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Slitterhead feels like the PS3 game that never was. It's very strange in many ways, and frustrating in others, but you could never accuse him of being anything other than 100% sincere.
It's hard to control, it doesn't look great visually, and it's very low budget in some ways, but nevertheless, we're glad it exists. This is the kind of game that wouldn't have been released in the West 20 years ago. Fodder for the “most expensive PS2 games” list after a short print run. After all, this is the work of director Keiichiro Toyama, the man behind the cult classics Silent Hill, Gravity Rush, and Siren.
In Slitterhead, players embody a formless, disembodied entity that can possess humans. Set in a fictional 90s-style Hong Kong city, corpses pile up after a disgusting monster, known as Slitterhead, secretly begins killing citizens. Players named Night Owl, along with Familiars, namely people who can be possessed but still maintain bodily autonomy, must uncover the mystery of Slitterhead.
The game's main mechanic sees players possessing humans to solve puzzles or fight Slitterhead. A puzzle could be something like accessing a locked area of a building by possessing a body through a window or taking over the body of someone who is allowed to access the restricted zone.
These puzzles are never difficult to solve, but sometimes there's something new in them. An early puzzle sees the player trying to access a brothel to find a sex worker who the player believes to be Slitterhead. Even though the brothel owners won't talk to Julee because she's still small, they will talk to a sweaty old man who the brothel thinks they can make money from.
Likewise, when a series of truly grandiose stealth games emerge, one of them is resolved by getting a man covered in pain from drinking too much so he can get through the bar undetected. The stealth sequences are contrived. There are in-universe reasons why some people can't be possessed, but they're paper-thin and feel more like a hindrance to gameplay than anything else.
Mission based Slitterhead. You're dropped into a city where invariably, you'll either follow Slitterhead's trail through back alleys, engage in stealth, or fight multiple Slitterheads at once. These missions are short and full of clunky cutscenes and most of them feature no sound. What makes this cutscene disappointing is the presence of the game's most annoying problem.
Almost all NPCs in the game can be owned. As such, if you finish a fight or enter a cutscene as a possessed human, that human will be present in the cutscene, not the well-designed main character. The game's NPCs have Lego hair, melted skin, and soulless eyes. They'd be fine if their sole function was to organize the dressing you're passing, but unfortunately, the focus on them means their low quality comes to a head.
Not only is this a confusing decision to waste time with the more interesting main characters, but the NPC character models are so low quality that they make the entire game feel cheaper than it already is. This is very annoying.
The combat in this game is functional but never feels rewarding. Every NPC you have can use a blood weapon, which usually consists of a melee weapon and some abilities. The idea is that a normal NPC can only take one or two hits before they die, so your goal is to deal a certain amount of damage to the enemy, and then swap to another NPC before the first one is killed. Familiars have expanded move sets and can take more damage.
“This game's NPCs have Lego hair, melting skin, and soulless eyes. They would be fine if their only function was to wear you through, but unfortunately, the focus on them means their low quality comes to the fore.”
This leads to awkward fights where NPCs appear out of nowhere to facilitate body swaps. We would have preferred Familiar's more complete combat system, as some abilities like Blood Blade are actually pretty cool. It's a shame that they cater to a very basic combat system.
Where Slitterhead scores highest is in the monster design. Slitterhead itself is disgusting, and fans of body horror, or some of Toyama's previous work will definitely find it right at home. There could be an argument that the less realistic human NPCs are actually important in making the game playable without throwing up your lunch.
City streets are an attractive place for Slitterheads. Winding hallways and treacherous rooftops create an environment that has more than meets the eye at first. This environment facilitates things like chasing Slitterheads through the streets, but also makes the area feel less like a video game environment and more naturalistic.
You do spend a lot of time in the same areas, but the game at least tries to dress them up a little differently each time. It's almost like a movie set where you can tell that the architecture is always the same, but the props and shop fronts have been dressed up to depict a different scene.
We enjoyed thinking about Slitterhead more than playing it. It starts with an interesting concept, and while the monster designs are scary, and the city streets make for interesting locations, it's weak in some areas. Outside of the great lighting, this is a very ugly game, with NPCs that look very out of place. That wouldn't be such a big deal if the game's main conceit didn't mean that nearly every cutscene stars their soulless plasticine horror faces.
It's possible that Slitterhead will become a cult classic, but in reality, it's not a good game. It's interesting, and we're glad that games like this can still be made, but it's an experience that's more appreciated than played. Weird and uncompromisingly inventive, the actual gameplay portion of Slitterhead is subpar.
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