ROMEO IS A DEAD MAN

One of the best hidden gems of 2026, if you are familiar with Suda51 then you are in for a treat. All the usual suspects are here, from the first second to the last, downright to an absurd ending. The game take pot shots are almost everything under the sun, from silent hill to metal gear to gundam, like usual, add a really robust gaming mechanic, a set of lovable characters (the grandpa is even a much better version of Rick, if u can imagine a loving and caring mad scientist grandpa) and amazing weapons to use. basically, a great action games with an insane story. the only downside is that , like always, they have a weird way to tell you how to actually play the game, it took a while for it to click, but when it did, and got the hang of how to use the melee weapons and when to use the guns, the game just became insane fun, also, poor job explaining how to level up, especially since you use the same thing to buy and power up and i spent the first 5 hours wasting the resources on usuless junk. Word to the wise, buy this game, watch a youtube video on what to do and what not to do, and i guarantee, u will have the time of ur life.

Love Suda's games and his art style. This one is just not it. Very weak gameplay, ok story and very bad level design overall. It's fun for the first 1-3 hours and then it gets repetitive and boring. Would not recommend.

I really don't know what this game was. I played it through. I was overstimulated the entire time, and very confused. I loved every second of it.

i tried running this game on steamdeck, which was genuinely impossible. i had to play it on my computer... i hate unreal engine... THAT SAID... this game is very beautiful. it's unique and one of a kind. style over substance. stylistically, please note that it is not exactly like SUDA51's older works. since 2019, suda has had a co-director, ren yamazaki. i noticed that suda's "style" changed a bit around that time, and i believe that may be due to his co-director's influence. i think some suda/KTP fans do not like these stylistic changes, but i personally enjoy them very much.

よくできたアクションゲームだったと思う。 ノーモア3のコンバットアクションをスキルで大味にして、突拍子も無い演出と脈絡の無いストーリーテリングで破壊的にテレビゲームをぶっ壊す。それらは有機的に躁状態を生み出し、乱雑な情報のサイクルの中で独特のグルーヴを生み出している。 よくわからない事を言うキャラ。特に意味が無いのに、突然奥深いことを語るテキスト。それらが混ざり合いながら、カフカの城を人生オールタイムベスト小説にする須田さんらしく、ふわっとした感じで終わるアクションゲームだったと思う。 けれど須田さんはもう一度、ビジュアルノベルに回帰するべきだという確信を持たざるを得ない1作になってしまった。あくまで個人的にではあるが。 没入感はある。しかし、須田の没入感の最大限のドライヴとは、やはりアクションゲームの中のグルーヴではなく、言葉の渦の中に取り込まれていく事だとも思ってしまった。 ノーモア3もノベルシーンが一番没入感があった。ロミオでも、実は没入感が一番あったのは短いノベルシーンがだったと感じる。 私はもう一度包まれたい。須田のテキストに。ランゲージで私を振り回して欲しい。わけわからないような事を口にして私を取り込んで欲しい。シルバー事件はそうだった。シロヤブが出た時に「もう一度須田さんは私をテキストの世界で包み込んでくれるのでは」と思い、25区型のノベルシーンが30分ぐらいあるパートを望んだ。けれどそうはならなかった。 ビジュアルノベルをもう一度須田はやるべきである。経済の問題ではなく、もう一度究極の魂のプロジェクトであるシルバー事件の世界観に踏み込むべきである。突拍子も無いヒップホップではなく、ランゲージと、カタカタとしたテキスト。そしてレイアウトの変化による没入感。それをもう一度再現せずして、須田剛一の事は最大限の全肯定はできない。 もう一度シリアスに向き合うべきだと思う。今の須田ゲーはどこか「シリアス」である事を意図的に避けている印象がある。破壊的でパンクで、自由でフリースタイルである事をニュートラルにしようとしている。 そうではない。今一度、シルバー事件を。killer7ユニバースをシリアスに描くべきだ。そしてもう一度投げっぱなしのエンディングで終わらせて「一体あれは何だったのか」と、思わせるべきだと感じる。 アクションゲームとして楽しんだ。そして今確信する。須田はビジュアルノベルを、もう一度真剣に描くべきであると。

