I’m no stranger to Goichi Suda. I played the iconic Killer7 back on my GameCube, and over the years kept following his work through Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw, the No More Heroes series, and Killer Is Dead. In an industry where many studios prefer to play it safe, Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture consistently take risks. Not everything lands. Some games feel rough, others wildly uneven, but they’re always interesting, and almost always worth your time. Now, after years of relative silence, comes Romeo Is a Dead Man: a brand-new IP, and possibly Suda51’s most unhinged project yet. So… does this one earn a spot on your playlist? Let’s dive in.
Here we go
When I say this is perhaps the most unhinged Goichi Suda game to date, I’m not exaggerating. From the opening seconds, Romeo Is a Dead Man throws you headfirst into chaos, barely giving you time to catch your breath before the next absurd idea hits. The setup is deliberately overwhelming. Space and time have been torn apart by some catastrophic event, and the epicenter happens to be a small town where Romeo Stargazer works as a deputy. Almost immediately, he’s brutally attacked by a grotesque creature, only to be saved at the last possible moment by his scientist uncle, who arrives via time machine and turns Romeo into an undead living man… You know… Romeo is a Dead Man now. It’s so over the top and so full of sci-fi nonsense that you just go with it and ask questions later.
That alone would already be a lot, but the game keeps piling on. Just days earlier, Romeo found a woman named Juliet collapsed on the road and fell for her. Of course, this being a Suda51 game, Juliet turns out to be a multiversal threat bent on collapsing reality itself. As a Dead Man, Romeo quickly joins the FBI’s Space-Time Police to track down Juliet and save the very existence of the human race across fractured timelines. It’s cool to do time-travel and multiverses, and this is Suda51’s absurd take on it.
It sounds ridiculous when written down, but that’s the point. The first hours feel like a fever dream, constantly escalating and rarely pausing to explain themselves. I also loved how visually pleasing it all is. The story unfolds in traditional cut-scenes, body cams, and interactive comic book panels. It’s so over the top and so crazy that you can’t look away.
No More Dead Man
After the dust of the opening cinematic settles, it’s finally time to play. Structurally, Romeo Is a Dead Man reminded me most of the No More Heroes games, and I mean that as a compliment.
The loop is fairly simple. The game is divided into chapters set across different eras, each with its own villain and set of problems to solve. Every chapter drops you into a self-contained level, very much like the missions in No More Heroes. You’re free to roam, fight your way through waves of enemies, and work toward a final boss before moving on to the next chapter. On paper, it’s straightforward. In practice, this being a Goichi Suda project, it rarely feels that way.
At its most basic, it’s you, your melee weapons, your guns, and a whole lot of enemies. You dodge, string combos together, and carve your way through crowds. Once Romeo starts landing hits, the screen explodes into pixelated blood sprays and exaggerated visual flair. When things get busy, it can feel almost too overwhelming, but that sensory overload is clearly part of the design. Thankfully, there’s more here than just style. The combat mechanics feel solid, and mixing melee attacks with gunplay quickly becomes second nature. Staying aggressive fills your Blood Gauge, unlocking the Bloody Summer attack for massive damage bursts. As you progress, you unlock new weapons and skills that subtly change how you approach fights, giving each chapter a slightly different flow.
It feels like Suda pulling together ideas he’s been experimenting with for years. Combat is an important aspect of the game, and it all flows naturally as it should.
What I appreciated most about the levels is that they’re not just combat arenas. If you’re willing to slow down and explore, you’ll find small collectibles and light puzzles scattered throughout. One of the more interesting ideas is the floating TVs that pull you into an alternative, stylised version of the world. Inside these parallel spaces, you’re usually hunting for a key to unlock the boss door back in reality. Early on, it’s all pretty straightforward, but the further you get, the stranger these zones become. Jumping back and forth between the real world and these warped side dimensions does more than just mix things up. It breaks the rhythm of constant fighting and gives you a moment to breathe, a small pause before everything kicks off again. And once you finally grab that key and warp back? Yeah. Then it’s time to earn it.
Wait… Did you just drop your head?
