Hotel Barcelona Review (PS5)
Time for a little soul surgery.
Publisher: CULT Games
There are a handful of devs that are always held up in high regard by those that played their games (and maybe by those that haven’t and just going along with the majority). I’d say two of those devs are Swery and Suda51. I actually played games from both of them, though they are hit and miss. Swery is more miss than Suda51 is for me, but when they make a good game it is really good. So when I heard that they were collaborating on a game, I was excited. Even more so when said game looked really good and seemed really interesting. After all, both of them do seem to come up with some wacky, quirky, and interesting ideas.
However, as I was researching the game more as the release day, I did hear that Hotel Barcelona became more of a Swery game than a Swery and Suda51 game due to how long it took to be picked up and…yeah I can see it after playing it now. Not only due to how the game ended up being, but seeing that Suda51 was the one that supplied the original idea, world, and was a supervisor; while Swery was credited as the producer, director, and the credits ended with this being labeled as a Swery game rather than a Swery and Suda51 game. Which is a shame and disappointing with how much it seemed it was an equal collaboration in the way the game was advertised. I actually really debated on whether to pick Hotel Barcelona up and as you can see, I ended up leaning towards getting it.
Well, without further ado, how did Hotel Barcelona turn out?
In Hotel Barcelona you take control of Justine Bernstein, a rookie federal marshal, who has found herself at Hotel Barcelona. Despite what you may think, this luxury hotel is actually located deep in the Appalachian Mountains on the border between Pennsylvania and West Virginia. However, the game quite literally dumps you in the midst of things as Justine is already staying at Hotel Barcelona. It turns out that Justine was actually tasked in transporting someone named Mad Fury, or The Exterminator, to Hotel Barcelona to hunt down the serial killers hiding in Hotel Barcelona. However, Mad Fury ended up dying on the way there and Dr. Carnival encourages Justine to take up his place. Justine actually does agree to it, after all she is after a serial killer known as The Witch. While Justine is a bit hesitant, she does want to avenge her father after he died investigating The Witch. Plus, Dr. Carnival technically is doing the fighting here. Oh and did I forget to mention that Dr. Carnival is hitching a ride in Justine’s mind? Dr. Carnival is an insane serial killer himself who says he’s a “mighty ancient one” and is rescinding in Justine’s mind due to a contract with Justine’s father. Though, this situation does also happen to align with him as well since Dr. Carnival also has a bone to pick with The Witch. The Witch ended up cursing Dr. Carnival sometime in the past and he also wants to kill her to break it.
So with both Justine and Dr. Carnival motivations aligning, their time at Hotel Barcelona won’t be to relax, but to confront The Witch. And hey, if that means defeating all the other serial killers that are hiding here to get to her, well that’s just a bonus. It certainly helps that The Witch seems to have put some kind of barrier around the hotel that messes with the time inside it. You’ll learn what this means for the others, but for Justine it means that she loops back to her hotel room whenever she dies; while also leaving traces behind in the form of a corporeal form that’ll help you out. In addition, the hotel is also host to some side NPCs, both unnamed side characters that just talk when you pass by them and named side characters that you’ll be able to talk to and get help from. You’ll also learn about the various serial killers here and how they ended up in the situation they’re in.
Hotel Barcelona is a game where the story’s premise, world, and characters are interesting, but the execution of everything leaves a lot to be desired. For one, the game literally dumps you in the midst of things and not in a good way. It feels like you skipped the prologue and half of chapter one. I don’t know about anyone else, but I was confused during the beginning couple hours (both story wise and gameplay wise as I’ll later go into). It almost feels like you need to already know about the story going in, but also not. The game relies on playing catch up and expecting you to look at the journal section of the pause menu and scrolling down to where the character and location information is at. It’s even stranger since the game does actually have a semi-good starting point, it just needs more to bridge everything together, but it doesn’t start there. It just asks you in the dialogue if you want to watch the cutscene in the middle of the “don’t you remember what happened” conversation. Why didn’t you just start there? It also certainly made me confused on a key aspect of the story as Justine was originally driving the one that was supposed to hunt these killers down, but he ended up dying. However, you’re not exactly told this, but expected to know. So when Justine says that she shouldn’t have picked up hitchhikers to herself in this cutscene, I thought both of her passengers were hitchhikers and got confused when the dialogue after watching the cutscene was talking about how her job was transporting that guy here and she took up his job in hunting down the serial killers here to also be able to get The Witch. It certainly didn’t help that the guy Justine was hired to transport also acted like an entitled hitchhiker and there was no indication in the cutscene that he wasn’t just a hitchhiker with a gun.
