Lollipop Chainsaw ~My personal review~
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Lollipop Chainsaw ~My personal review~
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posted06/18/2012 02:50 AM (UTC)by
Well now, where do I begin. Well for one, I played this video game on the Xbox 360. I've never played the PS3 version and I don't know if there are any differences in the two, so there is that. The game was developed by Grasshopper Manufacture, and written by Goichi "Suda51" Suda(No More Heros, Shadows of the Damned) and James Gunn(Writer of Dawn of the Dead remake and Slither). The music was directed by the famed Akira Yamaoka of the Silent Hill series and composed by Jimmy Urine(Lead vocalist of Mindless Self Indulgence).
Alright, so we got the background out of the way, let's get to the real thing.
Story: Lollipop Chainsaw's story is something. Juliet Starling, the main protagonist, is the head cheerleader of her school, San Romero High. Her family are professional zombie hunters and she's put into the family business. Well, it also so happens that zombies began to attack San Romero and it's up to Juliet to kill them all. Who set the zombies free you might ask? If you guessed "Geek Goth Bastard" Swan, you're absolutely right.
Swan is the main villain in the game, wanting to watch the world burn. He's evil, he's ugly, and he's also funny. Swan summons 5 elite zombies from a world known as the Rotten World. You must kill all five zombies including Swan to stop the zombies from taking over the high school. Along to accompany you on this adventure is your bodyless boyfriend, Nick. Nick was waiting for Juliet outside the school to give her a present for her birthday when he got ambushed by the zombies and was later bitten in the arm. Juliet knew exactly what to do though and did what any other person would do in this situation. You decapitate them.
Nick later wakes up to see he has no body. Nothing but his head remains and soon he starts to panic. Apparently Juliet knew a special ritual that would keep him alive with no body to support him. Instead, he hangs off the belt from Juliet's backside and the hilarity surely ensues. The story is what you would expect from Suda51. Ridiculous and over the top. I liked it. It was pretty stupid, but that's the point of it. It's supposed to not take itself seriously.
Gameplay: So, you have two ways to attack. You have your regular chainsaw attacks and your low chainsaw attacks. Nothing too fancy in the beginning. You also have your pom-pom attack to stun your enemies. This is quite useful because the zombies are more easy to decapitate when stunned, so pom-pom the bastards to death. Juliet is quite flexible and nimble too for you can press the circle/B button on your controller to dodge enemy attacks. Pressing the dodge button with any other action button afterwards will give Juliet other moves for you to kill the undead. She can dropkick them, chainsaw from the air and stab downward into a crawling zombie's spine.
Every kill from a zombie rewards you with medals. These medals are your currency for the zombie shop which allows you to buy power-ups, BGM, combos, concept art, and most importantly, more costumes. Later on in the game you'll be allowed to use your boyfriends head for your attacks which can only be used by having special tickets. Use one of your tickets and a roulette appears above your head. Press the action button and a random Nick attack will be available to you for a limited time. I found myself not using this feature too often. I used it once when it was introduced to me, but other than that I didn't touch it at all.
Juliet's chainsaw upgrades for free over time. You get presents from your family that allows your chainsaw to do great things such as being able to dash and turn into a gun at will. Killing zombies will also fill up a meter at the bottom left of your screen. This meter is your "Zombie Sparkle Hunter" mode. You know when you play Super Mario Bros. and you pick up a glowing star? That's exactly what ZSHM is. You're invincible to all attacks as you go around slicing zombies heads off with one fell swoop. Get enough decapitations in a row and you'll earn a bonus in your medals.
Bottom line is the gameplay is fun and diverse, but if you want to really do damage, you best want to save up your coin and buy the combos and upgrades, otherwise it becomes dull and repetitive.
Sound: The soundtrack is great. What did you expect when legendary composer Akira Yamaoka is at the helm of directing the music? You've got original tracks that were composed by Jimmy Urine. Most of it is good, but other times it can be kinda forgetful. The game also has a compiled list of songs picked from Yamaoka and Urine themselves to put into the game in specific places and events. From Buckner and Garcia's "Pacman Fever" to Arch Enemy's "Nemesis", the music is well diverse. It doesn't pander to one specific genre of music and it's fun to listen to them. I didn't want to leave a specific room because they were blasting Skrillex's "Rock N Roll (Will Take You to the Mountain)" in a later part of the game. The sound effects are good too. The chainsaw is satisfying, and the voice acting is tip top. speaking of voice acting.
