Grasshopper Manufacture; they have a reputation for being quite hit or miss, but it’s hard to ignore their impact on video games through the decades. The Kings and Queens of quirk, Suda51 and his merry band, are ready to take on the world once again with Romeo is a Dead Man.
Do You Bite Your Thumb At Me?
Romeo Stargazer is on his usual patrol as part of a sleepy town’s sheriff’s office. Aside from the odd UFO sighting and well-known tomato produce, there really isn’t much going on in this town, at least until he finds Juliet unconscious in the middle of the road. It’s this one little moment that changes Romeo and Juliet’s lives forever, with absolutely shattering results for the whole of the timeline and beyond.
Romeo and Juliet hit it off despite her amnesia, and things seemingly couldn’t be going better until Juliet disappears and Romeo is attacked by White Demon. The attack kills him until his Grandpa appears and fits him with a lifesaving helmet, bringing him from the brink of death and turning him into a “DeadMan”. Romeo is then drafted into the FBI, who are investigating time anomalies seemingly connected to Juliet and her disappearance. From that split-second event, Romeo and his Grandpa find themselves flying around the timeline, fighting time fugitives and trying to track down Romeo’s Juliet while dealing with evil impostors and more.
The narrative in Romeo is a Dead Man is absolutely bonkers in the best way possible. It feels like a truly unrestricted Suda51/Grasshopper title. You have cameos from previous games seeping in, characters acting like the situation they are in is just “another day at the office,” and you’ll be bouncing from a Town Hall in one instance to taking on a cult in the next. Everything just kind of works. There is one section where Romeo teams up with an actual zombie carrying machine guns, and she is one of the most normal aspects of that particular section. It’s an absolute trip and something Grasshopper Manufacture just absolutely nails.
Marty, It’s Your Parents!
One of my favorite things about how the story is presented is that for the bulk of the game, Grandpa Stargazer is a patch on the back of Romeo’s jacket. This allows him to double up as a wisecracking sidekick who also has a lot of knowledge of what is going on, letting him crack wise and explain some of the more out-there aspects of the story in a natural, almost parental way.
As is typical for a Grasshopper Manufacture game, the story is going to take you to some weird and wild places. There are plenty of notes and unique dialogue to discover to help you make some kind of sense of what is going on, but my best advice to anyone who might not be familiar with the titles of Mr. 51 is this: just strap in and accept some things. It’s just a weird and wacky Sudaverse thing, and you’ll miss stuff if you spend time questioning why the game is suddenly a mech anime or why you’re getting an entire 10-minute history lesson about the Shinigami.
Simple Series 2026
Romeo is a Dead Man is, to put it simply, a “hack and slash” title, a genre the team has quite a bit of experience in with previous titles like Lollipop Chainsaw, Killer is Dead, and No More Heroes alongside more obscure titles. The best way I can describe this game to fans of Grasshopper Manufacture is that the game could have quite easily been called “Killer Lollipop Is Dead of the Damned”. It feels like the amalgamation of all the studio’s previous endeavors, wrapped up in brutally gory wrapping paper.
The bulk of Romeo is a Dead Man is third-person hack-and-slash action. There are four different melee weapons: a katana, a giant sword, a pair of claws, and my personal favorite: the dual spears. You also have four firearms to switch through, ranging from a handgun to a rocket launcher. The combat has a basic but effective moveset. It’s not Devil May Cry or Onechanbara level of comboing, but it never feels “too” basic with its light and heavy button focus.
You’ll find generic fodder enemies and then stronger, more pronounced enemies. The latter have weak spots and take a lot more of a beating. Romeo is a Dead Man does a really good job of mixing these enemies into the hordes of “popcorn” enemies to really create a delicate dance of combat. Encounters can go either way depending on how you prioritize the enemies coming your way.
One of your main moves is the “Bloody Summer” attack. Working like the Sparkle Hunting from Lollipop Chainsaw, you’ll go into slow motion and use a strong attack on any enemy in your area. You can activate this when you have gotten enough blood from attacking the enemies; it has the ability to stun bigger enemies and heal you depending on how much damage you do with the attack. Add this move quickly into your combat dance, and you’ll start to really see how far the combat in Romeo is a Dead Man can go.
Let’s Do The Time Warp Again
During the stages, you are often tasked with having to go into “subspace.” These sections involve Romeo going inside a TV and entering what is like a digital version of the stage. It’s more of a puzzle/maze area. There is no combat in these sections, and they just tend to involve you finding items to progress your adventure in the “real world.” These sections were okay, but towards the end of the game, I was certainly a little tired of seeing them.
While I can’t talk about them for spoiler reasons, every single boss fight in the game is an absolute treat. Some of them have a really bad habit of sending you to your death quite quickly, but you’ll be back for more in a matter of seconds. Heck, when you die, you hit a roulette wheel, and if you’re lucky enough, you can win an instant revive which brings you back straight away, giving you another direct crack at that boss. Just know you’ll be throwing hands with some of the most creative fights in Grasshopper’s history.
When you’re not hacking and slashing, the game presents various different distractions. One stage has a small stealth mechanic. There’s a visual novel section, a minigame where you have to unplug a blockage in a pipe, a cooking Katsu chicken minigame, and even leveling up Romeo is presented in a Pac-Man style minigame. In that mode, you guide a character around a maze and their movement is restricted by how much of the in-game currency you have collected. All this and I haven’t even touched on the Bastards mechanic yet!
