Just like the summonable, energy-shooting ghoul I cultivated on my spaceship’s zombie farm, Romeo is a Lifeless Man is a little bit of a grower. After an iffy begin that displays loads of Grasshopper Manufacture weirdness however not a lot Grasshopper Manufacture allure, its disparate elements do ultimately coalesce, forming a lean but muscular hack ‘n’ slash with a playful expertise for mixing up its mediums.
God, so many mediums. The story of Romeo – small city cop turned cyborg samurai, enlisted to hunt a number of space-time variants of clearly evil ex Juliet – is informed not simply by way of Unreal Engine cutscenes, but additionally animated pulp comics, cease movement, and 16-bit pixel artwork, and that’s simply within the first half hour. It will get eclectic whilst you’re truly enjoying, too: bloody melee fight stays the star nevertheless it’s hardly ever lengthy earlier than you’re dragged off to do some 3D puzzling, or to improve your stats and objects by enjoying arcade and mini-games.
It’s unlucky that, within the early levels, not all of it lands. Such selection initially seems to color a surface-level veneer of innovation over the motion, which itself begins gradual, solely pitting you towards shambling undead and the occasional powered-up meat monster. Neither does it assist that the plot is basically stakeless multiverse nonsense, adopting a blandly literal interpretation of Suda51’s recurring Kill the Previous theme and repeatedly contradicting itself with cheerful ‘Don’t fear about it’ handwaves. Sport, I need to fret about it! Worrying is simply caring with an additional syllable!
Keep it up, although, and Romeo is a Lifeless Man develops a real capability to shock. Partly, as a result of it is aware of when to decide to the bit. There’s an prolonged sequence midway by way of that dips into survival horror, and as an alternative of merely taking away Romeo’s means to swing a sword, your entire sport shifts right into a claustrophobic over-the-shoulder perspective whereas introducing stealth and Resident Evil-style puzzle parts that by no means reappear anyplace else. That’s a bonkers quantity of funding for a single switch-up. I don’t wish to spoil the latter levels, like I’m apparently keen to do for the horror bit, however these additionally run additional with the cross-media facet, skillfully relieving among the extra dramatic moments with high-effort swerves into absurdist, visually numerous comedy.
Additionally, y’know, it’s a fairly good motion sport. Fight recovers from its weak begin as properly, each trusting you to uncover the nuances of its combo swishing and steadily enlarging the menagerie of offended flesh flappers – largely in a smart order of problem – to check what you’ve realized. Romeo is not any Dante or Raiden, agility-wise, however what his preventing model lacks in flashiness is greater than made up for in tangible, satisfying weight. Even the default sword, maybe probably the most purely useful weapon amongst an arsenal of energy fists and sci-fi spears, cuts by way of crowds and bisects behemoths with a moreish chunkiness. Romeo also can wield weapons, although I ended up having sufficient enjoyable with the blades that I solely whipped out my shotgun when essential. As in, needing to shoot issues that have been both a) flying out of attain or b) liable to blow up in my face upon thwacking them.
The comparatively prolonged wind-ups and restoration occasions do require greater than a measure of timing, and executives will fortunately educate a harsh lesson in it. However concurrently, Romeo is a Lifeless Man is barely ever about passively ready for a gap. There’s no blocking or parrying, and profitable strikes fill a blood gauge that permits you to lash out with extra highly effective particular strikes – which additionally partially refill your well being. All of this conspires to thrust you into extremely aggressive, excitingly pacey brawls, the place taking some hits is perhaps value it in the event you can fill that blood bar in return. Dodging, too, usually seems like much less of an evasive method and extra an offensive manoeuvre for shifting into the optimum backstabbing angle.
None of that is particularly groundbreaking. But it surely looks like earlier than you can begin layering on novelty cinematics and style juggling, it’d be vital to to your motion sport to have good motion. And Romeo is a Lifeless Man’s fighty elements are meaty, frantic, and terribly good enjoyable.
Reality be informed, it’s additionally not simply probably the most bold of Lifeless Man’s foolish asides that may extract a smile. Between missions, I all the time loved returning to the FBI’s spaceship hub (lengthy story), the place – in change for parting with the third dimension – you’ll be able to chat, commerce, and improve with weirdo brokers and amusingly out-of-place members of the family. Right here, the ‘Positive, no matter’ humour works higher than in fundamental story beats; no one questions the logic of rising allied zombies like carrots so you’ll be able to name them up in later battles, which makes it funnier if you yank one out of the filth to triumphant fanfare. And there’s one thing each candy and entertaining about having Romeo’s mum, settled contained in the ship’s galley, prepare dinner buff-granting katsu curries utilizing elements you’ve discovered drifting in area. As Yuri Gagarin stated, “I noticed how lovely our planet is, and in addition what number of jars of cumin are simply floating round up there.”
I wasn’t fairly so completely satisfied in Sub-Area, the loosely Tron-ish alternate dimension that almost all missions have you ever poking round for keys and light-weight navigational puzzles. Its aesthetic, that of a Zen backyard as in-built a closely shader-modded Minecraft, is kind of good. However whereas the remainder of the sport received higher with time, the attraction of one more dive into Sub-Area solely waned. For one factor, a whole lot of these sections simply go on far, far too lengthy, slowing down progress in a means that turns into ever extra incongruous with the impetus-heavy fight. For one more, going there totally knackered my framerates.
PC efficiency, usually, lurches round like a Regent’s Park pedalo in a Caribbean storm. At what’s often a simple 1440p, my RTX 3090 – operating Extremely settings with High quality-level DLSS 4 – couldn’t reliably maintain 60fps, with drops to 30fps and typically even decrease in some Sub-Area areas. I additionally tried the Steam Deck, utilizing the bottom doable settings plus FSR upscaling, and that fell deep into the twenties too – even in actual area. That is fortunately not a repeat of the No Extra Heroes PC port, as you do a minimum of get correct mouse/keyboard help and, evidently, these customized graphics choices. Nonetheless, it’s no easy runner both.
Whether or not that’s a dealbreaker, I’ll depart between you and your rig. In the event you can run it, although, Romeo is a Lifeless Man offers smiles, surprises, and memorable swordfights, particularly as soon as it warms up. It in all probability gained’t go down as an all-timer in Grasshopper Manufacture’s ouvre, and in 20 years’ time, I doubt YouTube will likely be recommending me Romeo movies as usually because it at present does Killer7’s Russian Roulette scene. However that’s effective: high quality slashing and natural zombie gardening can nonetheless depend for many.
