4/5 ★ – LCSnoogs's review of Slitterhead.

I was intrigued to see the new horror game from the director of Silent Hill 2. That idea sounded more exciting to me than playing a remake of the game he built his reputation. The game looked rough, but it also looked strange in an exciting way. I had to play it. The game is indeed rough but unique and impressive. The biggest red flag was it being an action game because I heard combat was the weakest part of the Silent Hill series. Turns out, this is a surprisingly good action game. In fact, the combat is the best part. It's a unique possession-based combat system with special abilities and directional parrying. There are a cast of characters I can recruit across the game called Rarities who have support and attack-based abilities unique to them. I can select two to bring into each mission with me. When combat happens, the game creates a walled arena and spawns civilians into the fight. I can bounce between them and the Rarities to take down enemies. The civilians are weaker than Rarities, but are good at drawing aggro away to allow room for my companions to heal or charge up attacks. Civilians get a temporary buff to their health and attack within the first 15 seconds or so of possession encouraging constantly switching between people. It took a while to get used to, but when I got it down, it was satisfying, intense, and deep enough to plan out strategies of attack making use of different Rarity combinations. I love seeing successful, fresh approaches to combat. Between combat encounters, there are chase and stealth sequences. The stealth is never too involved and never gets frustrating thankfully. The chases are a little more fun involving blood grappling hooks and jumping between rooftops both physically and spiritually between bodies. The story is decent. It's enough to keep me invested, and it takes some unexpected turns helping to keep things interesting. It's about a spirit nicknamed "Night Owl" who appears in the city Kowlong. This city has seen a recent string of murders where the victims had their brains eaten. Night Owl knows creatures called "Slitterheads" are responsible. They change their appearance to look like people, and they need human brains to live. He is here to kill them, but he has no memory of who or what he is. He joins up with an aspiring actor and convenience store worker named Julee to fight them and later with a doctor named Alex who already has a history with these creatures. Night Owl starts to question his mission when he learns about Slitterheads living among humans without causing them harm. It's a gory horror mystery reminiscent of the anime Parasyte that came close to being a dud, but had some surprises up its sleeve. The cast of Rarities is diverse with a homeless former boxer, Muslim housecleaner, sex worker, high school student, and so on. New conversations pop up between Night Owl and these characters after each mission where I could learn more about them. Thanks to its uniqueness and much better than expected combat, it is a standout game in 2024.