Lollipop chainsaw
Remember Fun? Remember Silliness? Remember Over the top? Remember bright and colourful? It’s easy to forget that in a sea of Single colour, ultra serious shooters usually involving some sort of military that there are other genres of games. The latest offering from Grasshopper is as you’d expect crazy, over the top, silly, fun and absolutely brilliant.
You play as Juliet Starling, an 18 year old cheerleader who loves lollipops. It’s her eighteenth birthday today and has decided it’s time for her boyfriend Nick to meet her family. Problem is she has a dark secret, her family are monster hunters and Juliet is very much a part of that. Her weapon of choice, a big fucking chainsaw.
She arrives at school to discover it’s been overrun with zombies. So we have a school fun of Zombies and a Monster hunting cheerleader with a big fucking chainsaw, do I really have to do the math for you?
The game plays like any other Bayonetta style beat em up but with a twist. Y is you standard chainsaw attack, slow but damage dealing. A is a low chainsaw attack, used to chop of zombie legs and attack crawling zombies. B performs a jumping dodge and Juliet will leapfrog over zombies if close enough. X performs a pom pom attack and this is where LC comes into its own.
The idea is you used pom pom attacks to stun zombies making them groggy. In their groggy state Zombies are much easier to kill, usually going down in a single hit with Y. Manage to kill multiple zombies at the same time or in very quick succession and you’ll get more medals which can be used to enhance Juliet’s abilities, and is also one of the things you’re ranked on at the end of each level.
The Zombies aren’t your standard Zombies either. They have some intelligence and some will throw objects at you, some can breath fire on you and some even fire guns. Despite this though the difficulty on normal is a little on the easy side, barring some difficulty spikes in the form of Minigames.
These minigames are such huge leaps in difficulty as you go from having plenty of health to deal with zombies to instant death if you fail the minigame. They are fun to play but also frustrating. 90% of deaths will come from failing these minigames, not from normal Gameplay.
Difficulty is all over the place. As it has two easy to fail minigames Stage 2 becomes the hardest level to clear, yet the final boss (on stage 6) is really easy.
The story is pretty short and it won’t take more than a couple of days to finish it but LC biggest strength lies in its replayability. Each of the stages can be completed in under an hour and there’s plenty of encouragement to beat your previous scores. Playing on harder difficulties change zombie locations, with some special zombies only appearing on the hard modes and some items only become available on hard.
There is a long list of unlockables waiting to be unlocked including concept art, music and costumes to keep you going beyond the story. It’s not the most time consuming game but it’s a sweet ride while it lasts.
LC’s greatest strength lies in its characters and dialogue. While the story isn’t going to win any awards, the dialogue is excellent with many quotable lines. Grasshopper have given us such as excellent script with characters you really feel for. It’s almost impossible to play this without at least smiling.
Visuals are pretty standard but like I said earlier it’s refreshing to see a game with such bold use of colour. The soundtrack is excellent and customisable, but I would’ve liked a default music option, choosing just five for the entire game is a little annoying.
One final annoyance is a problem Grasshopper can’t seem to get right, Unskippable cutscenes. While some of the longer ones can be skipped there are some pointless ones that are just frustratingly annoying.
For example on stage 5 you come to a smallish room filled with explosive barrels. There is a survivor here and it’s very easy to accidentally kill him. Reload from a checkpoint and you have to watch a stupid cutscene where Juliet gets a phonecall from her sister. It doesn’t last long but after the 3rd or 4th attempt it really starts to grate.
While it may not be as deep as Bayonetta, Lollipop chainsaw is still a very competent Hack and Slash style beam em up with an awesome script and presented with a rainbow of colours and a kick ass soundtrack. A couple of annoyances such as Unskippable cutscenes and random difficulty spikes also get in the way of what is otherwise an amazing and unique game.
8/10
You play as Juliet Starling, an 18 year old cheerleader who loves lollipops. It’s her eighteenth birthday today and has decided it’s time for her boyfriend Nick to meet her family. Problem is she has a dark secret, her family are monster hunters and Juliet is very much a part of that. Her weapon of choice, a big fucking chainsaw.
She arrives at school to discover it’s been overrun with zombies. So we have a school fun of Zombies and a Monster hunting cheerleader with a big fucking chainsaw, do I really have to do the math for you?
The game plays like any other Bayonetta style beat em up but with a twist. Y is you standard chainsaw attack, slow but damage dealing. A is a low chainsaw attack, used to chop of zombie legs and attack crawling zombies. B performs a jumping dodge and Juliet will leapfrog over zombies if close enough. X performs a pom pom attack and this is where LC comes into its own.
The idea is you used pom pom attacks to stun zombies making them groggy. In their groggy state Zombies are much easier to kill, usually going down in a single hit with Y. Manage to kill multiple zombies at the same time or in very quick succession and you’ll get more medals which can be used to enhance Juliet’s abilities, and is also one of the things you’re ranked on at the end of each level.
The Zombies aren’t your standard Zombies either. They have some intelligence and some will throw objects at you, some can breath fire on you and some even fire guns. Despite this though the difficulty on normal is a little on the easy side, barring some difficulty spikes in the form of Minigames.
These minigames are such huge leaps in difficulty as you go from having plenty of health to deal with zombies to instant death if you fail the minigame. They are fun to play but also frustrating. 90% of deaths will come from failing these minigames, not from normal Gameplay.
Difficulty is all over the place. As it has two easy to fail minigames Stage 2 becomes the hardest level to clear, yet the final boss (on stage 6) is really easy.
The story is pretty short and it won’t take more than a couple of days to finish it but LC biggest strength lies in its replayability. Each of the stages can be completed in under an hour and there’s plenty of encouragement to beat your previous scores. Playing on harder difficulties change zombie locations, with some special zombies only appearing on the hard modes and some items only become available on hard.
There is a long list of unlockables waiting to be unlocked including concept art, music and costumes to keep you going beyond the story. It’s not the most time consuming game but it’s a sweet ride while it lasts.
LC’s greatest strength lies in its characters and dialogue. While the story isn’t going to win any awards, the dialogue is excellent with many quotable lines. Grasshopper have given us such as excellent script with characters you really feel for. It’s almost impossible to play this without at least smiling.
Visuals are pretty standard but like I said earlier it’s refreshing to see a game with such bold use of colour. The soundtrack is excellent and customisable, but I would’ve liked a default music option, choosing just five for the entire game is a little annoying.
One final annoyance is a problem Grasshopper can’t seem to get right, Unskippable cutscenes. While some of the longer ones can be skipped there are some pointless ones that are just frustratingly annoying.
For example on stage 5 you come to a smallish room filled with explosive barrels. There is a survivor here and it’s very easy to accidentally kill him. Reload from a checkpoint and you have to watch a stupid cutscene where Juliet gets a phonecall from her sister. It doesn’t last long but after the 3rd or 4th attempt it really starts to grate.
While it may not be as deep as Bayonetta, Lollipop chainsaw is still a very competent Hack and Slash style beam em up with an awesome script and presented with a rainbow of colours and a kick ass soundtrack. A couple of annoyances such as Unskippable cutscenes and random difficulty spikes also get in the way of what is otherwise an amazing and unique game.
8/10
posted by Master hunter at 8:27 am
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