Lollipop Chainsaw

I started to derail the TF:D topic so I deleted the LC edits and reposted them here.

I'm still going over my Lollipop Chainsaw notes. I love analyzing mechanics and enemy behavior. No wonder I got this backlog. Will try to organize them and hopefully post them sometime within the next 10 years so keep an eye out for that.

Ugh, I just realized I started writing this guide way back when I was playing the 360 version, but the recent batch of notes are from PS3. There are no differences between versions (outside of the 360 appearing to load faster) but the annoying thing is I wrote commands based on the 360 control which I haven't touched for a long time. Not a huge deal, but it kind of confused me a bit.

There are so many aspects to the mechanics that I'm breaking it down in categories. General mechanics, attacks, dodging, movement, lock-on/targeting, grabs, Chainsaw attacks, Nick Tickets, dismemberment (this is interesting as it means an enemy can essentially change forms when you cut off their legs), dizzy status, Sparkle combos, cancels, Chainsaw Dash, Chainsaw Blaster, enemy analysis (covering behavior, attacks, zombie types), mini-games, knockdown states (for yourself and zombies), boss analysis. Probably more I'm forgetting.

Each of these have a ton of stuff within. The different zombies types have a lot of stuff but some you'll never see unless you stop and mess around with them.

Really need to delve back into that game too. I loved it at launch, played it to death and even did a NUR. Yet ... I remember nothing. The entire game is blank in my mind...really weird how that goes.

Need to get to that NUR.

As for my mechanics guide, there's tons of stuff I fear I'll never know 100% like damage values, such as how much damage is require to dismember a certain body part, etc. Oh well.

I wouldn't mind knowing the exact A+ requirements too. Even though I got them all years ago on 360, I never knew what the exact requirement was, like if I overkilled with the points or just barely scraped by.

The basic zombie grunts come in so many variations of models. Like if I say 'the standard zombie', you may ask how to define that considering how many different looking ones there are. It's not too bad though. All of the other types are obvious and as long as those are thoroughly described, it's not a huge issue.

I'm seeing something I've never seen before.

Sometimes the football player zombies are limping like they have a sprained ankle or something. I always get rid of them as fast as possible so I never noticed this.

The weird thing is there seems to be no reason for it and it's random. I restarted a stage like 10 times to fight this same one and most of the time he was normal, then like 3 times he was limping. It makes zero sense.

When they're like this, they seem to not use their tackle from long distances and move slower. I saw one that was fine start limping later and I don't know why. It's not from damage.

They have another walking animation where they do the classic zombie walk with arms outstretched. Why?

These are intentional behaviors but there's no trigger or reason to them. I haven't seen any other zombies do anything like this.

A football player would most likely get injured like that many times in his life. Was Suda trying to get that across? Probably was. The freak.

Oh, and I also got pushed out of bounds in a corner by a zombie. Haven't been able to do it again and I got stuck when I was out and had to restart. I got popped up in the air and over the barrier.

I'm guessing the zombie took over Juliet's space in-game and had to eject her. That's exactly what it looked like. This warrants who knows how many hundreds of hours testing. I've gotten out of bounds a lot in this game before but never like this.

Started a no upgrade run and did the first level. It's playing out like I though it would. Drop kicks, lots of dodge canceling chainsaw strikes, leapfrog to back attack, or down stab on any zombie who got kicked down during leap frog.

I've found that the first hit of the low slash has really wide range and is faster than other basic chainsaw attacks. Can cut off legs too for a down stab.

I'm typing some notes I found in old notebooks so I can throw them out.

Lots of enemy specific stuff but haven't done much testing and I've forgotten most of it. Hopefully I can post some of it soon.

Looking forward to it. I dropped this game when my gf deleted my save on accident. I am excited to get back to this one day, I know there is a lot more to it than meets the eye.

