I'm One of the First People in the World to Play Lollipop Chainsaw 2 on PS5, But You Don't Need to Be Jealous 1
Image: Sammy Barker / Push Square

Even though I don’t think its PS5 re-release is very good, I’ll always have a soft spot for Lollipop Chainsaw on the PS3.

Written by James Gunn and directed by Suda51, the crass Grasshopper Manufacture bubblegum beat-’em-up had an intoxicating identity – with an inexplicable budget from Warner Bros to match its ambitions.

Now under the stewardship of Dragami Games, I’m among the first people in the world to have played Lollipop Chainsaw 2 Back2Back, a 2027 sequel to Juliet Starling’s original adventure.

Subscribe to Push Square on YouTube171k

I'm One of the First People in the World to Play Lollipop Chainsaw 2 on PS5, But You Don't Need to Be Jealous 4

First, the elephant in the room: there’s no Gunn or Suda51 tag-team here – instead development is being led by Hajime Tabata of Final Fantasy 15 fame.

But the first game’s co-producer Masahiro Yuki is working on the project, as is original character concept artist NekoshowguN.

I’m just not sure I understand why the devs have let me go hands-on now – it’s clear this is very unfinished. And that’s fine, it’s still potentially a year or more away, but there’s not a lot of positive things I can say about what I played.

I'm One of the First People in the World to Play Lollipop Chainsaw 2 on PS5, But You Don't Need to Be Jealous 5

I suppose I’d start by pointing out this does look like it’s going to be an authentic sequel; for some reason, I expected Dragami Games to do some kind of spin-off before tackling a full-blown follow-up.

But no, this is traditional three-dimensional brawler gameplay, much like the PS3 game.

Protagonist Juliet Starling can use a combination of her cheerleading abilities as well as her chainsaw to attack. The combat feels really floaty at this stage in development, and honestly a bit slow.

My demo must have bugged out because there were no sound effects in the 10-ish minutes I got to play, but having looked back at some footage from Asian outlets, that shouldn’t have been the case.

But there’s definitely no dialogue yet as far as I can tell, which should give you an indication of how early this is. Again, it’s not a problem – but I’m not sure why you’d put it in a convention in this state.

After blitzing through some mobs in a car park, I was teleported to some kind of candy pink dance floor, where I needed to deal with a punk princess named Zorbie.

I actually think this showed off the game’s returning sense of humour, as queues of the undead waited in line to worship the enemy. She in turn took it upon herself to rip off their grovelling heads and chuck them at Starling.

It’s a fairly simple boss fight where you need to punch the flying heads to launch them back at her, dealing damage once they land.

The second-half of the boss fight requires you to rollerskate into crates to discover human missiles which lock-on to Zorbie and deal more damage.

I'm One of the First People in the World to Play Lollipop Chainsaw 2 on PS5, But You Don't Need to Be Jealous 6

This all looks particularly bad, with very few animations revealing the zombie missiles. I assume this will all be changed come launch.

I will say that the music is fun and I like all the comic book-style UI elements, which are returning from the original. While I wasn’t particularly impressed with the demo, I do believe the dev team “gets” Lollipop Chainsaw.

But it’s hard to draw any real conclusions from a hands-on in this state. This isn’t really ready for primetime, and I’m sure Dragami Games knows it.

I’m looking forward to tasting more of this lollipop when it’s actually ready to be removed from its wrapper.

Are you a fan of Lollipop Chainsaw? Are you interested in a sequel – even without the guiding hand of Gunn or Suda51? Pull out your pom-poms in the comments section below.