I say this as a compliment- Slitterhead is one of the weirdest games I’ve played this entire console generation, and definitely the weirdest game I’ve played this year. Coming from Bokeh Game Studio – a new indie team formed by Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill, Siren, and Gravity Rush – it has certain expectations to live up to, but rather than being a slave to those expectations, it carves out a unique identity for itself. It’s not without its issues, and it certainly isn’t a game that I’d recommend to anyone without any caveats- but if you can look past its issues, there’s a very different and interesting gaming experience on offer here.
Slitterhead is set in 1990s Kowlong, a fictionalized version of Hong Kong, and sees you playing as Hyoki, a mysterious spirit with no body or form of its own, but capable of possessing nearly anybody they get their eyes on. In rather tropey fashion, Hyoki’s memory is foggy as the game starts out, so you don’t get much information on your past or backstory, but you do know that your mission is to find and eliminate terrifying monsters known as Slitterheads, who have been leaving a trail of mutilated bodies and grisly murders throughout the city.
“It’s not without its issues, and it certainly isn’t a game that I’d recommend to anyone without any caveats- but if you can look past its issues, there’s a very different and interesting gaming experience on offer here.”
Slitterhead is very much not a story-focused game, and it shows. Its narrative premise is certainly a fascinating one, as is its Hong Kong-inspired setting, but though the game does broach some intriguing ideas from time to time, it very rarely actually pulls at those threads in any meaningful way. More often than not, the plot serves to allow Slitterhead’s gameplay mechanics to shine, with the actual storytelling usually taking a backseat. From clunky writing to rough cutscenes to low production values all around (more on that in a bit), the game doesn’t really make a strong impression in the narrative department.
Of course, one might argue that that’s not the point. I kicked this review off by calling Slitterhead one of the weirdest games I’ve played in recent memory, and by stressing that that is very much in the game’s favour. That comes first and foremost from its gameplay ideas. By putting players in the shoes (so to speak) of a formless body-swapping spirit, Slitterhead embraces a core gameplay loop that feels entirely unlike anything else out there, and though it does feel more than a little rough around the edges, the pros definitely outweigh the cons here.
Swapping in and out of bodies and taking control of different NPCs is at the center of Slitterhead’s gameplay experience, and that’s true for nearly every part of the game. Take the combat, for instance- on face value, it works like a rather straightforward action game with a focus on melee mechanics, dodging and parrying, cooldown-based abilities, and what have you, but the game puts an interesting spin on the proceedings by encouraging players to never remain inside one body for too long. Every time you possess a new body, you gain a temporary boost in your attacks and combat efficiency, which means the game keeps encouraging you to keep swapping between different bodies.
“Swapping in and out of bodies and taking control of different NPCs is at the center of Slitterhead’s gameplay experience, and that’s true for nearly every part of the game.”
Similarly, traversal and navigation encourage players to never remain in control of any one NPC for too long. Standing in front of a locked gate that you need to get past? Simply find a character on the other side to take control of. Need to extract information from an NPC that isn’t feeling to talkative? Find a different character to speak to them as that they might be willing to share more information with. Need to make your way to a building’s rooftop but can’t find a normal way to get up there? Simply hop from body to body on balconies and terraces to eventually make it up there.
Slitterhead does an admirable job of taking its core hook and finding unique and interesting ways to make it a central part of the gameplay experience. From combat to traversal, the body swapping mechanic always remains a core part of the moment-to-moment loop, which is why the game feels as unique as it does. That, in turn, works out in the game’s favour, because that uniqueness helps compensate for some of the gameplay issues that do plague Slitterhead.
Chief among those issues is how rough the game feels. Pretty much a textbook example of a “diamond in the rough”, Slitterhead can feel like quite clunky at times. Movement is often a bit too jerky (thanks in no small part to the animations), but it’s the combat where these problems are at their worst. Generally, regular attacks, parries, and blocks feel pretty tight and responsive, but often, the janky movement can make your actions feel a bit too imprecise and lethargic, which is just never what you want in an action game like this one.
Slitterhead also suffers from a feeling of repetition from time to time. The game does try to alleviate concerns in this area by letting you play as a number of different characters, which, of course, does bring in a certain level of variation (though not too much, since the general moveset of the humans you control largely remains uniform). There are also a number of more powerful and special humans known as Rarities to possess, who come with their own unique abilities and attacks, from a girl who unleashes melee attacks with Wolverine-like claws to a biker who blasts away at enemies with a shotgun. With enemy variety not being up to scratch, however, combat encounters can start feeling monotonous after a while. It’s good, then, that Slitterhead’s unique USP never quite loses its charm, even as the rough implementation of some of those ideas can let the game down a little bit from time to time.
“If you’re the sort of player that can put up with the jank and the rough edges – of which Slitterhead has no shortage – there’s a rich vein of gold waiting to be tapped into here.”
Slitterhead also suffers from having generally low production values across the board. From an art design standpoint, there’s a lot to love here, and from the nightmare-inducing designs of the monsters you fight to the neon-drenched streets of the city that you explore, there’s plenty here that is undeniably impressive from a visual perspective. Beyond that, however, it’s hard not to notice the shockingly ugly and low-detail NPC faces, the janky movements and animations all around, the general lack of voice acting in the majority of cutscenes (and the awkward grunts and pauses that that lack of voice acting goes hand in hand with).
If, however, you’re the sort of player that can put up with the jank and the rough edges – of which Slitterhead has no shortage – there’s a rich vein of gold waiting to be tapped into here. Bokeh Game Studio’s debut outing is far from a perfect game, and its eccentricities may even turn some people off from what it’s trying to sell entirely- but I could easily see this game amassing a veritable cult following over the years. From its setting and its fascinating central premise to its body swapping gameplay core and how that’s used across the experience, from combat to traversal, Slitterhead deserves a lot of credit for not only being a rare example of a game being willing to try something new and risky, but also (mostly) pulling it off.
This game was reviewed on the Xbox Series X.