Sent from Topic'it App

Looked through my notes since I had a few spare hours this morning. Edited a few things but still not really fit for posting as there's too much I still want to add as well as a lot of testing still needed

Don't think I ever got around to seeing challenge run (or even high level) work with this. Not much of it, anyway. Made time for InFamous, R:FoM, Dead Space, etc. (to varying degrees), but didn't really see fit to sample this one directly (at all). Perhaps I'll have a gander some time. Ultimately, most of my playing focus was dedicated to GoW (slight diversions here and there put aside).

I am finally giving this a playthrough, over a year after my post saying I would play it one day haha.
I would love any of those notes or pro strats you got Birdman!

I wouldn't really call them pro strats. It's just a guide to the mechanics to counter people who say it's shit. Better to just ask questions as you go.

I don't really get the point of the pom poms. I get it in theory, combo them with it then line them up for a sparkle when they are groggy. Unfortunately the pom poms seem to do shit groggy damage.
I have full pom pom comboed a guy 4 times in a row without him going groggy.

Also does a NUR run just leap frog slashing over and over again?

>pom pom

I wouldn't just use them exclusively to make enemies groggy. Yeah they don't add a huge amount outside of basic zombies on normal.

There's the positioning aspect you mentioned.

Use other attacks that cause groggy as well like Dropkick, butt attack, anything non-chainsaw like grabs and leapfrog kicks (I think. Will need to check notes) and Nick Tickets. If you try to just use pom pom to groggy a group you'll be there for ages. Are yours fully upgraded?

You can get sparkles without zombies being groggy. It's the killing blow, not the groggy state that triggers it.

>NUR
Leapfrog slashing? You mean the back attack after Leapfrog? It plays a part due to the invincibility. You still have drop kick. The low spin even in its base version is fast and great for cutting legs leading to i-frame down attacks which is a kill but you need to mash it. I haven't completed an NUR though. Later you'll get Nick Tickets and it won't matter. They don't break NUR rules because the game forces them in you unless you want to make a no use rule.

But yeah you can expect a lot of repeating the same thing.

Is there a harder difficulty that unlocks after hard? Hard is pretty easy.

Very hard.

The birthday cake section seems like complete horseshit. I couldn't imagine doing that NUR.

Drop kicks. That's all I ever do on that part.

The drop kicks don't work on the runners and the detection in general is wonky.
I forgot the devil trigger mode exists so that helped.

Edit: after watching some videos it looks like one pom pom bash opens them up for the drop kick.

I don't remember it not working on runners. Are they red?

Don't have an issue with detection though. It always does what I want it to do.

I think I'll replay this part later today to be sure.

Did a quick run of stage 2 VH.

The drop kick didn't send a runner flying only once, it just stunned him briefly. All the other times they were sent flying as normal.

>wonky detection
Never felt this. Its hit box seems pretty big, allowing you to hit more than one zombie in front. It does have to connect properly though. I think if you're too close it misses.

Damn this needs a re-release on PS4. I love this game so much I don't want to stop playing now.

Edit: Ok now I see what you're saying with those runners. These are a little different from ones you'll encounter throughout the stage.

I don't remember this or never knew, but the rule is simply that the drop kick won't send them flying while they're running. They'll only be knocked back a few steps. After that they stop running and won't do it again, and will lose interest in the explosives, opting to go after you instead.

This fits in with what you said about hitting them first then drop kicking. It worked because you stopped their running. I'll add this to my notes.

Don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the first time I played LC I actually didn't like it. This was back on release. No idea what I was thinking but I judged it really harshly, though this only lasted a few hours. I know I had recently finished Dragon's Dogma (this was before DA was out). Continued the next day and shit clicked and I started loving it.

The weird flow of getting Sparkles. Something about the visual and sound effects bring me great joy.

I think most good games really take a while to 'click' for most people. Games that immediately hook you tend to show their cards early, while games that make you go "Huh, what the fuck is this" offer more in the long run. Great game this. Had a *ton* of fun playing it and getting all the ranks.

