Accept It - LISA The FIrst

Content Warning: The following contains discussions of child abuse, rape, and suicide.

            LISA The First is probably one of the hardest games to sit through that I have ever played. Not because it is difficult, but because the subject matter hits me in a very personal way that I don’t feel comfortable disclosing here. As Lisa makes her way from her room, down the hallway, as the sound a tv gets louder and louder, frozen at the top of a stair case, terrified of who sits down there… I panicked. I shut the game off. I didn’t play it for a few more days. I knew about the subject matter coming into it, but I was not prepared on how it would trigger such a specific feeling inside me.

            Of course you read the content warning up above, but the LISA series is a series primarily about the ripple effects from an abuse of the titular young girl Lisa from her father Marty Armstrong. The First is a psychological adventure game in which you try to run away from your abuse. Unique from the later two, LISA The First is not an RPG and has no combat. It is also the only game that has a traditional RPG top-down view. LISA The First is a very experimental game about exploring the mind of a young girl in this dark and horrible situation.

            You’d think I’d hate the game for how it made me feel, but instead I found it endlessly fascinating. To have a game that, even if accidently, hits me at such a personal level that I have never experienced in any other game is just beautiful to me. It feels like a game I’ve been waiting to have the courage to create myself, but has already been made for me.

            Of course being a game about child abuse and rape you’d probably wonder if it does a decent job at handing the subject matter with enough tact to not be exploitive or insulting. For the most parts I’d say yes. LISA The First has a cruel, but honest exploration about the abuse depicted. The game is about trying your hardest in vain to escape the abuse, but no matter how far you run, you can never forget, the abuse will always be with you. Lisa could never escape her father Marty. No matter what she’d always see his face. The ending tells you to just accept it. This is the awful reality that Lisa has to face. Even in the secret alternate ending, where Lisa tries to find comfort in memories of her mother, all she can see is Marty’s face.

            LISA The First is very bleak about its outlook, which I can understand if that would disappoint people. The game doesn’t have an uplifting message about abuse. The game is cruel, but sadly relatable, possibly even too much so for me.