Lollipop Chainsaw: Suda51, A More Colourful Kojima

I should of done this a lot earlier but hey, there is nothing you can do when your friend is borrowing the game for a indefinite time plus I was saving this bullet in the chamber for a week where I had nothing to do. Nevertheless, we are doing another review where I go on about my favourite thing and this week, it’s my favourite game of all time but that should be taken with a grain of salt. I actually spent my weekend thinking, trying to figure out if this game is my favourite game or not and while I did eventually hit that conclusion that it is my favourite game, I am still unsure about it. Hopefully by the end of this, I will have reached a conclusion but that’s enough with the boring stuff. Let’s cut into this glorious pile of rainbow coloured guts.

“Lollipop Chainsaw” follows Juliet Starling, typical American teenager with a cute boyfriend and also a cheerleader. Oh yeah, she is also born into a zombie hunting family. The plot starts on her birthday and zombies have shown up so after killing a bunch of them, she goes to meet up with her boyfriend who gets bitten while trying to save her. After decapitating him and keeping him alive as just a head, Juliet kills more zombies in her school and finds out that this depressing emo (or is it goth?) kid called Swan has summoned the zombies with their undead lords because he hates this world (like probably every single emo or goth kid). From there, you must kill all the zombie lords with your rainbow, spark spewing chainsaw to save the city while you try to celebrate your birthday. Does it sound over the top because if it does, then you just understood the whole concept of the game. This game wants to be balls to the wall crazy and considering this was a collaboration between Suda51, who probably snorts a kilogram of cocaine for breakfast every morning, and James Gunn who probably does the same going by his filmography, they achieved it. This is a very basic plot but just like last week, it’s ok because it’s a parody. Ok, Lollipop Chainsaw is a little less parody and little more crazy but they are both fun takes on popular trend at the time with “Mars Attacks” making fun of 90s obsession with aliens and “Lollipop Chainsaw” making fun of the more serious depictions of Zombies during the early 2010s. Nevertheless, the plot is just a way to chain a bunch of the fun little gimmicks of each level in this case while still providing enough time and moments for us to connect with each character so overall, great writing and the same applies to the gameplay.

This is a very basic hack and slash game, more along the lines of the “Dynasty Warriors” line of gameplay but instead of wiping out just endless amounts of warriors, you are gutting hordes of the undead and with Juliet being a cheerleader, she brings a lot of flair to her style of slaying. You can stun zombies with your poms to make it easier to decapite them or you could just go all in and stab and slash them with your chainsaw and of course, you can get combos to make your job easier. To get combos, you need buy them from the shop with coins you find by killing zombies and thanks to Sparkle Hunt, something that toggle if you kill three or more zombies with one attack, it will be raining money instead of guts. The shop is also where you can buy supplies which either boost your stats or unlock new content like costumes. She does have an awful lot of costumes but if you are me, you will just unlock the Haruna costume (from the anime “Is This A Zombie?”) and roleplay as a magical garment girl. I do love this game just because the controls feels fluent which is the mark of a good hack and slash. While it’s not as tight as the DMC controls (the remake mind you), performing the combos as Juliet is very easy to do once you remember them and I can tell you now, there is nothing more than satisfying then performing Chainsaw Paradise on a large crowd of zombies although it does leave me wondering how she is spinning that chainsaw while she is doing a one handed handstand. You also get upgrades for your chainsaw later down the line which include a dash which makes speedrunning later levels easier and a cannon because apparently a chainsaw isn’t enough to kill them but these don’t even stand a chance against your best weapon: your boyfriend’s head. By using a Nick ticket, you spin a roulette wheel and get to see what you will use to stun or even kill the zombies. My personal favourite is the one where you play football with Nick because it’s not only a good way to stun a bunch of zombies for a easy sparkle hunt but the fact you are kicking the living head of your boyfriend into a bunch of zombies is just amusing to think about. The only problem I have with the gameplay (the minor one for now) is how clunky it can be at times when you get crowded. Juliet isn’t well made for massive crowds unless she taps into her tickets or her special mode which makes all her attacks into a one hit kill. The game seems like it wants to be DMC but also Dynasty Warriors at the same time so it wants tight single targeting combat and crowd killing combat and it doesn’t mesh. It’s just something that really stands out in later levels, even with the combos but enough of the gameplay, let’s talk visuals.

Visually, I think it’s suits the style of the game. The game wants to be quirky and the design they took to represent is brilliant. It’s colourful with that modern 50s styles and the fact they replaced all the gore with just rainbows and sparkles just adds to it. The models are cell shaded though and it does kind of date the look of the game and the level design can be a little too dull at times. I think the only time the game stands out in terms of setting is during the Arcade level because it actually tries to be colourful and not dark and grim. This is a game where you are decapitating as a quirky cheerleader with rainbow chainsaw and the victims are spewing rainbows and sparkles from their opened wounds. It doesn’t mesh well if you know what I mean. That’s all the compliments I have for them now so let’s make like a zombie and bite into some more meaty complaints.

I’m going to start with the massive difficulty curve. Maybe this is just me as a player since I never have been good with hack and slash games (as DMC and Bayonetta has taught me) but when you are playing the game on easy at the start of the game and it feels like you are playing hard mode, you have done something wrong. When you are starting off, you don’t have access to many crowd control combos and considering the enemies are zombies who are known for being found in large hordes, it doesn’t make for fun times. You have to balance trying to kill one zombie while dodging incoming attacks and while you can argue this is to be expected from a hack and slash, it still doesn’t take away from the fact you don’t access to any solid mass damage abilities until near the end of the game. And while I’m talking about typical hack and slash issues, boss fights. I hate them in this game because while they are great as characters, I find them dull to fight. This is mainly because they aren’t that spectacular to take down with the sole exception being the arcade level which is easily also the best level in the game. On top of being mainly forgettable, they are boring and sometimes downright confusing on how to beat them. A great example of this the first zombie lord, Zed the punk rock zombie because you pretty much need to dodge his flying Mohawk attacks while destroying his amps so you can attack him. He is not only annoying to fight but it does get confusing when he summons a stack of them and you have to take down the amps in a certain order so he can stop dropping more in. I just find him annoying and considering it’s only second level on top of being the longest one, he is just a horrible first boss.

I would also complain about the incredibly short gameplay time of 6-8 hours but I won’t because it’s perfect. It knows it would be shit if it tried to extend the runtime to something more favourable and that’s what I like about this game overall. It knows what it wants to be and it does it in almost perfect way. Everything else that I didn’t criticise about this game is perfect because Suda51 and James Gunn knew what it wanted to do with the original concept. It wants to be fun and crazy and it does it with such great style. I am also tempted to give this a perfect ten like I was with Berserk and Mars Attack but I have to acknowledge the flaws so 9/10. I really do recommend going out of your way to track down a copy of this game since it’s only been on for last console generations and I promise you, it’s worth tracking down and paying that little more if you need to. Next week might just be more manga reviews because I am going back to school to finish off my final term so the reviews maybe be a little spread thinner than usual. At least take solitude in the fact that I do own another Suda51 game but unfortunately it’s “Shadows Of The Damned” so prepared for a shitshow when I finally get around to it. If you want to see my other content or just support me in general, link to my YouTube channel in the side bar where I post YuGiOh videos of me being an idiot and also a link to my steam profile if you want to gift me any games to review.