Royta/Raeng wrote:I think most good games really take a while to 'click' for most people. Games that immediately hook you tend to show their cards early, while games that make you go "Huh, what the fuck is this" offer more in the long run. Great game this. Had a *ton* of fun playing it and getting all the ranks.

Of course. Any game with" true depth" will take time to process everything going on. There can usually be some frustration there, but it is all the learning process. Some of my favorite games I haven't enjoyed until I restarted half way or playthrough two, with better knowledge.
Everytime I boot up a new game and think ooh this is pretty fun, I am bored out of my mind in 3 hours as I have seen everything it has.

Couldn't do LR. Playing LC instead.

Realized I haven't unlocked all the extras so I'll do that and then get all the trophies. Will take a look at the leaderboards too.

There's time and score attack though I recall score being broken because you can just repeatedly use Nick Shake then buy more ticket and repeat until you have the most medals.

My PS3 controller is majorly messing up.

I'm still taking notes if I see anything weird. Was doing some cool stuff with baseball zombies. When they throw, it will knock down other zombies, even stronger ones, opening them up for a free down attack.

The fireman zombies can clash with their axes, but I had it happen with one that was knocked down. This could mean it's RNG no matter their position.

Pressing the left stick somehow triggers the d-pad sometimes bringing up the lollipop item. I set up my PS4 controller but can't use Chainsaw Blaster because it's acting like I'm rapidly pressing L2. No idea why.

I'm going to have to hunt down some PS3 controllers no matter what it takes. I can't live in a world without LC. Stupid X1 not backwards compatible. Degenerates. Still have a 360 with good controllers so there's that but it sucks setting it up.

Had a good look at the leaderboards and they are hacked to hell and back.

One player has a score of over 10 million but only 45 Sparkles. Losers like this don't hack the board because they actually want 1st place, they do it just to take the top spot away from everyone else.

Other results are equally absurd. Another player has 6 mil score with only 9 sparkles. The player above has a similar score with 999 Sparkles. There aren't even that many zombies in the whole game.

Watched some random videos today and found a no damage video of the first boss on Very Hard. For some reason they listed no Star Power or Nick Roulette which is weird because you'd never use those on him. Not going to bother listing why. They offer no advantage really. Maybe it was just an attempt to make it sound more skillfull than it actually is. Even on VH Zed is pretty easy if you're familiar.

I learned something new though. Love how that happens years later and leads me on a crazy testing spree.

So Zed has this attack where he jumps to the center and starts screaming insults. These manifest as giant letters that fly towards you. The video shows that you can destroy these letters with chainsaw strikes.

Never knew this. I always dodge through them. In the video it was done with regular strikes but I assume special moves work too.

The first boss was pretty easy from what I recall. The later boss, the guy on the bike(?) was really difficult for me on the highest setting. Could never no-damage him. Link to the vid?

>bike guy no damage

I have in the past. His moves are easy to avoid IF you're familiar, but he has so many phases you're likely to get clipped by something eventually.

Zed fight.

> video's naming
Probably just part of his entire run. You'll see me note "no ripper mode" in some MGR:R runs too despite not having access to it yet. Just a run-encompasing descriptor most likely. Nothing wrong with that.
Video is pretty good. I admit that this game is like you with Zone of the Enders 2, I remember nearly nothing. Was cool to see it in action again!

But there is no run. That's the only video. And the listed abilities are available. So there is something wrong with it. It's like saying hey there are these completely useless abilities for bosses and I'm not going to use them.

Star Power is near worthless here because Zed escapes after a certain amount of damage. You get some invincibility in the state but if you need this on him (or ever) there's something wrong with you. Star Power is for instant decaps.

Nick moves are more worthless because again they are for something you can't do on bosses. Dizzy state.

If it were a run not using these I might be somewhat impressed. Still a stretch but it's something.

>Video is pretty good.

