Trading Spaces

       So this is the new hotness. The exclusive hub for alright reviews on things that people play. No more Tumblr, to the 20 people that care. I have made the pleasant discovery that Blogger allows for some easier captioning, which has proved itself incredibly useful in the Lollipop Chainsaw review. Speaking of games composed by Akira Yamaoka, my next review is Silent Hill 2. The HD one without the fog. The one that everyone's complained about for months. I finished it pretty recently and the claims that it's one of the greatest survival horror games of all time are absolutely 100 percent true. I wouldn't want to gush about it too much until I'm done with the review, but the music in that game really is legendary. The redone voice acting isn't terrible either, and that's what I used for my first playthrough. I'm also planning on reviewing some portable games this time around which I'm really excited for. Look for Square Enix reviews in a while. Ciao.

Review- Lollipop Chainsaw

        

     Ahhh, Suda. Used to be that a game of his coming out was a monumental event. I didn't really see a problem with his games coming out more frequently though, considering Grasshopper is my favorite name in videogames period. However, with their games coming out annually at this point, it seems like a few cutbacks had to be made in the gameplay department. We just didn't notice it until now.

    Let me start this by saying that I have no problem with this annual model. No More Heroes 2 is my favorite game of all time and Shadows of the Damned really did it for me too, and I actually did enjoy some of my time with this game. Lollipop Chainsaw was a hugely anticipated thing for me, and even after the lukewarm reviews I was anxiously awaiting my copy. When I put the game in I unwittingly prepared myself for the longest 6 hour slow burn of my life. 

If you squint you might notice a chainsaw.

     So Lollipop Chainsaw begins with out heroine Juliet Starling arriving at school to discover that almost everyone is a zombie. You get an introduction into all the most basic moves you'll need throughout the game, light hits, heavy hits, low attacks etc. After a brief tutorial level Juliet reaches her boyfriend, only to see him bit by one of these things and decides she must cut off his head to keep him alive. This sets off the events of the entire game, and the banter between Juliet and the head of her boyfriend Nick is one of the best parts of the game, not unlike Garcia Hotspur, demon hunter, and Johnson, floating skull, that made Shadows of the Damned's dialogue so enjoyable. Their relationship really works and hearing Juliet ask Nick if he wants to have babies someday can really lift you up during a particularly not so great gameplay segment.

Juliet giving Nick the heads up about his recent bodily loss. Heads up. Get it?

     The way the game plays doesn't lend itself well to first impressions. For the first 2 real levels the player is subjected to awful minigames, which if lost have major effects on your end level ranking. The notion of having a chainsaw mixed in with the fluid pom pom motions of a cheerleader and some acrobatic feats thrown in to boot is actually very interesting. However, unlike in a game like Devil May Cry, you start off with an incredibly small amount of moves at your disposal. If you don't put a lot of money into getting Juliet some moves then the game becomes an incredibly shallow experience. Juliet swing her chainsaw and nothing happens apart from you cut a zombie. No cool moves activate unless you put your time into unlocking them. Apart from a few quick time events and a few cheap enemies there isn't really even a point to paying attention to what you're doing. Even once you get the moves, only a select few are actually useful. This game could've done well with a more fast paced combat system, and it baffles me why they would miss the opportunity to throw in a combo meter and turn this game into Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden.

    The whole game is divided into 7 levels, 6 of which feature a boss battle against a powerful zombie representing a genre of music. Oddly enough, even though Grasshopper has been known for their ridiculous and interesting bosses, (Killer 7, No More Heroes, everything else ever,) these feel thoughtless and incredibly easy. The battles consist of you hacking and shooting at a boss for a bit before entering a minigame where you cut them, after which they enter their next phase. Each boss has 3-4 phases, but it seems like only the second to last boss had any thought put into these phases at all. You move from area to area for 6 hours until you reach the ending, which is entirely dictated by whether or not you saved every single one of your fellow students throughout the game. Then the game ends without any fanfare. There are a plethora of new costumes to acquire afterwards, but that's where it stops. The story was kind of Grasshopper esque, which is a good thing, but the gameplay is only interspersed with short scenes where most of the time Juliet and Nick run across other members of the zombie hunting Starling family, and sometimes it feels like they forgot the story altogether.

Lollipop Chainsaw's 4th boss and representative of funk- Forget-His-Name-Man

     Grasshopper games always put a huge focus on the music, from the mysterious strums of Shadows of the Damned to the wailing jazzpop hybrids of No More Heroes fame, and Lollipop Chainsaw is no exception. There are a ridiculous amount of tracks in the game, ranging from original compositions to Oh Mickey. Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence does all the boss tracks this time around and he does a pretty good job of conveying each genre. VGM god and ex Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka returns this time around after his incredible score in Shadows of the Damned. I can't say that his music in this game is as memorable as the haunting title screen theme in Shadows, but it fits the mood well, even if it isn't as great as some of his masterworks.

     Lollipop Chainsaw makes no false claims about what it is. It's a video game full of pop music where you kill zombies with a chainsaw. The gameplay isn't groundbreaking by any means but the dialogue and whacky story, while not as crazy as any of Suda's other creations by any means, is still good fun and enough to keep you entertained for the 6-7 hour campaign, and twice that if you want to go through it and get the best rankings. Lollipop Chainsaw might not be for everyone, but it was made with me in mind, even if it seems like they forgot somewhere along the way.

                                                                7/10