Slitterhead

I genuinely love everything about Slitterhead. The core mechanics, the storytelling, the world, etc. It's a throwback to the late 90s or early 2000s where the first game in a series was a creative taste of what a series could grow into. Yet... the aftertaste is pure 2020s. Bitter, generic, and disappointing. So, ultimately, I don't know how I feel about this game, so I sure as heck can't recommend yes or no with any confidence. Slitterhead are alien monsters that feed on the brains of human beings. You take on the role of a disembodied spirit, jumping from host to host to kill them. This is the core mechanic, jumping into one body... attack an enemy, leap into a random civilian off to the side and strike from another angle. Combine this with a really cool parry system, a fun open world-style "Pursuit" (AKA movie chase sequence) that fully utilizes the possession system, mechanically unique main characters called "Rarities" that act as your main characters, great monster designs, etc. This nugget of a core is great. But this is 2026 baby... we need to do everything even if we don't have the budget for it! Let's ignore the mediocre stealth scenes and the generic "Follow the ghost/blood trails/gimmick" investigations, the big empty open-level designs and generic challenges and collectables. They function. Even in the core mechanics I love... the main characters are fantastically unique and interesting ranging from healers to gunners to boxers... but every civilian? The exact same. 20 years ago, developers already had more interesting possession game tied to unique skills, equipment, and stats... but there's none of that here. Just random cloned fleshbags to hit things with. Despite beating the game... I don't even know if there was any difference between the different Slitterhead boss enemies. I couldn't tell. Start to finish, it feels like there is 3-4 enemy types, 1 endlessly repeating boss battle. Wanna fight one in the streets? Wanna fight one on a rooftop? What about fighting two that are different colors and may or may not have different attacks or something? How about in a tiny room that feels like the Capra Demon but still acts the same! There's a character leveling system that feels like they planned for something deep and then had to throw a bunch of skill point bundles at you because they ran out of budget to actually use the system. My characters didn't gradually level up, but moon leap upwards in a way that made it feel sloppy and last minute addition. The level design and storytelling is interesting at first glance, but ultimately the game leads into looping stages with minor variations for plot reasons. I feel like there was maybe a dozen relatively small maps? Here's the thing... I don't hate that. I don't hate ANY of that. It worked for plenty of old budget games. It CAN work now. Buuuuuut... as they say in the postgame "I am... still... here? How many times... over and over again..." The problem is that at around 8 hours in I felt like I was approaching an endgame and things felt really good. There was a legitimately great plot twist that leads in a different direction. In a movie, they'd have condensed this to a montage or a series of quick cuts. They'd have respected my time and kept the pacing up as we race towards the epic conclusion. But this is 2026 and we're vidya gamin'! They continually repeat the same plot point in case "a frying pan to the face" is too subtle. I think I had to run the same 3 levels, five times in a row? It takes far too long to REACH this plot twist, far too long to ENACT this twist, and far to long to FINISH it. By the end... I just don't care anymore. With better pacing, all of the above complaints about combat depth or unpolished feelings wouldn't matter. I HAD FUN! I LOVED YOU SLITTERHEAD! YOU WERE THE CHOSEN GAME! Sigh... rant done. You know how I feel and why I've struggled to classify it. It's just a case where I wish the developers streamlined their work to do one or two things well instead of trying to do 37 things mostly-functionally because that's what just games do now.