I got to demo the wildly popular Lollipop Chainsaw, from the mind of Suda51, and it’s a wild zombie romp as you have seen it advertised as. Of course that was after the fact that I took a few pictures with Juliet Starling herself, portrayed by Jessica Nigri. The game’s booth had that vibe as well as the matching Lollipop Chainsaw school bus located outside the convention center.
But back to the subject at hand: Lollipop Chainsaw had been a bit of a mystery before I had played it. I wasn’t new to a Suda51 game, and I had already seen the game’s advertisements before trying the game itself. The demo was quite fun. Juliet is easy to play as and the control scheme isn’t hard to get acclimated with. Juliet has a series of attacks that are useful depending on the situation. Pressing X is a mild attack. Y triggers a powerful sweep attack, and the A button is used to saw away zombies that try to crawl towards your feet. The B button is used to dodge zombie attacks and comes in handy when a horde is trying to slash away at you.
Moving the control stick in a certain direction while pressing the attack buttons mixes up your attack pattern. As with other hack ‘n slash games, multiple combinations of melee attacks are possible and fun to pull off. For the sake of the convention, all of Juliet’s moves were unlocked so that the player can get a sample of the character’s fighting dynamic. Juliet is a bubbly character. She has a calm and flirtatious exterior that slips into something more wild and frenzied when she’s faced with keeping herself alive amongst the zombie outbreak. No this isn’t a survival-horror game if that’s what you were thinking when you saw the word “zombie.” This is an over the top action game along the lines of another Suda51 game you may have heard of or played, No More Heroes.
As you drive up your attack combinations a meter will gradually fill that can be used as a berserk mode. With this enabled no zombie can withstand the chainsaw held in Juliet’s hands. Going off of the game’s title, restoring health means picking up lollipops in the field of battle.
Another whimsical feature is the quick time events in the game. In the demo’s case this meant dodging a bus careening out of control. Pressing buttons within the time limit triggers a flashy interactive scene that depicts Juliet moving out of harm’s way like it were a dance and it’s sure to appease fans of Suda51’s work.
Civilians can also be caught up in the zombie apocalypse. That’s where Juliet can lend a hand and save their lives. Zombies will try to devour the helpless civilians and if they succeed the civilians will die and then resurrect as zombies themselves. They’re tougher than the typical zombie so it’s a great idea to go out of your way to help them out. Once they’re in the all clear a helicopter swoops in and takes them to safety.
The game controlled really well. The cut scenes of the game are hilarious and the way the characters in the game move the story along is hysterical. Lollipop Chainsaw releases this Tuesday, June 12, and it’s definitely a game I look forward to picking up.
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