Lollipop Chainsaw was released in 2012 to wide-eyed fans. The game was a collaboration between Japanese game designer Goichi “SUDA51” Suda and American film director and producer James Gunn (Guardians of the Galaxy and Suicide Squad) and was published by Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Big names gathered there.
When Suda51 is involved, things tend to go in all sorts of directions, and the same goes for Lollipop Chainsaw. Get this: You take on the role of Juliet Starling, an 18-year-old blonde cheerleader who sucks lollipops and hunts zombies in her spare time, and as it turns out, her whole family does too. She’s equipped with a large chainsaw with hearts on it and a built-in phone, and also has her boyfriend’s severed but still living head hanging from her belt.
Lollipop Chainsaw may never have been a huge commercial success (it sold just over 1.2 million copies and became a million-seller, so it’s hardly a Concord), but it gained a loyal following of cult fans, like almost anything that good old Suda comes along with. This is probably why Japan’s Dragami Games, who were also involved in the original, decided to revisit the game 12 years later, not counting on the original developers, tweaking it with higher-resolution graphics, tweaks to the system, and a new RePOP mode.
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Basically, Lollipop Chainsaw wasn’t a very good game, and neither is the RePOP version. Everything smells like a B or Z movie (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and if you like different and extravagant games, this game is for you, because it’s largely unpredictable, absurd and completely extravagant, in other words, the Suda51 effect that leads to Lollipop Chainsaw.
In addition to gameplay that takes place in the traditional third-person perspective, Lollipop Chainsaw includes a number of mini-games and various sequences, such as putting your friend’s living head on a headless zombie body and using some quick-time events to clear the way for Juliet, who blows herself up. You can also harvest zombies with a combine harvester, play basketball with zombie heads, or play baseball with a rocket launcher. You never know what the game is going to throw at you next, and that helps you cope with the game’s many other mediocrities.
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As mentioned, this new version includes a RePOP mode, a new game mode that downplays the fairly pronounced violence and replaces the bloodshed with purple lightning, comic effects like “BAM!” and other things. It’s a little difficult to say who this mode is aimed at though, as the game as a whole is definitely aimed more at fans of the original and I don’t think they’ll go for RePOP mode. It seems a little constricted. Thankfully, you also have the option to play in Original mode, where the game is completely identical to the 2012 original, with plenty of bloody violence and severed limbs and zombie heads flying in all directions.
The combat system in both RePOP mode and the original mode, which is somewhat reminiscent of No More Heroes, is simple but fine, and as you progress through the game you unlock more attacks and combos, your chainsaw improves, and you get new weapons, including a very useful chainsaw blaster. The combat system in both modes has been tweaked a bit compared to the original game, including a more sensitive camera (so you can more easily spot enemies around you), faster movement, modernized attack controls from Nick (Juliet’s boyfriend), and other small tweaks to make the game feel a bit more up to date.
Along the way, you’ll come across small shops decorated with colorful balloons and teddy bears. Gold coins let you buy various kinds of upgrades, and rare platinum coins let you buy music and a range of risqué costumes for Juliet. Lollipop Chainsaw’s tone is pretty dull, and the “humor” is mostly crude. Camera angles often give away what color underwear Juliet is wearing (there’s even an achievement where you can position the camera so you can see under her skirt); this is Lollipop Chainsaw, and you can feel that this game is from a different time than 2024 without crossing the line, I think.
The visual style is quite good, but even with the updated graphics, it’s hardly pretty. When you kill zombies, there’s blood, body parts, rainbows and pink hearts everywhere (if you’re playing in original mode), and the graphics are slightly cartoonish. Everything now runs in 4K at up to 60 frames per second (Full HD at 30 frames per second on the Nintendo Switch), but it’s still not a visually appealing game.
Unfortunately, I have encountered a few bugs during my time with the game. One of them was entering rooms where an NPC was in T-position and the event the NPC should have triggered didn’t happen, forcing me to start over. I also had multiple experiences of not being able to perform special moves in a boss fight and not being able to complete a finishing move, which resulted in my progress in the game being blocked. There are just too many bugs, and they aren’t small bugs; they are bugs that will affect your progress. I have found ways to fix these glitches, but you can’t expect everyone to do it, and I hope these issues are resolved with the patch planned for Day 1.
Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP is the remaster we didn’t know we were missing. I was actually a huge fan of the original because I liked the way the game tried to entertain and surprise almost constantly. It still does, but time hasn’t been kind to Lollipop Chainsaw and this RePOP edition is less updated than I thought, especially considering the price of around 40 dollars. The graphics have been upscaled to 4K/60fps but that doesn’t make it much prettier, the controller updates are welcome but I can’t see who the RePOP mode is aimed at. And the version we received for review just has too many bugs.
This is a decidedly lazy remaster that has only been given a light coat of paint and looks worse than the original in places. If you were a big fan of the first Lollipop Chainsaw, you might want to consider the RePOP version, but there are some games you shouldn’t pick up because you’ll remember them better through the lens of nostalgia than they actually were. I think Lollipop Chainsaw is one of those titles – this RePOP edition has its bright spots, but the overall impression is that this remaster just isn’t good enough to go back to.