It's passable. Clearly panic dodging everything. You can tell they aren't 100% sure of Zed's attack ranges. Only thing as I noted is hitting the letters, which is cool because I didn't know. Not as good as dodging through if you really want to close distance on him but still fantastic just as a mechanic and gives me ideas for other stuff.

> there is no run
There is no run "uploaded". I've got a no-sub weapons video uploaded on Anubis, but you can't even use them against him. Was just part of a bigger run where I just happened to upload that fight.

> there's something wrong with it
How is this "wrong"? Guy made a video of a no-damage clear, at least he's playing the game and at a competent level.

> letters hitting
Would've been neat if you could deflect them back.

>no run uploaded

Then we don't know. But I doubt there is one. I've got tons of Chaos Legion boss fight videos that aren't part of any run. Lots of people do.

>how is it wrong?

Assuming there is no run, the title is dodgy for the reasons I went over already.

>competent

It's passable. But I don't like the panic dodging. It looks all frantic like the player doesn't really know what Zed can do and starts mashing dodge every time he twitches.

>deflect back

The only other instance of deflecting a projectile I know of is using Chainsaw Dash against zombie cop bullets. The wind around you when you CD is a shield that causes the bullets to bounce off. They don't go back though.

Tried on other projectiles like baseballs but couldn't get it to work. Very limited in use if not outright useless in most cases due to how small areas are. The only time it would've been extremely useful would've been the first cop you meet in the school (stage 2) but you don't have CD then.

This better be true.

https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2022/06/suda51s-cult-hit-action-game-lollipop-chainsaw-is-coming-back-apparently

So it's going to be a remake that looks more realistic? Not sure there's much point in remaking it. Why would they care about realism?

This will likely change the way the mechanics work too.

At the end of the IGN article:

"Lollipop Chainsaw doesn’t even attempt to differentiate itself from the genre, and most of what it does try new in the realm of its characters and writing ultimately ends up taking away from an incredible-on-paper action game."

Spoken like the true mechanically blind. I beat they mashed the chainsaw attack and panic dodged 9x every time a zombie twitched. The GH review will never be forgotten. IGN cannot be trusted or taken seriously on any level.

Curious if that 'realism' is maybe a translation error, since we see that a lot these days. Could also be they just mean that they want to be more 'realistic' in their expectations or w/e. I asked around at least to some of my Japanese followers, see what comes up.

> mechanical changes
Oh boy I hope not.

> music changes
I'm fine with this. Licensed music always ends up killing games.

> personal hopes
Really hope they make a lot more stuff skippable, really hurt replays (despite me doing tons of em, such a fun game).

> IGN
Why even read that?

The first article on my Twitter was an IGN one.

Skipping phone calls, Nick Ticket animations, and new weapons would be nice.

I'll buy it anyway. Wonder if some version will be censored? Wouldn't surprise me these days. I won't touch a censored version. At least I have a Switch now.

Gamefaqs gold.

"The original's gameplay was boring and uninspired. It amazes me how it got by on surface level stuff when it's below average as a game."

It's the truth when you're mechanically blind I guess.
This is the type of stuff that I've learned is NEVER worth responding to. They don't want to be wrong and will just double down. Last time I offered my LC notes to someone like this they went nuts.

I'm working on Fire Emblem Warriors at the moment, but will return to LC for a no upgrade runs and to complete my notes on mechanics. Not going straight to Hyrule 1 or FE2 as those are massive undertakings.

Sucks you can't go straight to very hard. You have to make another user, then NUR hard.

It's still in my backlog, and FWIW it works great on RPCS3 and even has a 60fps patch so there's always that option alongside the remake.

Having said that, from what I've seen of it I'm also not sure why would it need a remake, but the question is if this will also remake the gameplay or only the visuals and OST.

Regarding the original PS360 versions: after beating the game on hard you unlock very hard I think? Does it change anything besides HP/damage values?

Bosses get new attacks and at some points powerful enemies appear where they didn't before.

Ranking requirements are different too.

