This is a sequel to LISA, which Farla reviewed a long time ago but which I’ve never played. It seems pretty self-contained though. The game follows Lisa’s brother Brad following an apocalypse that causes all women to disappear from the world. Brad stumbles across a baby girl and chooses to raise her as his daughter. She inevitably gets kidnapped, so Brad must go on a journey to rescue her.

The big selling point of this game is that it’s supposed to be brutally difficult and force you into making difficult choices. For example, as soon as you’re out of the tutorial you are forced to either give up all your items or your only party member, permanently, and later events escalate this even further. Even resting is dangerous, as it will often result in your items being stolen or your party members being kidnapped and held for ransom. Certain enemies even have the ability to permakill your party members.

In many ways, this game reminded me of Trash Planet, which was also a post-apocalyptic game about tight resource management and characters dropping like flies. Unfortunately, they share the same problems: random encounters exist so your resources are infinite, and there’s a character who can heal both HP and MP so you never even need to use healing items. Nern isn’t as absurdly busted as Gucchi was, and there are enemies who can outdamage his healing, but he’s still a perpetual motion machine that can get you through most fights without resource attrition. You also don’t even really need him, because even though there’s so much work put into making campsites dangerous, there are also inns where you can rest safely for a pittance; and unlike Trash Planet, you can revisit previous areas freely, so you can always use them whenever you need, after every battle if need be.

It’s far too easy to gain more than you lose in every battle. Like… there are several areas that are presented as if the enemies are obstacles you’re supposed to avoid, but they’re so easy that they’re basically free EXP, so I just fought them all. Was I… not supposed to do this? Like Trash Planet, battles become pinatas rather than obstacles, and unlike Trash Planet they become so almost immediately (pretty much as soon as you have a full party). I think the permakill attacks were supposed to put that fear back into you, but it’s completely random whether enemies will even use them, so I actually never saw a single one until the final area.

That’s the other problem, and the biggest difference from Trash Planet: Character deaths are random rather than due to plot. The most devastating event for me was a point where you’re forced to play Russian Roulette with your party members; I lost nearly half my gang, but it’s actually completely random. It’s entirely possible to lose everyone or no one at that point, which means players’ experience of the next area is going to be radically different based on a variable no one can control. The permakill attacks are a similar roulette; you can lose everyone or no one in those battles. I complained about the battles in Trash Planet being way too random and swingy, but this takes it to the next level. I get that that’s the point, it’s supposed to make you feel like the world is cruel and unfair and anyone can die suddenly and unexpectedly, but it still makes for a really bizarre and incoherent difficulty curve.

If you’re curious, I did actually try playing on Pain Mode initially, but dropped it after the save limits became too frustrating. I get the intent, that it’s supposed to prevent you from save scumming around difficult challenges, but a) you can still do that and b) the way it’s implemented is asinine. Losing an hour of progress because the dice didn’t roll in my favor isn’t challenging, it’s just disrespectful of my time. There’s also no quicksave/suspend option, so if you need to leave the game and can’t find a new save point, you have to just keep it running. I’d have loved to try increased general difficulty, but that was just a step too far, and frankly didn’t seem well thought-out.

After two RPG Maker games both tried and failed at this in similar ways, I’m left feeling like the RPG model has to be radically rethought if this is to work. I’m reminded of a very old article from Sinister Design (creator of the Telepath RPG series) attempting to lay out the definition of an RPG, where Stern spitballs a concept for an RPG where you become weaker after every fight instead of stronger. Stern immediately throws the example out as contrary to our concept of an RPG, but even when I first read it I thought it would be an interesting idea. Survival horror fundamentally has to make you fear the game’s obstacles; you have to lose more than you gain. In nature, even the most fearsome predators have to be judicious about who they fight, because every fight is a massive resource expenditure; we need to make players feel the same way. Throwing yourself into every fight shouldn’t be the optimal solution, but so long as every fight gets you EXP and money and items that make you permanently stronger, it always will be. (Interestingly, I think Darkest Dungeon does actually accomplish this, largely because it doesn’t have a per-battle experience system.) Something to ponder.

Storywise, this game is inferior to Trash Planet. Trash Planet had a difficult balancing act over when it chose to be goofy vs. sincere, and while I think it mostly nailed it, this game does not. The goofy moments are extremely goofy and the serious moments are extremely serious, leading to some really harsh whiplash that just ends up making me feel emotionally unmoored. Brad’s wanton mass murder of random NPCs is played for comedy, until the very end when it’s suddenly evidence he’s the real monster? A random NPC kills himself out of embarrassment for telling a joke wrong and this is funny, but also Lisa’s suicide is so traumatic and important to Brad’s psyche? Fardy getting raped is funny, but when Buddy gets raped it’s the most serious thing to ever happen? There’s also a lot of misogyny, which is probably supposed to be ironic, but when your entire cast is dudes with no women to counter it, it feels a lot more like an unironic depiction. I think it’s trying to deconstruct paternalism with how Buddy keeps rejecting Brad’s attempts to save her, but none of it actually makes sense — the plot is Brad saying, “I don’t think a literal child should run off to get raped by the roving rape gangs,” countered by Buddy saying, “But it’s my choice to get raped by the roving rape gangs, so actually you’re the bad guy for trying to stop me, and also the rape gang your friend sold me to happened to be one of the nice ones, so checkmate.” Just, what???

There’s also a lot of whiplash between your choices mattering and not mattering — throughout the whole game you’re forced to make sadistic choices that do actually matter, but suddenly at the end you’re forced to pilot Brad as he makes increasingly evil and stupid decisions with no way to stop it. What is this trying to do? I tried to sheathe my sword during the final battles and it did nothing, so I don’t feel complicit, I just feel like I’m watching a movie that requires me to press buttons to continue. Undertale made this work because it actually took away your control; letting you keep control but refusing to even acknowledge when you try to go off-script is just incoherent.

Moreover, the characters are the weakest link. Possibly to contribute to your party members feeling disposable, they have no presence in story cutscenes and no opinions on plot events. Outside of their introductions, they have no characterization beyond optional campsite scenes, which as I mentioned you’re disincentivized from seeing because campsites are so dangerous. Some of the campsite scenes are genuinely poignant and give some good character moments, but for the most part the characters are one-note wackos who are impossible to take seriously. This made their inevitable betrayal at the end fall completely flat for me. I’m overall just left very confused about what the story is trying to say and how I’m supposed to feel about it.