Video games these days often have an insecurity where they have to insist on their maturity and seriousness. I love my hard-hitting narrative ventures as much as the next person, but when you consider that this is a medium that started with some of the simplest experiences, you start to wonder: when and why did games begin to take themselves so seriously? Serving as a timely antidote to this concern is Slitterhead, an action horror game where you control a spirit that hijacks people’s bodies and creates weapons made out of blood to conquer demons. It is a f*cking video game, alright. Warts and all.

Slitterhead is set in ‘Kowlong,’ a seedy and dingy concrete jungle that is home to tiny apartment buildings as far as the eye can see, only broken up by markets with eateries and a nightclub. Across the city, there are hundreds of thousands of people. All people that you, the ‘Hyoki’ spirit, can possess. What has popped up in this city however are Slitterheads, demonic monsters that have corrupted people’s bodies and can without warning transform into unsightly bloody creatures, who replace their human heads with insect-like ones. These creatures can, if you’re not careful, transform into giant evil four-legged pray mantis-like figures wanting to feed on the people of Kowlong. It’s up to the Hyoki who must use their otherworldly powers for good to work out what caused the threat and put a stop to it.

Though you can possess just about any local, the Hyoki makes alliances with ‘Rarities.’ These are humans who awaken more special abilities within themselves once possessed compared to the stock standard ones you get from a regular passerby. They have some autonomy in the mystery that you’re trying to unravel, and are willing participants in your fight against the Slitterheads. A biker named Alex. A young girl in a red hoodie with a demon fox mask by the name of Julee. A homeless brawler by the name of Edo. Even a mysterious old lady by the name of Betty. These are but some of the Rarities you’ll meet, all strikingly designed and distinguished from one another. Through instanced levels with a clear-cut path and some room for exploration, you’ll load in with a pair of Rarities to a different area and date in Kowlong, hellbent on solving it all.

Your investigation will take you through areas such as the halls of a cult facility where believers are being preyed upon and converted into Slitterheads. You’ll investigate a brothel following reports of men suspiciously dying or disappearing off the streets. While this occurs, you’re exploring grimy and eerily-lit environments that add to the thing Slitterhead does best; camp horror. The cult facility feels incredibly clinical and removed from any humanity, with LED panels like it were a hospital and office room offshoots between all the areas of worship.

The brothel is home to harsh red lighting and a grungy glimpse behind closed doors of the seediest part of Kowlong. Alleyways are lined with rubbish and people smoking and chatting in whispers in small circles. Buildings hold air conditioners hanging off of windows. Take to the main streets and you’ll see puddles on the pavement from recent rain, a busy market and unbelievable amounts of light pollution as so much LED signage lights up the sky. I find myself constantly admiring the lighting and environment design work that’s done here, it does a stellar job of building up the experience and making Kowlong as a city feel like its own character.

Unfortunately, when it comes to taking in the mood and the chaotic fights you’ll be partaking in, the experience itself is what will test players. Slitterhead has a story that feels immensely hard to parse due to its idea of storytelling being quick exchanges with the Rarities that you choose out of menus. None go over the three-minute mark, which would be a note in the game’s favour if the story splices it was giving you were substantial or tangible to the mystery. You at least solve the threads of the different factions and underbellies of the city, but then the story complicates itself in other ways that are challenging to comprehend.

What is discernable is at least the personality of the cast. Often the loop goes that you’re loading into a level, solving (or at least partly solving) the threat of that area, and then you’re out and chatting away again. You’re not even always reflecting on the events of the mission you did or discussing what’s next, but just general small talk. Then, before you can even fully wrap your head around what’s going on, it’s all over.

Props again go to style here. These are scenes that will have you chatting with a Rarity in a chair while another image of them with a lesser opacity is layered over it, adding to the noir feeling of the experience. This helps alleviate being frustrated at the vagueness and obtuseness of the story when you have pretty stylised things to distract yourself with, though it isn’t a foolproof antidote.

Possessing characters and using their abilities aren’t just used in combat, sometimes it’s a puzzle for how to solve a level. Once you’re in a possessed body you can use a bloody arm as a grappling hook to scale the sides of buildings and signage to scout an area. Sometimes you can’t progress in an area until you jump out of your current body and use the wisp to float upwards and take possession of a civilian on a rooftop you can’t parkour up to. It’s an ample means of breaking up combat and working through the kind of drab story; you’re constantly moving and thinking even in the slower moments.

It’s all these factors and the frankly unsightly plastic-looking NPCs that aren’t the main cast that make Slitterhead feel like a B-grade horror action affair. Its essence is a PS3-era middle-tier budget adventure. It’s jank but charming if you open yourself up to it, akin to recent ventures like Wanted: Dead. Crucially, it’s a lot like Suda51 games such as Lollipop Chainsaw or Shadows of the Damned. Those words are going to excite a lot of people. Though it might also disappoint others; Slitterhead is a game from Keiichiro Toyama, the creator of Silent Hill or Siren. The fact of the matter is the game never quite reaches the heights of those titles. That pedigree isn’t quite enough to make it the exceptional title it perhaps had the potential of being. Oh well, at least there’s the other bloody cool half of the game in the stylistically gross combat.

Getting to intimately know how each character plays and works is thoroughly enjoyable. Alex, the biker guy, is one of the most overpowered, with a blood sword for melee and abilities such as a sawed-off shotgun of blood, effective for that one finishing shot of an enemy. Anita can summon additional humans to ensure you’re never out of safe enemies to swap possessions between should your health get low. Dastardly, once she’s summoned these additional people, she can Mind Jack several at once and instead of their usual cowering in a given arena they’ll all automatically attack Slitterheads. This is essential for giving breathing room in tough fights, allowing you to truly wallop the meatier bosses by stun-locking them while this ability goes on.

All of these abilities’ strengths are expanded tenfold if you opt to venture for the hidden fragment collectables in levels that net additional skill points to the ones you’d traditionally only own just for clearing a mission. The skill trees may not be all that deep but at least by the end of it you feel like a blood magician, bending bodies and gore to your will to banish every last demon that comes your way.

Of course, you also have to be tactful while engaging in Slitterhead’s combat. Successfully dodging every sweeping attack or brutish hit is quite hard, so becoming familiar with the parrying system is crucial for survival. The parrying works differently than your expected trigger or bumper presses at the time of a strike. You have to flick the right analog stick in the direction that the attack is coming from, a demanding requirement I enjoyed learning. Combine this with the fact the abilities you use consume blood (ergo whittling down your character’s health) and now Slitterhead is keeping you on your toes, encouraging you to not stick with one Rarity for too long and to sometimes alternate between them and the weaker cannon fodder civilians at your disposal. I’m not going to pretend it’s the deepest or most fluid combat I’ve found in games, but Slitterhead at least knows when to challenge players and when to empower them to feel like supernatural badasses.