> why a remake
Easy money probably, and (probably?) in the good nature of preservation. Due to the song-licenses the game is completely unavailable currently unless you find a used copy, so I do like that they're giving it a chance again.

>easy money
Did the original sell well?

From what I saw it got bad reviews and shit on by action game elitists (the mechanically blind).

The producer did say it's a special game to them though. Maybe that's all there is too it. They can't be expecting much.

I mean, relatively speaking, a remake is generally easy money especially with how nostalgia-hungry people are and how little games are coming out these days.

> sales
It sold very well and is still the best selling title of the studio, selling over 1 million units.

> bad reviews
It got really solid reviews, generally ranging from a 7/10 to 9/10 and it was pretty highly praised. Sure there were some notes about its sexuality etc, but it was pretty well loved.

>1 million
I don't really know what's considered high. How much do those big Sony games sell?

>solid reviews
Guess I zeroed on all the bad ones.

> sales
Numbers don't matter, it's sales compared to budget. Tomb Raider sold like 15 million copies and was a flop, Dark Souls III sold 15 million and was a massive success financially; TR just budgetted production around 30 million sales IIRC, while Dark Souls 3 expected 2-3 million.

Lollipop Chainsaw, considering their titles tended to sell between the 300.000 tot 500.000 units, probably was budgetted accordingly. In that, it was a (massive) succes for the studio.

Latest speedrun. This is what passes these days? The gameplay is horrible, and they player doesn't seem to know much about the mechanics. Gets hit constantly.

Only good thing I can say is the skips are the ones I discovered years ago.

I really feel speedruns started to lose the quality of gameplay-aspect in favor of higher numbers. I mean, I get that the whole appeal is to 'go fast', but a lot seems to be lost these days (less quality gameplay, showcase of mechanics etc.).

I heard this was getting a remake and instantly thought about how excited/horrified our Birdman was going to be.

Admittedly, I know very little about this game, but it sounds pretty interesting. I had no idea James Gunn was one of the writers. I wonder how the collaboration between him and Suda came about. Apparently neither of them are involved with this remake though, which doesn't sound like a good thing, but time will tell.

I was also under the impression it reviewed badly, but a quick look at the Wikipedia page suggests otherwise. A lot of 6.5/10s but also some 7s and even a couple of 9s. It's quite endearing to see some high praise for a niche action game, but as we know, review scores mean very little and good titles are often criticised too heavily.

I assume you're planning on picking this up when it comes out, @Birdman? It'll be interesting to hear how you rank it against the original.

>I really feel speedruns started to lose the quality of gameplay-aspect in favor of higher numbers. I mean, I get that the whole appeal is to 'go fast', but a lot seems to be lost these days (less quality gameplay, showcase of mechanics etc.).

A lot are still good and are perfectly executed, but's there's still a huge amount that suck ass. This guy's gameplay is abominable. The time he loses getting hit by nearly everything is insane. The fact he even gets hit by nearly everything, you can see it, he has little to no idea how enemies behave.

He's getting away with it because there's almost no one running it and they stick to low difficulty.

>instantly thought about how excited/horrified our Birdman was going to be.
You know me well.

>Admittedly, I know very little about this game
Change this by the end of the week.

>Apparently neither of them are involved with this remake though, which doesn't sound like a good thing, but time will tell.
As I understand it it's being made by those who worked on the actual mechanics which is all I care about at the end of the day. I hated most of the music. Don't care if the change it.

The realism thing remains to be seen, like will it be the exact same models or totally new ones like that Nier 1 remake?

>A lot of 6.5/10s but also some 7s and even a couple of 9s. It's quite endearing to see some high praise for a niche action game, but as we know, review scores mean very little and good titles are often criticised too heavily.
A lot of the good reviews praise it for all the wrong reasons. You won't find any focus on combat mechanics. I found in the action game community LC was largely shit on by the mechanically blind so called 'vets'.

>I assume you're planning on picking this up when it comes out
Yeah I'll grab it on every platform like I did with Okami.