Suda51 is one of the few developers whose works are incredibly distinct. When you look at a game like No More Heroes, you can almost certainly say, “that is absolutely a Suda project” without thinking twice. When Grasshopper Manufacture revealed Romeo is a Dead Man in June of last year, I knew immediately that this was going to be something special. Once I saw Suda’s name on the project, my interest was solidified.
I had the opportunity to sit down with the preview build for Romeo is a Dead Man after all this waiting, so now it’s time to see what I have gotten myself into.
Right out the gate, I was greeted with a game brimming with Suda51’s trademark personality. Everything from the menu design to the pixelated aesthetic sprinkled throughout the game’s areas just screams Suda. This is especially seen in the dialogue, where the game clearly doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It felt like every time I went to do something else, I’d always be greeted with a different visual style to navigate.
The game often switches from a 16-bit aesthetic in the hub to realistic 3D when you’re on the ground in various levels. When you’re not slaying zombies, you can also enter areas that look like something out of Tron to collect items. You enter these zones through a “Nirvana TV,” where a pixelated, faceless man drops some philosophy on you before teleporting you.
The combat is easily the strongest aspect of the game. You start with a katana, but quickly gain access to ways to unlock more weapons, including fist gauntlets and a two-piece spear. Right from the get-go, you’re given several ways to hack through waves of enemies, and it is satisfying! There are some notes taken from No More Heroes when it comes to the hack-and-slash loop of fighting enemies, but it flows really well in Romeo.
After beating the first boss, you gain access to the spaceship that acts as the game’s hub. On this ship, one of several rooms takes the form of an arcade where you play minigames to unlock new weapon upgrades and buffs for Romeo. All of these upgrades require a currency called Sentrey, which can either be gathered from levels or synthesized from the ship with Emerald Flowsion, which is dropped by enemies.
While it is fun to upgrade yourself, sometimes you need an extra hand in rough patches. Thankfully, the game will let you bring a few bastards along for the ride! (No, seriously, that is what they are called!)
In a farm area of the ship you can, ahem, grow a bastard out of the ground to fight with you. Apart from being a sentence I didn’t think I would ever write, this is an interesting mechanic that has saved me a few times. These assist characters can be summoned after a cooldown, and can have a variety of abilities that range from acting as an attack turret to providing healing if you stand by them. You can bring up to four of them with you into levels as well as boss fights, so they are a good asset to have by your side.
What makes these extra interesting is the ability to fuse them, similar to demons in Persona. By fusing bastards, you can boost the level for cooldown time, attack power, and range, so it helps to fuse often! To gain new bastards, you have to plant them in the farm plots on the ship, then wait 10 minutes for them to be harvested. This can be sped up by spending Emerald Flowsion, but you will need quite a bit of it to speed up the growth process.
I’ve enjoyed experimenting with different abilities, and having a few of these bastards to use in levels has been very helpful in my playthrough.
While the combat was the strongest part of Romeo for me so far, it is unfortunately the story that suffers as a result. I am personally someone who enjoys a game with a plot I can follow and get invested in. From what I’ve played, I’m not sure if Romeo has that.
Within the first half hour, it felt like I was just given an incredibly vague backstory of how Romeo got to look the way he does. As for his motivation to kill a bunch of zombies and find this Juliet person, it felt like the game just didn’t really want to go in-depth on that. You are basically told, “hey, this Juliet person has many different variations spread across different points in time. Since you are in love with her, you probably know why she’s evil or something.”
All of these Juliet variants shown in this brief explanation would have been cool to fight against, but were instead sidelined to be part of the comic book exposition. Maybe there is more to unpack beyond what I am allowed to share at this point, but it felt like the plot was an afterthought so far.
Final Impressions
Romeo is a Dead Man is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be and wastes no time letting you know that. It’s an exciting action game that opens the floor for you to mow down enemies and slash your way across time. While the combat was the strongest part of Romeo for me so far, I’m just not feeling the story right now. I am personally someone who enjoys a game with a plot I can follow and get invested in. From what I’ve played, I’m not sure if Romeo has that, but I’d love to be proven wrong in the final product! Besides that, this is easily a must-play if you enjoy Suda’s other games.
I had the opportunity to sit down with a preview build for Romeo is a Dead Man after all this waiting, so now it’s time to see what I have gotten myself into.
