James Gunn was brought in to help write the script for the game, as we already know. The result is a kinky Girl Next Door heroine named Juliet who’s on a mission to rid her school and town of a pesky zombie invasion. She does this using a chainsaw, and with the help of her decapitated boyfriend, who hangs on her keychain.
But Warner Bros, for all its desire to keep SUDA51’s vision pure from outside sources, there’s still a huge amount of input that the Western publisher has had into the game. One of those involved is Scott Warr, a producer who doubles as a massive fan of SUDA51’s work. Which helps, when you have the aforementioned balancing act to handle.
I was shown a brand new boss, that’s placed much later on in the game. A lovely undead chap called Lewis Legend, he rolls around on a motorbike and a heavy metal guitar and tries to attack Juliet with insane sweeps from his vehicle. Using your chainsaw to tear his legs off will result in his ride transforming into a huge elephant mech to compensate. To say it’s mental is an understatement. From there, I decided to ask some questions.
Scott Warr: Oh, the environments are all different. With the first boss, Zed, that takes place in a junkyard area. Lewis, you’re fighting him in a Cathedral. There are other locations like an abandoned farm, too. So you’re not just fighting in the school - in fact that’s just one level. So it’s very varied.
SPOnG: SUDA51 and yourself must have pulled from various pulp fiction sources - maybe even Pulp Fiction! What other kinds of things inspired the game’s development?
Scott Warr: When SUDA51 came to Warner Bros, he really wanted help with the writing, and that’s where we got James Gunn. I love James’ movies, been a huge fan. My worry was that I didn’t know if they knew each other’s work. But for me as a gamer, the thing that I didn’t want to do was influence SUDA51 in any way that impacted how he and Grasshopper creates.
Luckily, they got along fine, and knew each other’s work. James had actually played Killer 7 and SUDA51 knew of Tromeo and Juliet, so I was quite happy about that. As a result, I think both pulled influences from each other in that regard. There’s references everywhere in the game [laughs]! Some are from James, some are from SUDA, some are from me. We all threw our little quirks in there.
So, while we might not like menus upon menus in our games, in some cases in Lollipop Chainsaw that’s what we got. I kept that very much and defended the work, to keep it as pure as possible. Even though we’re using, in English, ‘a movie guy’ to do all the writing. I think it meshed really well, and we kept it true to SUDA51’s style.
SPOnG: What kind of ways did you help SUDA realise his vision? What was the split in production between what you did and what he did?
Scott Warr: Well, my job was simply making sure that the story hit for SUDA51. I also worked with Gunn, to make sure that the back and forth those two had went well. When that was done, I helped Grasshopper sort the voice acting out. English is their second language, and having things recorded in English first is very hard as a result.
You see how Killer 7 influenced improvements in No More Heroes, and Shadows of the Damned introduced gunplay on his terms? With Lollipop Chainsaw, I think they’ve combined the visceral gameplay with fluid controls to create something with some more depth to it. I think they did a really good job.