The lore of all the different locations and how they connect to the killers are interesting, but the way it’s told to you was certainly a choice. It kind of works, but also kind of doesn’t. I also did find that while the game does tease that it’s going to dive more into the worldbuilding, it doesn’t really do that past the surface level. I was also quite confused why the game kept acting like the characters didn’t grow up in the United States when I’m pretty sure the game implies that they did. I do also want to mention that I did like the writing style, despite my gripes with how the story itself was executed, and I did really like the characters. Which makes the story aspect of this game even more disappointing with how it ended up being executed. My favorite characters were definitely Justine and Dr. Carnival. I do think that they bounced off of each other well and the dynamic that they had. I did also like the side characters here and enjoyed talking to them and learning more about them.
There were also some things that I just wondered why it was included in the conversation. It genuinely felt like the game and Swery was trying to get brownie points as it always stuck out as it didn’t fit with the whole conversation, dragged out longer than necessary, and possibly didn’t even fit with the character. It felt like it was more winking to the player as they were talking at Justine rather than talking to Justine, if that makes sense. And this gets me into the social commentary that this game tries to do. It felt very surface level to me. I did like how it does try to play both sides, but it was still very surface level to the point where you can easily take it out of the game and nothing would change other than conversations being shorter.
As for the horror aspect, this game doesn’t try to go into the spooky territory but more brings in a lot of horror influence to build its world and characters. Which I did like and there are some creepy things sprinkled in. However, I feel it goes more into the goofy territory with a lot of it and there were some points where I honestly can’t tell whether it jumped the shark or not as it doesn’t really dive into the worldbuilding and thus you don’t really get a sense of whether it actually fits or not. Like is this a world where the third boss’ backstory would fit? I’m not sure. You can have magical or sci-fi elements in a story while also not having what the third boss is fit within the established world (I know I’m beating around the bush here, but I’m not spoiling it for you guys). I would also say one of the hidden bosses also jumps the shark a little bit (which is a bit ironic if you know what boss I’m talking about), but I found it a bit more plausable. I also want to say that I wouldn’t mind the goofiness if the game also wasn’t trying to be taken seriously at the same time and didn’t have a serious tone.
Now I will give the game a little bit of slack as I’m pretty sure this is the first roguelike Swery has been a part of, with this being the second roguelike for Suda51 (though I don’t think Let it Die has a story past framing the game), so I do think some story pains here is due to that. Based on what I can gather, it does seem that Swery did the majority of the writing, with Suda51 just being the one that brought the original idea to the table. From what I felt as I was playing through the game, it felt like Swery possibly didn’t really know how to tell a story in the structure that roguelikes have and maybe struggled. It felt like there were clear growing pains all throughout. Like, I kind of get the thinking behind the way Hotel Barcelona starts and the way it tells its story as a way to avoid exposition dumping. However it didn’t really avoid that and it brought along more problems.
Like, there are various plot points that just get dropped or never really explained. Like the very beginning of the game opens with some text about Truebloods, but the game never goes into that aside from the very end where it’s confirmed that Justine is a Trueblood. What exactly is The Witch’s motivation and what’s up with her cult? Why is she so adamant on getting Justine? I don’t know. What’s up with her form during her boss fight? I don’t know. I assumed there would be a cutscene or conversation before her boss fight, but it just dives right in. What was Dr. Carnival’s curse and how did The Witch defeat him? There are at least two instances where what happens in game contradicts with what got established. I get The Witch being able to tell that Dr. Carnival is possessing Justine, but how did the others? Why didn’t Justine nor Dr. Carnival connect the letters that Justine remembers her dad having to the obvious answer and why did the game just drop this plot point? The letters bring in some interesting questions and maybe even lead to the flashback that you see. And talking about the flashback, you see it in pieces and it just confused me more cause what happened isn’t exactly clear. I’m still not sure how Justine’s dad died, just that it contradicts what Dr. Carnival said what happened. I also don’t think what I thought happened is what happened since Justine didn’t react in a way that would confirm it.
The side characters also don’t get a proper conclusion to them. The one that is the most egregious, and did upset me, is Monica’s plotline. First of all, her character bio spoils her reason for being at the hotel before she tells you. Second, you can actually find her sister, but you can’t tell her. Even though Justine says she’ll keep an eye out and one of the lines her sister says literally says to tell Monica what happened to her and her last words (well “last” words). It was honestly so disappointing. Maybe it was left like that because of what gets revealed at the very end, but I honestly don’t care. I wanted Monica’s plotline to be concluded and I don’t think what ended up being revealed means that it could just be dropped. And while I’m on the ending, there are a couple aspects to it that don’t really make sense.
