Hotel Barcelona - Review

When the game Hotel Barcelona was first revealed, I was not entirely sure what to make of it. It had the gameplay loop of a rogue-lite, but the style of Suda51 and I wasn’t sure those two would come together in a fun way. Now that I have played it, I can say for sure that one of those two aspects is stronger than the other. Is it worth checking in to this hotel, or are you better off driving on by?

Hotel Barcelona is the story of Justine, a US Marshal who has been tapped to drive one of the world’s most deadly assassins to a hotel, in order for them to do what they do. But tragedy strikes on the drive and only Justine survives and while she is content to enjoy the breakfast buffet, her not so silent partner Dr Carnival has other suggestions. The only catch to the good doctor is that they live inside of Justine and talk to her, giving her insights into serial killers, but also letting her use their unique abilities. The reason for the investigation is that the hotel and the surrounding areas have seen a large number of people go missing, but some of them turn back up, just not as they used to be. There is a witch who is causing all this trouble and your goal is simple, stop her, but there is a catch, each time you die you wake up in the hotel room and have to start all over again and dying to often is not great for you.

The story is one of the games strongest points, partly due to just how crazy it can get at times. The problem is discovering the bosses and how they behave is half the fun of the game and saying anything will ruin that for you. I will say this, the hotel staff are one of the weaker character parts, mostly because they only have a few lines. Now they serve as shops or ability stations and they don’t need to a lot of lines, but when you have a lead character, their insane ride along and a pretty wicked witch all leading the charge, the less important characters seem even less important. One final note for those with a fear of clowns, there is a clown here and me saying how fun they are won’t matter, just be aware of that.

But you don’t play a rogue-lite game for the story, well not exclusively anyway and here is where you are either going to love the game or hate it, no middle ground. The first run, or the first dozen really, you are going to die a lot and not because of your lack of skill, but purely because the game does some insane things. Justine can run, double jump, climb up high and drop down low, all the things you would hope to see, but there are things she can’t do. Namely stand on a slope or stop attacking to block. Now the first of those is only an issue if you are low on health, because falling into water, or coming into contact in general is not a great thing and you take damage. The second is the part that is the most frustrating, because there were countless times when I would see an attack coming, hit the block button, only for Justine to keep attacking and only once the combo was done, would she block. At first, I thought this was a skill issue, maybe I was not pressing the button early enough, but nope that never changed. So, my next guess was an upgrade would likely fix that and make it enjoyable.

It sort of did. Upgrades are plentiful and they range from getting extra HP to unlocking new moves and beyond. A number of upgrades are locked until you clear certain objectives, beating bosses for example, but the rest are open for purchase from the outset. Of course, you will need to have the items to buy the upgrades, which means you need to go back out of the hotel and do another run. Where the upgrades feel annoying is that the currency is erased when you leave the hotel, so if you are 1 single ear short of getting an upgrade you want, you lose all your currency and hope that your next run nets you enough. There are upgrades that let you keep a percentage of your obtained funds, but you need to have that first. Dying in stages does not hurt your earnt currency, so you can keep trying, but there are timers on the stages to worry about, so you can’t just farm currency. It is not just character upgrades that you can buy, there are weapons to unlock and upgrade and more than a few special outfits for Justine, so even if you are not here for the bosses, you have lots to buy.

Assuming that you have a few upgrades, you will start to make progress and at the ending of each of the stages is a boss, now in order to avoid spoilers I will only talk about the first stages boss, Jacob. He is a large guy and has a number of attacks, but as this is a rouge-lite repeat encounters will show off more of what he can do. The first time I took down Jacob, I was over the moon and part of that was made possible by using the Blood Splatter Gauge. As you slash your way through the hordes of enemies that attempt to stop you, your kills fill up a large skull that lives in the bottom of the screen. As you kill, you earn perks like moving faster, or doing more damage and the more you kill the more you earn. Using the Blood Splatter Gauge to unleash Dr Carnival into the world, will dish out a heap of damage to all on screen enemies, but remove all of your earnt perks. This is a fun balance to maintain, there were times when I was swarmed with foes and getting the doctor to make a house call was great, but then having to deal with no boosts again was a pain. Think of it like every other rogue-lite game around, but instead of having to start a new run to get new perks, using the Blood Splatter Gauge does that for you.

As I said at the start, one of the things that caught my eye about the game was that Suda51 was bringing their unique style to the game and it certainly has that. Almost all the characters are great, and they all have some amazing designs to boot. The locations are also wonderful, they have a fun sense to them and of course, due to their random nature each visit offers a new chance to see something fun. At the start of each run, the game randomises elements, like time of day, weather and even the size of Justine. Honestly, tiny Justine against big Jacob will never not be funny. Due to that randomisation alone, you are going to see a lot of variety in the locations and that is great. For those who are not into the horror vibe or don’t want blood, the game does have toggles for that and honestly, turning them off might make the game even better.

On the audio side of things, there is good and weird, but nothing bad. The game has some incredible voice work bringing the characters to life, with Dr Carnival having a great voice. I was very happy for this because it means that each character sounds like you would expect, the creepy guy in the closet sounds like a creepy guy living in a closet. The weird is the games music, at times it feels like it could have come from Silent Hill, it has a vibe to it, but then other times its just there. There is nothing bad about any of the pieces, but there is nothing to write home about.

Hotel Barcelona is an interesting game, but until you get a lot of upgrades, its not exactly an inviting one. The game does not punish you for failing and you will fail, but it also doesn’t do anything to welcome you in. Once you start getting upgrades, things will feel better and taking down your first boss will leave you satisfied, the problem is, I don’t know if the effort is worth the reward. The core gameplay was a bit stiff for my liking and while the slasher phantom is cool, it just ends up being confusing. If you love your rogue-lite games or are fans of either of the developers, then sure check this one out, but otherwise this reservation is one you might not need.

The Score

7.5

Review code provided by Cult Games

The Pros

The characters across the game are great, everything has a pulp horror film vibe to boot

Justine, once she levels up a bit, is a powerhouse and it feels great to slash through the foes…

The Cons

… the problem is that even with upgrades, she still feels hard to control far to often

Upgrades cost currency and you don’t save any between runs, which makes getting good upgrades harder to achieve, which is a giant roadblock to players