“I hate it when everyone turns into zombies but it’s also kind of fun…”

I bought Lollipop Chainsaw day one. I remember getting a bonus iPhone case with it but I must have lost it at some point. I played through it once and then didn’t stick around much after. Lollipop Chainsaw is obviously a fun time, you can tell straight away. A cheerleader armed with a chainsaw and a talking severed head hanging on her hip. She is ripping through zombies with blood splatter and sparkles. There is plenty of wackiness, jokes and a great soundtrack. But there are reasons why I didn’t do a lot of replays back then and why I haven’t played this over the years since that were very clear on this revisit. As I mentioned in my Shadows of the Damned Hella Remastered review I didn’t buy the new Repop release, it doesn’t look great, so this will just cover the PS3 release.

“…Haha! It IS fun! It makes me forget that most of my friends are dead!”

A lot of writing on Lollipop Chainsaw I have read over the years talks about Suda51, James Gunn, the wackiness, the soundtrack and how it is some kind of parody and/or flawed but cool, punk, feminist work. I’m going to try to change things up by diving straight into the gameplay for while. Lollipop Chainsaw is a 3D beat em up with linear levels full of different types of zombie enemies, where you move from one encounter to the next, that is capped off with a boss fight. The main character, Juliet, has short simple combos with some more being unlocked as you progress. There are the light physical attacks used to soften zombies up, push them together and get them into a stunned state. This also has some homing on it too. Then there are the heavy chainsaw attacks for dealing more damage, taking off limbs and finishing off the undead and there is a low version too for taking off legs, putting zombies into a crawling state. You can also jump, which doubles as your dodge, and there are jump attacks. This can also be used to leap frog over enemies’ heads. Which you can attack out of and the leap frog also pushes enemies, again to help with grouping them together. It’s about positioning, crowd control and grouping softened/stunned enemies together so you can finish small groups in one go. Your reward for this is sparkle hunting. You get colours, hearts, rainbows, sound effects and zombie heads popping off when you get multi kills or quickly chain kills. But it isn’t just the audio/visual reward and the reward of quicker, better gameplay you also get more medals for unlocking things. On top of this Lollipop Chainsaw is clearly an arcadey game and playing well like this means a faster time and bigger score at the end of each stage and there is even a ranking mode with leader boards.

“Gross – Stupid – Undead Douchebags! OMFG”

They throw curve balls in there with tougher enemies, that have different attacks, you might want to prioritise and different mixes of enemies. Sometimes there will be people to rescue, exploding zombies, flying zombies, timers and some different level design. It does a good job of adding some extra little layers to the combat to have you changing up how you deal with these zombie mobs and it keeps you on your toes enough. You also get a type of gun that has limited bullets and there are Nick tickets allowing special moves that get Juliet’s severed head boyfriend in on the action. Juliet can do a forward charging attack called Chainsaw Dash which can be attacked out of and is of course great for running at groups with. There is a meter that builds as well and when full you can unleash Star Soul Mode. This allows you to run through one hit killing enemies and racking up those combo kills, while Hey Mickey is blasting and Juliet is all rainbows and shinning. This is all actually pretty fun even if it could be better. It works together well and functions as a good move set for this type of game, even if you might start leaning towards the same things repeatedly. There is a good game here I just wish Lollipop Chainsaw would let me enjoy it but instead this game constantly puts you off replaying it.

“Running zombies?! Haha! How fuckin’ stupid!”

The first big problem is progression. The majority of people that have played Lollipop Chainsaw have not played it at its best. That is because you won’t fully upgrade Juliet and get all her moves until the second play through and people will likely be playing on normal difficulty (or lower) which has lower enemy numbers then hard and very hard. We know from the available info that the majority of people only finish games once or not at all so lots of people missed out here. But I’m not going to blame them, although they… nope, no tangent, this will be long enough already, because it is the game’s fault. Progression should mostly come from a player building skill and understanding as they make their way through a game, particularly this type of game, not video games just slowly handing out shit that should have been available at the start of the game. At the start of Lollipop Chainsaw Juliet should have her homing, damage and recovery already at max and she should have all her moves straight away. Then make normal difficulty easy and hard difficulty normal. It would have been a better, more immediate game that provided way better first play throughs. The Chainsaw Dash and Nick Popper and other things are already introduced along the way. The zombie medals could just exist as currency for items, as they already do, and forget about the need to use them for upgrades and moves. This issue really compounds with my other problems as well.

“What the dick is going on with all this crazy stuff?”

Lollipop Chainsaw constantly stops and rips control away from the player. It is packed full of so many gimmicky bits that might be funny and charming the first time but holy shit why are they not removed or skippable on replays. There are constant short scenes, phone calls, interruptions, loading and moments where the camera pulls away to show you something. Playing at this continuous stop/start pace is really grating but then it gets even worse because of all the gimmicky moments too. You stick Nick’s head on zombie bodies for a short, really basic rhythm mini game, run over zombies in a harvester, bounce on zombie heads, shoot zombies in a baseball stadium and there are many more. They aren’t great the first time but at least they’re silly fun. But then they are often repeated and you have to do them over and over on replays and in ranking mode as well. It is awful for ranking mode because messing them up costs time and some can result in using a continue if failed. So Grasshopper made a fun, arcadey, re-playable game but then made the first play through more of a slog and less fun then it could have been while also making it fucking irritating to replay over and over. Why was it done this way. Was Warner Bros. meddling or was it just a clash of the content of the game and type of game it is? Maybe it was because in 2012 we had already been shifting to the new way of game design. Video games need to be doing the progression for the player and with lower difficulty. Everything has to be shown and explained for longer and done one at a time. Games need to be prescribed, overly scripted and strongly designed with the first play through, and often only that play through, in mind. Or maybe this was just the only way a really short, re-playable, arcadey game could be snuck out as a full price console game in 2012. Lollipop Chainsaw has other issues as well like underwhelming and really scripted feeling boss fights, performance problems, and camera issues and there is not quite enough challenge even on very hard. It all has you constantly questioning if it is worth continuing to come back too but the way it plays does go hand in hand with the tone, main character and presentation.