Romeo is peak, man! This game gave me basically everything that I wanted from a Suda51/Grasshopper Manufacture game. It’s got an off-kilter, witty, and sometimes heartfelt narrative, with some of the most idiosyncratic writing in the medium, and rock ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ solid combat mechanics that, while simple, never stop feeling satisfying because they have just enough depth to allow for player expression. I wanna do something different than my usual approach and start with the main point of criticism I have for this game: its Unreal Engine 5-ness. I know Suda and the team have used Unreal Engine in the past, but relying on UE5 has significantly hampered the visual eccentricity. Mind you, the game still has incredible variance in art styles and presentation, with completely different visual approaches like comic-book interludes, top-down pixel art for the hub, and different anime styles for cutscenes, etc. The kind of maximalist creativity you’d expect from GHM. But when you’re actually playing the game, that creativity gets held back by the engine. It has a lot of what I assume are stock assets, and it has that quintessential UE5 look as a baseline. For example, the first level is a mall in the 1980s, but nothing about it really exudes the “80s.” 80s malls had a very specific visual language: high atriums, skylights everywhere, pastel and geometric shapes with teal, mauve, dusty pink, peach, brass railings, Memphis-style patterns, wild abstract carpet designs, bright neon store logos, backlit plastic channel letters, etc. Everything felt luminous, but not harsh. They were pastel-lit indoor oases that reflected the optimistic consumerism and escapist fantasy of that decade. But none of that is really communicated at the mall level. Instead, it kind of feels like a nondescript, generic mall with an “80s” sign taped to it. To many people, this wouldn’t be a huge issue, but I think past GHM games are great at environmental storytelling and really selling you on the vibe of the places you’re in. Thankfully, the team is so talented that a lot of that still comes through; it just manifests in different ways. One of my favorites is during the cult level, which is presented as a glitched-out purgatory. The “invisible” walls are communicated to the player by having waves show that you’re on a private island, but the waves look like zoomed-out texture meshes that don’t cohere with the sand you’re walking on. It really sells the idea that you’re in a disconnected space that’s outside normal time and place. And of course, the character designs are incredible here too. It’s still Suda and his team firing on all cylinders. We even got a person wearing a cat mask who is fully committed to the bit that she is an actual cat. Great stuff. But among the things I love about this game, one of the first things that really caught my eye was the combat. It’s mostly building on No More Heroes 3, with a little bit of Shadows of the Damned thrown in with the ranged weapons. However, I think it does an excellent job of expanding that foundation, especially by integrating ranged combat into the rhythm rather than making it feel like an afterthought. It just feels really ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ good. It has the perfect amount of hit stop, and learning how to use the Bloody Sunday mechanic to stunlock bigger enemies and bosses is extremely satisfying. Combat will often require you to bob around and shift back and forth between your ranged and melee abilities to exploit enemy weakpoints, and it also consistently doles out new enemy types. It also has just the right amount of challenge when playing on hard. I think my biggest gripe with the combat system is that switching between weapons is very finicky. You have to hold down left or right on the d-pad to access melee and ranged options, respectively, and then press one of the four face buttons. Often, this will result in you just attacking, dodging, or jumping, unless you come to a complete stop for half a second and let your animation buffers reset. It doesn’t ruin the experience whatsoever, but it is a quirk that, if handled better, would have been a real upgrade. This combat begs you to switch on the fly, and the game sometimes fights you on that. Narratively, I think this is Suda’s best work since TSA, and the peaks of Romeo is a Dead Man are some of the best he’s ever written. Someone clearly broke this man’s heart, and I feel for him, because Romeo is a Dead Man is basically about what happens when you let the hot alt baddie actually ruin your life. Romeo searches for Juliet, a romantic partner who disappears. We aren’t given a whole lot of exposition about her at the start, but the game keeps feeding you pieces, and they connect as you progress, especially in the back half. Each level is framed as trying to capture an intergalactic, time-traveling villain, but you always end up fighting some version of Juliet that has possessed them. The structure is basically Romeo trying to do his job, and the universe refusing to let him chase anything except her. The story warns you about what can happen when you try to change someone who doesn’t want to be changed, or “helped,” just to make a relationship work. About what happens when you shoulder that burden so long that it transforms your sense of self in the process. That reading is reflected by how Romeo seems to be repeating days, and how individual realities might not be real at all. One thing Romeo is a Dead Man returns to is Suda’s Lynchian influence, where what’s presented is confusing and ambiguous on purpose, to make you question what’s real and what’s not. The fractured, alternate realities Romeo navigates also reflect identity breakdown when you’re trying too hard to save someone. When it becomes an obsession that turns into self-destruction. Romeo’s pursuit of Juliet becomes a compulsion he can’t control, fighting distorted reflections instead of confronting reality. The violence between each door he takes becomes a ritualized denial. The title reflects this, too. He’s a dead man, but he dies emotionally before he dies physically. The game unfolds in acts, almost like a theater performance. Between acts, there are interlude narrations from a non-distinct narrator that provide cryptic, epigraphic interludes, or oracular statements that feel thematically tied to what came before and what’s coming next. “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting.” Being framed this way not only alludes to the Shakespearean parallels of the narrative but also shows how fractured Romeo’s identity and persona have become and how there’s a constant war between reality and narrative. The versions of Juliet that Romeo takes down are initially presented as “fakes” or “copies” sent to confuse him. However, the game’s ending revelation, when he finally finds the “true” Juliet, is that not only is she an otherworldly being, but that every version Romeo had slain up to this point were real parts of Juliet. They were parts of her that didn’t fit his fantasy, his ideal version of Juliet, so he rejected them. Romeo didn’t truly want the whole person. He wanted the specific vision he had of her in his head. This may seem shortsighted or even selfish, but I don’t think it’s uncommon for people to ignore the bad parts of someone they love in favor of the good parts. In fact, to a point, that’s normal. Nobody is perfect. However, there are times when we cling to one or two very specific positives about a person while ignoring all of the red flags. Conversely, we may overlook things that could genuinely improve, but they atrophy because we refuse to treat them as real problems that need to be confronted. This revelation doesn’t necessarily reframe Romeo as some undeserving stealth villain of the game. Instead, it reinforces the tragedy of both characters… Complete review here: https://backloggd.com/u/HazeRedux/review/4230753/

