Spoilers for LISA ahead!!!
I highly recommend checking out Lisa for yourself.
If you read through this before playing, some plot elements will be spoiled for you! You have been warned!
"Did I do the right thing?"
Brad Armstrong is the main character of the second installment of Lisa. A former karate master, he is one of the most dangerous and feared men in the wasteland of Olathe, with an inhuman will that allows him to push his own physical limits. It is likely that his addiction to the drug Joy amplifies his physical abilities as well- but mostly the drug simply mitigates the symptoms of withdrawal that significantly weaken him.
Overall Brad is absurdly powerful, capable of performing completely superhuman feats despite there being no real in-universe explanation given for them.
Abilities (Armstrong Style!)
Brad's fighting style is described as being "developed out of pain and self-reflection", and is based on his family's history in martial arts. He attacks mostly using his upper body, incorporating fast punches, biting and headbutts, with few kicking moves thrown in for good measure.
Combination hand strikes and punches
Blur-speed rapid-fire punches
Dropkicks
Hadouken-style fireballs
Flamethrower-esque streams of fire
Large explosions of flame
And enormous waves of fire
Full-body headbutts and tackles
And soul-crushing groin kicks.
Brad's martial arts are extremely adaptable, having variations, all practical to use in battle, based on missing one or even both arms. Even severely damaged and missing both arms, Brad can still use Armstrong Style to bite, dropkick, headbutt and shoot fire.
Strength
Brad is exceedingly physically strong; he's probably one of if not the strongest single character in the Lisa-verse.
Brad can lift immense amounts of weight.
His maximum weight, which he can lift on his back and do rapid squats with- a cabinet, refrigerator, three barrels and a car. This has to be at least 1.5-2 tons.
Brad has absolutely no trouble rope climbing and can do it with a bicycle on his back.
He has the ridiculous upper arm strength required to do this even with only one arm.
...He even has the sheer strength and dexterity to do it with no arms at all.
In his slaughter of Rando's army, he straight-up beat them into human mulch (though through a combination of physical attacks and fire-based attacks.)
An enraged Brad can reduce people to nothing but a pool of blood with a single attack. However, it's important to note that the method of attack is not shown on-screen, and could very well be a fire attack (rather than a physical blow).
Brad defeated Rando (beat him to near-death), while critically injured, in a one-on-one fight...
despite the fact that Rando was shown earlier in the game to not even flinch from a motorcycle crashing into him at full speed.
Durability
Brad successfully fights off and survives against Rando's entire army singlehandedly- actually, potentially even without any hands, lol. (Fight lasts until around 27:00.)
He remains conscious despite being impaled with multiple arrows and having taken wounds from the various people attacking him- over 20 people, all armed and dangerous, at once. Brad reduces them to mush.
Even while severely wounded like this, Brad is still in good enough condition to fight and nearly kill Rando on his own... with Rando being a student of Armstrong style who is nearly as skilled as Brad himself, and who can use his hand to "stab through your chest".
This is Brad's best showing of durability by far, particularly in that it is a confirmed showing of durability and not just speculation based on fights in the RPG.
That said, Brad's durability is pretty consistently suggested to be superhuman.
He consistently fights opponents with
machine guns,
cinder blocks,
spears),
karate chops that literally decapitate people with one blow,
etc. etc. while Brad continues to fight with his bare hands. While he is supported by his team, the game never suggests that they are taking all the damage for him.
He's also canonically shown to be capable of tanking repeated falls that should definitely be lethal.
Brad also can only be KO'd by the various attacks that permakill all other party members in Lisa. This could be argued to be mere plot armor, but on the other hand the final fight of Lisa (in which Brad kills the rest of his party in a 3 on 1) does demonstrate that Brad is superior to his partners.
Gear
Brad doesn't fight with weapons, mostly. He wears armbands that supposedly increase his strength by way of making him feel more cool and confident. Same goes for the lotion he wears on his head.
Other than that, though, there are a few items of note.
Brad's poncho doubles as armor that protects him from damage.
He carries around Firebombs) and Diesel Firebombs which explode and sear flesh.
TNT is another explosive that Brad can use in battle.
As well as contaminated water that poisons enemies.
Jerky, Soup, and Rations are used as health kits to refill his strength.
Finally, taking Joy takes away Brad's weakness of withdrawal and makes his attacks much stronger, as well as restoring his health and mental state.
Weaknesses?
Most glaringly, aside from one outlier instance of seemingly being able to move faster than bullets (?), Brad does not seem to have superhuman speed. His fists can move at blur-speeds when using combos but his reaction speed seems to be ordinary human level. He is one of the slower party members in terms of in-game stats. Being a master of karate, though, he likely has at least decent combat speed in H2H regardless.
Most of Brad's durability seems to come from adrenaline rather than sheer physical durability.
A bullet to the head is still strongly implied to be lethal for him.
His limbs can still be hacked off, and he can be slowed by sheer physical force.
He also is much, much more of a threat when enraged, on the same note. A bloodlusted Brad will be much more dangerous than a regular in-character one.
He is also frequently prone to Joy withdrawal, which renders most of his attacks virtually worthless. Though, on the other hand, when he has taken Joy and is "Joyed" his attacks do far more damage even than normal.
All in all, Brad is an insane superhuman tank with some serious physical power. Definitely more of a clunky brick of a character than anything else, but definitely not someone you want to make angry.
A pretty obscure character, but one with some pretty interesting feats. I hope this was comprehensive, and maybe can help reduce his obscurity a little.
Gifs and clips were taken from NicoB's and HarshlyCritical's Let's Plays of Lisa. It's not my own footage.
Thanks for reading!
Submitted October 11, 2016 at 12:14PM by Amendment50 http://ift.tt/2eaJ0Yd respectthreads
