Discussing how development began on Lollipop Chainsaw 2: Back2Back during an official stage show at Tokyo Game Show, producer Joe Tung of Nada Holdings preceded his comments by giving his sincere gratitude to the original game’s creators, Suda51, James Gunn, and Yoshimi Yasuda. Their work on the original was “legendary,” as he puts it, and drove his desire to live up to their efforts when he got the chance to work on the recent remake, RePop. That work led to him and the remake development team, Dragami Games, being involved in bringing the series back for its first sequel after almost 15 years, notably without the involvement of three legendary creative leads.
Sadly, far from living up to the legacy of the original, the early demo showcased during Tokyo Game Show suggests the sequel is more an aimless zombified corpse of what was once a living idea.
From the beginning, the intent with this sequel has not been to reinvent the wheel, and that became very clear when playing the demo on the show floor. Just approaching the demo area, I was greeted with an overwhelming sense of the familiar, complete with a photo spot where attendees could snap a pic with protagonist Juliet and three zombies ready to be sliced down. Yes, the first game’s cheerleader heroine is back, with the severed head of her boyfriend still firmly attached to her waist. With all this familiarity on display, it’s hard to glean what new ideas the devs have planned to justify this game’s existence and make it more than just a rehash of its predecessor.
Seeing any kind of original vision on display here is all the more difficult because in this early state, Lollipop Chainsaw 2 is very rough. This demo was arguably simply not ready to be shown to the public, but perhaps the team felt compelled to show it due to having invested in the cost of a stage presence. Whatever the case, the game feels devoid of everything that helped the first game overcome its admittedly generic hack-and-slash gameplay loop and feel memorable as a result. Without any introduction to the setting and without any of the snappy writing that enlivened the original, the demo rather unceremoniously throws us into a burning gray city landscape with waves of zombies for us to slice and dice our way through.
Where the original had a pumping soundtrack of licensed hits that brought a rebellious and unapologetic energy to its zombie apocalypse, heightened by special attacks and fluid animations that at least made you feel like you were doing more than repeatedly pressing the same button for 90 percent of the game, there’s no weight or impact to any of your actions in this new sequel.
In contrast to the tactile feeling that slicing through enemies could deliver in the original, gameplay here felt floaty, with no feedback emphasizing that your attacks were actually connecting with your enemies. Blood sprays and a combo meter increases, but every slice is so nonchalant that it all feels pretty disconnected from any of your own actions. Sliding through locales on your roller blades feels more like wading through soup than doing anything graceful.
The humorous quips of the original? Entirely absent. Previously, your boyfriend would chatter with a relentless comedic energy, punctuated by sharp quips that hadn’t yet become groan-inducing thanks to a decade of self-aware MCU-era dialogue. While the sequel’s voice acting may simply not be recorded yet, its absence only emphasizes how little is on offer in this vertical slice, a feeling the demo’s visuals also contribute to. The original was hardly a looker despite a healthy injection of cash from Warner Bros. to fund development, but at least it at least had a distinct vibe, blending grungy aesthetics with Juliet’s bubblegum-cheer-squad looks.
Most disappointing of all was the boss fight showcased in the demo. While again, it lacks any writing to bring context to the scene, this still should have been an immediate slam dunk. The boss is a very blatant parody of Barbie that’s conceptually interesting, complete with its own Barbie-esque setting resembling a dreamhouse as an army of zombie Kens worship their pink princess with empty wonder, only to be rewarded by having their heads unceremoniously tossed at Juliet as an offensive strike.
But from there, the encounter devolves into a disjointed mess. The developers at Dragami Games have a notion of the absurdity that sits at the heart of Lollipop Chainsaw, but don’t understand the blend of visual design and writing that made it work all those years ago.
It’s hard to know whether the team understands the direction it’s taking with this game, and it’s possible that with refinement and voice acting, some of the issues present in the demo may be resolved in the final product. I’m not convinced, though. At the showcase, the team insisted that the game will release in less than a year, which feels potentially insufficient for the major overhaul in direction and approach that I’d argue the game needs. It’s rough, and a far cry from what Lollipop Chainsaw once was.
