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[SirNiko]

Lisa's pretty good. It can be a little burdensome to play on your first try, since there are a couple of places where you have to make choices with no good answer (on subsequent playthroughs you can prepare yourself to minimize or eliminate the harm from those choices). There's also a lot of innuendo that might put you off.

It's a lot like Undertale in the sense that it intermingles a serious story with ridiculous scenarios to good effect.

Undertale's the better of the two, though, hands down. It's just more satisfying overall, and a tremendous amount of effort went into loading it up with lots of subtle secrets.

The two games approach choices in pretty different ways that are kind of interesting. Undertale features lots of small choices that ultimately don't change things, although the way you play the game lets you choose whether you become a hero or a terrible villain. Lisa gives you lots of big choices that have immediate effects on the game, but your decisions can't change the long term. (the game awards an achievement for winning without using the drug Joy, but it doesn't prevent you from succumbing to it in the end. The achievement even rubs this in, reminding you that it was always too late.)

[ThemsAllTook]

Seems you are right: http://nochocolate.tumblr.com/post/134752140105/chara-didnt-climb-mt-ebott-to-commit-suicide

The only thing I don't agree with in that post is the implication that Chara is the one seen falling into Mt. Ebott in the intro sequence. Whoever it is trips on a vine, which I interpreted to be Flowey's influence, which means it would have to be Frisk - Flowey didn't exist in Chara's time. There are several other times in the game where Flowey is shown to use vines to similar effect, so it seems pretty intentional to me that that was the specific way Frisk fell into the underground.

That's why asriel try to break free using monster souls instead of human souls, not because its consistent with a world, but more with the idea of breaking free of a situation the character is filling trap in, it also explain why flowey express remorse after a genocide run despite not supposedly feeling any emotion.

It is actually consistent with the world, though - one of the signs you can read in Waterfall says something like "it would take nearly every monster soul in the underground to equal the strength of one human soul". Asriel has already absorbed the 6 collected human souls, and during the fight, temporarily absorbs the soul of every monster in the underground. I didn't understand at first why he was able to take down the barrier, but on a second pacifist playthrough that sign suddenly stood out.

This is the thing I find most brilliant about the game - so many little things that at first seemed like throwaway bits of story flavor take on a huge amount of significance when you see them for a second time.

[DireLogomachist]

I do post a lot of images in response to things don't I?..

I'll check out Lisa.
Edit: Oh, that. I've heard of it, the seriousness of it all puts me off a bit. I might check it out regardless if I ever get bored.

It is not really serious. Well, themes are but characters, incidents etc. are really dark humor. Enjoyed it and waiting for next part.

Next part?  You mean Lisa the Joyful?  I played through it and thought it added a ton more to the game.  Everything makes so much more sense and it wraps up the entire storyline.  It may be DLC but I'd say it's a mandatory part of the Lisa experience.

[s0]

don't a lot of people hate lisa the joyful?

[DragonDePlatino]

I've never heard of that but I could understand why people would dislike it. It's a lot shorter than LISA The Painful and doesn't have as many comedic moments to balance out the gloom. There are far fewer team members to find and many of the songs are remixes from LISA The Painful. I didn't enjoy it as much as The Painful.

With that being said, it's absolutely worth getting if you played through The Painful. The Joyful wraps up a lot of loose ends and has an incredibly cathartic ending. It also has some equally awesome songs and battles.

[DireLogomachist]

don't a lot of people hate lisa the joyful?

Considering the massive perspective shift that might be understandable.  But since the player perspective is so influential in how the game plays and events are interpreted I thought playing as Buddy was the natural step after Lisa the Painful.  And also the fact that so little story was revealed (at least for certain) in Painful I really enjoyed the massive amounts of story/plot content in Joyful.  Just one example: what happened to Buzzo (both before and after) was just left completely untold in Painful, even though he was the main antagonist.

[SirNiko]

I thought Lisa: The Joyful was pretty awful. It only has two party members, and you're forced to do the last few zones with a single character, so combat consists of using your most powerful attack over and over (with an uninteresting timed attack no less) and periodically healing. Also, unlike The Painful, it consists almost completely of combat with mostly uninteresting enemies with many zones consisting of nothing but sequences of fights with nothing else to see or do in between. The Painful has a number of non-combat zones that you can explore, and hidden places to find with new party members or just weird creatures to find. The Joyful had only one or two hidden rooms to locate.