This also does mean that none of the characters grow throughout the game until the very end where suddenly they did. This made both Justine and Dr. Carnival, especially Dr. Carnival, feel out of character as I didn’t see them doing what they did during the ending. There was no indication that they were growing and learning from each other throughout the game as both stayed pretty firm in their ways (especially Dr. Carnival). This is even more tragic for Justine as she’s the meek, shy one and there is a certain point where I so wanted her to point out how hypocritical Dr. Carnival was being. I think it would have also been great to seen Dr. Carnival slowly become more sympathetic or at least change the way that he thinks and sees humanity.
As I was playing through Hotel Barcelona I couldn’t help not only thinking “well, that sure was a choice”, but also “what if this was a linear game”. What if this was a linear game where the characters could properly grow as the game went on. Where the various plot points could actually get resolved. Where side quests could be crafted to really emphasize the side characters’ stories and the choices that you make. Where the social commentary wasn’t as surface level in a way that it feels like it was trying to get brownie points. Where what Swery wanted to do with the story could properly have the time and structure it needed. Where all the bosses and areas could have gotten fleshed out more. Sure, it still could have been bad if this was a more linear game instead of a roguelike, but I really do think it would have had a better chance. To me, the story seemed like it would have been better suited in a linear game.
Well, that turned out to be longer than I expected, but now let’s get into the gameplay. The best way I can explain Hotel Barcelona is if The Missing was a roguelike with combat instead of being a (great) puzzle platformer. So, yeah, this is a roguelike and while a lot of your gameplay time will be out in the roguelike half of the game, you do also have a hub area. I wanted to go into the hub area first, which is the hotel itself. This is where most of the game’s conversations will happen, where you’ll be able to buy things for Justine, and you’ll be able to walk around. The hotel consists of Justine’s room, the lobby, and the bar. Justine’s room is where she’ll respawn every time she dies or after defeating a boss. This is also where you’ll be able to buy permanent upgrades for Justine through Tim the monster in your closet. These upgrades will definitely help you out as they increase Justine’s moveset and movement, as well as the various other aspects like your Blood Splatter boost level or how many Phantoms you’ll have. The lobby is where you’ll find Monica, who sells weapons for Justine. While you do start with a starter Knives and Sticks weapon and a handgun, there are a couple more weapon types and as you progress through the game her catalog will expand. Considering the weapon enhancements that can be placed on your weapons, it may seem like it’s not worth changing out your weapons, but the higher a weapon’s base stat is means that it’ll have higher stats once it’s fully enhanced. Plus they have different latent abilities which are just small boosts that the weapons will give if it’s under the right circumstances (like decreasing the chance of a status ailment or boosting attack damage at night). To be honest, I stuck with the Knives and Sticks weapon type. They all do feel different, but with how the beginning of the game felt to play this weapon type felt the best. And finally, the bar which hosts a pinball machine and a bartender who will let you exchange ears for various different items.
Oh, didn’t I mention that this does have some…unique currency? While this does have regular money, you’ll also be picking up ears, teeth and bones. Yep. Everything you’ll be buying will require a mix of these depending on what it is. There are also some items that you’ll be using too, but I’ll mention them when we get there. You just need to make sure you bought everything you wanted as when you go back out to do another run, you’ll lose all of the teeth, ears, and bones you have.
Once you’re ready to set out to kick some asses, you’ll be able to do that by interacting with a map. The map not only shows just how much land Hotel Barcelona has and where everything is located, but also the various locations (or stages) that you’ll be visiting and slashing your way through. Each area is based on a specific horror movie genre, with the movie they’re mainly based on being obvious once you go in. Before you actually embark, though, there is some preparation to be done, both for you to do and the game to do. First of all, this is where you’ll be able to change out Justine’s weapon loadout. She has a melee weapon and a ranged weapon slot and you can only switch them out here. The game will also roll the status of the location itself and Justine. For the location, it rolls the time and the weather. Technically the time isn’t random, it progresses like normal, with every time you enter a stage advancing it to the next state (like from afternoon to evening) with a New Moon coming in every four days to break up this loop. The weather the location has is randomized. Then for Justine, her size is rolled, which can make her small, normal size, or a giant. And man, you don’t realize how small or big that is unless you have a Phantom Justine there to compare the heights. You can also choose the difficulty you want before you embark as well, which is pretty nice.
