I'm sorry, but what's wrong with the gameplay? Aside from a couple of the minigames/events (
, the controls are responsive, the scoring system rewards skilled play, and there's a laundry list of unlockables to work towards, a bunch of which improve your effectiveness and give a nice sense of character power progression.
After I beat Lollipop Chainsaw, I put Bayonetta back in, and the difference between those two games is just so huge. When you talk about responsive controls and rewards for skill, that's Bayonetta. I can go from punch, to kick, to guns in
any order, and everything will flow together so smoothly. That isn't at all the case with Juliette—no matter how many moves I unlocked, I still think she feels awkward. What it really reminds me of is how I think of, say, Street Fighter vs. Tekken, where SF is about crafting moves so that they can flow together once you find the right beat, versus Tekken, where it's all about pre-created dial-a-combos.
That is totally how I see Lollipop Chainsaw, and Juliette never stopped having that clunky feeling to me. I know some people disagree, but that's how I felt. I know Lollipop and Bayonetta aren't trying for the exact same things, but at their core I do think they have many similarities—and Lollipop just doesn't hold a candle to Bayonetta in those areas. I also don't like not having a proper dodge (Juliette's jump/kinda sorta dodge doesn't cut it), and I feel at times that game replaces actual difficulty with cheapness (like zombies that I'm in the middle of combo-ing being able to still pull off an attack).
Beyond that, there are just a ton of little things that seem like they were created specifically to drive me crazy. *heh* Why is everything a button prompt? Why can I saw apart structures sometimes, but other times I have to hit a button and then use the analog stick? Those extra steps add nothing to the game. Where are these so many mini game-type events when almost every single one of them is just "push buttons with timing"? Why has Juliette regressed to the era of the original Resident Evil, where at times she can't even walk down stairs without hitting a button to do so?
I'll also admit that, post-Dark Souls, other things that didn't used to bug me as much before now do. The game breaks up gameplay far too often for cutscenes that are unnecessary. Like, the part with Rosalyn and her bus—uggh. Every time you replay that stage, you have to sit through watching all of those pointless little cutscenes. Same with Juliette answering her phone. I want more games to go the Dark Souls route, where if you're going to show me something, just have it happen as a natural part of gameplay, and let me choose whether I'm going to sit there and watch or get on with my game.
I still argue the virtues of Japanese gaming, and I still love many of them–but games like Lollipop, for me, are great examples of how it sometimes feel like Japanese developers just don't understand how certain genres have progressed and evolved. I think it's just one of those things where, for certain players, one thing can drive you crazy while for another person it's no big deal. Reading through some of the opinions in here, it's obvious that a lot of people are enjoying the game and not bothered by those elements.
I know somebody mentioned that they thought Lollipop Chainsaw felt "old-school arcade" in a sense, and I can totally agree with that. In some ways, it takes me back to games like Double Dragon or Streets of Rage. Personally, though, I just can't appreciate that here—Lollipop Chainsaw could and should have been much more.\
I wonder—for the people who enjoy Lollipop's gameplay, did you also like No More Heroes? I haven't played it extensively yet, but from what I have, I thought its combat was just brutally bad. So, for people who did like that style of gameplay, I can totally understand coming to Lollipop and thinking it's great. It's an appreciate for a particular style that I just can't appreciate, even when I genuinely want to.
And she speaks fluent Japanese as well. She's really no idiot thats for sure.
Her (or I should say Tara's) butchering of the Japanese language made me weep. *laughs*
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