Like it was for so many others, the first Grasshopper Manufacture game I played was No More Heroes. It was pretty much the perfect introduction to the wild Suda 51 led developer, and helped me fall in love with everything bizarre in video games. I had a thirst for more, and as the years went by more wonders came my way. I loved the completely unhinged worlds of titles like Shadows of the Damned and Lollipop Chainsaw, and like a box of truly fucked up chocolates I never knew what I was going to get next from Grasshopper. Like any box of chocolates not every game delighted my senses, but I also wasn’t going to stop eating. Romeo is a Dead Man is the latest in a long weird line of games, and based on the first chapter it’s going to be a delightful one.
In this adventure you play as Romeo Stargazer, who almost immediately gets brutalised by a monster. On the brink of death his scientist grandpa appears and injects him with some magic sci-fi juice, turning him into a sort of cyborg called Deadman. As this cyborg he’s tasked by the space F.B.I to kill various versions of his girlfriend, wait for it, Juliet. Even for Grasshopper this is an outlandish outing, but the intrigue and entertainment is pretty much instant.
As a badass cyborg, I spent most of my time in Romeo is a Dead Man slicing through various zombies and monsters in some sort of shattered dimension. The chapter I played was very much a linear stage (albeit with some weird elements like jumping into TV worlds made of blocks) and the combat was that of a particularly flashy and bloody character action game. Romeo starts with a sword and a gun, and can use them interchangeably to take down foes. It was instantly satisfying to unleash combos with a light attack button and a heavy attack button, while also dodging with the dash to avoid incoming damage.
Switching to your gun will help keep a bit of distance between you and enemies to avoid even more damage, and with blue flowery weak points to hit you’ll also deal a whole lot of pain while you do. Alongside these basic weapons I also had access to a special ability powered by blood that hurts demons like hell and healed me in the process. The combat wasn’t necessarily complex, but for the opening hour of a game it was more than satisfactory.
What elevates Romeo is a Dead Man most though is its style. The sci-fi setting and ridiculous gore perfectly marry, and there are little flairs like bright pixel art text that appears when you clear out an area of enemies. It’s all very No More Heroes, and that’ll make plenty of people very happy indeed.
To finish up my time with Romeo and his Juliet, there was a big boss fight. A version of Juliet tried to bait our hero into violence, but the Deadman kept his cool in the face of his former lover. She then ripped off her own head, threw it on a bonfire and proceeded to launch flames at me as she grew to kaiju size. Grasshopper are pretty well known for having epic boss fights, and while this one was simple it was still ridiculous in all the right ways. I’m almost certain that there will be plenty more where that came from in the full game, and come February I’m going to slice and shoot through the lot with glee.
Romeo is a Dead Man has already excited me based on a distinctly small portion of the game, but there are still a lot of questions that remain unanswered. In the menus I was able to see other excitingly-named things, which I absolutely have to unlock based on those names alone. Grasshopper Manufacture games so often feature lots of variety too, and I’m intrigued to see if that’s the case in this new sci-fi epic. More than anything though I just want to continue through this completely batshit narrative, and see what madness awaits around the corner. The next month is going to go very slowly, as I wonder where for art my Romeo.
Romeo is a Dead Man is coming to PC, Xbox, and PS5 on February 11th.
