Would you trust these eccentrics to help find your daughter?

The indie RPG LISA: The Painful boasts 30 playable party members to choose from, allowing for a whopping 24360 possible configurations. While other RPGs may give their characters differing battle stats that make it easy to rank them by raw power, the situational nature of LISA’s battle system allows every character a chance to shine.

Here are five of the best possible teams. Characters are chosen based on the versatility or raw power of their movepools, with analyses of their practical roles in combat.

5. Mad Dog + Carp + Shocklord

Mad Dog - one of my personal favorites - is responsible for murdering his son in a fit of rage so intense he would black out and forget to take the weapon with him. It’s said that he regretted passing down his name to this son - and implied that the other has simply left the family. Thankful for the return of his nail bat found lodged in Mad Dog Jr.’s head, he joins Brad.

Carp, a man with a fish head that may be merely a mask, is the former caretaker at the Olathe Orphanage, where the last known children born before the Flash live. Having lost hope for humanity, he left them in the care of Morrace Dinkle only for Brad to accidentally kill them. Grateful for Brad’s offering of a bottle of green paste, he follows along to help find Buddy.

Shocklord never gave up wrestling after the White Flash despite being terrible at it and never learning from his mistakes - he continues to wear a mask that obscures his vision and is occasionally seen stumbling or facing the wrong direction. After a successful Tag Team wrestling campaign with Brad, however, he sees a chance to make up for his failings and joins the party.

This team is the one that the developer, Austin Jorgensen, likes the most - and for good reason. Mad Dog’s Taunt ability is intended to target the enemy, but due to a bug, it instead boosts his TP by a certain amount for every enemy. This effectively turns him into a perpetually-recharging powerhouse.

While Mad Dog is attacking, Carp can debuff opponents with his Poison Mist and Slash abilities. When Mad Dog charges, Carp can use multi-hit attacks to tear into each enemy one at a time.

Admittedly, Shocklord is the least interesting part of the group - however, his only attack is cheap and strong, and hits every enemy. With enough Diet Cocola Colas to restore his SP, he becomes a weapon of mass destruction.

Pros:

• Take turns dealing damage and recharging fast
• Hit everyone each turn

Cons

• Not much of a defensive strategy
• Shocklord, while reliable, has only one move

4 - Fardy Hernandez + Ajeet Mandeep + Buckets

Fardy Hernandez is by no means a happy man - he suffers from depression by the time Brad meets him and never truly overcomes it by the end. Thankfully, he deals with it like any real man should - by knowing that it’s okay to cry. His brothers, Lardy, Shardy, and Tardy would be proud.

Ajeet Mandeep is a man of identity - he hates cowards and drugs and only agrees to join Brad’s party if they haven’t had any Joy recently. Perhaps it’s this resilience that gave him the conviction to point fingers at irresponsible people. Now those fingers do so much more than just point.

There’s not much to be said about Buckets, and there’s not much for him to say about anything. It’s not easy to talk when all you do is sit around listening to depressed middle-aged men play Russian Roulette. Perhaps it’s this boredom - and the lack of new players - that leads him to join Brad.

The strategy here is simple: Fardy and Buckets attack, while Ajeet debuffs. Ajeet boasts diverse Punjabi Poke attacks, targeting one enemy at a time. None of his pokes require any SP - they only take one turn to use and cause blinding, weirdness, burning, or wariness.

In turn, Fardy can slam his truck into all the enemies at once. Admittedly, the Truck Slam is slightly unreliable and can be substituted for Fly Minetti’s Cart Slams - but with enough luck, Truck Slams can knock every enemy over for a few turns. Buckets, last of all, offers some of the strongest moves in the game. He uses two guns at once, and his special skills deal great damage.

The biggest flaw in this team would be Buckets’s need for Joy - it doesn’t make him stronger but it does restore his damage output to the baseline. If Joy affected him the same way it affected Brad and the other characters, he would practically be a cheat code.

Pros:

Cheap debuffs that often pin the opposition down so they can’t fight back

Overpowered attacks from Buckets

Cons

Tends to rely on chance

Requires Russian Roulette sacrifices to obtain Buckets

3 - Garth + Jack + Buffalo Van Dyke

Garth sits alone in a cave drawing adult art to cope with the loss of the women in the world. Having wandered through the ruins to learn all he can about the women of the past, he joins Brad’s team to play a supportive role.

Jack is perhaps one of the last men born, aside from those shown in the Olathe Orphanage. Too young to remember women and too old to be a child, he performs magic tricks - although his abilities may be real magic.