The boss battles are easily one of the highlights of Romeo Is a Dead Man, and they don’t hold back. The moment Juliet enters the picture, things usually spiral out of control, with her transforming into grotesque, body-horror monstrosities that exist purely to destroy you and whatever is left of the world. Each fight is introduced through interactive comic-book panels drenched in gore. If you don’t like body horror, you probably won’t enjoy these bosses, because that’s exactly what they are. Personally, I loved how far the game is willing to go here.
The fights themselves are wildly creative and rarely stick to one idea for long, changing things up the more bosses you defeat. I won’t go into spoiler territory, because these encounters are genuinely better experienced blind. Just know that they don’t play it safe.
Gameplay-wise, bosses ask for precision. You need to focus on weak spots, manage positioning, and actually make use of your upgrades. I played on normal and still found myself struggling a few times, often heading back to the spaceship to unlock new weapons or tweak my skills before jumping back in. What I appreciated is how little the game punishes failure. When you die, Romeo comes back with a random buff like stronger attacks or better defense, which keeps things moving instead of killing your momentum. There’s also a save point right before each boss fight, so retries stay quick; just keep in mind that using it resets enemies in the surrounding area.
You thought this was it?
In between missions, you head back to your spaceship, and that’s where the game suddenly shifts gears. Everything turns into this retro-inspired 2D hub that feels less like a menu and more like a weird little playground. This is where you string together the story through random meetings and absurd side quests before entering the next main chapter. It’s also where you upgrade and tweak your loadouts, no boring menus though, because everything happens through mini-games.
Want to assign points in a skill tree? You dive into a tiny rocket and fly through a Pac-Man–like maze, collecting nodes that boost your stats. Looking for extra food? Cook it in the kitchen, but be sure to get your timing right, burned katsu is less effective. The ship is a wildly creative place. You can even grow strange zombie creatures (called “bastards”) from seeds and send them into battle alongside you like twisted little Pokémon. It sounds ridiculous, but somehow it all fits.
I honestly lost count of how many times the game surprised me here. The visual style jumps all over the place, mixing pixel art, comic panels, practical effects, and even bits of live-action footage. Normally, that kind of chaos would fall apart instantly, but Romeo Is a Dead Man commits so hard to its own madness that it just works. Even the death screens lean into it, pulling off some genuinely unsettling moments I wasn’t expecting at all.
It’s all about being surprised and switching things up when you least expect it. The ship is a prime example during your first couple of hours, but the surprises and gameplay shifts aren’t limited to those intergalactic mini-games; they carry over into the main game as well.
A game for everyone?
If you’ve made it this far, you probably already have a decent idea of what kind of game this is, and you’re likely wondering whether it’s something you would enjoy. That’s a hard one to answer, mostly because this game doesn’t try to meet you halfway. If you’ve played Goichi Suda’s work before, you know what you’re signing up for. He doesn’t do subtle, and this might honestly be his wildest project yet. Personally, I loved it. I play hundreds of games every year, and it takes something truly different to surprise me at this point. Romeo Is a Dead Man absolutely managed that.
At first glance, it might look like one of those absurd, artsy games that lean hard on style. But once you spend some time with it, there’s clearly more going on underneath. This feels like Suda’s very personal take on multiverses and time travel, wrapped in an over-the-top third-person action game filled with strange ideas and unapologetic excess. Is everything perfectly polished? No. It’s rough around the edges, and not every concept lands the way it probably should. But that never stopped me from getting pulled deeper into its chaotic, blood-soaked world. I genuinely enjoyed letting this game surprise me over and over again.
That said, this is very much an acquired taste. Fans of Suda’s previous games will likely eat this up. Everyone else? You’ll probably know pretty quickly whether you’re in or out.
Conclusion:
In many ways, Romeo Is a Dead Man feels like the ultimate Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture game, combining so many crazy ideas into one experience. It’s by far one of the most original and surprising games I’ve played in years, and I honestly can’t stop thinking about it. Can I easily recommend it to everyone? Not really, it’s a bit too out there. But at its lower price point, it’s definitely worth giving a shot. If you’re tired of sequels and remakes, give Romeo some love and save the multiverse together.
