When Lollipop Chainsaw RePop releases next week, fans will have the opportunity to revisit one of Grasshopper Manufacture's decade-old action-adventure hack-and-slash game. The brainchild of game designer Suda51 and filmmaker James Gunn, Lollipop Chainsaw is a product of its time. It features gratuitous gore and a hypersexualized lead female character in Juliet Starling, an 18-year-old high school cheerleader.
Lollipop Chainsaw Repop is a faithful remake of the original game from 2012, leaving the story unchanged. The changes are said to have focused on quality-of-life improvements and additional gameplay content.
RePop will also offer players the option to pick from two game modes to play: Original Mode and RePOP mode, the latter using "a unique and colorful pop art-inspired art style for damage effects." It was presumed that the Original Mode would simply be Lollipop Chainsaw as it was released back in 2012 with perhaps some quality-of-life improvements.
However, fans grew a little weary when it was revealed that the Original Mode would feature some changes. Responding to concerns about the potential for censorship, Lollipop Chainsaw RePop game designer Yoshimi Yasuda took to social media to clarify the changes being made. In his lengthy tweet, Yasuda confirmed that no changes would be made to the gore or design of the game's protagonist, Juliet Starling.
"The original mode is a mode that reproduces the same gore expression, cut scene direction, character design, motion, comic-style character introduction images, costumes, achievements, etc. as the original version," Yasuda wrote. He added that there was also "no request for revisions from any of the platformers."
So what are the exact changes Original Mode will bring? Yasuda explained:
First, all of the parameters that have been adjusted for modern action games are different. This includes attack power, movement speed, camera movement range, combo input acceptance time, and initial combo skills. Other changes include the number of remaining shots in the blaster, changes to the behavior of Nick's special moves, the addition of an option to automate QTE, the change of the ranking mode to a time attack that plays through all stages, changes to the lineup of items in the shop, price adjustments, the addition of a chain attack system, image quality, resolution, FPS, and the addition of Yukari Tamura's voice.
Yasuda also noted that there will be a Day 1 patch, but this is to fix bugs and improve the quality of the ranking mode, not to make any corrections based on platformer censorship.
Lollipop Chainsaw RePop will be released on September 12, 2024, in Europe and North America, and on September 25 in Japan. It will be available for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch.