Weekplay 202607

Romeo is a DeadMan is probably Suda51's most approachable game yet. It is pretty much No More Heroes 4 but more straightforward. That's not to say the story is logical, as Suda51 stuffed that part until it burst.

My main takeaway from playing the game for a short time is that in hindsight, No More Heroes 3 and Travis Strikes Again probably started out as a single game. Romeo is pretty much a fusion of those two titles, flipping through cutscenes with too much exposition, differing graphic styles, different UI, and even gameplay modes.

It is coherent though, not in terms of telling a story, but in terms of making sure you are playing a game. This is the best example of a videogame-videogame. A title you used to pick up at the rental shop and bash through on the weekend, feeling satisfied when you returned it.

In a world filled with dead-on-arrival live-services and slowly rotting IKEA-templated AAA titles, that's about the highest praise you can get.

The other game I played this week is Dead Cells. Good ol' Dead Cells. I just had to go back to this beauty. Its developers Evil Empire and Motion Twin are now tasked with creating a new Castlevania instalment and it's the perfect pairing, considering their great work on the Castlevania crossover in Dead Cells. Probably the best thing to come out of Sony's State of Play this time.

What I didn't anticipate in replaying, was that the PS5 version is a separate game from the PS4 version. Upon booting the 'newest' version, I was greeted by... no progress whatsoever. Funnily enough that turned out to be for the best, as I trekked through the first few biomes regaining my abilities and starting to unlock everything once more with my muscle memory slowly creeping back.

It still is fluid, is still is relentless, it still is incredibly satisfying to find weapon/tool combos that work well together. Might as well bulk up that PS5 save.