11/19/2023 0 Comments Lollipop chainsaw answer phoneGears can afford a longer chainsaw attack than Lollipop can due to melee attacks being rarer in Gears, but that’s far from the only factor. In Gears the weapon becomes temporarily lodged in an enemy and rips right through them with a tactile sensation. Compare the way this game uses a chainsaw to how Gears of War uses the same. You also cannot do with the chainsaw what you’d want to do with a chainsaw: Get a sense of cutting through enemies as opposed to just making contact with them. Our cheerleader protagonist is squeaky clean, acrobatic, and peppy, but her weapon feels dirty, forceful, and lethargic. All good stuff, but that doesn’t change that this is a game where at least 95% of playtime is gameplay, so it needs to use its character handling and the choices you make with characters to convey a sense of who they are, and Juliet does not feel like a chainsaw. Juliet’s whole deal is that she is an innocent and optimistic character in an occupation that would normally be considered messy and brutal. I get it, there’s meant to be a contrast between Juliet Starling’s good girl attitude and her loud, gory weapon. Here’s a big one to start on: Lollipop Chainsaw’s chainsaw does not suit Lollipop Chainsaw. The above description of AAA/B-tier dichotomy no longer applies for the industry, especially within the genres that Lollipop Chainsaw touches on. Lollipop Chainsaw’s stylistic elements are as bad if not worse than its technical elements, and 3. The stylistic elements of the game and the other parts that make it up are largely inseparable (the same goes for any video game), 2. However, there are three problems with this idea as you can apply it to Lollipop Chainsaw: 1. The appeal of B-tier titles has traditionally been that while they may have a lot of rough edges and less polish than a AAA game, they can reach stylistic heights and niches that AAA cannot. It’s tempting to say these kinds of traits are to be expected from a B-tier game and that we shouldn’t discount Lollipop Chainsaw as an entertaining or interesting experience because of them. Beyond the gameplay, this title also has that classic game narrative problem of dialogue beats and cutscenes usually only serving to contextualise gameplay instead of creating any depth or development for the characters. Lollipop Chainsaw also throws in all sorts of features to encourage you to replay the game, but then splices these novelty minigames into its levels that don’t feel like they’re meant to be played more than once, and sometimes don’t even stand up to that. You can buy more moves using the in-game currency, but most of these replicate functions of existing ones, and the game essentially makes you purchase your way towards a half-interesting combat system. One reason for this is that Lollipop Chainsaw doesn’t hold together as a hack-and-slash game: The heavy attacks often feel needlessly drawn-out, but the light attacks are only meant to stun enemies, so your choice is often between moves that feel sluggish or moves that feel ineffectual. However, it just doesn’t pass the bar as a modern entertainment experience. There’s something not necessarily fun, but oddly nostalgic about seeing an anachronistic character action game like this one that came out in 2012. The true surrealism of Lollipop Chainsaw is that it looks like a game that a Playstation 2 dev somehow sent into the future. The weirdness of Lollipop Chainsaw is meant to be in its spontaneous, random jokes, and deliberate clash of horror movie plotline with impossibly upbeat protagonist, but we’ve seen enough similar media in 21st century “nerd culture” that that’s comparatively mundane. That B-tier flavour is present in the camera which frequently fails to focus on your targets of attack, in the moments where paths through levels are just a little too conveniently opened up or closed off, and in the forward offer of concept art and OST tracks in exchange for rare in-game currency. If you played it however, you may have found the game is defined as much by the fact that it’s built like an old-school B-tier action experience than it is by any of the marketing bullet points mentioned above. rolling out a surprising amount of promotional firepower to convey the supposedly defining characteristics of the title: Off-the-wall humour and a high school cheerleader ferociously decapitating her way through zombie hordes. Of all of Goichi Suda’s games, Lollipop Chainsaw has to have been the one with the strongest marketing push behind it, with Warner Bros.
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