The preparations don’t take that long, don’t worry, but once you’re in it’s time to fight your way to the boss. Each location has its own horror theme and layout, with each “room” having its own unique layout from the others in this location. I actually do think the layouts here are pretty well done, especially for a side scroller. Anyway, Dr. Carnival takes control of Justine’s body during these roguelike combat segments. As you’re running through these areas, enemies will either already be there waiting for you or will jump out (whether it’s them trying to get a jump on you or jumping out after defeating some enemies that were already lurking). Justine has the usual moveset, a basic attack that combos together, a heavy attack that has a slow wind up, a ranged attack that does have limited ammo, a guard, a parry that is a bit weird when you first start out but you get used to it as you play more, a dodge, and she’s able to jump which not only helps her traverse the map but also dodge. You do also have stamina which affects whether you can dodge and guard/parry. There are also different enemy types that you’ll be dealing with too, like the normal melee or ranged enemies to the harder enemies that are giants with a lot of health and shield or ones that cause status ailment like breaking your legs which disables double jump.
Of course, your goal is to stay alive and make it to the boss to hopefully defeat it, but you might not want to just run past everything and rush to the doors. First of all, the enemies. You may get hit and be hurting for health, but killing enemies will have them drop the various currencies in the game, with what they drop depending on the enemy. It also fills up your Blood Splatter Gauge, which is linked to one of Hotel Barcelona’s unique mechanics. Every enemy you kill will drench Justine with their blood and you can see how much you have based on the skull on the bottom of your screen filling up with blood (plus you can see Justine get bloodier and bloodier). You get bonuses as it fills up and hits certain levels and, when it’s completely filled, you can do a Carnival Awakening. A Carnival Awakening is an attack that does a lot of damage to any enemy that is on the screen when you activate it in exchange of using up all the blood you collected. This can certainly be helpful during bosses (though be careful as the bosses do have invulnerability moments when they go to their next phase) and if there’s a lot of enemies on the screen when you’re fighting your way to the boss. However, you do need to keep defeating enemies as your blood will slowly dry up (or deplete) as time goes on. You also have to be careful of water, whether it’s you falling into a body of water or running through water falling down, as it’ll also clean Justine of the blood and thus empty out her gauge. Which can be a bit annoying, especially on the map layouts where there’s a slope that slides down into water or when there’s water where a door is. You can jump across the water surface and off of slopes, but I was never able to pull it off.
There are also breakable objects here. There are some that damage you in the form of splashing you with water, or causing a status ailment, or giving a chance of you being hit; but most of the breakable objects do give you currency. There’s even specific items that are specifically tied to giving you blood, ears, bones, and teeth only. Though, I did find it hard to tell if a breakable object is in the background or in the foreground and thus will block Justine’s path.
You also can’t stay in a “room” for long as you do have a timer. You’re fine if you find a door and enter it to progress to the next next, but if the time reaches zero you will automatically die. I’m not entirely sure what the lore behind this is, but this does make you balance progressing through the location fast and defeating enemies and breaking objects to fill up your Blood Splatter Gauge and picking up the currencies.
Just like every other roguelike, the main story locations do have a route map; but it’s done a little differently here. The layout of each “room” actually is the same no matter what, it’s just the rewards you get are different. The “room” is tied to the room number and as far as I can tell, how everything is laid out, from the enemy placements to the door placements, are the same. Which, I actually don’t mind. The door rewards, though, change. This is why I call these “rooms” as technically you’re progressing through the location by going through hotel doors. Which is a bit weird, especially during the beginning since the game explains nothing. The doors might not move around, but the rewards they give are randomized. The amount of doors you’ll be able to pick varies depending on where you’re at, but there are a handful of different door rewards a door can have. It can give you a boost in your Phantom Attack, Splatter Rate, Attack Speed, or Movement Speed (these also have a max amount they can be boosted), heal you, or give you a key or coin. In addition, you’ll be able to see if that room will give you a Reward Chance which basically has you do something (like kill 3 enemies with only kicks or not losing so much blood under a minute) to get an antler chest that you don’t need a key for. Then there’s also the attraction which can be an Amusement or Casino. The Amusement attraction is the Deep Jungle Activity Zone which is kind of like a platforming challenge and is tied to unlocking a hidden boss, however it does require you to have a key to enter.
