Suda51 video games have a proud fame of going in opposition to the grain, but Romeo Is a Useless Man nonetheless manages to beggar perception.
The most recent effort from the No Extra Heroes lead is totally baffling in a number of the finest and most irritating methods potential. One minute, it delights with comical cutscenes and distinctive gameplay sequences. The following, it confuses and annoys with perplexing mechanics and tedious actions.
On the finish of all of it, Romeo Is a Useless Man comes out the opposite facet nearly price taking part in. Simply.
The place do you even begin?
Nicely, in the beginning, when the story makes probably the most sense. You play as Romeo, a person on the point of loss of life, as he’s introduced again by the House-Time Police. As a make good, he’s to journey by way of time and area in quest of his lacking girlfriend, Juliet — or, reasonably, monsters that appear like Juliet.
It’s troublesome to comply with precisely what’s happening past the preliminary setup, as a result of the plot appears to comply with a number of views, interjecting with random cutscenes and repeated occasions.
When you sat us all the way down to ask what occurs, we truthfully couldn’t inform you. We watched each cutscene. We learn each line of dialogue. We don’t know what occurs on this recreation. You simply must go alongside for the trip.
What we are able to clarify is every little thing else.
At its core, Romeo Is a Useless Man is an motion recreation centered on melee fight. You possibly can equip simply as many weapons as you’ll be able to weapons, however it’s the latter you’ll spend more often than not swinging and bashing.
The roughly 13-hour marketing campaign is structured round phases, with a spaceship appearing because the hub space between them. Right here, you’ll be able to improve your arsenal, develop and enhance Bastards, and communicate to an assortment of weirdos. Non-obligatory dungeons may also be travelled to by way of the spaceship to gather improve supplies and extra objects.
You journey by way of area and time, utilizing the spaceship to go to numerous moments in historical past to take down the monstrous copies of Juliet. Filter the enemies, get keys to progress, work your option to the boss, after which it’s on to the following one.
Every stage is pretty small in measurement, besides the twist is you’re primarily solely seeing half of it at first. The phases are cut up into “actual area” and “subspace”, with the previous offering enemies to combat and the latter puzzles to unravel. You journey between the 2 by way of floating TVs, and it’s this change that represents one of many recreation’s most irritating mechanics.
One tv set in “actual area” solely ever hyperlinks as much as a single different one in “subspace”. At any time limit, you’ll be able to have as much as six TV units to teleport from one facet to the opposite, and there’s no option to observe which one leads the place. All of the environments look extremely related, and whereas there’s a map, it doesn’t talk which TV goes the place.
It’s very troublesome to maintain observe of which TV you want subsequent to progress a puzzle in subspace, particularly if you die and get rotated, having respawned at a checkpoint. Romeo Is a Useless Man can rapidly develop into a tedious recreation of trial and error as you’re employed out the place it is advisable to go subsequent.
On prime of that, puzzles inside “subspace” are by no means defined to you. You’ll merely be travelling from one TV set to the following a lot of the time, however generally, it is advisable to kind bridges, ladders, and walkways to get throughout. By way of a lot confusion and, once more, trial and error, you’re employed out what the sport desires from you. There’s by no means a tutorial; by no means a touch that can assist you alongside.
The 2 extremes of Romeo Is a Useless Man are what have you ever threatening to delete the sport off your SSD one minute, then thanking your self for persisting the following.
That is an ingenious expertise the place you’ll by no means guess what the following stage has to supply. It could rework from a regular hack and slasher in a single mission to a survival horror title the following. By mixing the gameplay up, it retains issues contemporary and presents the prospect to overlook about these extra tedious components. The draw back is that they really feel like a slap within the face after they return.
Whereas primary, the fight system — which mixes melee weapons, weapons, and talent use — stays enjoyable all through. There aren’t any stamina meters to fret about; this can be a back-to-basics motion expertise of whaling on monsters till they die. There’s a regular and heavy assault, then weapons full your loadout, from pistol photographs to shotgun blasts and rocket launchers.
Romeo Is a Useless Man differentiates itself barely by way of Bastards, that are the monsters you kill. Again on the spaceship, you’ll be able to develop them on a farm to nurture higher ranges and stats. As much as 4 may be outfitted by the top of the sport, they usually can present additional means of injury, a heal, or methods of hindering enemies.
Some will take the form of a large bowling ball, others will forged lightning down onto monsters, and one other sort damages enemies as a twister. They supply a pleasant bonus to the melee and bullet motion.
Taking away from the gameplay, nevertheless, is totally dreadful efficiency — even on a PS5 Professional in Efficiency Mode. The body charge in Romeo Is a Useless Man is totally stunning. It appears to intention for 60 frames-per-second, however you’ll wrestle to search out many examples of it truly attaining that exterior of standing nonetheless and gazing a wall.
Body charge drops throughout fight are extremely frequent, getting in the best way and bringing the motion to a crawl. On a PS5 Professional particularly, this isn’t an appropriate stage of efficiency.
It’s a disgrace as a result of the title goes out of its option to make its visuals interesting and stunning. Throughout the spaceship and its numerous phases, Romeo Is a Useless Man modifications artwork types a number of occasions, from lifelike graphics all the best way all the way down to 8-bit blocks — and a lot in between. It’s a extremely cool facet, which, mixed with enjoyable and funky music, leaves the expertise trying good. If solely it ran simply as effectively.
