For perspective, I'd consider Rain World to be the best game I've played and close to perfection. Downpour is great but the problem is that it makes a lot of changes and I am so enamoured with the base game that most of these changes feel wrong.

Where Rain World is grounded, subtle and naturally unfair, Downpour is wacky, blatant and unnecessarily frustrating. The new slugcats have ridiculous abilities that change the player from a natural part of the world to a one-of-a-kind superhero. This is countered by the environments and creatures being tougher to deal with along with. Creatures that were seen only in the 'hard-mode' hunter class are now commonplace in every new campaign along with the previously neutral scavengers being more aggressive and powerful. New creatures are mostly stronger 'remixes' of existing creatures. The game is harder now but I don't think it's more fun or interesting. The weaknesses of the new slugcats perfectly encapsulate this feeling, with each one having restrictions on their abilities in a way that was presumably intended to aid balance or immersion but for me it just made it more frustrating. See Artificer's explosion cooldown or Saint dying of cold or Gourmand exhaustion for examples.

I was surprised and somewhat disappointed to see most of the new content being focused on adjusting existing content rather than being entirely new, a lot of the regions are places that already exist but at a different point in the timeline. The totally new regions are primarily areas that the base game already teased as being part of the world but weren't explorable. As for any new depth in the ecosystem, well I wouldn't say there was any. The changes all seem focused more on gameplay and lore rather than creating a believable world.

Downpour goes out of its way to answer any questions the player might have had while playing Rain World, but I think there's a lot of value in having these questions remain unanswered. Most of the new campaigns don't give you this option, instead giving the player some kind of primary goal; performing a task that has major implications on the story. In the base game you could entirely miss the story and still have a rich experience.

This DLC is a relatively fun experience with a huge amount of quality content. It’s extremely impressive, especially considering it started as a purely fan-made expansion. Ultimately though, I feel there is an evident lack of cohesion between the intentions of this DLC and the base game, while this is high quality ‘fan content’, it has somewhat tarnished the perfect score card of Rain World and I can’t help but have a bitter taste in my mouth when talking about it.

While I have never written an in-depth review of the game, I will at some point, Lisa the Painful and its subsequent follow-up-, Lisa the Joyful are simply my favorite games of all time. I have been hooked on the franchise for nearly a decade at this point which has led to me scouring the internet for additional content related to Lisa. This has led me to the slew of fangames made over the series that each individually addresses or adapts specific aspects of the original games and for the most part, are pretty good at capturing that magic. However, these fangames have generated a stigma of being abandoned or having an extremely long turn around so it was such a surprise to see Lisa the Undone release after a little over a year since its original reveal trailer.

This fangame stands out from other titles as it attempts to remake the Lisa the Joyful. As much as I love it, the original Joyful is marred with problems that exist on both a narrative and gameplay level which this fangame initially plans to address. I quickly realized that the structure and story of this game are significantly different from the original making this fangame a complete reimagining rather than a simple remake. This revelation made me especially excited as now I did not know what to expect.

I embraced many of its writing changes with open arms, and I felt I was generously rewarded for doing so. It is clear that the developers are deeply passionate about the world and lore of Lisa with large parts of this game serving to just expand on these elements. There are several moments where your crew takes a breather and you all discuss the current state of things in both the game world as well as how your characters are feeling. This is the sort of downtime time, while existed in Joyful, did not flesh out the characters to the same degree this fangame does. Buddy is no longer a raving maniac right away and Rando is not just a pushover. Elements of these personalities do exist but they are no longer the defining feature of these characters. One of my favorite changes to the writing is where you are given chances to see Buddy act like an actual child with her interacting with other kids being some of my favorite parts of the game.

The expansion of the world in Undone, is another greatly enhanced addition. The world in Joyful felt very cramped and lonely which felt accurate to the game's narrative but I much prefer Undone’s expansive setting that covers many different parts of Olathe. The world feels freeing but also extra dangerous due to your decreased fighting abilities. The expanded setting is also backed up by a slew of different unique areas to explore, really funny encounters, great sprite work, and reworked very interesting encounters. This world expansion also fleshes out each Warlord more giving them more of a build-up as well as explaining how they got into the position that they are in now. A simple cutscene that depicts all of the Warlords gives them so much more characterization that I am extremely excited to see pan out.

