
Yeah.

01:02:09.33
Rick
Like if you're joyed out of your mind. You'll be lucky to be hitting 2000 damage so it's not. It's not a game of like Humongo Bingo numbers

01:02:15.91
Dave
Yeah, and I made some story choices also that permanently debuffed my character in a huge way and I still had relatively little trouble getting through the game like it's a game of strategy in combat and making wise use of your skills rather than. Like you said, leveling up and getting higher numbers.

01:02:40.69
Rick
We should say though you can do that if you want to like this game. You're not intended to grind because there are very few random encounters but there is like ah there's ah this not really a spoiler there's because it's not story related but there's a wrestling ring that you can join.


01:02:55.52
Rick
And if you fight in there, you can get experience and if you lose you don't get a game over. It's perfectly safe. All you have to lose is time and I guess dignity. But I mean you can if you want to just level up until everybody's max level and breeze through the game. But I mean.

01:03:04.70
Dave
Um, yeah.

01:03:14.62
Rick
I don't think that's fun to do in any jrpg personally.

01:03:16.42
Dave
Now I don't do that either and I think that that wrestling ring is there because you get so many characters you might need to train them up a little bit before they're ready for the big time so they give you a chance to do that. Because you're right like there's I don't know maybe 3 places that have random encounters in the whole game. So they give it to you and it's fun. You know, the narrative way to do that will say because. There's an obvious love for wrestling and martial arts throughout the entire game so they're just going to put a whole last wrestling place in there.

01:03:55.60
Rick
Yeah, Jorgensen is big into martial arts. He's like if you Youtube Austin Jorgensen I think one of the first things that comes up is him at a martial arts tournament performing. Ah yeah, it's pretty cool. There's like a macho man here. Hulk Hogan is in here. Ah.

01:04:11.40
Rick
Rick Flair I'm pretty sure is in here ah various other respected martial arts like the power rangers.

01:04:15.35
Dave
Um, right? Yeah yeah, So yeah, from a gameplay perspective I was very very satisfied by this game from a tactical standpoint from a difficulty standpoint. And then from a way that this gameplay ties into the story in lots of other ways that we didn't mention but it is I think it all combines into a full product devoted to its setting in a way that is really Good. So I'm happy with this.

01:04:50.44
Rick
Yeah, it's really terrific. It's mechanically crunchy, um, way more than you would expect if you just watch like dunkey's video or just see some of the funny moments. It's really satisfying and with 30 party members or so you can make builds. Even if you're losing guys. It's really rewarding.

01:05:09.87
Dave
Yeah, um, would you say that for anyone listening who might be kind of curious? Would you say that most of those 30 party members that you can get because I assume you've seen and used way more of them than I did. Would you say that they're all pretty much viable.

01:05:26.75
Rick
Ah, that's a loaded question. Um I mean you have to take into consideration a non negligible number of them are Joy addicts so you would need to keep up with that whether you want to.

01:05:27.23
Dave
Ah.

01:05:35.20
Dave
Right.

01:05:41.18
Rick
Ah, Joy withdrawal will go away after a certain number of moves in combat. The problem is if you do a regular attack in combat while withdrawal withdrawn you do zero damage so you have to resort to using your specials which takes away SP ah and even then they're going to be reduced. So I think it's like 20 moves in battle or something or you could take a chance at resting in a campfire or something. Ah so that is something to keep in mind and some characters to be honest, kind of just aren't as useful as the rest. Um I mean that's something to keep in mind too I suppose but I mean again, 30.

01:06:01.68
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:06:19.70
Rick
30 or so dudes you're going to be okay.

01:06:23.55
Dave
You just reminded me of something that I forgot to mention and that there's 2 kinds of magic points or skill points in this game and one of them is the traditional like the character has. You know, 500 magic points and if you use skills that decrease until you heal them until they run out. There's another type though where a character will start with a set number every combat and you can increase it by using skills or in some cases like giving them alcohol or something like that and then it will decrease as they use skills. Will also increase if you just do regular attacks and I thought this was a nice system to to always be like managing that resource for them to use their good attacks and I use 2 characters that worked on this system. Um, and I had a really good time with it. The tp system.

01:07:16.87
Rick
Yeah, yeah, and it's cool too because alcohol in this game serves as both a buff and debuff. You know when you're drunk. You have a higher crit rate. Ah but I think your accuracy is lower. Um I actually don't think it's as big of a buff as maybe maybe it's meant to be.

01:07:30.90
Dave
Easy.

01:07:32.84
Rick
But you also will get hungover afterwards too which is its own downside. Ah the nice thing about Tp is it resets and I'm sorry if you mentioned this it resets back to base level after every single match. So if you hoard it it's going to go back to normal if you ah use it all. It's going to go back to normal. It's a.

01:07:52.00
Rick
You know it's very profound Dave everything returns to normalcy. You know it's a message. Everything's a message man.

01:07:55.92
Dave
That's right Yeah, all right? So ah, the message that I will give is that I would like to listen to music. Ah, 1 more time we'll come back. We'll do our wrap up thoughts and then we will get into that spoiler section. Soon enough. Okay, so to kick off this kind of wrap up section here. We answer the question that we always do. It's obvious Rick that overall you have a qualified recommendation for Lisa The Painful but what kind of person gamer if you will. Would this game appeal to you ?

01:08:34.92
Rick
Well I think first and foremost you have to know about the subject matter before going in. Um that's just I don't think that will do any good to be shocked by that. Um, however, if that is something that you can digest this is for.

01:08:37.60
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:08:52.62
Rick
For folks who like turn based combat who like strategy combat maybe who are a little disenchanted with the jrpgs that are just Mac Mash x to attack if you like earthbound you're probably going to like this.

01:09:11.39
Dave
Yeah I said in the elevator pitch that this is earthbounds evil twin or evil grandson or something like that and I think I stand by that because. 1 of the messages of earthbound and mother 3 in that series is one of the themes is love and togetherness and support and things like that and that's not what this game is about it's about the opposite things. It's about the bleak side of humanity. Ah, in a lot of cases. So I agree with you that first and foremost you have to be up for that. You have to be up for the game to explore again. No punches pulled those subjects suicide abuse addiction things like that. Ah, if you are up for it then I do think this is a super interesting game. There's a lot of interesting things to talk about. We'll get into the spoiler section with the premise of again the last woman on earth and Brad's journey to try and save her I really enjoyed. Process of playing the game and it's super helped by the fact that it is like you said a mechanically really crunchy satisfying game which I every time I play one of these rpgs like this that you know has no business being as deep and strategic as it is but it is.

01:10:40.96
Dave
I kind of lose patience for those that don't try to build it out this way. So I really like this as a play experience again. There's some things in the spoiler section that I'm going to need to bounce around before I like to land one direction or another with how it handles some of these things. But. That's what these discussions are for. So for now I'll echo that qualified recommendation that if what we've talked about so far sounds interesting to you if you want that crunchy combat and if you want a legitimately very very funny game then Lisa The Painful is a good one to check out. So. Before we get into spoilers. We as always will do the plugs. So Rick I want you to as is customary. Please tell people about pixel project radio what kind of show it is and what people can expect, maybe an episode they can start with.

01:11:34.82
Rick
Sure so ah, pixel project radio is not dissimilar to tales from the backlog I would be willing to bet if you like 1 whether it's Dave show or mine you will probably like the other I think the biggest difference between the two is I like to do roughly once a month ah sometimes more sometimes less ah straight up beat by beat plot synopsis. Wherein. We go through like we are at an actual book club. Um, which by the way I've never been a part of and that bums me out like a lot the only book club that I was ever invited to is that.

01:12:04.30
Dave
Um, yeah, it sounds fun. Yeah.

01:12:11.00
Rick
Worst job I've ever had and they were reading like rich dad poor dad and I was like oh no thank you? But um, anyways, you know we do something like that once a month to really get into the narrative. Um I am somebody that really puts story and narrative above most other things in games. The big exception being fighting games. Um.

01:12:30.81
Rick
But it's a lot of fun. Ah we have rotating guests ah mainly a similar cast of rotating guests. Dave is a regular on the show if you're looking for an episode with Dave. Oh. Ah, Dave cut this out please. But I'm blanking. I don't want to say Tony Hawk because I want to give you something better than that and I'm totally blanking near replicant there. We got an okay end cut.

01:12:53.47
Dave
Ah, we did chrono trigger and near replicant. Yeah.

01:13:01.51
Rick
If you're looking for something with Dave to check out on my show we did near replicant. We did that in 2 parts. That's something that I do a lot on the show so we don't have to rush through a story that is near replicant with Dave. It was a really really terrific series if you are looking for something ah that is more just one and done kind of episode. Night in the woods is one that I tend to recommend a lot. It is somewhat earlier but I'm still really proud of that one ah celeste by the time this one comes out this episode comes out our episode on celeste will be out I thought that was a lot of fun too. It's one of my favorite games and Lisa The Painful. You know if you like this game we did an early episode as Dave mentioned about an hour ago on Lisa The Painful and ah begrudgingly I re-listen to it and I I think it I don't like listening to myself. But I think it holds up. Um the guest Charlie Young who's been on this show before is. 1 of 1 of my longtime really really good friends. Ah so much smarter than me that it makes me both sick and inspired sometimes um, which I'm sure he will deny if you ask him, but he's ah he's a great dude. So i. Yeah yeah, those are great for you to check out if you would like you to do that.

01:14:02.80
Dave
Okay.

01:14:14.99
Rick
Basically wherever you get your podcasts unless you are on the Google Podcast Train RIP google podcasts

01:14:23.25
Dave
That's right RAP and piece. Yeah, shout out to Charlie, Charlie's incredible so if you want to listen to more content about Lisa and you want a different guest with a different voice and probably you know a somewhat different conversation.

01:14:27.19
Rick
Um, yes.

01:14:41.40
Dave
Go check out the podcast over on pixel project radio and I do want to shout out the long multi-part series that you do over there specifically final fantasy 6 and final fantasy 9 Both got like 4 or 5 part series on the podcast really giving. All of the story time to breathe and discussion about ah you know, individual moments and things like that which we don't go through in that fine of detail on this show, especially not like the beat by beat plot breakdown. So I will. Give ah a hardy recommendation for everybody to go check out pixel project radio as I always do. There's a reason Rick's one of the most common guests on the podcast here is because I like what he's doing. So yeah, go check it out. You'll find links to pixel project radio down in the show notes.

01:15:24.83
Rick
Geez.

