Slitterhead (2024) Game Review – A Spiritual Successor to Siren with Less Horror and More Action

Posted on by Oki Covarrubias

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With the Silent Hill 2 remake having received a positive reception from critics and fans alike, along with the hype surrounding Silent Hill f’s release, one may wonder: what ever happened to the original Team Silent, and what are they up to these days? Fans would be quick to point out that Keiichiro Toyama, specifically—director of the original Silent Hill video game—transitioned from Team Silent to Project Siren soon after the release of Silent Hill. This new development unit was responsible for the cult-favorite Forbidden Siren game series.

After the release of Siren: Blood Curse in 2008—the third game in the series and a sort of remake of sorts—Toyama took a break from the world of horror and focused on an action-adventure series called Gravity Rush from 2012 through 2017. It goes without saying that Toyama-san left a strong mark on the survival horror sphere, but it would be seven years before gamers would get another chance to explore a realm of terror courtesy of Toyama. Slitterhead (2024) is a horror action-adventure game developed and published by Bokeh Game Studio, which Toyama founded alongside Kazunobu Sato and Junya Okura, both of whom worked on the Siren series.

Inspired by the works of film directors Wong Kar-wai and Fruit Chan, Slitterhead takes place in Kowloon, Hong Kong, during the 1990s, where strange creatures called slitterheads have begun terrorizing the population. You begin the game as a confused spirit that possesses a dog, which the player takes control of. As the dog, you begin to explore the area and realize that you can possess humans as well, which allows the player to familiarize themselves with one of the game’s main mechanics. While possessing a random person, The Spirit comes across one of the aforementioned slitterheads as it is attacking innocent bystanders.

One of its victims, Julee, appears to be right on the verge of death, and The Spirit decides to possess her in an effort to save her. As it turns out, Julee is discovered to be a Rarity: a human who remains conscious during possession and is granted special powers and abilities while possessed. Together, in this newfound symbiotic state, Julee and The Spirit can defeat the slitterhead, and their mission to eradicate the rest of them begins. When they discover that The Spirit, whom Julee eventually nicknames Night Owl, can go back in time, they start using the ability to prevent major catastrophes and recruit other Rarities. However, they eventually encounter a slitterhead with similar time-traveling powers as Night Owl, which further complicates their mission.

It is necessary to point out that Slitterhead is more action-adventure than it is horror—it’s something along the lines of Tokyo Ghoul, which was also a source of inspiration for Toyama, and Venom, featuring a collection of bloody martial arts combat to move the story forward. Those who are looking for a good scare in a more traditional J-horror sense will need to look elsewhere, but that’s not to say that the game is completely devoid of horror. On the contrary, Slitterhead’s enemies are a grotesque vision, almost an evolution of Toyama’s “shibito” enemies from the beloved Siren series. Their bodies are human-like, but their heads explode to reveal invertebrate-like visages. They go through various levels of mutation, with their final form being an intimidatingly large insectile monstrosity.

As a Rarity, you can fight off these enemies in armed combat with “Blood Weapons”, which are powerful weapons created using the character’s own blood. During battle, the player is able to possess nearby civilians to draw attention away from your Rarity, allowing them to heal before you eventually possess their body again. Returning to the body of the Rarity is vital as the non-Rarity civilians won’t be as powerful or effective during battle. Possessing other civilians also comes in handy when you find yourself unable to reach certain areas of the map that are part of your mission. Some segments of the game are very fast-paced, so you’ll learn to be quick at possession as it will be important for survival.

The quieter moments in the game often require a level of stealth, such as sneaking into a slitterhead nest (in this case, a brothel in the red-light district) to try and find the leader. Possessing civilians will also help you in these situations, as some of them can be seen in other rooms that you need to infiltrate in order to complete your mission. As a spirit, you can only travel so far, so you really have to pay attention to your surroundings and make sure that you are as furtive as possible. Aside from hopping from one host to another, the stealth mechanics are really not that elaborate. I’d compare them to those from The Evil Within, except you’ll never find yourself hiding in a locker or under a bed, because the game simply does not give you the option.

In between each level, you will find yourself in a “Talk” screen. You can navigate through each Rarity and hold a brief conversation with Nite Owl. The dialogue here is delivered via text, and you get a visual of the selected Rarity doing something mundane like sitting on the couch or reading a book while the conversation is being had. There are character facial reactions when the dialogue calls for it, but overall, it’s nothing too elaborate. I will admit, I found these parts of the game a bit tedious in the beginning, and I often wanted to just skip through them so I could get back into the action. However, at some point when the story started to get a bit meatier, I began to really enjoy my time with the characters on the Talk screen as it started to flesh them out and add a bit of context to their backstories and views.

The dynamic between Night Owl and each character is entirely different, and you really start to see how each Rarity begins to influence Night Owl’s view on the situations that are transpiring. One character, for example, has a strong hatred towards slitterheads, while another begins to show some sympathy towards them as she believes that some of them appear to be benign. Night Owl initially agrees with the former but begins to understand the latter. At first, I wondered if these moments would have been better executed through voice acting and cut-scenes, but I later appreciated them for feeling a bit nostalgic and unique to this particular game. The text on screen during the Talk moments is accompanied by dialogue, but it does not match what the text reads. Instead, the player hears repeated phrases or mumbling, which are meant to exemplify the actual conversation.

What will make or break the overall experience for gamers is the return of the “Looping” mechanic, which should be familiar to fans of the Siren series. At some point during the middle of the game, you will be forced to re-visit certain missions and complete previously neglected tasks in order to progress further. These tasks are not always self-explanatory, as they often stray from the original objective. For example, a mission that required you to investigate a slitterhead nest might need to be re-visited on a second loop which states that a new Rarity must join you before you can proceed with the narrative. I personally struggled with some of these, in the same way that I did with Siren’s loops. Thankfully, Slitterhead does specify what you need to find in order to proceed, whereas the first Siren expected you to figure it out all on your own.

The Looping mechanic makes Slitterhead feel a bit like a spiritual successor to Siren, with less horror and more action. In fact, if you are one of the lucky few who was able to experience the bonus stage in Siren 2 where you play as Kyoya Suda as he exterminates yamibito like an over-powered action hero, Slitterhead will likely feel very similar, though with a more elaborate combat system. The character designs are more flamboyant here as well, aligning more closely with Toyama’s Gravity Rush series. Slitterhead may not have the name recognition of bigger franchises, but it delivers where it counts—with style, grotesquerie, and substance. Still on the fence? The game also boasts a fittingly eerie score from none other than Akira Yamaoka, adding another layer of fan service to the experience. For fans of action-adventure with a sprinkle of horror, it’s a ride worth taking!

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