Voice Acting: The voice acting is fantastic. You've got Tara Strong voicing Juliet. Michael Rosenbaum as Nick. Sean Gunn voices Swan. Cordelia Starling is voiced by Linda Cardellini, and Zed the punk rock zombie is played by Jimmy Urine himself. It's all good. The dialogue between Nick and Juliet is priceless. They're still trying to see who the other person really is and the voice acting shows.
I thought it was all well done.
Replayability: Huge. I just got past my first playthrough and I haven't even scratched the surface. Stages are at least 30 minutes to an hour. Give or take. You collect lollipop wrappers, unlock 21 different costumes, and make your way to the good ending. That's right, there's a bad ending, and a good ending. Unfortunately I received the bad ending, but I'll get that good ending soon for sure. Every collectible is placed in different areas too depending on the difficulty selected. One secret zombie can be on easy, while another is impossible to get unless you're on the hard difficulty. So, to get everything, you must play all difficulties to 100% your collectibles. I like how they did that. It's gonna be a pain, but I'll get it eventually.
Bottom Line: Well, to sum it all up, this had to be one of the most stupid and over the top game I've played in a while. It's dirty, it's vile, and it doesn't care. I loved every second of it. I'm giving it a 9.5/10. This is just one of those truly underrated kind of games that's going to be totally looked over by a lot of people because "the cheerleader looks like a skank. herp derp". It's far more than that. Suda is the Quentin Tarantino of video games, and he always gets my support. So, pick it up when you get the chance. I hope this review was good, I'm not too good at making them as I tend to leave out important things. I think I got it down though. Let me know if you have any other questions about the game. I'm out.
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[Killswitch] what's your favorite attire of her's. since you said there twenty of them.
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My personal favorite?
My pre-order "Rockabilly" outfit of course. <3
My pre-order "Rockabilly" outfit of course. <3
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My favorite ones in order
Shiro from Deadman Wonderland
Maid outfit
Manyu Chifusa from Manyū Hiken-chō
Few games establish a tone as firmly and quickly as this one. Even fewer are willing to leave you behind if you aren’t into it. In the first five minutes, a voluptuous blonde goes from welcoming you to her bedroom to having a steamy shower scene to slaughtering zombies in her high school. If you can’t hang with the nonsense from the start, you won’t keep up as the obscene insanity spirals further out of control.
From top to bottom, Lollipop Chainsaw is self-aware and utterly silly. It has fun with itself and is proud to be what it is. Profanity is as prevalent as innuendo, and the open-faced absurdity is endearing.
Until it isn’t.
Lollipop embraces exploitation to poke fun at itself -- everything is excessively violent, excessively sexual, and mashed together with glitter, sparkles, and rainbows. Thematically, it's a weird, funny mix. At some point, however, the over-the-top exploitation of a hyper-sexualized high school student isn’t the parody it started as anymore.
For every zombie Juliet Starling decapitates with her chainsaw, someone calls her a whore, talks about masturbating to her, or comments on her gigantic breasts. In and out of combat, the primary goal of Lollipop Chainsaw is the money shot, whether it’s up Starling’s skirt or down her shirt.
Obscenity eventually hits a point where it’s no longer contributing to anything. When shocking and titillating the player take precedent over the core gameplay loop, we have problems.
The exhausting vulgarity is amusing early on but grows annoying shortly afterward. A few hours into the five-hour story I was sick of hearing anyone say anything -- except for Nick, Juliet’s boyfriend. Of course, the guy can’t do much more than color commentary since he’s nothing more than a disembodied head strapped to Juliet’s waist. He’s confused, incapable of contributing much, and quick with a witty joke. His banter is one of the only constants in Lollipop Chainsaw.
Almost every word out of Nick’s mouth made me laugh out loud because he’s written well. Juliet is an idiotic, unaware bimbo, and Nick is a frustrated, frightened, impatient high schooler who just has to deal with her. His sarcastic demeanor makes playing as Juliet tolerable -- something that can’t really be said about the combat or enemy encounters.
Juliet uses pom-poms, a chainsaw, a gigantic gun, and sometimes the head of her boyfriend on the end of a leash to kill zombies. It sounds like an arsenal ripe for endless amusement, but the sad reality is that it’s a slow grind. Juliet’s basic moves -- tied to a couple attacks and a dodge function -- don’t flow together until late in the game when she’s unlocked basic combos we’d expect to have from the start. As a result, she moves awkwardly, has to finish an animation before attacking again, and isn’t terribly effective for a large chunk of the campaign. Somehow, against all odds, Lollipop Chainsaw made it utterly unfun to swing a chainsaw at undead masses.
The greater problem is that none of the enemies are particularly dangerous or different. Some have more health. Others explode if you don’t kill them fast enough. For the most part, they’re just fodder for you to fill the requisite kill counter before moving onto the next uninspired arena battle. Lollipop Chainsaw is barren, devoid of substance. Wasteful mini-games, like shooting zombies as Nick rounds the bases at a ball diamond, or making your way through Pac-Man mazes in a faux video game, are empty forms of variety. The bosses are another standout low point: They're traditional, predictable time-sinks, complete with different phases, forms, and irritating one-hit kills.
The grindhouse film themes and vibrant, girly aesthetic exist on such opposite ends of the style spectrum that the game's violence always looks cool, especially against the backdrop of the fantastic, memorable, and totally rock-’n-roll soundtrack. The tedium of using many of the same moves and the repetition of encounter types (shoot this, swing on that, jump on them), however, means it’s just not very entertaining to play.
UH. Contributin. Theres my review.
Shiro from Deadman Wonderland
Maid outfit
Manyu Chifusa from Manyū Hiken-chō
Few games establish a tone as firmly and quickly as this one. Even fewer are willing to leave you behind if you aren’t into it. In the first five minutes, a voluptuous blonde goes from welcoming you to her bedroom to having a steamy shower scene to slaughtering zombies in her high school. If you can’t hang with the nonsense from the start, you won’t keep up as the obscene insanity spirals further out of control.
From top to bottom, Lollipop Chainsaw is self-aware and utterly silly. It has fun with itself and is proud to be what it is. Profanity is as prevalent as innuendo, and the open-faced absurdity is endearing.
Until it isn’t.
Lollipop embraces exploitation to poke fun at itself -- everything is excessively violent, excessively sexual, and mashed together with glitter, sparkles, and rainbows. Thematically, it's a weird, funny mix. At some point, however, the over-the-top exploitation of a hyper-sexualized high school student isn’t the parody it started as anymore.
For every zombie Juliet Starling decapitates with her chainsaw, someone calls her a whore, talks about masturbating to her, or comments on her gigantic breasts. In and out of combat, the primary goal of Lollipop Chainsaw is the money shot, whether it’s up Starling’s skirt or down her shirt.
Obscenity eventually hits a point where it’s no longer contributing to anything. When shocking and titillating the player take precedent over the core gameplay loop, we have problems.
The exhausting vulgarity is amusing early on but grows annoying shortly afterward. A few hours into the five-hour story I was sick of hearing anyone say anything -- except for Nick, Juliet’s boyfriend. Of course, the guy can’t do much more than color commentary since he’s nothing more than a disembodied head strapped to Juliet’s waist. He’s confused, incapable of contributing much, and quick with a witty joke. His banter is one of the only constants in Lollipop Chainsaw.
Almost every word out of Nick’s mouth made me laugh out loud because he’s written well. Juliet is an idiotic, unaware bimbo, and Nick is a frustrated, frightened, impatient high schooler who just has to deal with her. His sarcastic demeanor makes playing as Juliet tolerable -- something that can’t really be said about the combat or enemy encounters.
Juliet uses pom-poms, a chainsaw, a gigantic gun, and sometimes the head of her boyfriend on the end of a leash to kill zombies. It sounds like an arsenal ripe for endless amusement, but the sad reality is that it’s a slow grind. Juliet’s basic moves -- tied to a couple attacks and a dodge function -- don’t flow together until late in the game when she’s unlocked basic combos we’d expect to have from the start. As a result, she moves awkwardly, has to finish an animation before attacking again, and isn’t terribly effective for a large chunk of the campaign. Somehow, against all odds, Lollipop Chainsaw made it utterly unfun to swing a chainsaw at undead masses.
The greater problem is that none of the enemies are particularly dangerous or different. Some have more health. Others explode if you don’t kill them fast enough. For the most part, they’re just fodder for you to fill the requisite kill counter before moving onto the next uninspired arena battle. Lollipop Chainsaw is barren, devoid of substance. Wasteful mini-games, like shooting zombies as Nick rounds the bases at a ball diamond, or making your way through Pac-Man mazes in a faux video game, are empty forms of variety. The bosses are another standout low point: They're traditional, predictable time-sinks, complete with different phases, forms, and irritating one-hit kills.
The grindhouse film themes and vibrant, girly aesthetic exist on such opposite ends of the style spectrum that the game's violence always looks cool, especially against the backdrop of the fantastic, memorable, and totally rock-’n-roll soundtrack. The tedium of using many of the same moves and the repetition of encounter types (shoot this, swing on that, jump on them), however, means it’s just not very entertaining to play.
UH. Contributin. Theres my review.
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Shao Kahn did nothing wrong
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