01:15:31.50
Dave
And ah for this podcast I'll try to keep it short and sweet, leaving ratings and reviews is really helpful for podcasts if people search for leasts of The Painful. If you leave a 5 star rating, maybe write a review that will help boost this episode in the algorithm. So people can find it. That's what we want. You can listen to my other podcast called a top 3 podcast where we do top 3 lists and we do drafts. It's a comedy show. I think it's a good time. You can join the discord server for the podcast if you played Lisa The Painful and you want to talk about the story with me and with Rick and with lots of other smart people. You can jump in the discord server. We would love to have you in there and last but not least if you want to support monetarily. It's at patreon.com/real Dave Jackson for a minimum of $2 per month you can vote in what games I do on the show you get some bonus episodes and a bunch of other treats. So. With all that being said, we're going to take a break and when we come back. It's full spoiler time for Lisa The Painful. 

01:20:30.70
Dave
All right? We're back and it is full spoiler time for Lisa The Painful as usual on this ah podcast. We're not going to just do a chronological runthrough of the story so late game spoilers might be coming soon so please leave if you don't want to be spoiled for anything about this game. Also want to reiterate. We're going to talk about maybe some stuff from Lisa the first and Lisa The Joyful even though I didn't play them. It's very relevant to characters and events in this game too. So we might talk about those and again. Please heed the content warnings that I talked about earlier in the episode talking about sexual abuse child abuse addiction suicide and things like that. So with that out of the way. Um I wanted to start the spoiler section here because the first half of the game after Buddy.

01:21:24.34
Dave
Leaves and before you find Buddy most of what you're doing. There's not a lot of big strong plot that happens during that section. A lot of what you're doing is meeting characters gathering up party members and then some memorable things happen along the way too. So I wanted to just talk a little bit about it.

01:21:43.14
Dave
Some of our favorite characters. So Rick I'll turn it over to you first? Um, who's a character that you would like to shout out as a party member?

01:21:52.66
Rick
Oh man, there are so many um I you know you've got to shout out Terry hints the terror bear he is the first one that you meet and it's where the game sets up its humor. You know you see him in a tree and there's just this little tiny little dog just this like.

01:22:00.91
Dave
Yep.

01:22:10.70
Rick
Practically a puppy and he's like oh hey I tore my h string getting up this tree because this ferocious beast is chasing me ah and that that sort of sets the tone Terry is also the to the lord of the tutorial ah Terry hints.

01:22:25.22
Rick
This name is what I meant when I said they take a cheeky aspect and a cheeky approach excuse me to tutorializing in that. Oh no, that was intentional. That's a you don't have to apologize I'm a perfectly grunt man. Ah.

01:22:31.61
Dave
Yeah, a cheeky aspect. Sorry sorry for interrupting. But yeah, ah.

01:22:43.60
Rick
But Terry will leave all of these hints around little posters that you can read and it'll just say like yeah, don't don't forget to save it crows. You never know when you might need someone watching your back and he signs it off differently every time like Terry hints the terrorists terror bear sweet terry wine and that never got old for me personally.

01:23:00.21
Dave
Ah, yeah.

01:23:02.35
Rick
Ah, Terry Terry also serves a useful tutorial in that when you first get him he is awful. He cannot do damage so you have to rely on his buffs and debuffs. That is the game teaching you by force, kind of, that buffs and debuffs are important. So I love Terry hints.

01:23:13.27
Dave
Um, yeah.

01:23:20.77
Dave
Yeah.

01:23:20.80
Rick
Um, we're going to talk about Nern. I'm sure Nern is great. Harvey Alabaster the fish lawyer is really really cool. Ah ah, Beastborn is a party member that I liked using a lot. There's not really much to him. But I think he's pretty cool ah Dick Dickson

01:23:40.20
Rick
Who is the pink Pink Salvation Ranger He's pretty sweet and ah you know I think the rest of these will probably talk about So I think that's all for me for shoutouts.

01:23:52.77
Dave
Right? on? Yeah um, Terry Terry also tutorializes that bad things can happen to your characters because you get a story moment early in the game where you're asked to sacrifice Terry or I think it's lose your money maybe and.

01:24:08.40
Rick
It loses everything in your inventory.

01:24:09.87
Dave
Lose everything? Okay so I sacrificed Terry at the beginning because I was scared I was scared by how seemingly difficult the game was at the beginning and I was like I can't lose my money and my three things that I have in my inventory I need those. So. Yeah I sacrificed Terry and he comes back later in the game right.

01:24:30.29
Rick
Yes, ah and and by the way like this game makes that a meaningful choice too like a character's life versus your resources that has some weight behind it. Ah yes, if you sacrifice Terry he comes back as a member of Rando's army later on and you have to fight him and.

01:24:36.13
Dave
Yeah.

01:24:46.71
Rick
He is strong when you fight him again.

01:24:46.97
Dave
So if he stays in your party does. He eventually gets to be really strong.

01:24:52.13
Rick
Oh yeah, yeah, he's got some of the best moves in the game.

01:24:57.34
Dave
Nice I like that he's a magic carp. Yeah, um, okay, let's talk about Nern. Let's not beat around the Bush too much so Nern is extremely chatty.

01:24:59.21
Rick
Yeah, he's a late bloomer.

01:25:13.74
Dave
He has a lot to say and I think I mentioned this earlier but like you can't just talk to your party members whenever you want it will only happen in certain moments when you actually get a chance to talk to them. But when you first meet Nern he tells you the longest fucking story ever. Ah, about his sweet wife which then turns into his battleaxe of a wife which turns into his like you know devil of a wife and then his you know god rest her soul, my late wife. Um, and.

01:25:41.68
Rick
He goes on this story about how she brought potato salad to a barbecue and how he was so embarrassed and the next words out of his mouth are so my dumb potato bitch Wife God Rest her soul. It's just man. It's.

01:25:46.13
Dave
Yeah.

01:25:58.85
Rick
It's so good. It's so deadpan and so ridiculous I Love Nern I Really do.

01:26:02.12
Dave
Yeah, that story. He is a real Abe Simpson. We put onions on our belt type of story like just a meandering story that goes almost nowhere but then he joins your party. He kind of likes it. When he's done telling the story. He doesn't join your party right away but he just kind of creeps and follows you and then eventually he's like all right I'll join the party and then he comes egos with you. Um, his campfire scene which by the way is one of only maybe 3 or 4 that I saw. Um. His campfire scene was legitimately one of the funniest moments in the whole game for me because he does it again. He goes on this long ass story and keeps talking about I can't remember exactly what he talks about in the campfire scene but it's a lot of text and then. After minutes of clicking through this story and Brad is like very obviously he puts his head down like he's maybe not. He might be even asleep and then Nern leans down like real close to him and he's like I'd appreciate it if you respected my time a little bit going forward. And it's just really good.

01:27:20.29
Rick
Yeah I can't believe ah you know we mentioned the Retro Hangover server I Can't believe that so many people hated this moment I thought it was absolutely hysterical, especially when he's when he's like you know.

01:27:29.49
Dave
Yeah I don't get it. Yep.

01:27:35.21
Rick
We've been talking a while. I'd appreciate it if you respected my time moving forward like that is so funny.

01:27:38.21
Dave
Yeah, ah like Brad Brad doesn't really talk a whole lot to people he will but um, during this exchange. It's like 95% nurn. So and then yeah that whole like. Man like this has taken a long time like really can you just can you keep it short for once. So I love that um I have Nern in my party. The entire game I ran through basically the whole game with Nern Olan and mad dog. That's the other one.

01:28:12.63
Rick
Yeah.

01:28:13.85
Dave
That was my party after the Russian roulette scen.

01:28:20.97
Rick
Um, I ah I was taking guitar lessons from this really kind of sketchy guy in middle school and ah he gave me a pair of these like awful sunglasses and started calling me mad dog for the rest of the time I took lessons from him. It was the weirdest thing. Ah.

01:28:30.39
Dave
Um, okay.

01:28:38.36
Rick
Um, yeah, Nern Nern is really serviceable the entire time. Um, you mentioned the campfire scenes it should be noted that like a lot of them are funny like Nern’s is straight up just funny Queen another character Queen Rogers his is very funny but also has a lot of heart to it. Um.

01:28:51.00
Dave
Yeah, yes, it does.

01:28:58.21
Rick
He's a great example of how this game handles sexuality in a great way. Um, but there are ones that are actually sad. Ah you mentioned Olan did you get his campfire scene so he has to the first one you know Olin's an alcoholic.

01:29:07.86
Dave
I Can't remember.

01:29:15.73
Dave
Yeah.

01:29:17.34
Rick
Ah, he is ah he has the TP gauge. He just has to buy him a drink to recruit Him. He's an alcoholic and during the first campfire scene Brad gives him Joy and he's like here. Try this, You know this is better than alcohol. It. It makes you feel nothing. Ah, because that's what the drug Joy does. It makes you feel nothing and Olin tries it and the next time you talk to Him. He's like going on about how like you know his wife left him and like his kids left him and his life is a mess but you don't it doesn't matter because that's all in the past.

01:29:36.00
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:29:50.85
Rick
And there's a moment at the end where you where he says something to the fact like booze like I don't even do that much anymore you turn me onto these remember and you you get him addicted to Joy you active and something that we didn't mention and Dave you can bleep this if you want to reveal it later. Ah. Joy addiction comes at a very deadly cost mutating you into a monster. Ah one of the key monsters in this game so you have doomed olin by getting him hooked on this and the campfire scene ends with like Brad goes to sleep and olin sheds a tear and when you wake up his hat. Is there. He leaves you.

01:30:11.50
Dave
Yeah.

01:30:27.19
Dave
Oh okay.

01:30:29.75
Rick
And if you backtracked to the bar where you found him. He's on the roof as a Joy Mutant yeah.

01:30:33.26
Dave
Oh shit. Okay yeah I definitely didn't get this. That's why I was like I don't think so yeah I definitely didn't see this o.

01:30:44.00
Rick
It's really sad and there there can be like um campfire scenes that don't even involve Brad like I got one with Crisp LeDaddy, Rooster Cox and somebody else and they were literally just talking about how shitty of a person Brad is and about how he sees all of the party as pawns.

01:30:56.53
Dave
Yeah.

01:31:01.57
Rick
He doesn't care. He's a monster. Um, he's going to get what he deserves one day. These campfire scenes are only in the definitive edition and they greatly enhance the character Lore and world building. They are so good.

01:31:13.35
Dave
Wow. Wow! That's ah, that's interesting I didn't know they're just in the definitive edition there. Yeah I kind of can't imagine putting any sort of relationship between Brad and the characters together without these. These play such a huge role in that and I was just going to say. Ah, even the ones that are funny show you how little Brad thinks of the people in the party like he's never friendly or supportive with anybody really.

01:31:32.57
Rick
Um, yeah.

01:31:45.99
Dave
Any warmth or humor or anything is all coming from the other characters like a lot of the times he just lays down and ignores them.

01:31:56.24
Rick
Yeah, and I think that comes from his past. Um, so this is Lisa the first spoilers straight up so skip ahead by like a minute if you don't hear it but the premise of Lisa The Painful Lisa is I mean excuse me Lisa the first Lisa is Brad's little sister.

