Review – Romeo is a Dead Man

Four years after its last major release, Suda 51 is back in the gaming world with another bizarre title to my delight: ! As is to be expected from the director of Flower, Sun, and Rain, the bizarre aspects and the feeling of playing a video game that look like a video game are present throughout this new experience.

This is an important game for the studio, as it is the first project to be distributed and developed entirely by Grasshopper Manufacture, marking a big step in the company’s history. Even though I loved the experience, I have to admit that, as always, Suda 51 delivers what it does best, and this is a double-edged sword, as you will understand as the text progresses.

Romeo, oops… I meant DEAD MAN!

Like several other titles produced by Goichi Suda, Romeo is a Dead Man has a chaotic beginning, being a modified version of the introduction presented in its reveal video. Now, instead of being attacked on the pergola of his house, Romeo is ambushed on an empty road with his police partner, while they talk about conspiracy theories.

Romeo Stargazer has his face torn apart and his right arm ripped off by a demon. As he agonizes in his final moments, his grandfather Benjamin appears through a time portal on a futuristic motorcycle. By injecting his grandson with a mysterious syringe, Benjamin completely changes Romeo’s body; the substance’s content recreates his arm into a robotic prosthetic and his head into a helmet, transforming him into the Deadman agent.

After dispatching the temporal demons and zombies that attacked him, Romeo is assigned to the position of agent in the FBI’s Space-Time Division. Your mission is to hunt down the different versions of your beloved Juliet across space-time and different dimensions. He then discovers that Juliet is actually a temporal anomaly behind the destruction of countless timelines.

Now Romeo must look for Juliet and other criminals who have been causing problems throughout chronology. Nothing will be as easy as it seems, after all, as the story progresses, even Romeo’s introduction scene changes as we discover more about his past with Juliet and meet the incredibly strange team of the Space-Time Division.

Juliet, oh Juliet…

As the story progresses, we discover that, although Juliet is an interdimensional threat, the version we know alongside Romeo seems to be an anomaly among its various variants. She doesn’t care about the mission to destroy that dimension and shows real feelings for Romeo, which changes the dynamics of the hunt.

With this, in addition to eliminating dimensional threats and fugitives, Romeo is also in search of his specific Juliet, who is lost between dimensions and timelines. However, this is something easier said than done, after all, on his journey through different decades of the 20th century, he will face different monstrosities that block his path.

In addition to the various copies of Juliet he has already defeated, Romeo will have to face the Confederate gangster Phantasm, a new version of Juliet, the bizarre Dr. Hill and even Magrus, who many believe to be the very son of God living since Roman times. It will be a difficult task, but using Dead Gear along with various weapons, Romeo won’t let himself be shaken.

As expected from Suda 51, Romeo is a Dead Man implements several elements from other games in its distinct connected universe, bringing references from No More Heroes, Let It Die, The Silver Case and Killer is Dead. Whether in weapons, enemies or allies, the character design is striking and will certainly be engraved in the player’s memory.

Fighting with all the influences

The combat mechanics follow the same trend, drawing on the influence of previous titles. If the narrative of Silver Case, Shadows of the Damned and No More Heroes needed to walk for Romeo is a Dead Man to run, Travis Touchdown and Mondo Zappa’s fights needed a lot of training for Romeo to detonate all his opponents with fluidity.

Unlike Travis and Mondo, Romeo has a very satisfactory arsenal that can be released reasonably early. For close combat, he uses the Spazer, Stellar Destroyer, Juggernaut and Arcadia (katana, greatsword, gloves and double spear, respectively). For distance, use the Discovery revolver, the Diaspora shotgun, the Nebuchadnezzar machine gun or the Yggdrasil rocket launcher.

Using these weapons, the player must clear the map of enemies that include zombies and stronger interdimensional creatures, known as special class enemies. Each new special enemy that appears is usually related to the level’s theme; a clear example is the Jelly monster, which appears in the horror stage and is visually similar to the green spirit from Ghostbusters.

Another very important mechanic is navigating the Last Night ship, because to reach the worlds where we face the villains and the Palace of Athenas dungeons, we must first synchronize the ship with the anomaly by playing a game of pong and then guide the ship to the anomaly. As we wander around the space we find cooking ingredients that will be mentioned later and fragments of Flusão-Verde.

