Image: Push Square
With a career spanning over 30 years, Suda51 could be forgiven for running out of ideas.
But his upcoming Romeo Is a Dead Man, a scrappy mix of third-person shooting and melee combat, may be his most insane creation yet – not bad for a director whose credits also include zany efforts like Killer7 and Killer Is Dead.
Subscribe to Push Square on YouTube161k
We caught up with the veteran Japanese director in a non-descript corner of the Gamescom show floor, immediately after playing through an early PC build of his latest project.
Suda was in trademark cheerful spirits when he spotted our Gundam tee, but he was especially excited we noticed the Morrissey reference he’d snuck into the demo.
It turns out Manchester’s most miserable crooner is a key source of inspiration for the veteran, who got his start in the industry with the Super Fire Pro Wrestling series. Interestingly, that game also features a grappler named Morio Smith – a nod to The Smiths’ forlorn frontman.
Suda was a big fan of our Gundam tee — Image: Push Square
“I’ve loved The Smiths since I was a teenager,” he tells us. “I’ve always been a fan of their music. I’ve got a big Smiths poster up on the wall in the office.”
He adds that he often finds himself looking at it when he needs inspiration. We suspect that’s how he got the name for the boss ‘Everyday Is Like Monday’, a riff on Morrissey’s hit ‘Everyday Is Like Sunday’, of course.
“The Smiths have become like a really fundamental part of who I am as a person, as an individual,” he adds. Personally, we think Suda’s far too personable to be so heavily inspired by Morrissey, but we certainly share his music taste.
The good news is, with Johnny Marr et al watching over him, he’s not worried about running out of ideas. In fact, Romeo Is a Dead Man may just be his maddest effort yet – although he also credits his team for keeping him constantly motivated.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to run out of new ideas,” he admits. “The thing is, it’s not necessarily because I’m some kind of creative genius or something. It’s because, for one thing, I like coming up with new things.”
He continues: “It’s not just me creating these games; it’s not just me thinking them up and developing them. It’s everyone at Grasshopper. We’ve got a lot of really great people at Grasshopper and a lot of people with a lot of really good ideas and input.”
It also feels like there’s no limit to the ideas the team will explore. During our demo, we’re told there’s a farming sim aspect to the title, where you’ll cultivate “Bastards” which can be used in battle.
These mobile minions come with a range of abilities; some explode and function like bombs, while others will help you to regenerate your health.
While we found the system a little complicated at first, we can see how cultivating “Bastards” will become a key component later in the campaign – a system perhaps best compared to, say, the Atelier games, where the items you craft will assist you in combat next time you’re out in the field.
But you’ll also find yourself collecting ingredients to make curries, as part of a minigame which has been worked on by a famous Japanese anime studio.
Unrelated, but if Suda reads the article we figured he’d appreciate this photo — Image: Push Square
Suda points out that past Grasshopper titles have had an emphasis on food, with No More Heroes 3 famously focusing on ramen for example. This time he wanted to focus on katsu curry.
“I just felt this was, like, this amazing, wonderful food,” he beams. “That was kind of like Japan’s culinary gift to the world and I wanted to make sure that I could get as many people as possible to be aware of this amazing food and maybe even get some people to try it on food sales.”
Suda was all smiles when we pointed out we’re big fans of Coco Ichibanya, a Japanese chain dedicated to serving katsu curry. Asked if that’s something even locals enjoy, his team all put their thumbs up.
While we didn’t get to play enough of Romeo Is a Dead Man to truly formulate an opinion, we enjoyed enough to appreciate its blend of third-person shooting and melee combat.
“We’ve got one of our lead programmers, a guy named Hiro Nakata, who’s been at Grasshopper for a really long time. He’s in charge of a lot of the action, a lot of the battle aspects of the old games. He was like, I want to go with the gun and sword thing – I want to have both of these,” he remembers.
It plays a little bit like Shadows Of The Damned and No More Heroes had a baby, which isn’t a bad marriage at all.
“We decided to blend [third-person shooting and melee action] together and keep them both in the game,” he explains. “So, do you want to get close up in melee or do you want to stand back and start kicking things off? Yeah, we just worked really hard to not only keep the balance, but make it so that the player could choose whichever style suits them the best.”
But the demo was no walk in the park, and one of Suda’s team actually encouraged us to die at one point. That’s because the Game Over screen shows sped-up footage of a waxwork model being melted by a flamethrower.
The team filmed this itself, on location at a special studio. Apparently it was quite an expensive endeavour.
Asked if Suda felt he’d invested his budget into the right aspects, he pondered this question for a moment before answering succinctly, with a smile.
“Of course!”
Are you desperately waiting to get a taste of Suda51’s latest effort, or are you a Bastard who hasn’t been particularly inspired by what you’ve seen of Romeo Is a Dead Man thus far? Prove there’s a light that never goes out in the comments section below.