When a game hits the shelves at an “under $20” price in under a year after its release, it usually got there for a good reason. Bargain bin graves are dug quickly to bury bad gameplay, broken mechanics, and poor visuals. In Lollipop Chainsaw’s case, I think that hole was covered up very prematurely.
Juliet Starling is a normal high school girl. She’s got lots of friends, an adoring boyfriend, stands atop her school’s cheer squad- at competitions – oh and her favorite pastime is cutting up zombies and hordes of the undead with a giant chainsaw that He-Man would have trouble holding. She can also take dismembered heads and keep them alive with magic spells, save them for later, and put them on decapitated bodies to help her when she needs it. Ya know, the usual stuff.
Suda 51 is behind several “twisted” games and Lollipop Chainsaw straddles the line nicely between a crazy story and fun gameplay. It would be really easy to let the “wackiness” factor of a game like this get out of hand. I’ve seen it before with many similar types of titles- where the game is driven forward for the sole purpose of shocking people with as much violence and dropping as many F-Bombs as possible (thanks for the “memories” Duke Nukem!) Somewhere between the drawing board and the developer’s hard drive, the story, gameplay, and the attraction of a likable main character is lost. I’m really happy to say that Lollipop Chainsaw succeeds in every area where many other full-price new games fail these days.
I liked the plot a lot. Obviously we aren’t talking about Schindler’s list here in terms of drama and story. The storyline is simple, but effectively told with tongue in cheek humor. Zombies have invaded the High School and surrounding area. Juliet is first on the scene and ready to take care of business when her boyfriend Nick is bitten as well. In a desperate attempt to save his life, Juliet hacks his head off his infected body (with her giant pink chainsaw of course) and fills his head with magic spells so he can live, dangling off a rope off her belt. Not very good luck for Nick, but lucky for us, he adds some comic commentary to the story and makes a surprisingly good sidekick for Juliet. Though Juliet comes off as a bit of a blonde bimbo, overall her character still manages to have a fun personality and a sort of innocence that differentiates her from your typical grizzled “zombie killer” you see in other games and movies. Her family of zombie killers is pretty funny to watch also.
I especially like the boss characters. Each Zombie boss’s character is more memorable through the crazy music style they represent. You have a Punk-Rock Zombie that screams curse words at you- where the letters spell out and fly at you inflicting damage. A heavy metal Viking Zombie who throws lightning at you from his drums, and a funky, psychedelic, keyboard guitar zombie whose interests include “Rick James and piles of cocaine.” There are a couple other even crazier bosses as well, but I don’t want to spoil anything. On a related note- the soundtrack to this game is amazing. Like the boss themes, it covers the gambit of music from rock, to metal, to funk. Simply put – this is one of the best collections of music I have ever heard inside a game.
Lollipop Chainsaw has gameplay similar to Devil May Cry, you start with a basic move set executed through different combinations of 3 buttons on your controller. As you hack down the hordes of undead, you gain coins that you can spend through in-game shops to upgrade your health, strength, or get new and spectacular kill moves. It seemed expensive at first, but once you buy a couple of combos that cost 999 coins, you’ll be able to hack through mobs of 32 zombies at a time without much of a problem. Like the DMC “Devil Trigger” Juliet builds up and can activate a “Sparkle Hunting” attack where you can instantly decapitate any of the zombies around you, multiplying your score and the number of coins you get. By killing zombies in stylish fashion, or killing unique zombies, you also get platinum coins that you can use to buy different game collectibles or costumes for Juliet. At the end of a level, you are graded on your performance based on how many coins you collect, how fast you do the level, how many continues you used ect. For obsessive compulsives like myself, it presents a reason to keep upgrading your character and continue to get better scores on the levels and the respective ranked leaderboards. There is also special satisfaction once you are able to decapitate 7 zombies at once with a single swipe of your blade.
Though it shares some similar gameplay and mechanics, Lollipop chainsaw is NOWHERE near as hard or as punishing as Devil May Cry is. Getting a “D” ranking in Lollipop chainsaw doesn’t manage to crush my self-esteem the way a “D” in Devil May Cry does. If you give it a little time and effort, Your Juliet will be an efficient zombie slayer getting straight “A’s” in no time.
To be clear, if you are not into replaying a game several times for the sake of improving past performance, getting revenge on the A-Hole zombies that gave you a hard time on the first playthrough, or achievement hunting, Lollipop chainsaw is a pretty short game. I beat it in about 5 hours in my first run. I got grades on my report cards that would make a meth lab mom be ashamed, but I got it done. The length is definitely on the wrong side of a $60 price tag. For under $20, the length is fine, and a game you won’t have to commit 30 hours to just to feel like you got your moneys worth. It’s like taking a little energy drink shot rather than eating a whole tub of sugar to get results.
I do have some issues with the game that I think are worth noting. Some of the moves you eventually buy have similar inputs to other moves, so you end up doing the wrong attack from time to time. It would have been nice to be able to access the upgrades store from the main map rather than having to be in a mission- it sucks having to start a mission just to buy a new upgrade you can afford. Some of the mini-games and QTE’s you do while progressing through the game are a little tedious and sometimes result in some cheap instant deaths. Some of the mini sections placing Nick’s head on a zombie body get painful with the QTE instant deaths, however once you see him start dancing around, sometimes I just had to laugh. None of these issues really hinder the game outside of being minor inconveniences on the way to a perfect score.
Overall the game suffers from none of the other pitfalls that many other games suffer from. Load times are fine, graphics and voice acting are good, and gameplay is solid. This is a great find for me. I love to play a game that I can put into the “complete” pile in under 20 hours and still feel satisfied or even elated with the adventure that took me there. It is a shame that Lollipop Chainsaw got buried so quickly with all of the other better known and better marketed franchise games piling over the top of it. If you want a great game that delivers the goods without emptying your wallet first, check out the cheerleader with the chainsaw, she’ll show you a good time.
The Good The Bad and The Ugly:
Good: Quick and fun gameplay, great characters, good game mechanics
Bad: On the short side if just playing for story, a few cheap death moments
The Ugly: Nothing that ugly gameplay wise, though Punk Zombie Zed's face is pretty ugly- it's actually an improvement when you hack it in half.
How Much is it worth: $20 easily, anything less than that is a steal for this title
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