Buffalo Van Dyke, now a warlord, recalls the glory days of his ’80s football games. In an effort to protect his beloved toolbox from Brad’s grasp, he only joins the party when they prove to be stronger than his own.

Garth and Jack have the dishonor of having weak traits - the former relies on buffs and debuffs, while the latter has low HP and attacks with unpredictable consequences - however, when things turn out right, his attacks prove especially powerful against enemies.

Despite their flaws, players tend to combine them so that Garth and Buffalo can protect Jack. Buffalo, in turn, buffs higher HP, higher damage output, and even a few moves with status effects. Overall, this team brings the best out of some of the worst characters in the game.

Pros:

Creative solutions to battles

Devastating attacks combined with useful debuffs

Cons:

Arguably the least practical party members

Tends to rely on chance

2 - Nern Guan + Olan Hoyt + Beastborn

Nern Guan is a historian whose talkative nature puts my worst middle school days to shame. Left alone after the White Flash, he was once married to a woman he felt he could not satisfy due to his inferiority complex. Before meeting Brad, he sits alone pondering what happened to Olathe, telling its story to passersby - or at least as much of it as he knows.

Olan Hoyt drinks alone at a bar, perhaps to drown out unspoken regrets over neglecting his wife and daughters before the White Flash. When Brad buys him a drink, Olan decides to join him with no care for his motivations - only an understanding that whoever Brad is looking for means the world to him.

Beastborn is perhaps one of the unluckiest members to join Brad’s party. A peaceful, quiet man, he merely fights them in self-defense and joins when they defeat him.

Together, these men offer a self-sustaining strategy. Nern can use his “Discuss Powers” skill to heal 30% of a party member’s SP for 15 of his own - which, used properly, gives him infinitely regenerating SP to work with. He also restores TP, which Olan uses, and HP. Additionally, he can induce fear, rage, or sleep to throw enemies off their game.

Olan’s moves happen to use very little TP. He can hide from enemies, simultaneously damaging and debuffing them. He could also shoot one strong arrow or multiple weaker arrows in one turn - however, multi-hit attacks should be avoided when he is affected by hit rate debuffs.

Beastborn may be a little extraneous compared to the rest of the group, but overall, Nern and Olan’s faster moves help eliminate the opposition while he prepares his own attacks. Nern can boost his TP, which in turn allows him to weird out, paralyze, stun, or poison opponents.

Pros:

Relatively consistent battle strategy

All three offer debuffs

Cons:

Not particularly powerful

Beastborn may be knocked out before he can shine

1 - Terry Hintz + Birdie Hall + Tiger Man

Terry Hintz is a self-proclaimed “Hint Lord” responsible for leaving tutorials for the player throughout the game’s world. He alleges that this has made him famous, but evidence in LISA: The Joyful reveals that he is lonely and deeply depressed.

Birdie Hall is an alcoholic former dock worker. While his alcoholism is largely played for laughs, it originates in the losses of his two sons, Joey and Jimmy. The former died of an illness, and the latter committed suicide.Since then, Birdie has decided to exploit his vice to help Brad on his journey.

Tiger Man, formerly associated with the warlord Big Lincoln, can be found terrorizing Bob’s Dojo in Area 2. Here, Brad’s team takes up arms against him, and in turn, earns his respect.

Don’t be fooled by Terry’s low stats at the start of LISA: The Painful - this man, like Pokémon’s Magikarp evolution line, shines the most as he grows. Terry’s moveset initially starts with healing and debuffs. However, at level 25, he learns The Hottest Dance - the strongest move in the game. It can deal up to 2500 damage on its own, or ten times that when combined with…

Birdie’s Gasoline Spit - this move is practically a cheat code for the game. Using only 10 TP, which can be easily regenerated by dealing or taking damage, this man makes enemies flammable to increase the damage dealt by fire moves. When Birdie runs out of opponents to slick up, he also heals party members using Drinks on Me!, Secret Stash, and for himself, Pass Out.

To top it all off, Tiger Man has some of the most powerful moves in the game, some of which happen to cause bleeding. Combined with burning and gasoline, this effect deals loads of damage each turn. Tiger Man should set up these attacks as early as possible, however, as his low HP stat proves to be a hindrance the more he’s hit.

Pros:

Simply overpowered

Cheapest way to deal the most damage in the game

Cons:

Relatively weak defense/health stats

May occasionally require Joy