Finally, a lot of the writing reflects on the different worldviews one would have within the setting of Lisa. Many times, you are given the chance to talk to a character who will spout off on the current state of things and how one should react to it. While not all super interesting, certain encounters reign as some of my favorite writing in all of the Lisa games. These encounters also deliver solid answers to a lot of questions about the franchise that I have had stewing in my head for nearly a decade now. Some might be turned away from the vast amount of writing the game presents, a stark contrast to previous entries, but I think for any game to have this amount of dialogue it should be for a reimagining of Joyful.

Alongside these writing changes, new gameplay mechanics have been introduced that add extra depth to Lisa’s general gameplay. No longer does Buddy wield mastery over a Katana, instead she is given several weapons that she gains mastery over time through repeated use. This is combined with a new mask system that allows Buddy access to specific skills that relate to the mask that she is wearing. This adds a new consideration as one can plan and set up a specific loadout that would fare better for certain fights. There also exist companion combo moves that allow you to team a party member for some sort of attack or buff. These new mechanics make up for the fact that throughout the whole game, you are much weaker than you ever were in Joyful.

Some interesting new additions include a dice rolling and internal monologue mechanic. Disco Elysium directly inspired these with there being not much difference in how these mechanics are presented. The dice-rolling mechanic is my favorite of the two as it can completely how an encounter plays out and adds another consideration for your loadout as gear can change outcomes. The internal monologue is developed through specific decisions made in the game which will have Buddy’s mind start to splinter off into different ways of thinking. In the game's current state, this mechanic does little to change the narrative in any way and acts more nice flavor text.

If it is not obvious, I was utterly blown away by the quality of this fan project. As it stands this may reign as my favorite fangame for the moment. The amount of care and love put into the game's writing and world-building is palpable leaving me excited as to how the second part of the story will pan out. This is not a perfect experience however as I do think some mechanics are not as quite fleshed out as they should be leaving some parts a little underwhelming, such as being a little deceiving to your contribution towards certain outcomes. Some narrative points are not given a conclusion or a very satisfying one. I also think the balance between actual fights and reading dialogue is a little uneven at the moment. While I do like the game writing I did find myself at points wishing I could get into another encounter soon. All of these problems match the current state of the game as it has just been released and a second part is on the way. I have faith that these issues will be addressed but at the end of the day this is still a very solid video game.

If you are a fan of the original Lisa games like I am, this is a must-play. The amount of added depth to the world and interesting recontextualizations make it worth a try at the very least.

(Fun Fact: I was so excited in the first 40 minutes of this game that I quickly added it to the Backloggd database. I know it doesn’t matter but this is the first time I’ve done this and I just wanted to mention it.)

My spicy hot take is this fan game tackles toxic hypermasculinity and sexism way better than the original game, which is insane this is a free fangame, that frankly feels like a better written sequel than joyful does.

In this game you play as the weirdos trying to get the girl to "save humanity" but its clear that that really does seem like a excuse to justify all the murder and kidnapping that goes on in the world. my aforementioned issue with the original game is that it paints brad out to be this bad guy but in this your characters suffer from treating the supposed last woman as a savior or whatever fantasy you want.

even in the more fun light hearted secret pain mode route where you have a lot more party members and banter rather than tragedy, still doesn't reward the characters for doing the things they do "for the girl" all but one ending end like this and its the ending where the characters through tragedy realize this flaw, and the main antagonist represents this violent toxic masculinity the best.

the main party's dynamic in gameplay and story is great, it follows the traditional lisa combo system but minus the secret route in pain mode, it is just going to be the main three characters but luckily they balance eachother out in gameplay between damage, tanking, and support while feeling like a fair challenge, as for the character dynamics you how toxic masculinity doesn't let these characters really show how much they care for each other until its too late, its well written.

the game is a little bit more linear than painful or even what was in pointless that's not bad but I'm more surprised how much I actually feel I prefer painful' exploration and party members solely from a gameplay perspective, the writing in this is way better I will say the multiple routes does allows more replay value for what is quite a short game which isn't a complaint it is a free fangame after all as well as having the joy mechanic affect how certain routes play out as opposed to painful giving you extra dialogue and a end credits scene I didn't care for.