Meanwhile, the Casino is tied to allowing you to improve your weapons and gives you some blood and currencies on top so it’s not a total wash going here. Why did I say that? Well, to actually enhance your weapon you need to hope RNG is in your favor as you need to beat Frances Francis the dealer. You not only have a limited amount of chances to try, but you also need the money to possibly enhance your weapon. You can just enhance your weapon’s health and armor damage where you’ll have to pick a card from five. If you pick the success card it’ll enhance that weapon and you can even try again without using up one of your tries (though it will require you to have the money) however picking a failure card will mean that it failed. You can also reroll the latent abilities on a weapon, all or just one, but you need to hope the dice lands on the success face as well. This can be a bit annoying in the beginning, but there are upgrades in the upgrade tree tied to the Casino and you’ll have a lot of money eventually. There are also chests here, one basic one and an antler one. What you get from chests are totally random, though the antler ones do have better rewards but require a key.
The first three areas are connected and so when you defeat a boss, you can just continue on to the next area if you want to. If you do, you’ll get a really nice Continue Bonus where it boosts everything, heals you fully, and fills up your Splatter Gauge. And it even loops so if you want to get more collected items (bones, ears, and teeth) you can loop back to the first area and not lose all of them. Although you do have a max amount that you can carry. Continuing can definitely help you buy more upgrades or that weapon that you’re probably eyeing. This is also the reason you might be starting from the first area rather than the second or third.
Oh, and did I not mention the other unique mechanic that Hotel Barcelona has that probably got you to want to play this game? This one is a bit hard to find the best place to talk about it, but I’ll talk about it now. The Slasher Phantoms, or I just call them Phantoms. Whether you died or was able to defeat the boss, Justine’s soul leaves traces behind in the form of a corporeal form (or a red Phantom). These Phantoms actually just replicates what you did in that run, which means they can also damage enemies in your current run. I’m also pretty sure the blood and items they pick up are sent to your current Justine so that’s great. However, you need to follow the exact route you took in your previous run to have these Phantoms stick around. You need to go through the same doors you did previously (which there is an indication of on the route map and on the door) otherwise they’ll be lost and your past Phantoms will be wiped. Luckily, the Phantoms are tied to that location so even if a Phantom is from a run where you continued to the next area it will only wipe out that area’s Phantom and not the next one. Going through a Casino or Amusement door will also keep the Phantoms since they warp you to a temporary area instead of the next “room” in the route.
The Phantoms may seem like they don’t really help at first and the requirement of keeping that Phantom around can be annoying (and screw you over since you can get door rewards that you don’t need), but once you get used to how to play, unlock upgrades, boosts, and if things happen to align, it really is magical. Especially since this can make boss fights go super fast, which is very helpful for when you’re grinding out currencies or boosts. The Phantoms will even draw aggro, though they will make reward chances harder as they only count current Justine. This also is another aspect that you have to weigh to determine what you want to do. Do you want to keep your Phantoms or do you want to go through a different door that has a different door reward, the attraction you want, or a reward chance?
So yeah, that’s the gameplay loop here. Buying needed upgrades, weapons, and talking to side characters in the hub; then embark to the various different locations where you’ll have the roguelike gameplay where you’ll have your past selves to help you out if things align.
Aside from going through the main story, there are some optional side stuff that you can do. First of all, there are some online aspects here. I don’t have experience with the online aspects as I don’t have Playstation Plus, which is required to access the servers, but you can invade other people’s games as either a phantom or a doppelganger. If you want to help someone out or play co-op, you invade as a friendly phantom. The host is also able to save progress that they made. However, if you want to be a little evil, you can invade as a doppelganger instead and hunt them down. Of course, this also means other people can invade your game as well. This can happen even when you’re in a boss fight and whoever kills the other will gain a sheriff badge as a memento. However, there doesn’t seem to be a way to turn off the online aspects other than to not connect to the servers when you first open the game (either by not having Playstation Plus or turning off the internet connection). There is an item in-game that stops others from invading, but it not only requires you to figure out where to buy it at, but also coins to buy every time you venture out. There are also four achievements (technically five if you could the “get all achievements” achievement) tied to online.
Other than that, there are three bosses that I wouldn’t say are secret, but are more hidden. You don’t need to defeat these bosses to finish the main story, but they are there for you to fight. Unlike having you go through a whole stage where you can take different routes into different rooms, these require you to do something first to unlock them and their stage is just their boss fight. Some are easier than others and you are told a slight hint once you unlock access to the activity that it’ll lead to a boss fight (like a “hehe something will happen if you do this”). Honestly, I did like these bosses but I couldn’t help but think how cool it would have been if these bosses had full on roguelike stages like the main bosses. Especially for the boss tied to the pinball machine, which I feel could have really gotten into the psyche of Justine and Dr. Carnival if done right.
