Slitterhead
Developer: Bokeh Game Studio Inc.
Publisher: Bokeh Game Studio Inc.
Platforms: Windows (Reviewed), PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X
Release Date: 9 November 2024
Price: $49.99 USD / $75.95 AUD – Available Here, Available Here
Overview
Slitterhead is a horror and sci-fi-themed action-adventure game, although it’s not a scary game like Silent Hill, which is designed to elicit fear in the player. The game marks the return of Keiichiro Toyama – one of the key minds behind the first Silent Hill and the three Forbidden Siren iterations – as a game director, and also the first title released by Bokeh Game Studio. Toyama’s previous horror games stand out for their originality, weirdness, and suspenseful, non-linear storytelling that gets stranger as the player advances through the game. That was one of the main reasons why I kept coming back to the Siren series, as my curiosity got the best of me despite the games being hard in a kind of tiresome way. Slitterhead is a spiritual successor to Siren in many ways, encompassing many of its elements while providing more action-focused gameplay. That said, can Slitterhead deliver an enticing and accessible experience without losing its soul in the process?
Story
Slitterhead is set in the cluttered streets of the fictional Kowlong. The city is inspired by the real-world Kowloon, a chaotic walled city in the middle of Hong Kong that was demolished in the 1990s. The story follows Hyoki, an entity devoid of memory and physical form, and the people he possesses as a means to hunt and eliminate shapeshifting, brain-devouring creatures known as Slitterheads.
The hunt will lead Hyoki and his group to understand more about the origins and motives of the Slitterheads, which are connected to something even more sinister than their preference for human brains. The protagonists also experience some development, with their backgrounds being revealed gradually. The overall plot is also drip-fed, which makes things interesting at first but ends up dragging on for a bit too long. Regardless, Slitterhead provides an intriguing story with many layers, and it all gets more and more strange and sinister as the player advances through the game.
Gameplay
The game is divided into missions that take place in the streets of Kowlong and other specific locations. Slitterhead pays significant homage to another title by Toyama, Forbidden Siren. Thus, fans of Siren will appreciate Slitterhead‘s Asian urban setting as well as the sound direction and gameplay elements directly drawn from Siren. The missions are also structured similarly to the aforementioned title, featuring a “second loop,” where players get to replay missions but with new objectives and story developments. That’s a clever way to add substance to a game while sparing resources, but it also means that players will only have a handful of locations to explore.
Slitterhead‘s gameplay features a mix that involves investigation, rapid vertical chases through the streets of Kowlong, and, primarily, combat against the Slitterheads. The investigation and exploration sections of the game mainly involve locating and eliminating them. Using Hyoki’s synchronicity with the Slitterheads, players can briefly see their most recent memories left in items and other objects. Hyoki can also hijack the enemy’s field of view, allowing players to see what the monster is currently observing, further aiding in the hunt.
Since Hyoki does not have a physical body, he must possess living creatures that have enough affinity with him in order to pursue his prey. Common humans’ basic abilities and the blood jump mechanic – which enables the player to reach high places in seconds – create a fast-paced, dynamic, and enjoyable navigation experience. Hyoki can possess and dispossess humans at will. For instance, if the player is on top of a building but a Slitterhead escapes to the streets below, they can execute a suicide jump and possess another human before hitting the ground.
Special humans with a heightened affinity with Hyoki compose the main cast of the game. Designated as “rarities,” these characters possess exclusive and powerful combat abilities that are partially shared with other rarities and ordinary humans. This leads us to the central element of the gameplay: Combat. It’s not like missions are teeming with monsters, forcing the player into combat frequently. Rather, enemy encounters are relatively scarce for a good chunk of the game. That said, there’s a lot of emphasis on combat mechanics, allowing players to unlock and enhance rarity skills by using points earned through exploration and stage completion. These skills are varied and intriguing, granting rarities something akin to “jobs” in RPGs. Some rarities focus on healing and support, others on manipulating humans, while some rely on sheer brute strength, even using humans as suicide bombers.
The combat is brutal and bloody, just like the rest of the game, and occurs from the same third-person perspective as the exploration sections. Fundamentally, the combat works well with solid controls. Players have access to attacks, blocks, and dodges that form the basic combat mechanics. Common humans are clumsy and deal low damage, but their real function is to serve as bait, ammunition, and sacrifices. Furthermore, their abilities highlight their true usefulness; for example, the War Cry ability compels a Slitterhead to attack the human who used it, allowing rarities to regroup, heal, or strike unexpectedly with longer and more powerful combo strings and skills.
Combat can be fun and varied. This diversity does not extend to enemies, who are generally the same few simple mobs, with bosses that do not change much in appearance or attack patterns. That said, the most significant issue with Slitterhead lies in its exploration and enemy-tracking set pieces that take away much of the agency the player could have during these segments. That means that the answer to any little obstacle that could require a bit of thinking is handed to the player for free, with Hyoki even repeating the answer after a couple of minutes. Furthermore, secrets revealed through sightjack and dialogues with rarities during intermissions are eventually resolved by the characters themselves.
Hyoki’s sightjacking abilities would be enough to detect enemies, adding depth and challenge to the gameplay, so why does the game feature colored auras and deafening sounds pointing to enemies’ exact location? In Siren, Shibito were located solely through sightjack. It was challenging and somewhat tiresome to use in that game, but in Slitterhead, the explore-able area is relatively small with numerous landmarks for cross-referencing. This results in exploration that’s little more than a glorified visual novel with constant interruptions and cutscenes, making the game feel dragged-out and boring. None of these issues would be as problematic if players had the option to disable tips, markers, and unnecessary visual clutter as desired. The four difficulty levels only affect combat. It’s high time developers started providing a more customizable experience that accommodates different skill levels and tastes.
Visuals
The graphics are simple but effective. The neon-lit streets of Kowlong feel lifelike, with busy open-air markets and rows of buildings on every side, creating a mature, dark 1980s atmosphere. The models and textures of common characters are basic and tend to overlap, with variations mostly in clothes and hairstyles. However, the rarities feature more varied and appealing designs, such as textures featuring small details like the scratches on Alex’s helmet.
Common monsters suffer from the same issue as ordinary human characters, with repetitive designs inspired by marine creatures. I expected the game to be more grotesque and disturbing in this regard, but to be fair, it offers its share of unsettling moments. Regardless, the art style and themes in Slitterhead are unique and should appeal to players seeking something unconventional.
Audio
Akira Yamaoka, from the Silent Hill series, is responsible for the soundtrack and overall sound design. The guttural chants from Siren are present, further emphasizing the game’s mystical Asian atmosphere.
The soundtrack combines Yamaoka’s signature chill, ambient tracks with more action-oriented and suspenseful tunes which frequently feature Asian motifs that will probably sound strange to many but fit the game very well. Regardless, the intermission menu track contains a vocal passage that annoyed me to no end.
The game mostly doesn’t have voice-overs. The few lines the characters have are mostly spoken in English, although NPCs usually speak Chinese. The remaining dialogues are grunts and repeated one-liners.
Overall
While Slitterhead can be considered a true spiritual successor to Forbidden Siren, it’s not the return to form I expected. The excessive emphasis on accessibility during exploration made it redundant, serving only as story exposition and making it feel like padding until the next encounter with enemies. The implementation of diverse combat mechanics ends up feeling a bit wasted on few and repeated enemies. Despite that, the story retains the suspense, mystique, and gruesomeness that Siren is known for, making Slitterhead an interesting experience for horror fans.
Capsule Computers review guidelines can be found here.
