Just finished this. I can't believe there's no new game+. No new game+, no unlockables, no multiplayer and a 5-6 hour game? Uhhh, what were they thinking. This is like Madworld all over again.
As to the game itself. I think I liked it. I definitely liked parts of it and I definitely didn't like a couple of parts. The gameplay seemed like the same 6-7/10ish gameplay that is in every Suda51 game, but when you play a Suda51 game you don't care and put up with the unpolished, kind of crappy, gameplay for the overall experience full of character, crazy creativity, and fun fun fun fun. This game definitely had some of that, though at the same time I think this was Suda's least creative and interesting game, which still makes it more creative and interesting than most shooters.
What worked:
+Art direction was surprisingly freaking great. The game looked macabre in a way that no other dev has really captured recently. It looked like art design quality I'd expect out of a Silent Hill game by Team Silent. A lot of the grotesque statutes and stuff were really neat. Sure it shows it's UE3.0 a bit, but they managed to really make the game look HORROR, which rocks.
+Music was great, as expected. Yamaoka never lets down.
+A lot of homage stuff was good. The Evil Dead level in the lake was
so awesome
+Some neat gameplay ideas/stages like the tetris block stage, overall the level design was good
+They did a good job with the light/darkness gameplay concept. Some good level design around that like the blindness hand w/umbilical cord area near the end
+World map was cool
+The picture books were a nice touch and the BIG bosses were cool even if easy
+Cutscenes were enjoyably shlock
+Voice acting was pretty good.
What didn't work:
-The entire shmup thing was freaking terrible. And doing it THREE TIMES. Ughhhh, should have been 1 area at most. NMH rank 6 shmup stage was more creative the first time and also played better than this
-Big Boner thing was freaking terrible. Basically Grasshopper always sucks at mini-games, so they should stop having ones that play worse than the main game which already only plays passable.
-UNSKIPPABLE FUCKING CUTSCENES. This is 2011...wtf! And you'd always die right after a cutscene on some 1 hit kill thing so die -> loading -> cutscenes again -> 1 hit kill; luckily you don't die much because it's easy
-Game is a joke in challenge. It starts getting ok challenge about midway through, but never ramps up any further and the bosses are all a joke
-The camera sucks, it's too close and in a few boss fights it's broken. The Flemming 3 body part spinning section was totally fucking broken trying to keep up with the moving parts thanks to the shitty camera. Same thing on the flying boss after that.
-The actual combat is extremely average. A couple of guns, and a couple of enemy types...repeat
-The dialogue was the worst yet from Suda51. I mean I'm used to C-grade cheese from him after stuff like NMH, but it really does seem like no man older than 13 could have written this.
-On the PS3 the game ran pretty shitty with stutters when saving and loooong load times between every level; game crashed twice on me. Good ole' Grasshopper polish
I think, it's very much a 7/10 game, but it's not a bad game and worth a play if you like Suda's work or the horror genre. It's definitely better than the crap that was No More Heroes 2, and maybe about on par or better than stuff like Samurai Champloo, but Killer 7 and NMH1 still stand above SoTD. Out of Suda's 3 big budget games, this is the little trooper of the set, a sort of fun action adventure by a studio that doesn't know the meaning of polish.
