Before getting to play in the Marvel Universe with Guardians of the Galaxy, director James Gunn dipped his toes into the world of video games. Lollipop Chainsaw saw famed game developer Suda51 (No More Heroes, Killer 7, Shadows of the Damned) bringing on Gunn to help merge the cutesy Japanese visual style with an authentic American feeling, and the mad genius behind "Slither", "Super", and "Tromeo and Juliet" was more than up to the task,.
Most times the humor in Japanese imports are just bizarre for the sake of being bizarre and while this one is certainly no exception (it stars a chainsaw-wielding teenager who keeps her boyfriend's disembodied head chained to her belt) Gunn's delightfully dark sense of humor elevates the material. There are so few games with genuinely laugh-out-loud material in them but Lollipop Chainsaw somehow managed to be one of them. Gunn's influence is also felt in the music, which features his good friend Jimmy Urine from Mindless Self Indulgence playing a zombie punk rocker- each boss battle is a different genre of music, from Viking Metal to Psychedelic Rock.
In any case, the game has proven to be a success. Today developer Grasshopper Manufacture has announced that it has sold over one million units. It may not seem like a lot in this era of AAA titles needing to sell six times that in order for it to be considered a success (AHEM, Tomb Raider) and the game is two years old at this point, but don't forget that this is a small studio who didn't spend nearly as much creating and marketing the game. Good for them! Suda51 will never be a mainstream game designer but the more people exposed to his weirdness the better.
Could this mean that there will one day be a Lollipop Chainsaw 2? Let's hope so. Gunn's going to be really busy if the buzz on Guardians of the Galaxy is any indication but it would be great to see him return to games, and the fanbase for Chainsaw is definitely there.
To celebrate the sales Grasshopper Manufacture has dropped the game's price in Japan, and if they're smart they'll do the same around the world.