01:32:03.40
Dave
Yeah.

01:32:13.95
Rick
Ah, they lived together with their dad Marty Marty was sexually and physically abusive with Lisa and drove her to take her own life. Brad feels responsible because he was complicit in it. He knew about it but he didn't he wasn't able to stop it so that is Brad's entire impetus. It is his.

01:32:27.67
Dave
Um, yeah.

01:32:32.61
Rick
Ah, reason for existence. Ah, he wants to redeem himself and that that is really important whenever we talk about his relationship with Buddy.

01:32:35.10
Dave
Yeah.

01:32:41.49
Dave
Right? And I thought because there's parts when you go through the game and you will see Lisa and I thought that was Buddy for a long time because they look somewhat similar. Um, but there's a lot of times where you see Lisa or maybe many copies of Lisa in. You know a screen that you go on and once I kind of read a little bit about that or maybe asked in Discord I can't remember probably asked in Discord I don't do a lot of reading you know Um, once I figured that out the story kind of started to make a lot more sense because I knew that Marty abused. Brad but 1 of the big questions that I you know glad we didn't talk about until now is like okay we have Brad and Buddy who the fuck is Lisa the game is called Lisa it's his sister that yeah, killed herself because of the abuse that she endured in that first game.

01:33:35.40
Rick
Yeah, it's extraordinarily tragic and it's referenced all throughout this game with Buzzo in particular. I know I know you wanted to talk about him later. So I'll hold off but Lisa and Buzzo were very much intertwined.

01:33:40.37
Dave
Um, she is.

01:33:50.00
Dave
Okay, all right, got you? Um so I want to talk about that queen campfire scene and queen as a character and the way that you meet Queen because I thought this was a really good character and a really nice one.

01:34:06.68
Dave
Way of ah this game looking at both sex work and masculinity together in you know, different interactions that you have there I thought this was really good so you meet Queen Queen runs a brothel There's again, no women in the world. So it's all men dressed as women. Um, but Brad has to work in the brothel. I don't know if you actually have to do this part or not. Um, ah brad works in the brothel but a lot of what he has to do is just you know people come in and they just need a hug or they just need someone to be nice to them. For a short amount of time I thought that this was really soft and in a good way. Soft and tender is a better word for this kind of thing in this world because so much of the world is just this. Hyper masculine. You know like you said dudes bench pressing dressers but also dudes doing the most horrific things possible and then they go to this place and some of them just need a hug and they need to feel supported and loved for once and I thought. This part was really really good and that's not even talking about the campfire scene with the queen later.

01:35:27.78
Rick
Right? This is another example of how this game handles toxic masculinity extremely well because that's not just about being terrible to women. It's how this notion of masculinity prevents men from being healthy to themselves. Um, and.

01:35:39.25
Dave
Yeah.

01:35:42.80
Rick
You know I know there was a time a couple months ago on Twitter where like male loneliness was being totally lampooned by frankly bad faith actors on Twitter saying like you know oh it's men so we don't have to feel bad for them which is ridiculous if you ask me, but you know male loneliness has been an issue for a long time. And that's exactly what this is getting in touch with, like these men don't want to clap cheeks you know and they don't want to explore their basic desires. They just want to feel seen and feel comforted and that goes into the campfire scene. 100% ah, it's so funny too because like the first words queen Roger says he's ah you know somebody's harassing his workers saying like oh you're just a bunch of fat bald guys and Queen Roger comes out with this huge like Dolly Parton ass ah wig on.

01:36:34.14
Dave
Yeah, kind of.

01:36:36.73
Rick
And he goes you messing with my queers fat boy and for a second you're like oh how is this going to go ah and turns out Roger is the most badass and like in touch with his emotions character in the entire game he kicks the shit out of the guy. He's like you know, just because I wear panties doesn't mean my balls disappeared. It's like he's great.

01:36:39.62
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:36:46.49
Dave
Um, yeah, yeah.

01:36:56.52
Rick
Ah, and he's such an excellent example of you know how we can combat toxic masculinity within ourselves as men. It's great. I Really appreciated everything about it and it's also really funny because he tells Brad he's got nice big bitch tits.

01:37:16.41
Dave
Yeah, he does so in that campfire scene they kind of talk about it ah whereas in the scene at the brothel you kind of play through the events and then Queen gives brad a talk about. How are all the men in the world? They have their bravado and their masculinity on display and talk about how that's all bullshit and what really matters is quite a good hug. That's what matters and this game doesn't have a lot of heartfelt moments but this was very heartfelt and very good. Moment here because it really shows you number one that ah, that's what this character is about but that there are people like this in the world still like it's not just this you know masculine hell scape and then like you said at the end of that campfire scene. Queen says good luck Brad, don't stop rocking those wonderful man tits and then that's how it ends.

01:38:12.66
Rick
It's one of the very few scenes that inspire hope in this entire game. This game is almost a bereft of hope. This is ah a deleterious world to live in but we get something here that almost makes you want to shed a tear.

01:38:16.67
Dave
Yep.

01:38:27.18
Dave
Yeah, um, and I'm glad that this was here because there was an earlier scene with a a brothel type environment in the hair club that I thought was terrible I hated the part in the hair club with fardy. Yeah, fardy who is quote stripped of his masculinity and it's that patent oswalt joke who wants to fuck the sad boy. Um, and I you know for the record I Think that's a funny joke. But I I came across this and I was like oh okay, that's you know this is the other side of.

01:39:01.13
Dave
This type of situation and I did not like that 1 bit even though I realized like yeah I think realistically about the situation like people have sexual urges and stuff like they're probably going to do bad things just to the people around them but I didn't like that but that I was heartened to see the scene with. With Queen the multiple scenes with the queen later on.

01:39:24.38
Rick
I am so I don't know that joke so forgive me if I'm just explaining it. Um, what I took this to be as ah, the running joke in this game is that everybody's after Buddy because they quote want a piece of that but they always comment on how ugly she is and.

01:39:34.74
Dave
Right? right? right? right.

01:39:40.35
Rick
They're serving as a contrast to people like Brad and like Roger right? They're the awful side of masculinity. Ah, and they think Fardy is the girl because he's ugly and he's got a mustache. If I just explained the sad boy joke I apologize but ah.

01:39:49.82
Dave
Yeah.

01:39:57.73
Dave
No, it's if it's different. It's just a you know I don't want to explain a standup joke because I don't remember it perfectly beat for beat. But it did remind me of that bit if anyone knows Patton Oswalt's bit. But yeah, you're right like.

01:39:59.83
Rick
You can cut it if you want.

01:40:16.11
Dave
A lot of what you're doing plot wise early in the game is you hear about this place where they've captured a girl and everyone's having a turn and then you go there and it's not Buddy. It's fardy who's been Captured. He's just a truck driver and I didn't know there was one. I Don't know why like this part the callousness of this part bothered me but it did then there's many other callous things that happened later on that I thought were quite Good. So.

01:40:52.69
Rick
I'm all good. You can ah you can keep going if you'd like.

01:40:53.20
Dave
Okay, so were there any other characters or maybe campfire scenes or anything like that that you wanted to shout out before we kind of dive into. What happens after you find Buddy?

01:41:15.30
Rick
Um I think those are most of the campfire scenes um that I experienced Nerns and Olan's and then the group scene that I saw there was maybe 1 or 2 others but they don't they didn't really stand out to me. There's one with a Bo Wyatt who is he's just by himself. Brad's not there. And he's ah playing his guitar. Ah what happened with Bo Wyatt is his brother Henry turned into a Joy mutant which is how you recruit beau you have to kill his brother Henry and get the record that he was holding onto you bring it back to beau and he's like my brother and I used to listen to this for years like maybe if I go with you I can find him.

01:41:45.66
Dave
Right?

01:41:51.30
Rick
And his campfire scene is him just playing guitar messing up and he's like I could never do it as good as you and he's talking about how much he just misses them and he hates this world and he just never wanted any of this. He doesn't like fighting ah which is appropriate because he's the bard like he can't do damage. Um, it's really. Really touching scene.

01:42:12.35
Dave
Nice I think I missed that either miss that character or never use them. Um I'm glad that characters that are not in your active party can have campfire scenes otherwise I wouldn't have seen Queens but um. I didn't rest at those campfires very often. So I missed the chance for a lot of those. So Um I.

01:42:34.70
Rick
A pro tip if you're playing is that the campfire scenes I'm almost certain they will only play if the dialogue begins with ah something like oh these embers are still warm I think I think.

01:42:43.18
Dave
Oh okay, good to know.

01:42:50.95
Dave
Right? on? Um, there are a couple I guess other just notable story things that I don't know where else they fit because once we start talking about Brad and Buddy. They're definitely not going to fit but I enjoyed the part with Wally’s the fast food place with the reverent. You know church music playing like a choir and shit I love that scene. Um, they go and they're presented like they're going to go speak to god basically at this fast food box and I kind of got this ah impression like. He's going to go up there and there's going to be a voice on the other end like the wizard of oz or something like that pretending to be god now. He just goes up and places an order for you know a burger and fries and then they leave and they're happy.

01:43:38.44
Rick
It's so good and ah you know it's not quite as funny whenever you find out what exactly is going on up there with Wally but it's great. You like dear Lord I would like a double bake and cheeseburger combo. No cheese.

01:43:43.50
Dave
Yeah.

01:43:54.97
Dave
Ah, yeah, yeah, that was really enhanced by the graphics in there like there's these beautiful beams of light coming down and the music is great. So that scene was super memorable and um.

01:43:55.27
Rick
And some nuggies amen.

01:44:11.40
Dave
Thought Satan was really funny in this game, like this game's depiction of satan. It's just this big fucking guy with a you know like a mullet and a beard and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. No shirt. I thought that was really good. Is he?

01:44:24.89
Rick
So he's a streamer. Yeah I think it was like a kickstarter thing. Um but his real name is Mike and I forget his streamer id he used to be a let's player I don't think he does that anymore. But yeah, he's like.

01:44:29.32
Dave
Oh.

01:44:40.36
Rick
An actual dude in real life. He didn't do a Reddit AMA as Mike in the game.

01:44:42.92
Dave
Okay I just thought it was really funny. I have in my notes that I thought it was funny that Satan is a guy named Mike who lives in the back of a truck.

01:44:55.64
Rick
Yeah, yeah, that and that fight is really hard I had I did that like right before the end of the game so I could just load my save file and just you know and I'm glad that I did because he let off the fight bike perma deathing Nern and Harvey Alabaster ah

01:45:08.28
Dave
Jesus yeah.

01:45:11.79
Rick
Yeah, yeah I was not having a good time.

