Slitterhead Review – A unique horror game from the creators of Silent Hill

The first sound you hear when starting up Cutting headThe first game from Bokeh Game Studios alums of Silent Hill, Siren, and Gravity, it's a chorus of voices rising in discordant harmony. Some of the voices are deep, moaning in low, supplicating tones, while others are higher pitched, wailing quietly and disturbingly above their fellow travelers. The diversity of these voices represents a range of characters—a group of people communicating uncomfortably with one another.

Soon, the reason for such a focus on community became clear. The protagonist of Split Head is completely incorporeal, a disembodied spirit known as a "Hyoki" or "Night Owl" that is able to possess any creature it encounters. Its exact nature is the horror game's first mystery, with subsequent questions involving the motivations of the characters who team up with it to exterminate a new plague of supernatural beings called "Splitheads." As the game's story progresses, Night Owls discover and possess these characters, known as "rare items" because they are different from the nameless civilians whose souls can also inhabit (and, in one case, stray dogs).

Night Owl's properties form the basis of Slitterhead's game design, from exploration to combat. A typical mission begins after a conversation scene between Night Owl and a rare character, and can see two optional rare items - such as a student wearing glasses, or a convenience store worker - traveling with Night Owl City looking for a slick base. At the push of a button, Night Owl levitates from its host, with yellow lights hovering over the background figure and two companions, signaling that another body is ready to be inhabited.

Whenever combat breaks out, you'll jump between these characters. Rare items are more clearly defined, and each has their own skills, strengths, and weaknesses that are lent, in part, to the civilians who join them in battle. All of these skills revolve around managing a meter that reflects their health, ability cooldowns, and weapon durability. Because rare animals fight with various shapes of hardened blood (guns, boxing gloves, claws), combat becomes a balancing act by attacking, swapping bodies, and soaking up blood splashes into puddles by holding down the button Restores strength, thereby draining and restoring health from damage or dealing damage. The game ends when there are no more living bodies to jump into.

The design of these battles is creative, but also largely unsatisfactory in practice. Fighting enemies with hard blood weapons, or being attacked by monsters, doesn't feel much weighty, and the parry system is equally weak. Combat features occasional singing, with the main character's skills and body-jumping between nearby civilians working together, requiring quick-thinking strategies to exploit synergies. Mostly, though, combat is a tedious chore that loses a lot of its excitement once you get to know and try out the full list of rares.

Slitterhead's exploration sequences are much better. The game is set in a Kowloon-like city called "Kowloon", which is a dense network of streets, alleys, and rooftops. It’s packed with everyday people shopping in the open-air markets or chatting under the neon-lit storefronts, smoking on the balconies or sitting on patio chairs. When the Slashers and their famous phallic "descendants" begin their battle, emerging from their hiding place inside the body of an obscure civilian, these everyday scenes change dramatically, and folklore suddenly erupts from the darkness of urban legend. , turned into a creeping and violent reality.

While the body-swapping creates wonderful, low-key visual gags, as a middle-aged man in overalls becomes possessed and gains the ability to catapult himself to the top of a sign or the edge of a building like Spider-Man, the slit head itself 's premise isn't as compelling as the possession-based design of Night Owls and Rare Objects . Based on monsters from Chinese folklore, the creatures in the game look like a writhing collection of worm tentacles extending from the necks of their human hosts. There are also more insect species, like a mutant praying mantis or a human with a giant seahorse-like head, and each of them is suitably gross and sinister, especially when the reason for their existence in Kowloon is revealed throughout the story.

In reality, however, fighting and getting to know these slit heads is disappointing. In addition to the lackluster combat, Slitterhead's overall structure is also to blame. Due to time warps, these missions sometimes have to be replayed multiple times, intermittently fragmenting the plot. It's conveyed through text-based dialogue scenes between missions, environmental dialogue overheard while fighting or exploring, and brief cutscenes. Although the story begins with a plot-driven forward momentum, it quickly becomes incoherent due to this fragmented structure. Its characters are also visually distinct, but too thinly drawn, making the story's dramatic twists and turns fall flat.

This is even more disappointing considering Slitterhead's excellent fashion sense. While the characters outside of the main cast all resemble frozen-faced goofball mannequins, the rare characters and their primary antagonists stand out even more. Judging by fidelity alone, this would be a terrible-looking game, but its character designs and crowded urban environments are colorful and unique. There aren't many different types of blades, but the ones you'll face all look great.

Certain cutscenes and menus are also extensive. A video introduces a character who is highly skilled in martial arts, and is seen taking out a group of enemies, with each of their blows accompanied by an initial drumbeat. As the intensity of the battle intensifies, the accompanying music gradually transitions from sporadic sounds of cymbals and snare drums to the din of a jazz solo. Missions begin with the character's name and the day's date appears on the screen in swirling colors, a TV-style trap, and many missions end with an abrupt freeze frame with the character's face stuck in motion and the colors running out, "To Be "Continue" is in bold. Music is by longtime Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka (who also co-created the series as Slitterhead). Director Keiichiro Toyama (re-co-writing) is also consistently inventive, with a score that ranges from smooth synths or plaintive guitar melodies to the aforementioned title screen chorus, all of which establish a unique mood.

While "Slitterhead" is as multifaceted as the chorus in the title screen music, its parts fit together as precariously as the dissonant songs they sing. Its novel premise and sharp sense of style are particularly welcome in an era of gaming dominated by remakes and sequels. Unfortunately, other Headsplitters fail to live up to these qualities.