This game still has touchy subject matter but I feel for the most part it writes it better but its still a warning if you can't handle this stuff, I don't know if I could recommend it to people who have more of an issue with painful/joyful than I do but if what I say interests you I think its a really solid short story
(I am actually exited for the sequel)

One of the most impressive video games I've ever played. Even on a second playthrough, when I know the map like the back of my hand, this game never ceases to astound and enthrall me.

What really makes this game so special to me is the atmosphere. The beautiful, tragic world, the detailed ambient noise and minimal amount of music, the innovative and ludicrously intricate wildlife AI, everything contributes to this being a far more "immersive" game than any of the uber-graphical games-as-movies AAA schlock people tend to put that label on. Even the gameplay, which is probably the weakest part of the game, or at least the part with the most flaws, is so involved and intricate that it puts you, the player, physically in the world unlike any other game I've played. Even things I'd ordinarily criticize like the somewhat awkward controls, the occasionally cheap difficulty, and the extremely slow pace of things can be forgiven because they make the world feel that much more real, you really feel like a feeble little mouse creature that has a hard time climbing ladders and gets eaten by giant lizards and bugs. The processes of hunting, scrounging for food, running from predators, looking for shelter, etc. are so...real. It's so hard to explain, it's a game that really has to be experienced to truly understand what makes it so great.

This game also kills it with its approach to narrative. It has a perfect balance of leaving things up to the imagination and ever so subtly dropping little lore scraps to build one of my favorite narrative worlds since Half-Life 2. The lonely, solemn, empty world feels like a character in and of itself, and by the end it's genuinely sad to watch it slowly die and rot away. And this is all without mentioning the philosophy and messaging in the game, the themes of life and death and rebirth, the blend between Buddhist/transhumanist influences and existentialist sci-fi, etc. It's a story that invokes that same bitter-sweet sadness akin to things like Everhood, Evangelion, Mother 3, JJBA Stone Ocean, etc. This game and its narrative have been hugely inspirational to my own approach to worldbuilding and story writing for my own games, and I think it's a truly standout example of interactive storytelling.

This game is not without its flaws, as some of them even I can't excuse. While the difficulty and combat are steep obstacles that can generally be overcome to the point that they don't bother me much anymore, the grinding needed to progress from region to region can be outright tedious and frustrating at times. The game's treatment of key items is abysmal, as they can be easily lost (basically requiring you to restart the day to get them back, otherwise you lose them altogether) and often waste crucial "inventory" space. The lore is frustratingly difficult to access, as it requires egregious amounts of backtracking if you don't want to just read the wiki (like I did). Like the difficulty, the controls are weird and take getting used to but are quite fun once mastered, save for the zero-gravity sections where you often just waste time floating around until you hit a wall. The game's pacing in general can be annoyingly slow once the initial magic of the atmosphere wears off, to the point that I bound a button on my controller to the dev command to speed the game up, which makes the game a lot less boring IMO. And the Rain Deer. They are awful. Truly, truly awful.

All in all, this is not a game for everyone. People will get put off by the difficulty, the slow pace, or the confusing map, and that's ok and understandable. But as for me, personally, I believe this is one of the best indie games ever made and one of the best examples of video games as an art form. Because this is a work of art. An inspirational, beautiful, flawed work of art that I friggin' love.

No greater indictment of the gaming press than the scorn for one of the most innovative games to come out since Demon's Souls. It's a game all about intrinsic reward as really most platformers are but in something like Super Metroid there is a reward in the way of powerups, the reward in Rain World is simply living to the next area and seeing what practical joke will be played on you.

I haven't seen a game that showed this much restraint since Ico. The game could've given you upgrades, a final boss, a significant crutch, a more present story, really anything your usual metroidvania would do but it didnt. The few concessions to minimalism like the map and the titles of the areas being shown never dampened the extreme immersive quality this game granted me.

Despite being quite game-y, this game probably bridges the cold reality of the world to the player in the best way possible, not simply because the game is "unfairly designed" but because it does actually feel like a real breathing ecosystem, the scavengers or lizards arent just obstacles for the player to engage in, they act like how animals would in real life, they go on living their life independent of the protagonists existence.

Very sad that in the mid 2010s indie game hype wave, this genius title comparatively got left out. I had only learned about this game in 2019 from Matthewmatosis and put it on the backburner till now.