What you need to know
- Dragami Games has uploaded the first trailer for Lollipop Chainsaw RePop, a next-gen remaster of a 3rd-person action game of the same name originally developed by Suda51’s Grasshopper Manufacture studio.
- Lollipop Chainsaw has you play Juliet Starling, a high-school cheerleader/zombie hunter on a quest to save the world from the zombie apocalypse.
- Lollipop Chainsaw RePop is scheduled to be released on September 25, 2024, on Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
On June 14, 2024, Dragami Games uploaded to their YouTube channel the first trailer for Lollipop Chainsaw RePop. This game is a long-awaited remaster of Lollipop Chainsaw, a 3rd-person action game released in 2012 by Grasshopper Manufacture, a studio headed by No More Heroes creator Suda51 and renowned filmmaker James Gunn.
The trailer also reveals that Lollipop Chainsaw RePop will launch later this year on September 25, 2024 for home consoles and PCs.
For those who haven’t played the original game, Lollipop Chainsaw RePop has you assume the role of a high-school cheerleader named Juliet Starling. She also happens to be the latest descendant in a long line of skilled zombie hunters.
On her 18th birthday, a group of evil zombie villains called the Dark Purveyors suddenly kick off the zombie apocalypse at Juliet’s school, and her classmates are being eaten left and right by countless undead monsters. Now it’s up to Juliet (and the talking decapitated head of her boyfriend, Nick) to save her classmates and slay the zombie hordes by chopping them up with her chainsaw.
Lollipop Chainsaw RePop will feature the same over-the-top hack ‘n slash gameplay of the original title but will feature several improvements for its visual presentation and combat system.
| Lollipop Chainsaw RePop improvements and new quality-of-life features |
|---|
| 4K Resolution and 60 FPS for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and PC versions. However, the Nintendo Switch will get only HD resolution and 30 FPS |
| Significantly shorted load times compared to the original version. |
| Improved camera controls with the right analog stick so its now easier to retate the camera. |
| More responsive button inputs to make easier to peform combo attacks. |
| Movement speed has been increased |
| Your attacks will increase in speed as you rack up chained hits to heighten the action and reward skilled gameplay. |
| The Chainsaw Blaster now features an Auto-Rock On and Auto-fire mode that can be turned off/on, and the its max ammunition size has been increased. |
| Improved combo actions are now available to use at the start of the game. |
| The Nick Roulette mechanic has been adjusted with the following changes: Nick Shoot is now an attack which hits any zombie on-screen and makes them groggy. Also, the Nick Popper is now AoE explosion attack. |
| The Zombie Baseball mini-game has been rebalanced as players found it difficult in the original game. |
| A new feature called Auto-QTEs. This option will cause the game to auto-complete every quick-time-event in the game without the player’s input so they can sit back and ejoy the cinematics. This feature can be toggled on or off. |
| A Streamer Mode has been added which will switch “Lollipop” (the song that plays in the in-game shop) with an original song. |
Aside from these improvements, Lollipop Chainsaw RePop will also feature a bunch of new gameplay content.
| Lollipop Chainsaw RePop new gameplay content |
|---|
| A RePop mode which changes the original game’s gory artstyle to one filled with colorful pop art style effects for attacks. |
| Five new chainsaws with special passive effects have been added to the game. |
| A new Time-Attack Mode with a world ranking leaderboard. |
| Every costume found in the original game and its DLC, have been bundled together with new costumes for a grand total of 30 costumes. Additionally, there will be four new hair colors. |
| Items found in Juliet’s Room can be now found easier thanks to new catagory filter options. |
| Lollipop Chainsaw RePop will feature a new soundtrack filled with original music. |
| A new page in the shop where players can use in-game medals to buy chainsaws, movies and hair colors has been added. |
A cult zombie action game remastered for a new generation
I admittedly never played the original Lollipop Chainsaw when it first came out in 2012 despite being a fan of Suda51’s most famous work, No More Heroes.
I distinctly remember critics and a few people I know of criticizing Lollipop Chainsaw for its somewhat sluggish combat system, unpolished performance, and long loading times which killed the pacing. Despite those flaws, it was loved by fans for its quirky humor, delightfully insane and nonsensically fun story, excessive violence, and memorable characters.
This new RePop version seems to be addressing all the issues people had with the original game while adding new features to entice new players like me who never got to experience it the first time around. It’s certainly grabbing my interest with the promise of cleaner input responsiveness, faster attacks the more you play well, and not having to put up with archaic, gameplay-intrusive quick-time-events anymore thanks to the new Auto-QTE feature.
However, will Lollipop Chainsaw RePop stick the landing and fulfill its promises to fix the original game’s flaws and rise to become one of the best Xbox games? Help Juliet and Nick put down the Dark Purveyors this Fall to find out when Lollipop Chainsaw RePop launches on September 25, 2024, for Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam.
