Slitterhead Review: The Bloody And The Bizarre

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Bokeh Game Studios' is one of the strangest games I've ever played, for better or worse. The product of collaboration by several alumni, including series creator Keiichiro Toyama and composer Akira Yamaoka, is actually more of a spiritual successor to the series. Difficult to categorize, it features elements of stealth games, detective games, action RPGs, and puzzle platformers, all wrapped up in a body horror bow.

follows an intangible spirit called a Hyoki (later nicknamed Night Owl by one of his allies). At the beginning of the game, he appears to remember nothing of his past, except that he can briefly inhabit the bodies of other living beings. On the shadowy, neon-lit streets of the Kowlong Slums, a blighted, impoverished neighborhood destined for destruction, Night Owl hears tell of a series of murders, purportedly perpetrated by vicious monsters nicknamed Slitterheads for their tendency to suck their victims' brains out of their heads with straw-like proboscides. It makes the total destruction of these foul creatures its mission.

Night Owl then discovers the existence of powerful humans called Rarities, able to channel their willpower into blood-soaked spectral weapons, and to maintain some of their consciousness even as Night Owl possesses them. With their help, Night Owl seeks to discover the origin of the Slitterhead conspiracy, and end their reign of terror upon Kowlong, in a terrifying journey chock-full of innovative ideas that don't always coagulate into a cohesive whole.

The majority of is arguably action-focused, with RPG-style combat. Players have access to simple combos, dodges, parries, and special abilities, each of which are unique to the Rarities they choose to bring along. Its terrifying twist on this, though, comes in the form of its core mechanic: possession. Both in and out of battle, Night Owl can transfer itself (and thus the player's control) into other bodies — either of fellow Rarities or of innocent bystanders. Human bodies are