You can also aim to grind out the various currency and body parts to buy all the available weapons that Monica has and unlock all the upgrades for Justine. There are also eleven costumes you can unlock for Justine, which does require some grinding and hoping that RNG is in your favor as it’s a random reward in the antler chests..and then hope RNG will give you the costume that you want the most (for me, I of course didn’t get the costumes I wanted until I was grinding them out). There are also some achievements that have you do something specific during bosses, like parrying a specific attack. Lastly, there’s Bondage Mode or Special Requests as the game also strangely calls it (the game makes this huge deal about being open minded to bondage and then doesn’t even follow through with it). Bondage Mode is basically the game’s challenges as you can activate various different restrictions to make the game harder, like completely blocking ranged attacks or giving Justine one health point. Every restriction has a reward tied to it, a first time reward and then a repeat reward, and if you defeat a boss with that restriction on you’ll get that reward. Honestly, I didn’t find these that challenging other than the one health mode (though granted, I did these on the hidden bosses, with a maxed out Justine, and with Phantoms). Though, the game does keep track which bosses you defeated with each restriction, so if you want you can aim to get checkmarks all across the board.
Once you defeat the final boss, you can also go into New Game+. New Game+ carries over everything that you unlocked and just resets you to the beginning of the game. If there are things you still want to do, like achievements you don’t have yet, do them before going into New Game+ as it does overwrite that save file.
You can research a game as much as you want, but one aspect that you won’t be able to get a grasp of is how a game feels to play. Why am I saying this? Well, that’s because one thing that I was really worried about was how Hotel Barcelona was going to feel playing it. I wasn’t able to play the demo so I could only base it on how it looked watching the gameplay. It honestly looked clunky to me and I originally wasn’t going to play this based on that. Although, based on you seeing this review that means I still ended up picking the game up and, well, yeah it feels as it looks to watch. It did feel clunky, slow, delayed, and sometimes my inputs weren’t even being registered. I was not having a good time. Especially since I envisioned Justine/Dr Carnival as characters that are fast and slash their way through anyone that stands in their way. Though, it was elevated a bit as the regular enemies do seem to be built for that slow combat and then get a bit annoying as bosses are built for fast combat.
However, it honestly got better as I played more and unlocked more things for Justine. It seems like the beginning of the game was made to feel really bad so the impact upgrades have would be greater. Wondering why there aren’t combos that mesh the heavy attack? Well, that’s an upgrade. Find that the dodge is too short? Well you need to upgrade it. Struggling with parrying? Well you need to upgrade it. Upgrading Justine greatly helps in not only increasing Justine’s power, but also your enjoyment. The boosts you get from doors also really help you out and they carry over even if you return to the hotel after defeating the boss. Plus I did lower my difficulty and there was a patch that addressed the unregistered inputs. I’m also sure getting used to the game and actually knowing what to do helped out too.
I honestly did go from not liking the combat to really liking it by the end of my playthrough. Hotel Barcelona does not make a good first impression in the gameplay feel aspect so don’t be shy in lowering your difficulty if you’re having trouble so you can get some needed upgrades in; then upping it once you feel like the game is getting too easy.
Other than that, I did want to mention that I did like the majority of the boss fights here. They’re all different and did grow on me the more that I fought against them. The only boss fight I didn’t really like was the final boss, but it’s also packaged with the whole end game that I thought was disappointing.
There are quite a lot of negatives that I have towards Hotel Barcelona. While the game did redeem itself in the combat department, I will reiterate that it makes a terrible first impression. A lot of what I was going to mention about the combat here does get resolved as you unlock upgrades (and with the patch that also fixed inputs being ignored). However, that still doesn’t mean that the game couldn’t have put a better foot forward. I understand it was more to emphasize the upgrades and boosts, but I honestly wouldn’t have picked this game up if I was able to play the demo. I’m glad I did as the combat did end up feeling better by the end. Except, there are some other criticisms that I have for the gameplay. Like you can get hit right after you respawn from falling into a body of water. The bosses hit you right out of the gate not giving you time to dodge. I did find that attacks are choreographed well generally, but there are some attacks that happen too fast. Especially the ones that break bones as if you have enemy health showing, their health bar blocks that little notification that it’s a bone breaking or unguardable attack (heck, I’m not even sure if these are separate as the tutorials show two different icons but I only managed to see the bone breaking icon which I tried to block and couldn’t). I also did think there should have been a chance for health to drop when defeating enemies so there was another way to heal considering enemies hit hard and the health upgrades are a bit pitiful in how much it increases your max health.
