7 / 10 Banzai!s

The latest creation by Suda51 and Kadokawa Games is a solid button-mashing, zombie-cutting game that was released at the right time (June 12, 2012) in the middle of a slow season for games. I finally got around to it this month, being in the Halloween spirit, and decided to write my thoughts about the game…

Lollipop Chainsaw is enjoyable, with cheesy one-liners, innuendo, licensed music which fits perfectly with the game’s scenarios, and lots and LOTS of gratuitous animated T&A (one of the trophies/achievements is received for maneuvering the camera to look up Juliet’s skirt). It features a variety of gameplay, including mini-games honoring classic video games, mowing down zombies in a tractor and fighting zombie chickens. Who wouldn’t love that?

The controls are easy to learn, and you can purchase more powerful combos which string together button presses for powerful decapitation and “sparkle hunting” results. These are the key to obtaining higher scores for each stage, but it can be equally enjoyed by both button-mashers and tacticians. The “Nick Tickets” location at L3 can get annoying, as it is extremely easy to press the analog stick in while trying to move around to avoid zombies or place combos.

While I am personally not a fan of cel-shaded graphics (I’m looking at you, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker), this is extremely well done as a hybrid of CG and cel shading.

The main problem is the repetitive nature, especially when it comes to unskippable cut scenes. On multiple playthroughs the jokes can get stale, and every minor cut scene slows the game down. The major cut scenes CAN be skipped, thankfully. Still, you will need to play Lollipop Chainsaw at least twice (most likely three times) and may need to play the same stage a frustrating amount of times because of ranking mode.

This is the other fault, being that ranking mode stages MUST be completed in one session. If you die, whether it be normally, because a wall falls on you, or you run out of time during one of the mini games, you have to start over at the beginning of the stage. This would be fine if you could register a score for the leaderboards at the point of death, but you can only do this when you have completed the stage. Have fun with Zombie Baseball.

Overall, Lollipop Chainsaw is well made and was one of the more enjoyable games of 2012. It’s at least worth a rental or borrowing from your friend for a few nights of fun zombie slaying.

 

Fun: 8/10

Graphics: 7.5/10

Sound: 8/10 (highly dependent on musical tastes, however)

Replay Value: 4.5/10

Trophy Difficulty: 2-stars (somewhat easier than Assassin’s Creed II)

 

written by Ben Adkins