The Bastards are zombies you grow from seeds you find in the middle of stages. You raise these on a farm like a pseudo-monster collection game. Each of them has different attacks, buffs, or debuffs, and their own attributes. You can then fuse them together to make one even stronger and deploy them as an attack in the main game. What I felt was initially going to be really tacked on turned out to be quite essential to the combat and the flow of combat. I ran with a healthy mix of combat, healing, and debuffing to get me through the game, and I found myself eager to try and fill out the “Bastardpedia,” laughing at how they would be grown with stats like “Name: Josh, Going through a bad time lately.” I’m not too sure how or if they affected the Bastard, but it gave me a giggle either way.
In between levels, you’ll be running around The Last Night spaceship in a 2D overhead view, speaking to your mum to cook some katsu chicken, trying to complete the visual novel section with the nurse, growing your Bastards, taking on some of the optional challenges that open later on, or going to the in-game shop. I’ll just outright say it: it blew my mind that it just took the music and presentation from The Silver Case. Outside of that, you can fly The Last Night on predetermined paths to your stages. You can target stuff outside of the ship to acquire extra items and the like, but there isn’t any combat. It feels like the Gummi Ship sections from Kingdom Hearts without the combat.
Kill The Past
Romeo is a Dead Man also has a selection of randomly generated dungeons. These either appear in the space map or during certain stages. They feel like a great way to not only grind for materials and EXP but also to really challenge yourself with the combat, as some of the toughest encounters only really happen here. Sadly, the game’s performance absolutely tanks in these sections, sometimes dropping lower than 30 frames per second. It is not a deal-breaker, but it is certainly something that is instantly noticeable.
There is a huge amount of diversity in how the game plays. The side content doesn’t stick around too much and just acts as a palette cleanser before you go back to the main game. Believe me when I say that it has all the love in the world as intended. The game does feel like a really accomplished AA PlayStation 2 or early PlayStation 3 title. While the combat and flow never grated, there was potential; it doesn’t feel like that much of a leap forward from previous Suda51 titles, such as Killer is Dead or No More Heroes 3. Instead, it just feels like they managed to offload the jank and really lean into it being fun, visceral, and effective.
Grasshopper Strikes Again
Presentation style is where Grasshopper Manufacture has always managed to make a huge impact. I have to gush at how nice Romeo is a Dead Man looks. The animation is smooth and, for the most part, this is an action game that hits a smooth 60fps with an army of enemies on screen. All things that usually aren’t quite as refined in their previous titles have been shined up and shine bright like diamonds here on the PlayStation 5. Yes, it doesn’t exactly look like an AAA PlayStation 5 title, but it looks so much better than I was expecting, especially since the art direction for the main action part is somewhat muted compared to other titles by the developer.
As mentioned, the in-game shop just directly takes its look from The Silver Case. There is a large amount of 2D sprite work going on, not only in the hub but throughout the game. With comic book style cutscenes, anime cutscenes, and different menu styles for different parts of the game, it feels like a Frankenstein of aesthetics, but it well and truly sticks the landing. It makes the game visually memorable and fits right in with its kin. No, it doesn’t look like Killer7, but the menus and the way the story is presented easily rival it in an equally unique way.
Each stage is presented like an episode of a series. You have a title sequence, some art that resembles the gritty punk style of The Clash’s London Calling cover art, and then you’ll play through the stage, fight the boss, win, and be met with credits. In some cases, you even get a post-credits scene either setting up the next stage or just providing you with a little knowledge, such as the aforementioned Shinagami lesson.
Don’t Forget About Me
The music manages to hit just about every genre you could hope for. Sometimes it’s a jazz number, there’s a bit of chiptune, more aggressive metal-style music in places, and there is even a hip-hop music video in one section. There are tracks from previous Grasshopper Manufacture games too, giving gamers like me an “I KNOW THIS ONE” moment.
The voice cast absolutely knocks the game out of the park. You’ve got a healthy mix of the usual gaming voice actors jousting verbally with some notable names like Ian Cardoni (known for shows like Rick and Morty) and Judd Nelson, most famous for his role in one of my favorite movies of all time, The Breakfast Club, lending his vocal talents. I cannot tell you how excited I got when I saw the latter’s name flash up on the title sequence.
Verdict
I am fully aware of my fanboy stance when it comes to Grasshopper Manufacture, and I believe that most people who are fans of their titles have the same stance as me: you either vibe with their titles or you don’t. I would go out on a limb and say Romeo is a Dead Man is one of their easier titles to jump into. Much like No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned, or Lollipop Chainsaw, it’s a title that cleverly uses addictive combat and gameplay while slowly indoctrinating the Grasshopper way onto the unsuspecting gamer.
You’ll get the absolute most out of Romeo is a Dead Man if you’re a fan of Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda51, but even if you are new to the “Sudaverse,” you are still presented with an absolutely wild and refreshing AA-feeling title. If you were a gamer around the PlayStation 2, 3, and Xbox 360 era, it will absolutely ring that nostalgia bell.
If you always wanted to know why a certain section of gamers go wild for the name Suda51, or you’re like me and have replayed the entire Kill the Past series in sheer anticipation for this one, Romeo is a Dead Man is a great game. It does a fantastic job of reminding gamers that there is a healthy middle ground between “Indie” and “AAA.” Long live Suda and the cult of the quirky AA game.
ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you enjoy Hack’N’Slash games, then perhaps you’d like our review of Samurai Maiden or Fate Samurai/Remnant. Or maybe check out another title that Suda51 worked on, Project Zero: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse.
Many thanks go to Grasshopper Manufacture for a PlayStation 5 review code for this title.
Pride of utopia & greatest thing ever, I found the One Piece, Collected the Dragon Balls & won the Mortal Kombat Tournament in one night, it was quiet for me that night! Follow me on Twitter @powahdunk
