REVIEW: ‘Romeo Is A Dead Man’ Is A Uniquely Bizarre Fever Dream

Romeo Is A Dead Man is the latest title and original IP from Grasshopper Manufacture. Like the developers’ other titles, the game is incredibly unique and bizarre, blending several interesting elements to create an experience not seen in many games in recent years, for better and worse.

Romeo Is A Dead Man follows the titular Romeo, who, after getting his face bitten off by a white demon and being on the brink of death, is saved by his grandfather, who keeps him alive with the help of a helmet called the “Dead Gear”. Romeo is revived and given the moniker “Dead Man,” a man living between life and death, and becomes an FBI Space-Time special agent.

Romeo is then tasked to hunt down wanted cosmic fugitives, one of them being Juliet, his amnesiac girlfriend who has been missing for quite some time. With his skills and arsenal of weapons, Romeo must travel through space and time to hunt down the fugitives and find out the truth behind Juliet’s involvement in everything.

Romeo is a Dead Man tackles Romeo & Juliet with a bizarre style.

Romeo is a Dead Man’s narrative is both interesting and confusing. The game alternates between past and present events in each chapter, so players can better understand Romeo’s past and his relationship with Juliet. However, its far-from-linear storytelling style, the fact that Juliet is one of the fugitives Romeo is chasing, and a world-ending singularity creator, and the presence of several Juliet players come across and fight, make the narrative incredibly hard to follow. It also doesn’t help that the game has a unique presentation style.

Each chapter has a strange title and is introduced by a random quote from an unknown man; each boss has a name that seems randomly selected, with no apparent relation to the boss, and each mission sports floating cosmic TVs called Nirvana TVs showing an entity that gives Romeo random advice that may or may not mean anything. As such, it’s hard to pin down what Romeo is a Dead Man‘s narrative is trying to achieve, as it feels like everything is provided randomly and chaotically.

However, this chaos is also what makes the narrative interesting and even engaging at times. This is mainly due to its many odd but interesting characters, specifically its villains. Their personalities, random monologues, and shocking actions make Romeo is a Dead Man’s narrative one of the most bizarre but interesting stories Grasshopper and Suda 51 have crafted so far.

Romeo is a Dead Man is the weirdest and most interesting story from Grasshopper and Suda 51 so far.

Another aspect that makes Romeo is a Deadman a unique game is its peculiar visual style. The game’s visuals are psychedelic, retro, and striking. The retro aesthetic has a sci-fi blend, evident in the character designs of Romeo, the FBI agents, and even the villains.

Each boss fight also starts with a dialogue between Romeo and a fugitive, presented through comic book panels and pages with a distinct art style, and each chapter starts and ends with breaks and has intros reminiscent of 70s superhero Saturday morning cartoons or Super Sentai shows. Given that players will visit several eras from the 60s to the 80s and more, Romeo is a Dead Man wears its inspirations on its sleeve.

Gameplay-wise, Romeo is a Dead Man is a hack-and-slash game where players cut down, shoot, and bludgeon monsters and zombie-like enemies into a bloody mess in quick succession. While the monster designs are not very good-looking and their variety leaves a lot to be desired, the combat is incredibly satisfying. Weapons include a flashy sword that provides fast and precise hits, a great sword with heavy but slow attacks, an extendable staff that offers crowd control, and blade gauntlets that provide speedy hits.

Along with several uniquely designed guns. Each weapon is different from the last and is fun to use. Each chapter sees players jump through space and time in pursuit of fugitives, fighting hordes of monsters, and solving puzzles in the process.

Combat is challenging, but Romeo is a Dead Man’s wheel spin system helps make it approachable.

While combat can be challenging at times, especially on the harder difficulty modes, If players die in combat, they can spin and stop a wheel with several options on it, from extra attack, damage, and defense to the possibility of reviving instantly. This system succeeds in making combat approachable but still challenging, and getting revivals by timing the wheel correctly, especially in boss battles, feels great.

However, to progress, players sometimes have to jump through a cosmic television into ‘Subspace’, a highly psychedelic, bizarre digital world where they must collect keys and solve puzzles to unlock areas in ‘Real Space’.

The only issue is that Subspace is incredibly visually overwhelming and complex to navigate. It’s sometimes hard to see where you’re going and how to progress due to how disorienting the layout and visuals are, and as each chapter has a different layout for each subspace, it’s hard to get used to traversing them. Each chapter has you do this multiple times, so having to go back and forth constantly gets tedious quickly.

When not playing main missions, players will head back to the ship, which is presented with a retro 2D pixel aesthetic, contributing to the game’s odd but interesting visual style. On the ship, players can cook, level up their weapons, stats, and gear, unlock new weapons and gear, talk to fellow agents, purchase items, and more. What makes the ship even more interesting is that interacting with most things requires playing a minigame.

Romeo is a Dead Man can get overwhelming and tedious at points, both mechanically and visually. 

Players have to play a minigame to get food, play a Pac-Man-like game to select which upgrades they can get for Romeo, and even play Pong to unlock the next main area. The game blends several gameplay elements, and surprisingly, this combination works well, providing an engaging experience in the process.

Another notable aspect of the game is its amazing soundtrack. Romeo is a Dead Man features incredibly catchy, melodic, and epic background songs, with the best of them playing during boss fights. However, the game also has some notable drawbacks.

For one, the game insists on cramming as many enemies as possible in tight spaces and halls. This makes traversing between objectives a nightmare sometimes, and fighting them all is usually a fool’s errand due to their numbers and strength.

Additionally, the game’s visuals, specifically when hitting enemies with Romeo’s flashy weapons, can be overwhelming, and there’s no way to turn this off or even reduce the blinding visual effects. Lastly, the early PC build had some frame rate drops, especially when fighting several enemies, but it was never enough to be too disruptive. 

Other than that, Romeo is a Dead Man is an odd but unique action-adventure game that remains engaging despite its quirks and almost incomprehensible narrative. Romeo is a Dead Man’s gameplay style, soundtrack, visual aesthetic, and peculiar characters and elements make it one of the most interesting games from the developers to date.

Romeo is a Dead Man will launch on February 11 for PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X/S.