Romeo is a Dead Man Review

Romeo is a Dead Man tells the story Romeo Stargazer, a cop, who finds himself between life and death, during a police intervention. Thankfully, his grand-father, Benjamin Stargazer arrives on the scene and saves his life with the Dead Gear Life Support System. This keeps him on the edge between life and death, causing a time paradox. Romeo is then hired by the FBI Space-Time. Our protagonist is tasked to hunting the most wanted fugitives while investigating the disappearance of his girlfriend, Juliet Dendrobium.

Romeo is a Dead Man is a third person action game that combines melee and long range attacks. Romeo can use normal attacks by pressing X and Y for strong attacks. Our protagonist can also jump or dodge to avoid sticky situations. As you perform attacks, you’ll fill out the Blood Gauge by collecting enemies’ blood. This gauge allows you to unleash a devastating, Bloody Summer, attack which causes a lot of damage but also refills your health. It can used with your melee weapon and firearms.

While you start off with a basic sword and pistol, by collecting Emerald Flowsion, you can both unlock new and stronger weapons, but also upgrade your weapons to cause more damage, break through enemies or faster consumption of enemies’ blood to fill the gauge. The game features two types of enemies; you’ll have normal zombies that can be hacked and slashed easily, but also stronger enemies types with visible weakpoints. While you can use your melee on them, shooting their weak spots is a lot more efficient.

While the core game is in third person, between missions, you’ll be summoned back to the Last Night. A spaceship that Romeo and friends call home. This is where you can unlock the next mission, tackle optional dungeons, upgrade your weaponry/abilities, cook curry with found ingredients, plant seeds to obtain Bastards and interact with your crewmembers. Also when you die in battle, you’ll be able to spin a wheel that can reward you with increased attack or defense for example.

Along with your traditional weapons, you can also summon Bastards in combat to lend a hand. Throughout your adventures, you’ll collect seeds that you’ll be able to sow in a specific room of the ship. Once ready, you can harvest them to use in battle. Or combine two of them to create a new breed of Bastards. Romeo can also collect a myriad of items such as Regenetizers which can refill your health. Additionally, our hero can fall prey to “sickness” which causes Romeo to lose some abilities temporarily.

You’ll also come across Space time pharmacies; a delegated save point which will refill your health, allow players to upgrade their weapons on the go or just transport back to the ship. The game is also filled with mini-games. For example, to upgrade your health or attack, through the DeadGear Cannonball mini-game, you’ll need to fly a small ship through a maze picking up items or when cooking curry, you need to pick up the cooked ingredients at the right time.

Romeo is a Dead Man looks great and has that classic SUDA51 visual and audio flair. The game is very colorful and stylish; it also does a great mix of third person action game and 2D 16-bit pixelated over the top visuals when in the ship. Enemy design, as a whole, is decent, but they do get repetitive after a while. The bosses, however, is where he game really shines. The soundtrack is an absolute banger and was created by Nobuaki Kaneko, Luby Sparks, and Cody Carpenter (yes, John Carpenter’s son!). The voiceover work is also top-notch. The actors’ delivery is spot-on; nothing sounds too cringey and over the top.

To be fair, there isn’t any major issues here. My main gripe with Romeo is a Dead Man is the sub-space. During most chapters, in order to acquire a key to access the boss, you’ll need to access the sub-space via a magical tv. The sub-space is an enemy free zone where you’ll explore to find consumables but also collect parts of the key. It’s a huge contrast from the action oriented space. It does feel like it breaks the game’s flow a bit and they get more complex the further you get. Also the Oscillation mini-games in the sub-spaces are an annoying pain in the butt. Another problem is the lack of invisible barriers. Meaning if you’re on a narrow walkway and have to engage in combat, 99% of the time you’ll fall down to your death and respawn at the last checkpoint. This is especially infuriating in the latter part of the game where you get pelted by birds left and right.

Romeo is a Dead Man is an absolute banger to start off the year with. Combat, albeit straightforward, is fun and addictive. There’s a decent weapon variety, boss battles are quite challenging, but fair and will keep you on your toes. The myriad of mini-games adds a layer of variety on top of the over the top 3D action. While the subspaces do become a flow breaker, especially in the latter parts of the game, it’s not a deal breaker. If you’re looking for a fun, unique and varied action game, or you’re simply a SUDA51 fan, Romeo is a Dead Man is a no-brainer. Highly recommendeded.