HOTEL BARCELONA Review

Oops, They Did It Again.

HIGH Pulling off a sick surfing move at a pivotal moment.

LOW Having to rely on random chance to get new costumes.

WTF The ‘NO GORE’ mode replaces blood with popcorn.

The thing that most clearly links SWERY and SUDA51, the star developers responsible for HOTEL BARCELONA (which very much earns its ALL-CAPS title, thank you very much) is an unwavering commitment to putting their vision onscreen, regardless of its marketability. Deadly Premonition was a brilliant character study in interactive media first, and everything else second. No More Heroes was essentially 95 Theses nailed to the cliches of videogame design.

As pretentious as it may sound, other developers are making games, but these two are making art –it’s just a happy coincidence this time that the art they’ve made has taken the form of an absolutely metal 2D action-roguelike.

HOTEL BARCELONA is very obviously built as a companion piece to SWERY’s masterpiece The Missing. It uses an identical art style, deals with similar themes, and when not in killer-butchering mode, the main character literally uses JJ MacField’s running animation. Where The Missing was about sacrificing pieces of oneself in order to struggle through a hostile environment, this time it’s the main character who’s responsible for the vast majority of the bloodshed.

Set in a world where elaborately-themed serial killers lurk around every corner, HB puts players in control of Justine, a federal marshal tasked with escorting a government-sanctioned murderer to deal with a nest of killers holed up at the titular hotel. When a car accident takes him off the board, it’s up to Justine – and more importantly, the supernatural serial killer ‘DOCTOR CARNIVAL’ who possesses her body from time to time – to deal with the killers and uncover the hotel’s dark secrets.

This is accomplished, naturally, via an absolute ton of bloody violence. Justine has access to knives, buzzsaws, and axes to rend enemies limb-from-limb, not to mention a variety of ranged weapons. The copious bloodshed isn’t just an aesthetic decision, though – it’s a key gameplay mechanic. As Justine gets more and more blood-splattered, her power level increases, and when it maxes out she can call in the aforementioned Doctor Carnival to perform a screen-clearing super attack.

This focus on gore forces the player to adopt an aggressive posture at all times. Go ten seconds without killing anyone and the blood starts to wear off – faster if Justine is in the rain. This serves as a fascinating counterpoint to the combat flow, which is slower and more measured than is standard for titles of this type.

It’s not just the enemies that have long windups before they attack – Justine’s moves have equally elaborate prep animations. The result is combat that feels unique in its weightiness. Nearly every time Justine hits her enemies something goes flying off of them – weak enemies explode, sending their limbs in all directions, while tough enemies can turn into recreations of Monty Python‘s Black Knight, valiantly attempting to headbutt Justine after their weapons – and the arms that were holding them – are sent flying into the background.

In addition to the overall brutality, HB also flouts conventional combat design by allowing the player a useful block button in addition to the traditional dodge and parry. Equipped with a generous stamina bar, the player can simply turtle a few attacks as they learn enemy patterns without feeling penalized or taking block damage. The closest comparison I can come up with is Another Crab’s Treasure, which also allowed the player to not only block attacks without penalty, but similarly had them perform the super-important parry while blocking, rather than in lieu of it.

The combat feels wonderful – especially as the player uses the bones, teeth, and ears of their their opponents to upgrade their moveset. That might sound like a strange set of currencies, but in the world of HOTEL BARCELONA, upgrades are sold by Tim, a closet monster, who is thankfully vague about exactly what he’s going to do with all of the viscera the player hands over.

Of course, what good would high-quality combat be without compelling enemies to battle?

Thankfully HB excels in enemy design as well. Every level is littered with crazy psychos – most of whom come in male and female variations, for no other reason than it keeps things visually surprising. The real accomplishment here is in boss design, as HB offers seven different bosses, six of which are clearly inspired by famous horror movie icons – only the final boss is an original creation. Each one offers a completely different moveset, taxing the player’s skills in a unique way. My only complaint is that three of them are optional, and it’s quite easy to get through the campaign without encountering the minigames and extra lore required to unlock them.

There’s an unusual degree of player friendliness here, as well. In addition to the forgiving blocking and parrying, every time the player dies they’ll unlock a ‘phantom’ — a red figure that replays their actions in their failed attempt to beat a level. This phantom hits with the same force as they did when they were alive, so as long as the player follows the same route through the branching level, they’ve got unkillable backup. This even extends to boss fights – players can use a ‘re-entry ticket’ to immediately fight a boss again, rather than getting kicked back to the start of the level. Do this a couple of times and suddenly bosses will find themselves up against three Justines simultaneously – a threat few of them can possibly survive.

Considered solely based on its plot, characters, and setting, HOTEL BARCELONA is one of the most bonkers action games I’ve ever encountered, and deserves to be played solely on that basis. The fact that it offers deeply compelling combat is just icing on the cake – albeit icing that asks the player to learn a whole new way of 2D brawling. Hotel Barcelona even does a great job with its limited multiplayer, taking obvious cues from Dark Souls in the way it allows players to invade worlds as a killer or join as a helpful phantom.

There’s a super-useful move that has Justine jump into the air and then attack with a diagonal kick, ending with a slide that travels three meters or so, damaging everyone it touches. This slide automatically stops at the edge of platforms, so players can’t accidentally fall into a deadly pit during combat. No one asked for that feature, or would have noticed if it wasn’t there – but it’s a perfect example of just how much work went into making the player’s experience with the game as seamless as possible.

This is a game that, on every level, is built around reaching out to the player and making sure they’re having a good time. The developers have tuned every part of it to put power in the player’s hands, as long as they’re willing to learn. No, it doesn’t play like anything else out there – it’s not supposed to, because it’s something better.

Rating: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by White Owls and published by Cult Games. It currently available on PC/PS5/XBS-X. Copies of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 20 hours of play was devoted to the single-player mode. The game was completed multiple times. 2 hours were spent in multiplayer modes.

Parents: This game was rated M by the ESRB, and it features Violence, Blood and Gore, Partial Nudity, Strong Language, Use of Drugs. This is among the goriest games ever made. A memory sequences shows the main character in a state of tastefully-obscured nudity. Questionable content includes lots of drunk people, suicide, cannibalism, and mass-murder. NO CHILDREN PLEASE.

Colorblind Modes: The game contains colorblind modes.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I played almost the entire game without sound and encountered zero difficulties. All information is provided via text (see example above) which can be resized. The game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable.