In 2012, Lollipop Chainsaw was released – a game that an unusual duo worked on. Game designer and executive producer Goichi Suda (Goichi Suda), also known as Suda51, – at that time he had already made a name for himself by releasing The Silver Case, Killer7 and two No More Heroes . And he was responsible for the script James Gunn (James Gunn) – the same one who later filmed and wrote everyone "Guardians of the Galaxy" For Marvel. As with all games Courts, The project failed to achieve great fame, but in certain circles it became a cult classic. The game was stuck on PS3 and Xbox 360, and now a re-release with the subtitle RePOP has finally been released on all current platforms .
Reme… that is, a remaster
For the first time about RePOP became known more than two years ago, when it was announced that the old development team (at least so the producer claimed) had bought the rights to Lollipop Chainsaw from the publisher and is preparing a remake. And a year ago the creators wrote that “at the request of the players” they would do not a remake, but a remaster. It was still good news, but it looked strange – at that time the audience was not really shown anything for them to draw any conclusions. Most likely, spending a large budget on a remake of a game that sold just over a million copies was simply considered inappropriate.
Perhaps in a full remake Lollipop Chainsaw and didn’t need it – after completing the remaster you understand that the game is not so badly preserved. The main thing is that the story and production of the videos were left unchanged here – something that is largely thanks to which the game was remembered and loved by fans. We play as cheerleader Juliet, who turned 18 at the very beginning of the game. On this occasion, she goes to the park near San Romero High School to meet her boyfriend Nick. Everything goes awry due to the zombie invasion – almost everyone turns into the living dead, and the rare surviving high school students are waiting for our help outside and inside the school.
Juliet still gets to her boyfriend, but a zombie bites him on the hand, which means that he himself will soon turn into a walking dead man. If usually in such situations the victim’s hand is cut off, then Juliet has a different approach – she cuts off the guy’s head and, with the help of some magic, makes it so that Nick’s brain does not die. And what’s left of the guy can hang on her belt, hitting the back of her head against her butt, and talk periodically.
In general, the story is as absurd as possible – in the spirit of the studio Grasshopper Manufacture and personally Courts. Over the course of six to seven hours, Juliet will have to visit several areas of the city and defeat hundreds (if not thousands) of zombies, periodically encountering bosses. The plot is good not only with a funny premise and a good ending – there are also wonderful dialogues (though not translated into Russian in the remaster). The characters always swear appropriately, mention musical groups like Green Day and My Chemical Romance, and sometimes utter phrases whose absurdity makes it difficult not to smile. If the game were more popular, it would be quoted.
The situations that Juliet finds herself in https://spicy-jackpots.uk/ are also funny – not only in terms of plot, but also in gameplay. In one episode, you will need to saw off zombie heads so that they fly into a basketball hoop, which is constantly guarded by a defender. In another, you will fight with a guitarist who creates words in the air that fly towards the heroine, and then you will cut the speakers under his feet. In the third, you will sit in a grain harvesting machine, only instead of grain there will be zombies. All this looks like an attraction where at any moment the calm can be interrupted by a bus crashing into the wall.
They powdered the old lady
Not a single scene was removed in the remaster, and the existing ones were not modified in any way. Modern rating agencies were not embarrassed either by the dialogue between Juliet and her boyfriend about pornography, or by the poses in which the heroine stands when sawing something from top to bottom. The achievement for looking up Juliet’s skirt remained in place, and it looks especially ridiculous compared to what happens here in some videos – either the camera will be in the right place after the jump, or the heroine will stick her butt out when some character in the story wants to talk to Nick’s head. This kind of game, of course, is best played in a room with the door closed – if someone sees what you are doing, it will be difficult to explain.
There are gameplay changes, but the sensations are only on paper. Juliet’s arsenal remains the same – she hits pom-poms, which can be used to stun targets, and also swings a chainsaw high or low. Plus you can jump to the side. When they first offer to fight zombies, I don’t like the combat system at all – switching between pom-poms and a chainsaw seems very jagged, the heroine’s movements lack grace and smoothness, and there’s no feeling at all that you’re controlling a cheerleader captain.
Everything changes when you start buying new attack combinations using coins collected from defeated zombies. Here you have cutting blows with a chainsaw after a jump, and circular swings that hit both upright and crawling zombies, and a repulsive blow from behind. When the combat system becomes richer, there is a desire to use pom-poms more actively, and not just chop everyone with a chainsaw – there are quite a lot of combinations that are easy to remember. Well, you can also improve Juliet’s characteristics using coins, including increasing her health and strength. In the remaster, prices for both combos and upgrades have been significantly reduced, so you can become stronger and more agile much faster than before.
The videos that start when several zombies are killed at the same time were not touched at all – but it would be better if they did something with them.
It is incorrect to call this version a regular port – they still tried to improve the graphics by transferring the project to Unreal Engine 5. At the first level, puddles were added, with which the asphalt does not look as dull as in the original. Somewhere they made the colors brighter and the lighting a little more realistic, and they got rid of the “soap” inherent in old games on Unreal Engine 3. It seems like a strange decision to abandon the cel-shading style, which made the game look like a comic book – the Juliet model was successfully adapted to the new style, but the opponents seemed to be left untouched, and they sometimes look completely shameful.
Overall, the game doesn’t look terrible (although periodic drops in frame rate are surprising), but I wanted more from such a release, especially since there was once talk of a remake. We got exactly the same game with minimal upgrades – don’t consider the ability to change Juliet’s chainsaw and hairstyle as new content. I don’t see the point in arguing over the updated soundtrack – it’s not the developers’ fault that the music licenses have expired long ago, and getting them again is probably too expensive. The main thing is that the song Lollipop by the Chordettes is still played in grocery stores.
What are the creators for? RePOP We really wasted our time on the mode, which is called: RePOP. If you select it before starting the level, all the blood in the game will turn purple, and fireworks and hearts will fly out of the corpses. At the same time, severed hands and heads will not go anywhere, that is, this cannot even be called a censorship regime. Fortunately, you don’t have to play the game like this: the original mode is always available – with exactly the brutality you’d expect from a game about a girl with a chainsaw.
On the one hand, Lollipop Chainsaw is a fun action game that has no analogues. On the other hand, the remaster turned out to be not the most impressive: there are few gameplay changes, and visually the game has not changed much. It’s difficult to rate. The game itself is worthy of attention, especially if you are used to unsightly games Grasshopper Manufacture and the specific humor of Suda51 – the plot remained very funny. But it’s a pity that there is practically nothing to praise the remaster for – except perhaps for the opportunity to get acquainted with the game without buying an old console and a rare disc.
Pros: neither the plot, nor the dialogues, nor the staging of the videos were changed – everything that made the game good many years ago remained in place; funny story with cute characters; the levels are reminiscent of attractions where something you don’t expect constantly happens; combat system rich in combinations – thanks to reduced prices, buying combos has become much easier.
Cons: very few changes in gameplay and graphics; there is too little new content – only costumes, chainsaws and hairstyles were added; It’s unclear who RePOP mode was made for.
