Chaos Raiden
Avid Gamer & Reviewer
If you're familiar at all with the work of Grasshopper Manufacture and its president Goichi "Suda51" Suda (above), it should come as no surprise to you that their latest game involves a cheerleader in a skimpy outfit using a chainsaw to dismember zombies inside a West Coast high school. It also shouldn't surprise you to learn that Grasshopper already has a US and European publisher in place for the title.
Lollipop Chainsaw, an Xbox 360/PlayStation 3 title first announced in this week's issue of Famitsumagazine in Japan, stars a girl named Juliet Starling who, on the occasion of her 18th birthday, is on her way to San Romero High School to meet up with her boyfriend. Instead, she finds the place infested with zombie-fied versions of her classmates. It should be obvious by the game's title what comes next.
"Actually I've wanted to do a crazy horror-action game like this set in a school for a while now," Suda commented. "Something where the classrooms, corridors,
gymnasium and so on are suddenly transformed into something completely different. I was also working on a game concept centered around using a chainsaw as a weapon, and once the idea for the Juliet character began to form, it was just a perfect fit."
Despite the premise, Lollipop isn't a particularly gory game -- instead, the visual design is meant to play up the cute 'pop' aspect of the title. "Instead of sprays of blood, we have the zombies emitting bursts of pink light," Suda said. "When it comes to gore, we can certainly go that way if we want, but we wanted to give the game more of a 'pop' feel."
"Since Juliet's a cheerleader, there's going to be action moves that take advantage of her cheerleading skills," added Yoshimi Yasuda, president of Lollipop publisher Kadokawa Games. "There are other ways to attack outside of the chainsaw, too, and part of the fun is figuring out which move to use at which time."
Like with the rest of Grasshopper's titles, famed game musician Akira Yamaoka is heading up the sound staff. "We're putting a lot of effort into the soundtrack, definitely," commented Suda. "Part of the reason we established Grasshopper in the first place was so we could work on every part of a game in-house, and we treat sound especially importantly in this outfit. The sound team for Lollipop is led by Yamaoka and they're working on a whole array of pop tunes right now. Part of the gameplay might involve sound as well, although exactly how we're still keeping a secret."
No release date was given for Lollipop Chainsaw, which (according to Yasuda) already has an overseas publisher committed to releasing the game in English, although he didn't reveal who. "The game's framework is complete, and now we're deep into the fine-tuning process," Suda said. "I'd place it at around 70 percent complete. It's really a new era for zombie games -- a piece of 'pop' zombie entertainment."
Source: http://www.1up.com/news/suda51-talks-lollipop-chainsaw
Artwork of Juliet Starling:
, I loved 'No More Heroes' and this definately has that Suda feel to it 