01:45:16.46
Dave
I guess this is the time to say that I never had anybody get perma death by a boss in the entire game or a Joy Mutant or anything like that. It never happened. Um, even the first time I fought satan and I got party wiped.

01:45:24.88
Rick
Um, wow.

01:45:33.10
Dave
So I had to restart anyway, they didn't use a 1 hit kill move. Um, then the second time I fought satan I used that pissed off status effect and that worked really well. But yeah, never had anyone get like their neck broken or back breaker. Whatever those moves are called never happened.

01:45:52.22
Rick
Wow count yourself lucky um, there are only a couple of Joy mutant fights in the game that are required. Um, but if you do any of the optional ones to like get ah you know the keys to Mike's truck is an optional one um some weapons some secret locations.

01:45:52.65
Dave
Yeah.

01:46:07.80
Rick
Then you know some of those Joy mutants are just programmed to use those moves more often. So it's I mean again, it's the risk and reward you don't have to fight them. But if you choose to.

01:46:15.30
Dave
Yeah I actually think maybe some of them use those moves on Brad but they don't work if they use them on Brad So maybe I got lucky. Just yeah, lucky there.

01:46:25.70
Rick
Um, oh sure. Sure sure.

01:46:33.19
Dave
Let's do so I guess before we start talking about Buddy and Brad real quick. You get some really significant chains. Ah sorry you get some really significant story choices throughout and these are the choices that you can get. Um, to either sacrifice people or sacrifice something of yours they start out with that. You know, a fairly simple one is to sacrifice Terry or lose the three items which I know looking back on it. I shouldn't have been so precious about those items but I hope the game was harder than it actually is. So I sacrificed Terry but Buzzo keeps showing up at different points throughout the story to Torment Brad and so throughout these you have two separate choices where you can lose an arm you can lose both arms in the game. There is a. Forced russian roulette section where you can lose characters forever and there is another section later where you can sacrifice your whole party or they will cut off 1 of Buddy's nipples. So in those story choices and I know you've played the game several times but ah. I guess like the first time maybe if you can remember what you did in those.

01:47:53.10
Rick
So as far as the arm scenes go there. There are 2 of them because you got 2 arms if you can believe it? Um, the first time I'll be completely honest with you I have never spared Terry I always give him up. Ah.

01:47:54.20
Dave
Yeah, that's right? but

01:48:10.70
Rick
Um, and I know I shouldn't but that's just how I roll the second one ah is really interesting because what happens is I believe if memory serves it's ah all 3 of your party members that are with you or taking your other arm. And is that right?

01:48:30.48
Dave
It is giving up all of your items which is very late in the game. You have a ton of items that are very helpful. Ah so and I didn't know if that counted your equipment too. But it still says give up all your items or lose your other arm. The full party one is when you get the choice to give up your party or 1 of Buddy's nipples.

01:48:49.58
Rick
that's that's right that's right okay um with the second arm choice. You have 3 options: you can give up your party or excuse me. You can give up your items, you can give up your arm and there's a third choice that says why are you doing this.

01:49:01.66
Dave
Yeah.

01:49:04.23
Rick
And this goes back to Austin Jorgensen you know he is subverting expectations as far as jrpgs go jrpg players they want to see the whole story. They want to get as much lower in dialogue as possible. They want to know the lines are money they want to get their money's worth. And if you choose that what I love about it because this is exactly what would happen in real life right? If you say why are you doing this? Ah Buzzo will say like you know something antagonistic towards you I don't remember and he does both he cuts your arm off and takes all of your items and it's it's. Kind of a fuck you to the player but it's it works because we are so trained as players to seek out all the dialogue options and up to this point if you're paying attention. You know that that's going to work against you.

01:49:49.50
Dave
Yeah I Don't think this game has a lot of situations where number one you don't have a lot of dialogue choices. But when you do you don't really get extra information like this things just keep playing out, especially when Buzzo is Concerned. So. Have you ever gotten to the point where you have no arms? Okay, me too.

01:50:11.90
Rick
Oh yeah, my first full play through I I want no arms and it's really funny because ah, you can still ride your bike but you have to like using your chin to steer and you crop you climb with your mouth. It's.

01:50:19.89
Dave
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's absurd. But I thought that was really funny. Um, yeah, the the first arm choice he was going to kill mad dog and mad dog was like a fucking. Gangster in combat for me so I did not want to lose a mad dog. So I gave up the arm. Give him your whole party. That's that's a lot so Buddy had to lose the nipple and I think there's a reason why that choice is more severe than the other ones and I chose to give up the other arm. Instead of my items partly because I had a bunch of items but partly because I'm playing a video game and I wanted to see what would happen so that happened um russian roulette I lost a character named rage who is a.

01:50:58.74
Rick
Right.

01:51:08.63
Dave
Think he's an alcoholic. I think he's a football player if I remember right? Um, he died in Russian roulette. Everyone else was fine.

01:51:15.97
Rick
I yeah I so I don't remember if this was trying to get buckets or just the first time through but I allotted myself to characters to die that I knew I was like you know I'm thinking exactly like Brad which is what this game wants you to do this game wants you to.

01:51:32.26
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:51:35.90
Rick
Make these horrible decisions and ask yourself why you're doing this so I was thinking like Brad and I was like okay these 2 are expendable and they did die. But then I made it through this is the only part of the game where if somebody said this is horse shit I would say yeah okay like I you're not wrong.

01:51:51.80
Dave
It can be for sure like again I think I have a more positive outlook on it because I only lost one character and they were immediately replaced by a mad dog who is better than rage anyway. So.

01:52:07.41
Rick
Oh maybe what we? ah we neglected to say you have to win russian roulette 3 times. Yes, so that's ah.

01:52:09.69
Dave
yeah yeah I just I just got lucky they the 3 people in a road just died on the other team after I lost rage.

01:52:19.56
Rick
And then if you want to get a character named buckets you have to win 10 times so that's yeah, that's that's excessive I I saved scum that saved scum to that 100%

01:52:23.15
Dave
Okay, that's.

01:52:31.83
Dave
Yeah, so I think I heard somewhere it might have been to watch out for fireballs. I think they mentioned that you can do Russian roulette later to make money. Okay I never didn't even know that. Um, so.

01:52:44.12
Rick
Um, oh yeah.

01:52:48.61
Dave
You said that this kind of mini game or whatever forces you to think like Brad you would literally be like well this character is expendable. Let's take him to russian roulette and try and make some money.

01:52:59.26
Rick
Um, yeah, oh exactly. It's fucked up.

01:53:04.24
Dave
Yeah I think yeah, um, quick question for you because these are pretty significant choices but they don't change the story whatsoever to my knowledge. Everything will still play out exactly the same even if you choose to make the selfless choices. By giving up your arms Um, things will still play out the same. Do you like this cause any issue for you. The fact that like you sacrificed and nothing changes or is it more that yeah you sacrificed, but the things that are really really important.

01:53:41.50
Dave
That's all on Brad You don't get a say in those so it doesn't ultimately affect it. What do you think?

01:54:33.68
Rick
I don't think it bothers me because those choices exist more so to flesh out who Buzzo is and just how twisted he is and to what lengths he's willing to go.

01:54:43.36
Dave
Okay.

01:54:50.50
Rick
Um, even the choice with Buddy that you mentioned before Buzzo will say she's either getting her nipple cut off or I am killing all 3 of your party Members. You can't win if you choose your party members and have buddies' nipples cut off. He does it and he says before he does it. He says Remember. He's doing this not me and then he does it and then he gives it to you as a souvenir by the way and it's an equipable item. Um, and if you choose Buddy. Ah, he does kill your party members and he's like.

01:55:11.45
Dave
Um, yeah, yeah, it lowers all your stats. Yeah.

01:55:23.27
Rick
Wow, you really are a heartless prick aren't you or something like that is like you can't win and it's just showing you how hostile and horrible buzzo is to Brad and we don't know why for a very very long time. Um, that's really expounded upon in Joyful.

01:55:31.24
Dave
Okay.

01:55:40.30
Dave
Right? So I am going to take this opportunity to give you a quick explanation of why Buzzo is tormenting Brad like this.

01:57:36.79
Rick
So here's the deal with buzzo and this is major Joyful spoilers. Um, and part of the epilogue for ah Lisa The Painful ah buzzo was.

01:57:40.30
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:57:51.77
Rick
Saying lover is weird because the kids are young but buzzo and Lisa were dating um and the thing is that Lisa even though she is a tragic character. She is not necessarily. Wholly redeemable. She was pretty horrible to buzzo ah very manipulative and basically used him I think Jorgensen clarified on Twitter um, a lot of the lore comes from people asking him in tweets that you can find on the Lisa wiki and he'll just clarify on Twitter what he said was. She did love buzzo buzzo loved her wholly and unconditionally ah she did love buzzo but she also was very manipulative and used him and um, what ended up happening one day. Why he's called buzzo is Lisa wanted to escape Marty's sexual abuse so she got a buzz saw and what she did first was like she wanted to make buzzo prove that he would do anything for her so he had she had buzzo cut off the limb of ah I think it's a cat and he does not want to do it. And she says like you know if you loved me, you would like? Do you not want to be with me? Do you want to? Do you not want this to stop and you know he does it and then she says okay, now you have to do it to my face and he's like.

01:59:19.45
Rick
No absolutely not and she's like this is the only way he's not going to find me attractive anymore and leave me alone. I can be free of this hell just cut my face up and we will be fine and he does it and of course spoiler alert that doesn't work because of that. It's really dark but I mean sexual assault is not about attraction. It's about awful people wanting to be powerful. Um, but that is how he got the nickname buzzo ah so he feels that Brad is responsible for Lisa's death ah he sees he knows that Brad was complicit to it.

01:59:42.42
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

01:59:57.40
Rick
Um, he knows that Brad knew it was going on and that Brad didn't stop it so he's dedicating his entire life to basically tormenting Brad into getting revenge and making him realize that he is not a person that is worth redeeming. That is kind of Buzzo's whole deal.

02:00:10.99
Dave
Right? Okay, it is a lot. Yeah and like as it relates to this game The Painful if you don't play the The Joyful.

02:00:15.80
Rick
It's a lot.

02:00:27.48
Dave
And you don't know the story from the first buzzo seems like ah just a really random character that pops in to torment brad for no reason when I feel like this is one of the weakest parts of the story.

02:00:37.59
Rick
Yes.

02:00:45.59
Dave
If you just have that context from The Painful. He just shows up. He puts Brad in these impossible choices and then he leaves and that's that's basically all he does and like I'm glad that it got expanded later on but it seemed just like a really random.

