Fyonn
did their best!
CONTENT WARNING: Body horror, suicide imagery, sex work, nudity (though those last two aren't in the trailer)
I tripped over this game called Slitterhead in the Steam store by accident, took one look at it, then went total goblin mode (thanks holiday time off) and rolled credits on it ASAP. Recency bias is a hell of a drug, but I don't think it's a stretch to say it's one of my favorite games released this year. It might be my favorite if I acknowledge that Shadow of the Erdtree is DLC, not a standalone release. I don't have the energy to really give it it's full due, but the game's definitely very cool. It's by Bokeh Studios, an indie studio headed by Keiichiro Toyama. You might know him as the director / designer of Silent Hill 1, the Siren franchise, and the Gravity Rush franchise. Of those games, it's the most like Siren - it even has (a limited version of) Siren's Sightjacking mechanic. It's by no means a survival horror game, though. In my opinion there's just as much Final Fantasy 7 Remake in there thanks to the way the combat works (more on that later). The game's also got some Yakuza / Like A Dragon vibes with the way the game's missions have you revisiting a few very detailed locations in different contexts. Don't expect to be playing any Mahjong in Slitterhead, though. Finally, because I've played too many video games, I can tell you the game's core mechanics are a bit like Avenging Spirit and 3rd Birthday, of all things. Come to think of it, the horrifying transformations of the titular slitterheads are very reminiscent of Parasite Eve 1 & 2's harrowing scenes of biohorror. I think it could be argued that you could treat this game as a Siren 4 or a Parasite Eve 4. Or Siren / Parasite Eve 3, depending on how you're counting those franchises' entries.
You play as a disembodied spirit that can jump between bodies and you have to fight off monsters that are way too strong for normal humans to take on. So the central element of the game's tactics is to constantly swap bodies and become a one-person swarm of attacks coming from every direction. You only actually game over if there's no one left alive to possess or three people die while you're possessing them. It's totally fine and okay if someone dies seconds after you hand the steering wheel back to them, though.
The game heavily centers around Rarities, humans that are highly compatible with you. Rarities are essentially the main characters. They get unique (blood) weapons instead of clumsy (blood) maces and access to active and passive abilities that push them towards certain combat roles. Every Rarity's third Active Skill can be used on anyone when the Rarity is with you, and you can bring two Rarities at a time. Most active kkills are on a cooldown and cost blood, which is literally just your HP. You only really get penalized for someone hitting 0 HP while you're controlling them, so you're incentivized to jump into someone, dump most of their blood into offense, and then grab another. You also have a spirit bar that is linked to you instead of your host. It's used more rarely, and you're only getting it back through defensive play - you have to deflect enemy attacks. Yes, it is technically parrying, but don't panic, this is no Sekiro. To deflect, you have to lock-on to an enemy (which automatically makes you guard), then flick the stick in the direction the attack is coming from. The game shows you both where the attack is coming from and has the direction indicator flash immediately before you should flick the stick to deflect. It's more like a high-speed game of Simon Says than a test of precision timing. I don't like parrying mechanics and even I was pretty routinely deflecting attacks the first or second time I saw them. The real way you get challenged on this is with combos - eventually you'll need to deflect several times in a row, and you just have to learn those patterns. If you don't need the spirit refill, you can easily deal with most deflectable attacks by, you guessed it, jumping into a different body. Even if you do need the Spirit, there's one Rarity who has an active skill that exchanges blood for a temporary buff that makes him auto-deflect while you're guarding with him.
There's even some excellent characterization in the ability sets - for instance, Julee is the only character who can get the Compassion passive skill, which means blood weapons won't hurt other people. Without that skill, collateral damage is a huge threat, especially when you using Rarities with area of effect skills or Rarities that give you ways to have bystanders fight for you while you're not controlling them. On the other hand, your main way to get your HP back is by picking it up off the floor, literally. You can slowly absorb pools of blood near you to heal yourself. You probably want to do that while the enemy's attention is firmly somewhere else, but healing-specialized characters can do it quickly and heal others simultaneously. So maybe it's not so bad if people get hit a few times? All for the greater good, right?
A lot of what I like about Slitterhead is in the storytelling. Maybe emphasis on telling more than the story itself; there are certainly familiar pieces on the chess board here. The framework the story presented in is what really makes it special, and the soundtrack by Akira Yamaoka heightens it's best moments. Beyond that, I can't say much about it. Slitterhead is a game that loves to unfold itself for effect, so if you think you're interested, I advise not looking into anything else about it and buying it.
