Yay alliteration

Jetlag is always fun >_>. A regular reader may know by now the entire shtick of this blog. Obscure, niche, underappreciated; this place is the Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends of the entertainment world. And lucky that it is because I’m still discovering stuff that slipped past my radar or was unavailable to me at the time of release. Case in point:

Or more specifcally Lollipop Chainsaw RePOP on Steam

Spearheaded by Japanese game designer Goichi Suda, Chainsaw Chelsaw is a beloved breakout hit in the Suda-verse, standing out among fans for its characters and premise, both of which are as simple as they can get. Zero Punctuation has it down to three words: Cheerleader fights zombies, and the cover doesn’t lie about that aspect whatsoever. But to nail it down even further (i.e. with more words), it goes something like this: An homage to Americana rockabilly 1950s and 60s culture doing battle with the devil’s music. Or tradition versus new age.

It starts off with a look inside the protagonist, Juliet Starling’s, bedroom as she narrates the opening on her 18th birthday. She gets on her bicycle and finds that much of the student body has been transformed into zombies, the main culprit being an outcast goth named Swan. Through the use of black magic, he summons different undead entities known as the Dark Purveyors to wreak havoc on the students. These Dark Purveyors each represent different genres of rock and metal and are in stark contrast the game’s heavy Elvis Presley 1950s Grease-style aesthetics.

Just writing that made me think of the generational gap as it applied to the United States. Not entirely sure what the British or even German versions would be, perhaps the punk and skinhead movements in Britain; and the post-war radical leftists of Germany? Though only the British variant would be close to a 1 to 1 with America being so far from post-war Europe.

Either way, it tickles the quirkiness enough that it can stand up there with Suda’s previous solo projects like Killer7 and No More Heroes while this one is a double act with James Gunn, following up on the previous double act with Shinji Mikami in Shadows of the Damned.

All the fanservice going into Juliet’s design as the star of the show, a concern of the time could be in her portrayal as the dumb blonde, further hurting whatever claims against female objectification with her balloon-sized breasts and a skirt that makes Kratos’ old kit modest by comparison. Actually, I think I have a case to compare her to Kratos same as I did with him and Kurenai of Burgundy Shinobi fame. Not necessarily a major concern for me, knowing this blog, and I agree with Yahtzee Croshaw in that fanservice or not, Chupa Chups Cheerleader is functionally more progressive than it looks.

Juliet is the master acrobatic chainsaw artist using the zombies as an endless supply of paint, has a lovely relationship with her family and her boyfriend, Nick, and serves as the funny man to Nick’s straight man. A classic double act that fits neatly with the time period being satirized in the game.

Abbott and Costello ain’t got nothin’ on Julie and Nicky (*v*)

On that note, the game satirizes a whole host of things. You can even consider it a clever one with how self-aware it is of the blending of East meets West, in an almost Panty and Stocking sort of way. Chalk it up to a quirk of the Big 5-1 and the then-popular Jimmy Gunn putting their styles together, but then again, Suda’s been described as the guy whose games are a silly exploitation of everything considered cool and edgy. He’s the guy I trust to take a popular property and ramp up every part of it that makes it unique. Enough that it climbs to a whopping 3rd place posing dramatically with its bronze and comfortably at number 3 or, at best, number 2 with confidence that no one is threatening to imitate it 20,000 times.

The God of War comparison works on a gameplay technicality in that, like Kratos, Julia Roberts gets upgrades and gadgets and new moves for the chainsaw to keep things as interesting as possible, but unlike Kratos, she doesn’t necessarily get a variety of weapons and magic to use and they’re all comparatively prompt based. With Kratos, you could press a button and put the blades away for a different weapon that’d be used only 20% of the time, meanwhile Junko Sakahara can turn her chainsaw into a blaster, use it to jump between longer distances with a running start, and receive phone calls from the built in telephone.

Craig Toes had to talk to statues, like they were Ancient Greek payphones.

While not obvious at the time, looking back, there seems to be a feedback loop. 2005 God of War helps to popularize hack-and-slash and contextual button prompts by way of the quicktime event–a trend that doesn’t come have the same prominence that it used to; 2012 Poppy Chainsaw Princess puts its own spin on the formula, with the addition of the talking head strapped to the main character’s hip like a fox mask; 2018 The Kratos Before the Ragnarok hangs up what should really be the Blades of Exile in favor of the Axe of the Serpent once wielded by wife Laufey at one point. Snake eating its own tail? Less that and more like opening a portal on the floor directly beneath one on the ceiling. Maybe even moving it slightly so every time the cube falls in it tumbles a little or does neat little physics tricks in real time. ^o^

For gameplay progression though, it’s locked to a chapter format by which the game autosaves after each chapter, not necessarily checkpoints within the chapter itself. Even after a contextual minigame with the chainsaw blaster or something, Julia Carlisle and Nicholas Cage progress to the boss fight. Only then when the next chapter opens up can you safely exit the game. And the chapters are admittedly padded. Greg Doofs and Jamie may not have been in the same room or even acknowledged each other’s existences, but part of me wishes they did so Jamrock could have a few dedicated savepoints.

As for the minigames, they vary enough to keep gameplay even more alive like Jun-li isn’t 25% marijuana, but the variance is sometimes to the point of setting up another rulebook that you barely get a chance to memorize it. My least favorite was zombie basketball with one of the zombies acting as the point-guard and blocking every three-pointer.

We can’t all be Like Mike

Chips and Chups still borrows from God of War with light attacks, heavy attacks, and special attacks to give you more points and opportunities to decapitate the zombies. And it does work. But so does roughly every other attack, to include a jumping start and a kick to the face. >_>

For my assessment, I’m going a step above Zero Punctuation. Zombie comedies have been done half to undeath even to the point where the zombie doesn’t necessarily need to look like a plain old zombie anymore. Ask this guy where he gets his moisturizer:

The man’s pain threshold has a permanent stain on the heavens

The original may require RPCS3-sama, but the RePOP is readily available on Steam and if you’re feeling particularly risque, GOG. Do it like the PC releases of Yakuza and play with a gamepad or Crimes Man will find you.