ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN Review — A Slash Through Space and Time

From the beautifully chaotic mind of Goichi Suda and GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC comes ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN, a delightfully deranged and gloriously gory action-adventure that perfectly executes Suda’s signature violent, surreal style, adding yet another entry to what might as well be a genre of its own by now.

ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN follows the story of the titular Romeo, a sheriff’s deputy who finds himself falling in love with, you guessed it, a woman named Juliet. However, on the night they’re meant to elope, Romeo is met not by Juliet, but by a strange pale monster. Romeo is left half-dead by this encounter, but his time-traveling grandfather saves him by turning him into the DEADMAN, something like a super-Sentai zombie cyborg with a sick plasma katana. It’s then that Romeo discovers that Juliet is wanted by the FBI-Space-Time-Police, and it’s up to him, as their newest agent, to capture her and slay her many multiverse variants.

Did any of that make sense? No? That’s kind of the point.

If you’re familiar with executive producer Goichi Suda (better known as “Suda51” online) and his co-founded development studio GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC, this shouldn’t be any surprise to you. You’ve already sat down and experienced the surreal glory of games developed with the Suda51 name. If it isn’t already clear, I am a major fanboy of these titles and have been since I was a young teenager.

If you aren’t, then I can easily compare ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN to several instantly recognizable, highly stylized titles: No More Heroes, Lollipop Chainsaw, and LET IT DIE, being especially accurate comparisons. If you’re a fan of any of these titles, you’d immediately recognize them for their unique, palpable vibes and insane style, and then you would be happy to learn that they were all created by the same mind and development studio behind ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN.

If that still doesn’t paint a picture for you, then I can only further use the words surreal and violent to describe the nonsensical and bloody experience ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN has in store for you. Our titular protagonist cuts through rotting corpses and spacetime itself as the game constantly changes setting, format, and presentation. One moment you’ll be cutting through corpses in 3D in a 1980s mall environment, and the next you’re in the pages of a comic book, only to find yourself in the end playing a pixelated arcade game to improve your stats.

The craziness of ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN can at times make the story a little difficult to follow. It feels like our protagonist himself actually has one or more origin stories… but you’re better off not thinking about it too hard. Best case scenario, you’re just along for the ride, and the game’s splatter-fest gameplay holds up even if you’re not always sure who it is you’re slicing up or why.

Said gameplay is straightforward beat-em-up action that isn’t mechanically complex or technical like some other titles. You mix light and heavy attacks with special moves and ranged attacks, and there’s a small collection of weapons that change up your fighting style slightly and can be upgraded. The game doesn’t want you to spend too much time mastering the mechanics and puts a lot of what it has to offer in your lap right away; I was actually able to unlock all of the weapons I really wanted straight out of the prologue.

ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN makes up for its lack of mechanical complexity or intricate gameplay systems by focusing hard on style. Every hit explodes the scene with blood and particles, the game’s animations are great to look at and feel powerful, and the soundtrack absolutely bangs. In a similar Suda51 fashion, you’re playing the game for style points; it’s not hard to master, but every hype-filled moment is your reward, and the gratification is instant.

Tons of minigames are available too, filling up the space between beat-em-up combat with arcade-style games that trade your collected currency for stat improvements, a cooking minigame to fill your inventory with useful buff items, and even a farming game to grow your own deployable zombies in combat.

If I were to call out one flaw in ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN, I would say that the filler content is aggressive, something that can be said about other Suda51 titles as well. To make a comparison to LET IT DIE, ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN is full of little side systems to engage in that can feel artificially inflated with unnecessary wait times. What’s more, there are certainly the classic J-Game side-missions where you do nothing but run around and talk to a bunch of NPCs. While these characters are interesting, you will certainly feel the strain of the filler content, and the impulse to press that “skip” button will be high, something that can make the game’s already confusing world and story all the harder to keep up with.

If you ask me, however (which you kind of are by reading this review), it’s a small price to pay for some incredible GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE madness. ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN encapsulates the surreal intensity of the games that came before it, creating the perfect modern title for fans of Suda’s past work. There’s so much to appreciate and experience in this title, which more than carries on its creator’s iconic legacy.

Try Hard Guides was provided a Steam code for this PC review of ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN is available on Steam, PlayStation, and Xbox.