Slitterhead

Quick Summary 7.5/10 One of the Most love/hate games I've ever played. Coming from the ex silent hill/siren director, this visionary strange action/adventure body horror game has some intriguing, but very flawed executions. It's worth a try if you got time and a discount, but be prepared for a-lot of "Huh" moments overall. Story: 7.5 You are a "spirit" that come to stop creatures known as "slitterheads" from taking human hosts and killing more humans. Certain humans, when possessed are called rarities and they can retain you're spirit and gain abilities. Julee is one of these people that bonds with the spirit given the name Night owl. From there, the game delves into time travel, questions on morality, and so much more. At times it's intriguing other times frustrating and more than not you'll be left questioning a-lot. You can see like so much of this game that the developers had a huge idea and couldn't quite execute it, even in the story department, but they definitely were hoping to make this game into a new series of some form. Gameplay: 7/10 Body swapping action. That's the best way to describe it. You are able to bounce between random NPC's and main chars/rarities with a action/guard system. Each MC/Rarity comes with skills/abilities to upgrade along with various costumes to unlock. The guard the system has you hitting block and pushing the stick in the direction of the attack to create a almost parry like system that let's you after so many freeze time to do multiple attacks. The gameplay loop (no pun intended) has you chose between missions and then run through the city, usually to a point for a fight only to chase said fight through the city then come to a point where the actual final fight of the stage is. It become repetitive pretty quickly, and you realize the only thing keeping you going is the odd storyline, and the crazy Slitterhead designs. Graphics: 7/10 This game's graphics are a mixed bag, like so much else. You have decent character models within the main cast and the slitter-heads, especially the unique ones are all amazingly grotesque and intriguing in design. Yet, short of the main boss ones, you'll run into the same copy paste enemies and see the same npc's running through the city over and over. The inter-mission dialogue is done in a visual novel way, with character's statically sitting at their location while a floating filter is put on them. There's not much movement to it. You get again that if given more time and a bigger budget they almost wanted to go for a true open world style city and game, being set in Kowloon the wall city. The city itself is great to look at, but the same re-cycled maps over and over again take away from something that could have been special. The CG cutscene that do appear through the game make a great stand out, especially a few that drip artistic flair. Sound/Music: 7.5/10 The OST very Asian inspired for the most part, dripping the sounds of Kowloon all around you. All the tracks are befitting of the scenes and make you get engrossed in something you should be scoffing at. The sound effects and noises about are all adequate for what they are. The biggest gripe, is the voice acting or lack of. The game ops for test in most places, with grunts and random sound clips signifying whose speaking than randomly in a CG cutscene or a random scene certain characters will speak in full English dub. It's vary jarring and throws you out of the game at times. Final Thoughts: I want to hate the poor execution. The odd choices for using grunts for voices, the repetitive gameplay and monsters, the same missions used over and over, even the last minute gameplay twist towards the end, is infuriating in a way (thankfully i must have did good, cause it let me skip the mechanic). Yet, the story, the idea, the design of slitterheads, you can see some love went into things, but didn't quite get there. For that, I kept playing just to see where it ended and I'm ok with it. Will I play it again? Probably not, do I hope for a sequel? yes, cause I'd love to see what they can do next with it. If you can get this one on a steep discount and have a few days to play. Check it out for yourself, just don't go into this with high hopes, more like curiously of what it is.