“It’s more fun killing zombies when they’re in rainbow colors, huh?!”

“It’s about the same. Maybe a little better.”

Even though these things hurt the game play experience it is probably these things and the style, presentation, characters and uniqueness that make this game stand out and a lot more memorable. Then there is what’s going on in Lollipop Chainsaw too. The game is about a zombie outbreak that the zombie hunter Juliet and her zombie hunting family have to deal with. It starts with the white, American, blonde hair, blue eyed, fit, cheerleader Juliet letting us know she turns 18 today as the camera moves along her body. Then she is in the shower before rushing to school in her bright purple cheerleader outfit with long socks and short skirt. But then by the end of the prologue it is her boyfriend Nick that gets literally objectified as he gets decapitated to save him from a zombie bite. He is then kept alive as a severed head and worn as an accessory throughout the game. He is used as a tool and a weapon right through the game. The women in the game forget his name while calling him cute, hot, cool or handsome and completely ignore his feelings and the seriousness of what happened to him. He is stripped of autonomy, belittled and taken along for this ride despite his pretty strong protests later in the game. Meanwhile the over powered, over confident and highly competent women in Lollipop Chainsaw kickass and take the spotlight with their dialogue, quirks and use of violence.

“…I can’t take this anymore, Juliet… I don’t want to go any further! …What about what I want?! …Living like this sucks anyway.”

“NO.”

“…You can’t just take me if I don’t want to”

“Yes I can. Because I love you so much.”

Back to Juliet, is she meant to be a parody of a female video game character, while also being a great female character? The way she seems so unconscious of herself, what she is and looks like. The way she is oblivious to how characters speak about her or even right to her and oblivious to the way her sensei behaves. At the same time she is also somehow quite intelligent, likable, ridiculously competent and powerful without a whole lot of explanation. Speaking of parody that is what this whole game seems like. It is packed with excessive stereotypes, like the bosses of each stage are of a genre of music, there is the choice of locations, the character types, the way Juliet speaks, the whole arcade game stage and it is packed with references and a lot more. There is so much here that it is more a general skewering of pop culture. But then the music choices are so good, everything is upbeat and not too harsh. The game has a great sense of fun so maybe roast is a better word. The creators love this stuff, know this stuff but are having some playful fun with it. I enjoyed the journey, was on board for the humour and liked its type of cute exploitation. Maybe a more developed and/or more focused approach could have been better though and it is probably contradicting itself at times for the sake of laughs and silly moments.

“I never thought I’d be saved by someone with such great tits!”

If you’re going to make a self aware, campy game about an over powered cheerleader tearing through zombies with a chainsaw that’s going to be roasting popular culture along the way then you better deliver on presentation and Lollipop Chainsaw does. Its style is a mash up of comic book, grind house and videogame-y. There is a strong use of bright colours, rainbows, hearts and sparkles mixed with bloody violence, gore and film grain. Then there is the use of fonts, effects and the menus and big glowing medals and health pickups. It looks really good and cohesive and the look fits this game and its main character like a glove. Speaking of, these are great character designs paired with well done and well suited voice acting. Of course the soundtrack pushes things over the edge into something really special. I haven’t played the Repop release but I have seen videos of it and yeah they messed up the visuals and it doesn’t have the same soundtrack. I have seen bugs and performance issues reported too. I would really try to play the original any way you can instead.

“What’s your favourite colour, Nick?”

“Blue. No green.”

“Awesome, I love learning about you.”

“I fucked up its yellow.”

Lollipop Chainsaw is a good time and it can be pretty good to play and replay. You often need to grit your teeth and push through to enjoy it though and Lollipop Chainsaw might only just barely be worth doing that sometimes. It is one of those games I wouldn’t really rate highly but still kind of love and would really recommend. Like Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw is actually fun (and frustrating), memorable, takes risks and is interesting, which is more than can be said about many dull, safe games that sold far more than both these two titles combined.

Woah, what a game.

I've been curious about this game for years --just the premise alone sounds fun-- but not having a console and some mediocre reviews made me put it off. I shouldn't have because it's super fun.

I will admit that it's got a lot of issues. Gameplay takes a while and a few character upgrades to get good and the camera is as much of an enemy as any boss. On top of that, it's got more QTEs than gratuitous panty shots, and the annoying habit of cheap game overs --particularly when failing the many minigames.

But the game distracts from those flaws with its fun and care-free energy. Juliet gleefully decapitates hordes of zombies leaving sparkles and rainbows on her wake. And the colorful slow-motion aside when killing multiple zombies at the same time never gets old.

The music is also fantastic and combines perfectly with the colorful visuals and the teenage cliques themes.

And yes, I'm a big enough person to recognise that the sexiness is also part of the appeal. I love that Juliet is always in control and is never victimised.

I liked the game so much that right after beating the last boss I started it again in hard difficulty, which is unheard-of.

And although there are some bad jokes and the humors tends to be on the crass side, the dialogue is also genuinely funny and absurd. Things like a student saying "My favorite president is Warren G. Harding" after you save it, or Nick arc coming to terms with being a bodiless head. I love it completely unironically.