02:01:05.25
Dave
Things were happening and it was never explained and I don't think that that um I don't think that that's like I don't think it's good I'll I'll just say that as like with just this context here in this game. Um, yeah. It. It just seemed really weird and then that explanation helps explain why? But yeah, it's really strange I don't know and I'm not even going to touch what is going on in Lisa the first and then with the motivations for what he did with Lisa there. But it just seems like he doesn't have anyone left to take this out on so you pick Brad um I mean Marty's still around. You go find him.

02:01:56.12
Rick
Yeah, so I agree with you. This is one area. So okay, backing up for a second Joyful was only ever conceived of because of the kickstarter. Um, it met a kickstarting goal. From what I read Originally he didn't originally want to do um The Joyful he just wanted it to wrap up there. I think there are a lot of things that are left ambiguous that work in this game. For example I think it's fine that we don't know exactly why The flash happened.

02:02:28.78
Dave
Um, yeah.

02:02:30.57
Rick
We never learn exactly why the flash we learn about Joy where that came from and why it's being used. We learn who Buddy is. We learn all of this in Joyful but not the flash and I think that's fine because there's a level of disbelief that you need to spend in fiction and when everything starts to get.

02:02:44.84
Dave
Yeah.

02:02:49.30
Rick
Be explained to the reader or the player or whatever it begins to become plotting and to plodding and too much and heavy handed persona 5 I remember feeling this way in persona five. They just kept explaining everything and you just gotta have some trust in you. Your viewers. Um, so I'm fine with them not explaining the flash but not explaining buzzo's motivations I agree with you. It is not a good choice and I'm glad that they fleshed him out because that is it. It changes the way you view him. He's no longer just ah, a psychopathic madman.

02:03:25.36
Dave
Yeah.

02:03:27.69
Rick
He is a tragic tragic figure who you know everybody in this game is a tragic figure to some extent nobody is necessarily free of sin but everybody has reason to be broken and Buzzo is no exception.

02:03:42.43
Dave
Yeah, what made it feel worse was the fact that like buzzo doesn't target Brad randomly you can tell that he knows Brad and that he hates Brad with every fiber of his being but they don't tell you any of why or what their relationship was at all just that. He claims to know who Brad really is so yeah, um, thanks for the explanation, appreciate that and a benefit to anyone listening who just played The Painful and is wondering the same thing. So um, okay. Music. So let's talk about the meat of the story, things that it touches on because again, a lot of it is just you know bits and small little story things and gathering up party members and then the story I think really kicks off when. Ah, Brad finally does catch up with Buddy and you expect a happy reunion. You expect Buddy to be maybe in danger but you expect her to be happy or at least I did to see Brad because Brad's there to rescue her. Ah you are a savior. You're a video game protagonist after all. Um, but that's not what happened Um, before you meet Buddy.

02:05:06.82
Dave
You meet some of Brad's old friends Rick and Sticky who are trying to keep Brad away from her but Brad um has this tunnel vision. He beats the fuck out of Rick and then um, you know goes on to find Buddy. In the cave Buddy doesn't want anything to do with Brad when you meet her and this was kind of surprising to me and I want to get your take on this because I think that this requires buy-in to a story that was not told to you. I think it's in The Joyful. But in The Painful again. It's not told to you. It requires a buy-in that Brad was worse than he was portrayed at the beginning of the game like at the beginning it shows Buddy clearly she wants to go out in the world. She feels trapped in the house but Brad I felt like. What they showed took care of her the best he could? Um, there is that scene where you know she he lets him put up makeup on him and you know they have a good time. He puts a mask on her so she can go outside and then you get to this point and Buddy hates his fucking guts and I think it. It's one of 2 things. And either requires buy-in that it was worse than they showed or buy-in that you're seeing it from Brad's point of view and he's unreliable. What do you think?

02:06:33.16
Rick
So it's kind of both but also a little bit of a secret third thing that that I'll clear you in on. Um, so there is 1 tiny little bit that we get clued into in The Joyful and that is um before the events of.

02:06:38.51
Dave
Okay, let's hear it. Yeah.

02:06:51.90
Rick
Buddy getting kidnapped. Um, if you remember if you go back after Buddy is kidnapped and you go into the hut. Ah, after you find Rick I think it's Rick lying dead. There's somebody else that's dead in the hut. We learned that that was Buddy probably because at the beginning of Joyful we see a flashback Brad brought. Brings back this guy who's knocked out and tied up and he's like okay Buddy here's a knife you have to kill him. He's like this is just the reality of the world. You have to kill him to make it quick. Don't let him suffer just do it and the guy wakes up and he's like what the fuck are you talking about like you don't have to do this um.

02:07:28.71
Rick
That's really the only thing but the challenge that I would give to viewers that are thinking that this is unrealistic is to consider it from Buddy's perspective. It's not so much that Brad is an unreliable narrator. He's not a narrator at all. Ah we can seek very clearly as players Brad's motivation warping. Whereas Brad would not see that he would see to the very end that he is just and good and we know that that's not the case but from Buddy's perspective all she's ever known is a war, a life without autonomy everything that she has ever done has been under Brad's supervision and his command.

02:07:49.86
Dave
Yeah.

02:08:06.47
Rick
This isn't the same as us when we were teenagers 121314 saying that? Oh we don't, we can't make our own decisions. Life isn't fair. We could still go to separate rooms. We could go outside. We could have a snack but he does not get any of that; she basically has to exist solely by how Brad tells her to. Um, so she becomes intensely resentful because of this and compiling onto that all she sees of Brad is somebody cold. He won't let her call him. He won't let her call him dad he says like I don't like that you don't get to call me that. Um. He is obviously an alcoholic and a Joy addict and throughout the events of Painful. She sees him the only time she sees him from her point of view because remember she doesn't know about Lisa or any of the backstory. She only knows Brad ah, and Brad's childhood friends who are. Telling her like hey this guy is dangerous. He is bad news and Buddy says oh he's bad news and then what does she see Brad coming in murdering people saying I'm doing this for you but to her all she sees is senseless bloodshed from somebody that is cranked out of his mind. So. I don't think it's surprising at all that she sees him as a total monster because that's what he kind of is, it's this weird gray area where like a little bit of both is true. He has just cause in the beginning and it slowly starts to lose its footing and he starts to.

02:09:42.27
Rick
Toe the line on when does the mean when do the means stop justifying the end. You know what I mean, that's kind of my view on it. I think she is well within her right to see Brad as.

02:09:49.95
Dave
Yeah.

02:10:00.72
Rick
Somebody that is completely psychotic.

02:10:04.34
Dave
Yeah I agree with you I agree that it makes sense for her to feel this way but you do have to do a bit of reading between the lines to reach that point because this is one of you know the game shows you a bunch of really. Explicit things. They want you to see but they don't show you a lot of this. A lot of it is for you to make up your mind. One of the things that struck me about this and we'll get into it when we talk about Brad's continued pursuit of Buddy after Buddy disappears after this part but.

02:10:41.90
Dave
The fact that he is maybe at the very very beginning. He was doing it to protect Buddy. But then it warps into him doing it for himself. He feels like he needs to redeem himself rather than take care of this person. This is all about him. Ah, redemption. He needs this not she needs this which I think other people could very easily pick up on and it I mean if you didn't get the buy in immediately then you would get it soon after I feel like um. The reason I asked about Brad being an unreliable narrator is because they could show you those backstory scenes from Brad's point of view basically like Brad doesn't narrate what's going on and later on you see the objective truth but in flashbacks. You could be seeing that from someone's point of view. That's what I meant there. Um, let's see I had something else. Ah, do the other thing. Um. About the part that's in The Joyful I wish that was just in this like I wish it feels like red conning to me. It feels like they got feedback that this seemed abrupt or unexplained or something and they're like well you know what we'll put in a very explicit scene of her.

02:11:58.96
Rick
Um, yeah.

02:12:13.19
Dave
Making bread making her kill a guy. Why couldn't that if that was always the idea why couldn't that have been a flashback. We saw in The Painful instead of a dlc. That's my feeling on that in particular but I don't think this storyline passes or fails based on that 1 thing so it's not. Ah, deal breaker just a yeah that like the second thing about this story that is not explained as much as it could or should have been and then it's like oh it's in the dlc. Well you know.

02:12:43.20
Rick
Totally no I I totally get you I agree that and buzzo's backstory are the 2 things in the dlc that are really really important to know you also learn a little more about rando. But I mean you can glean that from The Painful. Um, and why rando is so important to Brad and all of that. Um, you know I don't remember when Joyful originally released. If it was I want to say it was like five bucks maybe I don't. I don't actually remember of course now with the definitive edition. It's like 20 or something. Because you know that's how companies work but I do there. There is a part of me that is not very happy. It's like 5 hours um so it's not a huge ask to play it, especially if you're interested like if you get to the end.

02:13:23.78
Dave
Yeah.

02:13:39.20
Rick
And you have more questions you're going to know whether or not you're down for another 5 hours um especially 5 hours wherein you play his Buddy and and for a little bit of time Rando which is really really cool I I don't know I I can go either way I do wish buzzo's backstory.

02:13:41.57
Dave
Yeah.

02:13:57.85
Rick
And that scene with Buddy wasn't Painful for sure though.

02:13:58.82
Dave
Yeah, it would have basically erased it. It would have erased that question entirely if that was in Painful. Basically both of those questions. So all that to say Buddy is not happy to see brad. And Buddy leaves with the help of Buzzo when there's a quote. There's a question that buzzo asks Buddy when they're about to take off he asks who Brad is to her and she says she doesn't know anymore. So. Ah, then buzzo forces Brad to take Joy and then they're gone when he wakes up I believe and then during that conversation Buddy tells Brad that He's been a terrible person, a terrible father. He's a nothing but a drug addict and I think that this is a time when this is the thing I was talking about earlier where I was like there's a bunch of stuff about Brad being a shitty person. And a lot of people are posting. He's a shitty person because he's a drug addict and I didn't know if this game was trying to say something about drug addiction either through that through all the times that people say that Brad is a terrible drug addict when like half the people in the world are drug addicts half the people you.

02:15:25.00
Dave
Can be picked up at your party. Um, and then also the fact that drug addicts turn into these horrible mutants at the end of that I didn't know if there was like a significance to that being the result of this in here like when you played this did you get the sense that. There is a message about addiction being so said here.

02:15:50.58
Rick
Um I I truly and genuinely believe there is not um I can tell you so and this is more spoilers for Joyful. Um, the reason that Joy was made was basically there is a man named Dr. Yado he's the 1 playing the trumpet in The Painful. Um, he created joy.

02:15:53.16
Dave
Um, okay.

02:15:55.58
Dave
Yeah.

02:16:08.48
Rick
With Buzzo as a lab assistant. Ah basically to turn everybody into Joy mutants and rule the world. It's not, I mean it's kind of lame . The ending of Joyful is kind of lame. Um, but that was his big plan and you know Buzzo knew this which is why he was force feeding brad.

