The sparkles, the goofiness, the over-serious horror moments here and there, it all meshes. The music helps glue everything else together. Both Little Jimmy Urine of Mindless Self Indulgence and Akira Yamaoka's influences are felt without clashing. The soundtrack, both original, and licensed, is truly fantastic, mixing death core and dubstep with '80s new wave and pop (like Dead or Alive - yes, THAT Dead or Alive). Some sections rely on the instant death/failure chestnut, but they're uncommon enough that if the worst example hadn't occurred near the end of the game, I would have to spend time thinking of a previous one.īut more than basic mechanics and inventive level design, there's a general sense of cohesion to Lollipop Chainsaw that seems difficult for other games to nail down. You'll go to an area, you'll kill all the zombie classmates around, and the next section of level will open up.īetter yet, the sort-of mini-games that have become a hallmark of Grasshopper Manufacture are pretty good, finally! They're not jarring, they make sense within the game's fiction - like the basketball game that sees you lopping off heads to score, while making sure that an aggressive center doesn't bat them all away - and they don't get in the way of a sense of forward momentum or rhythm. It seems more interested in being played and enjoyed than most of Grasshopper's games, content to get out of your way with a minimum of especially stupid video game contrivances. Lollipop Chainsaw is approachable that way. But there's a pretty wide margin for error and experimentation, and the frequency of lollipops (which you can collect and use to restore health) makes Lollipop Chainsawmore forgiving than you might expect. If it didn't stutter so much, it'd be harder to see that there's just not a ton of depth to Lollipop Chainsaw's combat. Getting knocked down means obnoxiously hammering on the "B" or circle button to get back up. The controls are a little wonky at times, and Lollipop Chainsawfalls victim to extended pauses at the tail end of combos, which lead to infuriating cheap hits as Juliet stands powerless. Using the right move at the right time can lead to "Sparkle Hunting" moments where you can decapitate multiple zombies at once, yielding more coins to buy character upgrades. As the game progresses, fights become more about crowd control and peeling off stronger ringleader types. Lollipop Chainsaw establishes new enemy types that affect combat scenarios at a good pace. Instead, some mild experimentation yields acceptable zombie-killing results. There's a workable combo system that isn't overly reliant on the upgrades you can buy throughout the game, and you won't need to enlist the aid of a sensei to drill the combo commands into your head. Less clunky than Shadows of the Damned, free of the burdens of motion control that hung around No More Heroes' neck like an albatross, Lollipop Chainsaw mostly plays as it should. The good news: Lollipop Chainsaw is more mechanically sound than anything Grasshopper Manufacture has put its name on.
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