The game also does hurt with how it just throws you into it without telling you anything both story-wise and gameplay wise. It genuinely does feel like you missed a chunk of the game as it seems like the game expects you to not only know the story, but also know how to play. However, unlike the game playing catch up for the story, the game only gives you button prompts in the middle of you getting hit by enemies. And those tutorial prompts disappear quickly. You have to check the tutorials here to understand how to play and what’s going on. However, that doesn’t mean you still won’t be confused on certain aspects. Like, I didn’t know where to get the various items that can reroll the time, weather, or player size could be found until I happened to click “use item” on the screen where this gets rolled. I just thought it was an enemy drop like the replay tickets and the “use item” option would be useless to me because I didn’t have any of those items to use. I didn’t know it was a buy and use immediately type deal. On the topic of time, weather, and player size, I don’t really know what they affect aside from the time of day affecting if the stronger enemies appear. I also couldn’t figure out how to do the other Carnival Awakenings until I happened to see it was tied to the weapon type you’re using when I was looking at my equipment, happened to see Carnival Awakening at the bottom, and checked the axe and buzzsaw.
Other than the criticisms I already mention about the story, I do have some more that I wasn’t able to fit in. I briefly mentioned how the game didn’t really avoid exposition dumping and that’s because it instead is just given to you in pieces. I found that a lot of conversations you’ll have with the side characters are just the same conversation, but split up and you’ll be able to get the rest after you complete the next milestone (which is usually defeating a boss). The dialogue from the nameless NPCs in the stages are the same way, which means you get the lore a bit haphazardly here. I’m also still so upset you can’t tell Monica about finding her sister. Why have it a focal point of her character, have you be able to find her sister, have said sister’s dialogue talking about missing her family and wanting you to pass on her last words, and not have that conversation topic pop up to resolve it? You’re literally at the finish line! I did also have some more confusion with the serial killer lore, like for the first boss I’m confused on whether Jacob was just particularly moved by the death of the little boy that you hear about happened on the campground or if the ghost of the boy is possessing Jacob. Or that he died similarly to the boy or experienced something similar since it gets mentioned that the area is similar to his hometown. There is also at least one instance where characters act like they had a conversation, but you didn’t hear it despite the game assuming that you did.
Lastly, the game also does seem to utilize erasing character’s memories so they can reintroduce someone, but also not. Like the second time you talk to Andrea Pearson Justine acts like she doesn’t know who she is despite you meeting her at the very beginning of the game…and having two conversation topics with Vanessa. And talking about Andrea Pearson, I do think the reveal of her being The Witch happened too quickly. It happens in the opening hour of the game (and more specifically, the first 30-ish minutes of the game) so I don’t really consider that a spoiler. I think it would have been a bit better if maybe The Witch developed a friendly relationship with Justine as Andrea Pearson first as the game progressed until it gets revealed. This could have had what happens in the middle of the story be more impactful for both Justine and the player. Basically turning this into a twist with some subtle hints that you brushed aside because Andrea Pearson seemed so nice. It could have also demonstrated how powerful The Witch was if she was able to hide her aura from Dr. Carnival and how sly she really is.
Other than that, I did wish that there was a spot where you can just read the dialogue the nameless NPCs say so you can read them together. Especially for the ones in the hotel who only change their dialogue after a milestone. I wished there was a way to just buy the costumes rather than hope RNG is in your favor two or three times in a row. There were a couple costumes I wanted, but of course I didn’t get them until I was grinding them out after finishing the main story and most of the achievements. I did also wish that there was some way to tell if a side character had some new dialogue. I did wish the journal had tabs where it separated the tutorial, location details, and character bios. I wished there was an item to clear all of your Phantoms, especially for the hidden bosses since their stage is just their boss fight. It was also so annoying how the game checks if you can go online every time you access the main menu…even if you went into the settings or extras options on the main menu screen. It felt especially annoying on the PS5 since it brings up a screen where you can purchase PS Plus and every time I was like “yeah I know I don’t have PS Plus, game”. It really should have been a setting where you can toggle whether or not you want the online features. I’m not sure if this usually happens on the PS5 or I’m just noticing this now, but Hotel Barcelona does something wacky with the internet connection as if you’re not able to connect to the game’s servers it seems like it makes your console disconnect from the internet. Which can make looking at the achievement list wonky and can cause a big delay on the main menu appearing as it tries to check if you can connect to its servers.
You also have to deal with the usual roguelike downsides, though the RNG aspect is especially worse here as you’re usually dealing with double or triple RNG chances at times.