I love suda and all his works, but this thing runs pretty sloppy compared to other games, it really needs a few more minutes in the oven. i upgraded to play this and everything else i couldnt play, i can now, this is the only title left that runs poorly on my new pc.

Romeo Is a Dead Man is not a bad game, but it’s definitely not as good as the reviews suggest. The story and combat are actually interesting at first, and I was genuinely curious about where the story would go. The problem is that the game stretches everything too much. The story is a very slow burn, and the gameplay starts repeating itself after a few hours. Another thing I really don’t understand is the save system. The game uses Souls-like mechanics with unnecessary save points and enemy respawns. But this is not a Souls game. So why insist on using that mechanic? Enemies respawn every time you save, and it just feels pointless here. The game starts strong. The story is interesting and the combat feels okay in the beginning. But after some time, it becomes repetitive. The game shows you a lot of activities and things to do, but most of them feel unnecessary. It honestly feels like the developers tried to make the game longer in the wrong way. Sometimes the dialogue is also way too long and starts to drag. At this point, I’m mostly continuing just to see how the story ends. Other than that, there isn’t much that keeps me excited. The Metacritic score actually feels pretty accurate to me. Around 70–72 sounds fair. I definitely wouldn’t rate this game anywhere near a 10/10. Also, I don’t really understand why people give almost every new game a perfect score. When I bought this, it had 95% positive reviews, and I honestly don’t think this is a 95% positive game. If you decide to play it, I would recommend finishing it in one session or in a very short time. If you keep quitting and coming back on different days, the repetition becomes much more noticeable and the game can start to feel boring. Edit: Bro literally if you play last chapter there is no way you can give this game positive. Year 2026 literally trash same design. I said 7 sorry its not even worth, max 5 😇

i don't feel good leaving a negative review about this game, because there are plenty of aspects that I enjoy that gives it that good old 7/10 PS2 game vibe. And I mean that in a good way. First off, had I realized this was an Unreal Engine 5 game, I would've never bought this in the first place. I'm tired of UE5, I'm tired of forced ray tracing, I'm tired of lumen and nanite jacking up my hardware's processing power for effects and visuals that do not cater to the gameplay. I understand developers enjoy UE's tools but the end result is just a hardware pipe dream and in this current economy I'm just sick of it. This game commits the usual sins that Japanese game developers do, which is making graphics confusing to navigate. There's an option for "graphics quality" which is basically "render resolution," Upscalers are a gamble as they may potentially make the game run worse, the game's FPS limits are 30, 60, and unlimited, as a UE title the anti aliasing is either a smeared oiling mess or a dithering mess that feels like your monitor's pixels are stabbing you. I play on two builds, one with a 5800X/6900XT and another 3700X/7600. The former build I play at 1440p with a mix of medium and high settings, the game sometimes holds at 130+fps but consistently dips as far down as to 60fps native and it just looks and feels bad with how inconsistent the frame pacing is. The latter build can technically run the game but it just doesn't feel good. That build I play for 1080p/60 in a living room and the game dips below 60 effortlessly whether in traversal, enemies on screen, or when I literally hit anything. speaking of The actual gameplay aspects are one foot in and one foot out for me. I enjoy that the game is a simple 3D hack and slash, the camera is a bit too close to Romeo in my opinion and you can't change that but its manageable, there is a lock on function but I can't recommend using it if there's more than 3 enemies around as it will not only limit your point of view but also leave your evasion in a bad spot. Where I am a foot out is when the game's VFX are obnoxious. Hitting an enemy results in a giant smatter of red blood that explodes with each hit, this drives up the visual clutter to the point where you can barely tell where your enemy is; in crowd fights its downright abysmal as I just had to eventually intuit how much I could attack and when to use Bloody Summer to thin the crowd safely. Pairing this with the inconsistent frame rate and you have yet another title to put in the "unreal engine made me throw up" box. This game went through development turmoils, I get it, and the visual presentation is alluring, the music is fantastic, the weird and unexplained stuff is just interesting enough to where I dont feel like I need an explanation for everything but also I'm fine just rolling with it. I've enjoyed some of my time, but I'm not sure I will want to bother playing this more than the story asked of me. If there is ever an option to lower the VFX, and the performance is further optimized - I'll then consider wanting to do more than "bitter."