SMG 'Viper'

A review of Romeo is a Dead Man, exploring its gameplay, plot, and Suda51's signature style. Discover if this hack-and-slash adventure lives up to expectations.

This is a review of the game Romeo is a Dead Man, developed by Suda51. The game features Romeo Stargazer, a sheriff's deputy who becomes the masked superhero Deadman after a cosmic entity named Juliet destroys space and time and he is brought back to life. He joins the FBI to explore fragments of reality and fight zombie hordes and clones of Juliet.

The gameplay is a third-person hack-and-slash, with Romeo wielding a beam katana. Missions involve exploring locations, killing monsters, and entering a subspace version of the area to progress. The reviewer found the subspace sections to be repetitive and a padding for the game's runtime. Combat is described as "mashy," with Romeo's animations being too long, leaving him open to attack. A design oversight allows for a quick jump-heavy attack to be more effective than the basic heavy attack.

Players are assisted by "Bastards," characters with unique cooldown abilities. However, growing and merging these Bastards involves tedious button mashing and prolonged cutscenes. The reviewer questions the game's genre, concluding it is simply "a Suda51 game," and not one of his best. The plot and ending are considered uninteresting, but the reviewer speculates the game might be an allegory for Suda51's own creative journey after concluding major series.