A helping hand doesn’t hurt

Romeo has two main types of attacks in the Playstation layout, using the square for weak hits and the triangle for strong ones, in addition to the L2 triggers to aim and R2 to shoot. Each weapon can be acquired and improved by spending in-game currency, called Emerald Flusion, and concentration items called Milezero, which vary between green and red colors.

In addition to weapons, flutions can be used to move nanobots in Romeo’s body in a minigame called Dead Gear Cannon Ball. In the minigame, we navigate through a maze with collectibles that represent attribute improvements, such as increased attack strength, more life, more bullets, extra healing items and greater blood absorption for special moves.

Bloody Summer’s blows are special abilities that Romeo uses to deliver devastating attacks that, in addition to causing immense damage, heal a portion of his health. Romeo can unlock up to three of these attacks which, when combined, deliver an overwhelming combo capable of clearing entire rooms of enemies in seconds.

To help in the most difficult fights, Romeo can turn his radio on a northeastern xote to plant Bastards! Bastards are zombies created from seeds that enemies drop; Each one has a different style and can help Romeo by attacking, healing him or serving as bait to distract opponents’ blows.

Passing time between missions

Aboard the Last Night ship, Romeo will be able to interact with Captain Kimberley and other agents from the division. Some serve more as distraction and comic relief, such as Agent BlueMountain and his coffee beans, The Black with his long thoughts and Agent RedBrown, a humanoid cat that roams the deck.

There are, however, other fundamental characters. Agent Silver Fox can create an alternative space for us to face previously defeated bosses again; Shiroyabu, hailing from The 25th Ward, sells items and ingredients; and Romeo’s sister, Luna Stargazer, takes care of the Bastards plantation and the fights between them, which is the way to evolve them by making the strongest devour the weakest.

Last but not least is Romeo’s mother, who teaches him different Japanese curry recipes. Each dish guarantees different attributes to the player, depending on how we fry the meat in a challenging and fun minigame, in which you need to hit the perfect temperature of the cooking oil to guarantee a good rank.

Another important item of equipment that can be purchased at Shiroyabu’s store are brooches and buttons. Brooches are earned after advancing in the story and unlock new skills or attacks, while buttons function as accessories that apply statistical advantages and disadvantages most of the time.

Embarking on different decades

Professor Benjamin, Romeo’s grandfather and a fusion of David Bowie, Supla and Doc Brown, is responsible for the motorcycle that transports the protagonist between dimensions. Each world represents a different decade of the last century, where Romeo will need to investigate locations known by clichés from American works of each era.

Phantasm is in a shopping mall from the 80s, Dr. Hill runs a mental hospital from the 90s and Magrus leads a cultist colony from the 70s. Each scenario has its special charm and exclusive soundtracks for the bosses, which clearly distinguishes the atmosphere of each historical period visited by the Deadman agent.

Furthermore, each level has an alternative world where Romeo must solve puzzles to advance in the real plan. These underworlds can be accessed by talking to a mysterious man inside a TV with a blue rose in his jacket pocket, a likely homage to David Lynch, one of Suda 51’s greatest influences.

The player can also encounter so-called Athena Rifts while navigating space. These special dungeons are full of rare enemies and items, so it’s important to access them as often as possible. However, in Dr. Hill’s insane asylum, be prepared for scares and bizarre puzzles that defy orthodox logic.

A unique style

Anyone who has followed me on Gamerview for a long time knows how much I love a game with its own style, whether in the Y2K or Grime aesthetic, and once again Suda delivers a jaw-dropping design. The characters are all very unique, from the heroes to the villains, with Romeo being the most eye-catching with his helmet and arm inspired by the Super Sentai style.

The game is visually impressive, but the fact that it runs on Unreal Engine 5 can cause some choking due to excessive particles, although it still runs better than other recent projects on the same engine. The soundtrack and sound design are also on another level, being extremely creative and effective in immersing the player in that chaos.

Romeo is a Dead Man is what I call a video game that looks like a video game. It’s something fantastic and full of the clichés we expect from the genre, functioning as a work that exists within a comic book or science fiction film from the 80s, and the studio takes full advantage of this visual and design choice.

As I always say, Suda 51 games are not for everyone; not because they are difficult, but because they are an acquired taste that challenges the mainstream. If you like No More Heroes, 1980s pop culture and a mix of cultural references from around the world, you can trust that you’ll have a blast with Romeo is a Dead Man.