pickhut's Lollipop Chainsaw review

I'm about halfway through the game myself and sadly I'd say you're pretty spot on. I find the combat enjoyable and decent but not great. The dialogue, cutscenes, concept, art style and Suda51 weirdness greatly overshadow the actual gameplay. It's absurdly easy so far on normal, some of the mini-games flat out suck (zombie baseball & the combine harvester), the loading times are long, and the audio is over compressed (this really pisses me off because I'm playing the PS3 version). The game was announced only shortly after Shadows of the Damned was released about a year ago. It just feels like it had a smaller budget and short development cycle. Of his localized cannon, I'd say this is slightly above Killer7 but pretty far below No More Heroes 1 & 2 and Shadows of the Damned.

Funny thing is, this is the first time I've actually played a Suda51 game. I've seen clips and watched some streams in the past for the other games, and just by that alone, even I agree his previous works had more variety, even if they had issues of their own.

This may sound strange saying this about a Suda51 game, but it feels like they were playing it safe in an attempt to appeal to a bigger crowd. Dunno.

Thanks for reading the review! I like the game, but in all honesty, it's something that's been seen before. Dug the style (concept, music, art, etc), though.

Nice review, Pickhut. How does it control? Pretty smooth? I hadn't heard of this game (I've been out of the loop) but it sounds like it has great style. Also sounds like it falls into the classic hack-and-slasher trap of being repetitive.

Plays basically like any other decent hack 'n slash game that's been released in the past, so no issues with the controls if you've played those before.

It actually doesn't feel all that repetitive your first playthrough mainly because the game does enough in the way of diversions from combat to break it up (anything from mini games of varying quality to short QTE-ish button prompts) and the game is only 5-6 hours. On my second playthrough, it does feel a lot more repetitive now that I can spam a lot of the same overpowered combos. I mean, it's not a good thing that it's best described as a higher budget Onechanbara. This game is going to bomb, so it's best to wait for it to drop price.

I dunno, once I got the spinning attack during the stadium stage in my first run, I pretty much spammed that attack the most, even when I bought other attacks later. It just felt easier to pull off compared to the more powerful attacks that required at least 7 button presses to perform.

The bigger combos are better for Sparkle Hunting and farming Platinum Medals.

That's true, but I do find it hard replaying the game for another full go just to unlock costumes, pictures, and getting better grades. The game's fun, but not THAT fun. :

Good review, I really enjoyed the game. The style and humor is great, and I love spotting all these off the wall references it keeps making to so much stuff, like you mentioned. (lol, Fulci Fun Center)
I agree, the minigames are a pain in the ass mostly, I didn't find many of them fun, except the combine one. It's completely pointless, but I thought it was fun lol.
I've almost got all the trophies now, and I'm still having fun with it.

Thanks for reading!