02:16:17.50
Dave
Um, yeah, okay.

02:16:27.45
Rick
Joy this is why he gave it to him at the very beginning when you first find him when they're like ah singing that hymn I've got the Joy down in my heart. Very cool scene. Also um, but so so that's that I think that's just purely plot. I don't think it's saying anything about people suffering from addiction turning into monsters.

02:16:46.60
Dave
Okay.

02:16:46.71
Rick
I I don't think it's that deep. Um, as far as making Bread out to be a bad person because he's a drug addict I think it's more the killing I don't I don't mean to be glib about it I And that was a bit flippant and glib. But

02:17:00.13
Dave
Um, right.

02:17:06.12
Rick
Brad is confronted so many times throughout the game about his drug use of Joy and it's shown like it's shown why he continues to do it so we're meant to feel sympathy for him. He does it to cope with the visions of Marty and Lisa.

02:17:20.40
Dave
Yeah.

02:17:22.77
Rick
And we know this Buddy doesn't know this but we know this and it's why Brad feels so bad. He's like you know I don't do that anymore or like you know if you actually don't do joy. He will say like you know I'm clean and Buddy will say like even still you know you still kill everybody. Um, so.

02:17:37.20
Dave
Yeah.

02:17:42.17
Rick
I don't I don't know . I'm usually pretty sensitive about stuff like how people with addiction are being portrayed. Um I grew up in a family where that was victimized or um, weaponized excuse me the opposite of victimized you know like oh you know drug addicts and alcoholics. It's their fault that is so.

02:17:54.26
Dave
Um, yeah.

02:18:02.00
Rick
So not true, Wildly not true and I really really ah, get upset when people imply that that is the case and and all this to say I'm not trying to say like well because I think that my opinion's right I'm just saying I I didn't see it as a commentary on.

02:18:08.89
Dave
Um, yeah.

02:18:21.80
Rick
Drug addiction and people with addiction in our society. Um, whether that's them, whether that's the generational cycle, I just didn't catch a whiff of that.

02:18:24.90
Dave
Okay.

02:18:32.65
Dave
Yeah I will agree with you that I one hundred percent agree that this game is not saying that it is Brad's fault that he's an addict like that. He brought this on himself. He made a willing choice and that he's forever a piece of shit because he tried it and got addicted. I don't think anyone's saying that I think that they do comment on the fact that he is an addict many times and things that are associated with that make him not. A good person acts that he takes there's a part where Brad shakes sticky down in the game trying to get drugs from him. You can imagine that Brad has probably done bad things to get some because he has done bad things for less. So. I will agree that I don't think this game is trying to say that it is people's fault if they're addicted to something one ah hundred percent um this was one of those things where like your choices as the player don't jive with the story for me because you can play this game and not take Joy and.

02:19:40.82
Dave
You know people will call that out and Brad will say I don't do it anymore and they're like oh well, you know it doesn't really matter. Anyway, you're terrible or they won't say that they will just say you know you're a drug addict, your piece of shit. Um, even if you haven't done any in the game. And I know that that doesn't change what happened in the events before the game but it's one of those things where like you can choose to do the right thing or you can choose to maybe try to help Brad out is a better way to say it but nobody responds to that. And if it's that they don't respond to it because Brad has done other terrible things that make people just not want to associate with him that makes sense to me but there were a couple parts where it was like Brad's trying to shake sticky down for joy. But I have a bunch of Joy in my inventory like that didn't make a lot of sense to me. Um, the fact was it was a flashback. Okay, okay, all right that makes sense that my bad then but yeah that the general point is like I wasn't quite sure what the game was trying to say about it. Um, and there are.

02:20:37.68
Rick
Um, I think that was a flashback. I'm almost positive.

02:20:54.13
Dave
Things that other people's personal experience might lead them to think about this in a different way. I don't have a personal experience to connect to this so it is just seeing what's given to me and trying to figure out what they're trying to say which is why I asked in the first place.
02:21:53.73
Rick
You mentioned the sticky or Rick scene where Brad was shaking him down. I think that's why ultimately a lot of people will just brush Brad off if he says you know I'm clean now it's because it's just his reputation. You know his friends have confronted him. Yeah.

02:22:03.82
Dave
Yeah, he hurt them in the past. Yeah.

02:22:09.64
Rick
Yeah I mean his friends have confronted him about this time and time again like you've got to stop this dude you've got to stop this and he just every time and you know it's It's unfortunate, but that's sometimes you have to be that blunt when dealing with somebody that is.

02:22:28.43
Dave
Yeah.

02:22:28.71
Rick
Troubled and doesn't want to hear it you have to be like you are not in a good place right now man and I so I just assume that was his past. Um I kind of to be honest with you like you said, if you don't take Joy with exception for the cutscenes.

02:22:32.90
Dave
Yeah.

02:22:47.58
Rick
Their dialogue will change and people will ah Brad will say like no I'm clean now I kind of wish they just wouldn't have included that you know, um, just don't even make that an option because it does bring up this friction. It's like okay well Brad's clean and now people are still like they just don't care. You know? um.

02:23:01.73
Dave
Yeah, though, yeah I will agree with you that like even if he's clean, right now. The damage has been done because ultimately this is a pretty small world when you think about who the main players are; they've all known each other for a long time. So the damage has been done.

02:23:06.46
Rick
Sorry.

02:23:20.94
Dave
From Brad it does make sense that they wouldn't want to associate with him and fully forgive him and welcome them. Welcome him into their lives with open arms because you know that's not the only thing he's done to them so that makes sense. And to be clear. Also I want to clarify I don't think this game is trying to say that drug addiction is generational. It's just like his dad was an addict Brad started using I think it's implied because he needed to cope with the abuse and then also the death of his sister. And then Buddy starts using two. So it. It is like you know it's presented in that way. But I don't think the game is trying to say that like yes, this is an inevitability.

02:24:02.70
Rick
Um, well, there's.

02:24:08.70
Rick
There's an interesting moment though. Ah, Brad's dad Marty was an alcoholic. Ah but he didn't use joy. We find out that he's actually alive and Buddy manages to find him and she's seen picking up Joy pills and Marty straight up says like.

02:24:10.85
Dave
Yeah. Right.

02:24:24.79
Rick
Don't touch those sweethearts. That's really really bad for you like you don't want to you don't want any part of that and that's when Buddy is like but they you know they make me feel good. Um, which they make you feel nothing which I guess you know is better than what she might be feeling so like that kind of throws a kink into that whole thing.

02:24:37.51
Dave
Right.

02:24:43.59
Rick
Right? I mean Buddy is not actually Brad's kid and Brad's actual dad is against Joy. So I'm not like Buddy picking it up is pretty understandable given that she is being carted from place to place being told that the only father she's ever really known. Is this horrible monster that is leaving nothing but bloodshed in his wake? It's not I. I can understand why she would know to do that? Um, now. Maybe if they did something with alcohol because Marty was obviously an alcoholic and I don't.

02:25:05.29
Dave
Yeah.

02:25:10.86
Dave
Yeah, why she would want to feel nothing yeah hundred percent

02:25:21.93
Rick
And actually not like we see Brad passed out with beer bottles around him a couple times but like he's never called an alcoholic I don't think yeah this game doesn't really comment on alcoholism like the people that are alcoholics. They're just like yeah they're alcoholics and that's.

02:25:26.75
Dave
Yeah, everyone comments on the Joy understandably.

02:25:39.68
Dave
Yeah, you get the feeling like in the backstory Marty's Marty being an alcoholic is just something about him. It's not the reason why he is the way he is.

02:25:41.20
Rick
Kind of.

02:25:51.54
Rick
Yeah I yeah, that's true Marty is the exception I kind of was thinking about like olin for example, like his campfire scenes like there are just so many beer bottles and he's just you know it's just olin.

02:25:59.40
Dave
Um, yeah.

02:26:05.53
Dave
Yep, yeah, all right? Well I just wanted to get your thoughts on that because this was one of those things that I finished the game and I was like I don't know one way or the other what if anything you know is the point of this whole continuing storyline. Unless it is just a thing about the character, a thing about the world and then something that continues with Buddy. So yeah, so there is that now.

02:26:31.94
Rick
Yeah man I I don't know if I just I don't think that this game is trying to say anything profound about addiction other than like it's not good. You know, ah like as a whole like not not in a judgmental way like it's It's bad but like.

02:26:47.56
Dave
Yeah, like I think that if someone were to take a reading of this that the game is trying to say something about it I don't think that that's misplaced because the game is trying to save things about a lot of other very serious topics. So.

02:26:48.18
Rick
It causes problems.

02:27:06.95
Rick
Um, yeah, totally totally.

02:27:07.12
Dave
Yeah, that's kind of where I land on that. Yeah so um, moving forward the thing with Buddy going forward is Buddy's been introduced to the plan and her like supposed role in the future of humanity here. So Buddy wants autonomy from Brad and she keeps telling Brad Anytime they get a chance to talk that she gets to choose what she's going to do and she's down with the plan to repopulate basically and it's I don't think it's ever like explicitly told but it is implied. People have told her you are the last remaining woman. Ah you we need to repopulate the world Otherwise humans are going to die out. Basically I do want to make a note. Um, there's a line from Buddy where she says she's ready for this and that quote Uncle Sticky showed Me. And I Want to note that is confirmed to be a nonsexual thing Uncle sticky showing her because you could see that be like oh what the fuck but it's not it is confirmed to not be like that. Um, yeah, yeah, and he gets real fucking mad when that happens. Yeah.

02:28:07.20
Rick
Um, yeah.

02:28:16.69
Rick
Um, and that's exactly what Brad thinks too.

02:28:22.62
Dave
And he I think that he gets really mad and grabs her and basically kidnaps her again after that. So um, this another point in the story where I think it requires some buy in although this is not that ridiculous. Um. Plan to repopulate with one woman would end poorly. Um, it's pretty understood that there is not enough genetic diversity to make that a viable plan but given the circumstances. It doesn't take that long for me personally. Understand why they would try you know.

02:29:01.54
Rick
Yeah, oh yeah, this is another This is like the second point or maybe second point I don't know the biggest point in the game where it's like you just have to accept that This is a work of fiction and this is just it's a trope you know of course that's not possible.

02:29:14.14
Dave
Yeah, yeah.

02:29:21.27
Rick
Would break down within just a few generations not to mention like I don't think 1 human body could handle that much. Um I mean 1 one birth on the human body alone is fairly traumatic from what I understand so.

02:29:25.79
Dave
Right? right.

02:29:36.28
Rick
I Mean yes of course it's not possible, but it's also fiction. It's a trope I mean I Yeah I don't know like yeah yeah, if this is what sticks in your craw I don't I don't know that you'll enjoy the rest of the game.

