Dragami Games has released the first trailer for its remaster of the 2012 cult hit Lollipop Chainsaw, a bonkers game starring a chainsaw-wielding cheerleader called Juliet battling zombies. James Gunn, who you might know for movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and for now being in charge of the DC Comics movie-verse, helped write the games script.
As revealed in the trailer, RePop’s release date is set for September 25 and it will arrive on PS5, Xbox Series consoles, Switch and PC. Currently it’s going to be a digital only release, but Dragami have stated a physical version will be made available at a later date.
As a remaster, Lollipop Chainsaw RePop has a lot of the upgrades you’d expect to see, including 4K resolution and 60FPS support on all platforms except for the Switch. Aside from a new RePop mode, the graphics haven’t been touched, But the team at Dragami have also worked on a lot of the gameplay with the aim to make it more fun and fluid. For example, they’ve increased the overall speed, changed it so Juliet starts with Combo Actions skill, worked on the camera controls and rebalance some of the difficulty spikes.
One of the biggest changes is the game’s musical score. One of the biggest reason behind the remaster was that the original game was removed from sale 5 years after it launched due to music licenses not being renewed. To avoid this issue, Dragami is creating new, original music.
Speaking to Gematsu in a fantastic interview that you should go and read, Dragami Games CEO Yoshimi Yasuda said: “We enlisted artists active in Japanese film, drama, anime, and game music to make tracks such as a new original theme song for Juliet and background music for Star Mode and Nick Attacks.
“While the licensed songs were certainly great, I think our attempt to have talented contemporary musicians create music to fit the game’s world is equally great. Please look forward to the new music in RePOP.”
In the very same interview, Yasuda confirmed that while there are quite a few changes to the gameplay, the story and script are untouched. He also went on to address the topic of a potential sequel.
“The reason I talked about things from 15 years ago is because I have personally started thinking about the future of Lollipop Chainsaw.” he said.
“There is nothing that I can share as of yet, but I hope the time will come when I can.”
Yasuda’s words feel nebulous enough that they could mean a sequel is already on the cards, or that a sequel might happen if sales of RePop are good enough. For context, Lollipop Chainsaw managed 1.24m copies sold before it was taken off the market.