Another bad design decision: there's a secret ending that you can make inaccessible during the very first fight. Having to replay the whole thing to get the secret ending (which might take you two hours) isn't any fun since it's exactly the same as the first playthrough. At least The Painful let you mix things up with a different party on a second run.

The Painful is really good, but The Joyful isn't much fun to play. It's not worth the effort for what little plot resolution you get.

[Tumetsu]

I do post a lot of images in response to things don't I?..

I'll check out Lisa.
Edit: Oh, that. I've heard of it, the seriousness of it all puts me off a bit. I might check it out regardless if I ever get bored.

It is not really serious. Well, themes are but characters, incidents etc. are really dark humor. Enjoyed it and waiting for next part.

Next part?  You mean Lisa the Joyful?  I played through it and thought it added a ton more to the game.  Everything makes so much more sense and it wraps up the entire storyline.  It may be DLC but I'd say it's a mandatory part of the Lisa experience.

Ah, didn't realize it was dlc and missed it. Thanks.

[ThemsAllTook]

Well, I finally completed the game in genocide mode. It didn't give me as much additional story as I'd hoped, but it was certainly...an experience. I enjoyed learning more about Flowey's history, and the Undyne and Sans encounters. Undyne took me 3 attempts to beat; Sans twice as many. I was disappointed that Mettaton NEO wasn't an actual boss in the same sense.

The guilt tripping that the game tried to do didn't work super well on me. I certainly have the capacity to relate to and care about fictional characters, and although the act of killing them can be extremely unpleasant, I'm not able to suspend my disbelief as much as the game seemed to want me to. I always know that there's a strict limit to how far the consequences of my actions in a game can possibly reach. Stuff like having to wait 10 minutes after completing genocide and restarting, then having to tell Chara you'll give up your soul before the game is restored to (mostly) working order is mechanically terrible, and not really that great for the narrative. It's something that might sound like a cool idea for a minute when you think of it, but actually implementing it is something else entirely.

[ProgramGamer]

The point is that the game is tricking you into thinking that you broke it forever because you wanted to test it's limits. It doesn't work if you know what to do obviously.

[battlerager]

The point is that the game is tricking you into thinking that you broke it forever because you wanted to test it's limits. It doesn't work if you know what to do obviously.

But you could always wipe the hard drive and re-install so there's no way to break it forever anyway 

[ProgramGamer]

The steam cloud prevents that from working, but wiping the cloud for that game does work.

...and people have identified the specific file that makes that happen. I guess my argument doesn't stand that high after all.

[battlerager]

The steam cloud prevents that from working, but wiping the cloud for that game does work.

...and people have identified the specific file that makes that happen. I guess my argument doesn't stand that high after all.

I mean, I get the idea. And to many people that are "not good with computers", it's probably really hard to do that kinda thing anyway, seeing how computers are literally magic. So I think you are not wrong.

[Alevice]

...and people have identified the specific file that makes that happen. I guess my argument doesn't stand that high after all.

in exchange, this has led to a bit more metanarrative however. tweaking with the save and config files can lead to get a few events regarding a hidden character to show up. he might be the creepiest characetr from the game.

[gimymblert]

also I believe teh guilt trip isn't a trick pulled against the player but a whole part of the narrative and teh true identity of the main character (see my theory in spoiler), ie it relate more to the character mental state and struggle than the player.

[gimymblert]

...and people have identified the specific file that makes that happen. I guess my argument doesn't stand that high after all.

in exchange, this has led to a bit more metanarrative however. tweaking with the save and config files can lead to get a few events regarding a hidden character to show up. he might be the creepiest characetr from the game.

whoops I don't know about that

[Alevice]

basically he might be the lord of windings.

[SirNiko]

The "Hidden" character is most likely cut content, and not an intentionally hidden secret. I used to believe otherwise, but now I'm pretty convinced that players have plumbed the depths of the game and that there isn't supposed to be anything more.

Likewise, I'm pretty sure that the developer never intended for players to be able to 'restore' their save file after a genocide run. It's a reversal of expectations that fits in well with the game's other elements, such as Flowey calling you out on resetting the game to save Toriel after killing her.

[s0]

ya but the meanings people interpret into a thing can be as valid as what the creator intended. death of the author and all that.

(i actually have some criticisms of the death of the author idea, just playing devils advocate basically)

[s0]

...and people have identified the specific file that makes that happen. I guess my argument doesn't stand that high after all.

in exchange, this has led to a bit more metanarrative however. tweaking with the save and config files can lead to get a few events regarding a hidden character to show up. he might be the creepiest characetr from the game.

who is the hidden character? too lazy to replay the game to find out