02:29:49.54
Dave
Yeah, what's good about this in my opinion is that it is a fairly ridiculous plan if people are in the know but society has basically broken down in this game. No one's fucking. No one's reading science books in this story. So it. It makes sense to me that like people would consider it because what other choice do you have just you know everyone dies. You don't even try like that doesn't make sense to me either. So it makes sense that someone would make the case to Buddy and that you know. It would be a shitty thing for her to go through to put herself through but it would make sense that she would you know someone would make a selfless decision like that, especially after everything she's been through and not being given choices or anything but what I like about this the most is that when Brad is presented with this as like. Her possible future. He doesn't really bring up how it would affect her. He doesn't bring up that this is a plan that's not going to work. He just cares about himself. He just cares about saving her because he needs a second chance. Keeps saying that throughout the entire second half of the game and this is one of the things about this story that I like so much is that it shows you Brad getting deeper and deeper into this like savior syndrome.

02:31:15.81
Dave
All these terrible things are happening to the people or the person that he supposedly loves but all he can think about is himself.

02:31:21.59
Rick
Exactly. So yeah, it's never at a certain point. It's no longer about Buddy ever. It's not about He's only thinking about making up for what he perceives as something was his fault and you know it's clear as day to us.

02:31:34.13
Dave
Yeah.

02:31:39.72
Rick
It's clear as day to everybody except for Brad everybody brings it up to him. They're like you know of course nobody wants to be in this situation. But what else do we have Brad and and Brad just keeps saying no I have to save her I have to save her I have to this is my chance. This is my chance to make things right.

02:31:47.65
Dave
Yeah.

02:31:55.98
Dave
Yeah, it is.

02:31:59.42
Rick
It's and it's cool because we're meant to feel sympathy for Brad on a certain level but we can feel sympathy for him and also despise what he's trying to do.

02:32:01.53
Dave
Yeah, of course.

02:32:07.96
Dave
Yeah, you can feel sympathy for him and you can even understand why he would be so motivated to do something that makes him feel like he's a good person but then he goes and does all of these things and he's incredibly selfish. He. Sacrifice abandons his entire party and then later kills the entire party and kills anyone who gets in his way because he just takes this so far. But I like how it's very easy to empathize with where this started because Brad's life has been. Fucking terrible like his entire life has been awful. Everyone wants to feel good about themselves. Everyone wants to feel like they're a good person. Brad sees a chance to do the right thing and maybe started out with noble intentions at the beginning but that drive to redeem himself. Makes it so much worse as the game goes on and you know as we get to the ending and stuff it. It just keeps getting worse and worse for everybody and then keeps getting worse for Brad so I really like this as a central theme. Once you meet Buddy and you figure out everything that's actually happening how everybody feels I really like this.

02:33:30.30
Rick
Yeah, it really highlights this idea like the darkness in the hearts of men is anybody is 2 steps away 2 horrible accidents away in their life from everything turning upside down none of us I mean none of us are truly ever safe. Um.

02:33:42.29
Dave
Um, yeah.

02:33:47.89
Rick
And you can expand that. However, you want financially you know, morally? Whatever um another thing to note too at the end Buddy explicitly states. She's like I want this. For the first time in my life I have a choice and feel like I am important and like I am an individual and we as you know we as the players we can.

02:34:01.21
Dave
Yeah.

02:34:07.60
Rick
Say like you know oh well, that'll never work. It's not scientifically possible but like Buddy the person in this universe. This is the only time she has ever felt like she is a human being and now the 1 person that never granted her that before is trying to take it away from her. I totally see her side of it and like don't get me wrong I still feel sympathy for Brad but like he's by that end point he is so far gone. Um, which makes like 1 of the best lines in the game is in that final stand where he's like you know I've been dead for 35 years today I live such a good line.

02:34:42.13
Dave
Yeah.

02:34:46.29
Rick
But at that point we're kind of rooting against him.

02:34:47.11
Dave
Yeah, yeah, it's a very I wrote as a very action movie line but I can see it from Brad's perspective and you're right by the time you get to that point you're controlling Brad you have to defeat people playing as Brad but you don't really hope he succeeds. It's one of those games where you play for a while and then you realize you're the villain in the story and Brad is the one causing pain on all these people. Well he's not the only one the world is full of pain in this game but everybody involved in this and especially with Buddy. Um. Yeah, it's all coming from Brad so ah, do you think that Buddy knew about Marty because there's that point where she spends time with him and she tells um she tells Brad that Marty was a better father than Brad ever was so you think that she didn't know. At all, you don't think Brad ever said anything or nobody ever told Buddy.

02:35:51.60
Rick
I'm almost positive nobody did. Ah if Jorgensen clarified that I just forgot about it. But you know I can't imagine Marty would bring that up. Ah, but I don't know like maybe so.

02:36:07.99
Rick
I don't know if sticky or Rick or um, yeah, sticky or Rick said anything to her I'm not sure.

02:36:12.30
Dave
Um, yeah, don't you think that sticky or Rick who's known Brad his whole life would just say it at some point like because they've been talking with Buddy. They. Obviously talk about Brad like don't you think someone at some point would have been like well you know his father treated him like absolute garbage. So I don't know how.

02:36:40.84
Rick
Yeah, I'm not sure I might just be like anytime they do get to interact with her. There's so many other pressing things like you know people actively trying to come and steal her and cause violence and probably kill them I'm not I Really don't know.

02:36:54.00
Dave
Yeah, yeah, okay edge is just one of those things where it was like maybe it's just one of those dramatic irony things where you know something the characters don't know you see Marty and Buddy and you're like ah Buddy. He's bad news too. Like and he I don't know he doesn't seem like he's really changed all that much. He's still chilling drinking stuff like that. You don't have any real reason to assume that he's going to be a nurturing father figure for Buddy. Do you.

02:37:27.44
Rick
Not really I mean we see him speaking very sweetly to her and then when Brad confronts him. He's like he expresses remorse whether or not it's true or believable. That's up to interpretation but from Buddy's point of view. She is seeing a father figure that is actually being kind to her and her former father figure coming in and saying I'm going to kill this man. You need to stay back so it and you know very tragically in the fight against Marty Buddy steps up and brad at that point is.

02:37:45.39
Dave
Okay.

02:37:52.91
Dave
Yeah, okay, yeah, you're right? um.

02:38:02.60
Rick
Beyond the pale when it comes to morphing into a Joy Mutant and ends up hitting her. So at that point like Buddy can no longer ever have a repaired relationship with brad.

02:38:03.15
Dave
Yeah, yeah, yep.

02:38:15.66
Dave
Yeah, um I thought that boss fight was interesting from a mechanics telling a story perspective to Marty doesn't really put up a big fight. Um, he just throws glass bottles at Brad but he has a bunch of moves that can make Brad have the crying status effect which I thought was interesting from a story perspective and very fitting. Um, and then at the end you can have a choice in quote air quotes, a choice to kill. Or um, spare Marty Marty says that he's changed but Brad kills him because I clicked to spare him and Brad still kills him.

02:38:57.60
Rick
Yeah, yeah I think that's supposed to suggest that Brad is like the transformation into Joy Mutant has begun because the whole fight is preceded with the flashes of like red intestinal ah screen art that we see.

02:39:12.52
Rick
That is associated with him going into fits of Joy rage and and 2 ah Joy mutants 1 of their main moves is to cry so when Brad begins to cry. That's not Brad feeling bad. That's Brad turning.

02:39:22.86
Dave
Ah, okay I thought it was a you know resurfacing memories. Not that Brad feels bad or feels remorse or something like that. But you know super strong emotions. In lots of forms it can make you cry. Yeah I didn't see the ah the Joy mute and transformation happening until later at least like when Brad's fighting like 30 people at 1 time then you start to be like oh is this happening like he's you know superhuman strength and stuff like that.

02:39:37.38
Rick
Um, it could be both. Yeah, it could be both.

02:39:55.23
Rick
Yeah, and you start to get moves like bite and scream and and notably I think I think I think the move that you can use cry the description just says help me Lisa like it. It doesn't say like you know when he does like buster punches like a flurry of fists. No, it's like.

02:40:03.39
Dave
Oh interesting.

02:40:11.66
Dave
I was bitten the whole time because Brad had no arms so that was my melee attack for most of the game. So I didn't notice that.

02:40:12.89
Rick
Help me lisa.

02:40:18.77
Rick
Um, oh.

02:40:21.74
Rick
Um, yeah, it's ah it's a really powerful moment.

02:40:26.82
Dave
Yeah, um, so Brad kills like the entire rando army in like the last stand. This is after he kills his party members who take up Buddy's side. And say that she's doing the right thing and they try to get brad to stop but he's he's never going to stop never going to stop I'm not going to do the Rob Zombie song he's never going to stop he fights and kills the party members in this scene Nern was there Nern says for the first time in his life. He's speechless which I thought was good.

02:41:00.22
Dave
Line from Nern and then you fight Rando Brad is really badly injured during this his character portrait gets really fucked up during this scene and then um I liked ah I didn't understand. During this. Maybe you can shed some light on this during the rando fight. His name changes from rando to broken man and then when you kill him he says you really are the best. Thank you for everything does this mean Rando was that student at the beginning of the game. Who wanted Brad to teach him martial arts? Okay.

02:41:40.19
Rick
Yes, that is exactly it. Um, that was rando his real name is Dustin Dusty and ah something I mean you can glean that from this and that's why Rando doesn't want to fight like this the whole time. It's like Rando doesn't want to do this. It's why he uses the Armstrong style. Um. It's why he turns into broken man because he's like the adoptive father that I've loved is murdering me um and that's that's clarified in Joyful too is like Brad actually did like take rando under his wing as an adoptive kid and he calls Buddy cis in Joyful and ah.

02:42:02.68
Dave
Um, right.

02:42:16.37
Rick
You know he kind of bonds with her because he's like yeah he wouldn't let me call him dad either? Um, again that I wish it would have been in Painful but it's not like a deal breaker that it wasn't I guess but yeah, that's that's part of why that fight is so.

02:42:34.23
Rick
Emotionally weighted.

02:42:36.89
Dave
I only figured it out after the fact when questioning why he would say you really are the best. Thank you for everything and like why was oh you like you're the best fighter. Okay, he was maybe the pupil conservation of detail I guess um. So after killing everybody um brad is too hurt to really do anything else to Buddy and you get this this well beginning of the ending here where brad is dying at least looks like he's dying and he. Kind of stops trying to control Buddy and he just ah begs Buddy to give him a hug as he dies and he says he wants to know what it's like to I don't know to feel warmth and love from somebody and you can choose to hug him or not um I chose to give. Ah, Brad hugs. Um, and if you choose that he asks if he did the right thing as he falls down and supposedly dies. Um, do you know what happens if you choose not to do Buddy just walk away.