Suda51 is one of the few developers whose works are incredibly distinct. When you look at a game like No More Heroes, you can almost certainly say, “that is absolutely a Suda project” without thinking twice. When Grasshopper Manufacture revealed Romeo is a Dead Man in June of last year, I knew immediately that this was going to be something special. Once I saw Suda’s name on the project, my interest was solidified.
I had the opportunity to sit down with the preview build for Romeo is a Dead Man after all this waiting, so now it’s time to see what I have gotten myself into.
Right out the gate, I was greeted with a game brimming with Suda51’s trademark personality. Everything from the menu design to the pixelated aesthetic sprinkled throughout the game’s areas just screams Suda. This is especially seen in the dialogue, where the game clearly doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It felt like every time I went to do something else, I’d always be greeted with a different visual style to navigate.
The game often switches from a 16-bit aesthetic in the hub to realistic 3D when you’re on the ground in various levels. When you’re not slaying zombies, you can also enter areas that look like something out of Tron to collect items. You enter these zones through a “Nirvana TV,” where a pixelated, faceless man drops some philosophy on you before teleporting you.
The combat is easily the strongest aspect of the game. You start with a katana, but quickly gain access to ways to unlock more weapons, including fist gauntlets and a two-piece spear. Right from the get-go, you’re given several ways to hack through waves of enemies, and it is satisfying! There are some notes taken from No More Heroes when it comes to the hack-and-slash loop of fighting enemies, but it flows really well in Romeo.
After beating the first boss, you gain access to the spaceship that acts as the game’s hub. On this ship, one of several rooms takes the form of an arcade where you play minigames to unlock new weapon upgrades and buffs for Romeo. All of these upgrades require a currency called Sentrey, which can either be gathered from levels or synthesized from the ship with Emerald Flowsion, which is dropped by enemies.
While it is fun to upgrade yourself, sometimes you need an extra hand in rough patches. Thankfully, the game will let you bring a few bastards along for the ride! (No, seriously, that is what they are called!)
In a farm area of the ship you can, ahem, grow a bastard out of the ground to fight with you. Apart from being a sentence I didn’t think I would ever write, this is an interesting mechanic that has saved me a few times. These assist characters can be summoned after a cooldown, and can have a variety of abilities that range from acting as an attack turret to providing healing if you stand by them. You can bring up to four of them with you into levels as well as boss fights, so they are a good asset to have by your side.
What makes these extra interesting is the ability to fuse them, similar to demons in Persona. By fusing bastards, you can boost the level for cooldown time, attack power, and range, so it helps to fuse often! To gain new bastards, you have to plant them in the farm plots on the ship, then wait 10 minutes for them to be harvested. This can be sped up by spending Emerald Flowsion, but you will need quite a bit of it to speed up the growth process.
I’ve enjoyed experimenting with different abilities, and having a few of these bastards to use in levels has been very helpful in my playthrough.
While the combat was the strongest part of Romeo for me so far, it is unfortunately the story that suffers as a result. I am personally someone who enjoys a game with a plot I can follow and get invested in. From what I’ve played, I’m not sure if Romeo has that.
Within the first half hour, it felt like I was just given an incredibly vague backstory of how Romeo got to look the way he does. As for his motivation to kill a bunch of zombies and find this Juliet person, it felt like the game just didn’t really want to go in-depth on that. You are basically told, “hey, this Juliet person has many different variations spread across different points in time. Since you are in love with her, you probably know why she’s evil or something.”
All of these Juliet variants shown in this brief explanation would have been cool to fight against, but were instead sidelined to be part of the comic book exposition. Maybe there is more to unpack beyond what I am allowed to share at this point, but it felt like the plot was an afterthought so far.
Final Impressions
Romeo is a Dead Man is a game that knows exactly what it wants to be and wastes no time letting you know that. It’s an exciting action game that opens the floor for you to mow down enemies and slash your way across time. While the combat was the strongest part of Romeo for me so far, I’m just not feeling the story right now. I am personally someone who enjoys a game with a plot I can follow and get invested in. From what I’ve played, I’m not sure if Romeo has that, but I’d love to be proven wrong in the final product! Besides that, this is easily a must-play if you enjoy Suda’s other games.
by Michael Fertitta