02:43:49.26
Rick
Um, I think she I think she just stands there I'm not I can't remember to be honest.

02:43:51.73
Dave
Okay, but nothing like you know, no extra dialogue or anything like that.

02:43:57.70
Rick
I Don't think so and it's worth mentioning too. She's really giving it to him. She's like you've taken everything from me. Why are you trying to hurt me so much and you know he'll try to say like you know stop I I know you hate me and. And he's like I just want to make this right and she says don't preach to me such a good line.

02:44:16.77
Dave
Yeah, she yells at him that she was the one he was supposed to be protecting and he ended up being the one that hurt her the most during that ending part there and it's I think that the game despite.

02:44:29.00
Rick
Um, yeah.

02:44:36.20
Dave
Clearly positing Brad as a villain from maybe the halfway point or at least yeah, the halfway point. Maybe when you find Buddy for the first time and you realize that everyone hates Brad you start to put the pieces together as to why? all the way till the end when he's doing this horrible selfish thing. Only doing all these things for himself. He has killed everybody who ever liked giving him a chance. Basically ah you still feel bad for him when this happens or at least I did and it's a credit to characterization and writing that you still don't want this, you know you still want Buddy to give him a hug. At the end I did.

02:45:16.23
Rick
Yeah, yeah, it's a complicated scene and that you're met with the fake out credits which you don't know it's fake out at first until they start saying things like help me Lisa yeah.

02:45:22.56
Dave
Yes.

02:45:30.43
Dave
Yeah they're weird right from the beginning they're weird credits so you kind of get the feeling and yeah, yeah, and then um I was wondering the whole game once you learn that that's where those. Those monsters come from people who use Joy that turned into these mutants. I was wondering when you were going to see that actually happen to Brad or if that was something that happened in The Joyful but it happens after the credits here. Brad is one of these Joy mutants. He's horrifically disfigured. And you have to crawl him into a house and he sees Lisa sleeping inside and then it's over.

02:46:15.50
Rick
Yeah, and Joyful picks up right there and um I should say too like I've got the credits running right now like in a muted video and it's going through like you know music by Austin Jorgensen you know blah blah blah.

02:46:17.93
Dave
Um, oh okay.

02:46:29.85
Rick
And it'll say it just sounds special. Thanks Martin Arms Armstrong and then like kill her Buddy arms Armstrong ah funny, really funny it. Ah above kickstarter backers. It says burn. that's that's nice but yeah, Joyful picks up like right there.

02:46:31.10
Dave
Right? yeah.

02:46:47.16
Dave
Okay, um, so you get an extra ending if you didn't use any Joy in the game and I got that. Um that is just a backstory about why Joy came from Basically they say that it makes. People's innermost desires come out when they take it so they say that in the game aside from them feeling nothing like during the effects of the drug. Maybe it has the secondary effect of making people's innermost desires come out and for that. To me could explain why he sees Lisa everywhere but also could explain if his biggest innermost desire is to redeem himself and get a second chance and ah you know proof. He's a good person. They could be why that became such a dominating thing.

02:47:39.63
Dave
If you want to ascribe that to the effects of joy.

02:47:44.27
Rick
Yeah, that's left kind of up in the air. Ah, you can see there are some Joy mutants that you can encounter and they don't attack you in the game like they'll just say they seem happy or something or like they're done or something like that and it's kind of implied that like.

02:47:50.17
Dave
Right.

02:48:02.22
Rick
Once they kill enough or complete whatever their focus is. Whatever their main goal is, they'll stop killing. It's kind of implied that because um, the first one that we have to fight to get the bike. He's not.

02:48:18.58
Rick
Killing anybody he's just standing there. He's just sitting there and that one guy is like admiring how beautiful and sad he is um I'm not entirely sure what that's about um or if those innermost desires begin to manifest before they turn I'm.

02:48:35.83
Dave
Yeah I mean it's just an interesting wrinkle to throw in. It's still even if you say that that is why this dominated Brad's mind so much why he had that one track mind.

02:48:36.21
Rick
I'm honestly I'm really not sure.

02:48:52.12
Dave
It's still telling that that is the thing he desires the most and not Buddy's well-being or Buddy's you know autonomy or anything like that. It's still about him at the very base of it all.

02:49:03.20
Rick
Oh absolutely.

02:49:07.90
Dave
Ah, okay, um I Also heard can you confirm I Also just heard real quick that the guy playing the trumpet is doing that to control the Joy mutants. Okay, okay.

02:49:18.28
Rick
Yes, that is canonically true and do you want further spoilers on that. That's that but that is Buddy's dad. Yeah, her real name is nancy.

02:49:23.64
Dave
That's ah yeah I'll take any spoilers. Yeah, that's buddies dad. Okay, oh ok, that's who Nancy is okay.

02:49:38.80
Rick
Ah, it's yes, it's not clear who her mother is. She may have been one of the Joy mutants or one of the people killed by the Joy mutants. But yeah Dr Yado is Buddy's dad.

02:49:51.68
Dave
Interesting.

02:49:54.70
Rick
There's like a showdown with him at the very end of Joyful. It's kind of I don't really love how Joyful ends. It's kind of like it feels like it ends just to end, you know. But yeah it ends with him. You know.

02:50:04.70
Dave
Um I got you? Okay, um, so at the post credit scene with the joyless ending. He says Dr Yato says that he's going to use Nancy for something and Nancy is Buddy. And don't know what he's using her for but they don't say it in the game either. It is explained later in Joyful.

02:50:29.74
Rick
It's definitely explained and Joyful. I am just forgetting what exactly it is right now. I'm not sure if he wanted her to kill everyone or if he had planned to turn her into a Joy Mutant. I'm not I can't quite remember to be perfectly honest with you.

02:50:44.27
Dave
Okay, so he created Joy because he wanted to take over the world. But then he had a change of heart and now he goes out and plays the trumpet to keep all the joint mutants under control or something . So that doesn't keep them.

02:50:44.66
Rick
But it is explained that I know that much.

02:50:59.69
Rick
Um, no, no, he's using the Joy mutants like.

02:51:03.84
Dave
That sorry I thought that it meant that love pacifies them. Okay.

02:51:08.22
Rick
No, no yeah because he ah he calls them in like as pets in the next one fights with him.

02:51:15.82
Dave
Okay, fair enough all right? Well really interesting game especially when you start to get into Brad's psychology here and his motivations because. I like that they started out noble. They got warped and then that warped motivation just took over basically and you by playing as him you want that for him for a while and then you start to see. What's going on and then you are forced to play out the rest of it too. So I thought this part of it, this kind of savior syndrome, this selfish behavior by Brad was really really good and I enjoyed that storyline as it progressed.

02:52:12.16
Rick
Yeah, and it's a game. It. It really is like disco elysium where morality really does not exist on the spectrum that we think it does like on a 2d left to right? plane just the x axis it's more like a 4 dimensional. Not even a shape that I could think of like it is. It's so complex and there is never really a right answer. It's really easy for us to say there's a right answer because we are so divorced from it. We are sitting at our keyboards playing a video game and it's like well well you know if I was in that situation I wouldn't do it. It's good for you.

02:52:41.91
Dave
Yeah.

02:52:49.60
Rick
It's almost impossible to say it's. It's so fantastical of a situation. It's not that we cannot ascertain what we would do but but.

02:52:56.18
Dave
Right? I think post-apocalyptic media is good for setting up situations like that where people are driven to desperation in a way that, like you know, up to this point in my life I've never. Been in any kind of situation like these people in this game. Um, but it's easy to set up those situations with this setting because people have lost so much and would probably be clinging on to anything that could possibly, you know, bring them happiness or help them find love or something like that. It's something that like post-apocalyptic media is really common and often I feel like they don't use that for like the psychological side of why people do the things they do. But I think this game does get into that. And it's not just post-apocalyptic, but the extra dimension that um, you know it's ah it's a world ruled by men. Well not ruled by men. It's a world of men and you have this one woman and interesting choices and situations that arise just because of that. And again credit to them to Jorgensen for not taking that super low hanging fruit of what the story could have been.

02:54:17.10
Rick
Yeah I Totally agree I am not somebody that engages with a ton of post-apocalyptic media. Um, it's not really a reason for it I just I don't know I Just don't so I can't I can't I can't make a lot of comparisons. But I think this is really successful.

02:54:28.42
Dave
Um, yeah, but.

02:54:35.69
Rick
I think this writes ah to so to steal a phrase from one of my favorite Youtubers I think this game does awful right? I am just shocked that more people haven't played it and to be quite honest I'm even more shocked that it got a remake. Ah, well remaster I I truly thought the subject matter would be too much for anybody for any studio to say Yeah, we'll put our name behind that. Ah, but it's pretty cool that they did. I think the definitive edition is with the exception of working harder just like the best way to play. They.

02:54:54.93
Dave
Ah, yeah.

02:55:00.37
Dave
Okay, yep.

02:55:11.15
Rick
The playstation version has some stupid censorship things like they ah they call at least in The Joyful they call alcohol soda you know I think it's because Buddy's a kid you know and then.

02:55:18.97
Dave
What kind of 1990's final fantasy shit is that? ah.

02:55:29.34
Rick
In ah The Painful they call them candy cigarettes and not cigarettes I think that might just be in The Joyful I don't know. But yeah other otherwise I mean you know play play the definitive and then listen to work harder when you're not when you're not.

02:55:34.82
Dave
Sure. Ah.

02:55:46.16
Dave
A hundred times. Yeah yeah, make sure to put in the older version of that credit to that voice actor. But I still want to listen to the old. Ah, the old version of it. So um, thank you man for coming on for what turned out to be a very long discussion.

02:55:47.79
Rick
Yeah, when you're not playing the game.

02:56:03.85
Dave
This game has a lot to talk about and I didn't want you to know there's a lot of stuff. We didn't talk about a lot of story characters Plot beats but I didn't want to skimp on what I thought was the important stuff. So thank you for being here again and going through the whole thing with me. This has been awesome.

02:56:22.16
Rick
Yeah man of course I always like coming back and this is such a cool game I couldn't couldn't pass it up you ah you gave me a couple of options way back when and I saw this one and I was like yeah, it's got to be that.

02:56:31.50
Dave
Yeah, yeah, I get that and a little bird told me you might be back for another game like that that jumped off the page at you later on this year so I'm looking forward to that too. But for now again, thank you for ah for coming back again. Another 3 hours of your time. Ah, we tend to do this whether it's on my show or yours. We tend to have a lot to talk about together but I always appreciate it. So everybody is listening. Thank you for making it to the end another plug to go down in the show notes and check out pixel project radio. It is worth your time again if you still want more Lisa The Painful discussion. Over and listen to the pixel project radio episode about this game. You'll get different perspectives which is always good with a game like this and that leads me to ah and there is just 1 thing left to say after that and that is to tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.