Now about the elephant that has popped up since release…the AI content. It is only one small part of the game, which parodies some films and leads you to unlocking one of the hidden bosses, but it’s there and it’s obvious once you hear the more commonly used AI voices pop up. It does stink that a small part of the game is hurting the public reception of the whole game, but I think what gets me the most is that this was hidden and not disclosed until they had to. Not to mention that there are already a ton of artists and voice actors that were a part of this game.
The AI content is planned to be patched out soon, so that’s good. I wouldn’t say this soured the game for me, but it was something that I’m just baffled by the decision. Though, I will say that if I didn’t already have the game before this was found out, I probably wouldn’t have picked this up purely on the fact that White Owl tried to hide it. And if Swery is going to push AI in his future games, which I just learned he has been supporting and posting AI art on his social media, I won’t be picking up his future games.
As for Hotel Barcelona’s visuals and sound, I really liked it. I really liked the artwork that Hotel Barcelona had both for the character portraits for everyone and the various movie posters for the bosses that parody the horror movie genres that they’re based on. I also liked everyone’s 3D models and how the various different locations looked. I really liked the animations that Justine and the various enemies had, how Justine’s default outfit had her tie also be a marker for your Splatter Gauge and just how she gets covered in blood stains too, and I do think they did well with how each level (or room) looked and their layout. I also think it was a nice touch having all the different weapons have different models to match their icon art. Which can also be kind of funny depending on the weapon (I was rocking ice cream by the end of my playthrough). I did like some of the costumes here too and loved how you can dismember your enemies (and how they have an attack for when they have no arms). I especially loved the contrast between Justine’s animation and Dr. Carnival as Justine. It really tells you their personalities and how they differ without telling you. The enemies were also easy to identify which type it was too. Though, I did get confused after I defeated the second boss where the characters mention cow and shrimp masks when I didn’t see any cow or shrimp masks in the second location. Oh, and they did a really good job at picking the artist that did the cover art cause the cover art is amazing. I think the only thing I didn’t like was how the beginning and ending cutscenes looked.
As for the soundtrack, it’s pretty good. I lean more towards the track not being memorable, though. This could be a mix of a lot of the tracks being rock and kind of sounding the same, and the game really pushing the music to the background as a lot of the time you won’t hear it. I actually was convinced that all the bosses, aside from the final boss, had the same boss music until I looked at the OST. The songs that do stand out are the ones that play when you’re at the hotel, and thus veers away from the rock genre, and the track for the Campgrounds (though that one may mainly be due to one part clearly sampling from a very popular horror movie that this location takes inspiration from). I did like the sound effects though and it helps sell the impact that attacks have.
As for voice acting, I played with English voice acting and everyone did a great job. There are some that are duds here, they are just the nameless NPCs you find in stages, but other than that everyone is great. The stand outs were definitely Justine and Dr. Carnival, with Dr. Carnival being the main reason why I played with English voice acting. I did think Justine’s meekness was a bit overplayed, but I was fine with it as it was used to contrast Dr. Carnival as Justine and how different the two are. I also loved Mr. Clown’s voice actor and I could swear I heard the voice before somewhere…despite the VA’s imdb page only having three other credits that I never watched.
Performance wise, Hotel Barcelona could be better. I’d say the game is fine most of the time, but I did notice frame drops whenever the screen was super busy or whenever you spawned into a stage. This, sadly, does mean that this can affect you and cause you to be hit by enemies. The frame drop and delay you get at the beginning of the normal areas are fine, there’s no enemies around you when you spawn, but for bosses they can actually get a hit on you. Bosses start up their first attack as soon as they can, which means you might be hit right as the game stabilizes. Strangely enough, I did also notice that during some bosses when I used a retry ticket, I’d hear that the boss battle started in the couple seconds there was a black screen as I would hear the Phantom Justines and maybe even see some health off of the boss if they happened to get hits in. It also strangely seemed to affect Justine’s jump, specifically her double jump, as it greatly reduces how high Justine jumps if you’re hit with frame drops. The only thing that didn’t have an impact on gameplay was how the enemy and Phantom Justine models sometimes won’t have its animations and will just slide across the floor.
I also strangely got softlocked when I tried to talk to Dr. Carnival in the mirror when there was no new conversation topics and I guessed I clicked too fast. I did also clip through the wall in the final area, couldn’t get back into the map, and falling to my death (thankfully the game didn’t autosave and I didn’t lose my boosts when I quit and then re-opened the game wink wink).
I did play on the default settings, with the only thing I changed was switching the shoulder and trigger buttons, but I did change the graphic quality to lowest just to test it out for a couple minutes. Granted, I didn’t stick with that setting for long, but I felt like it didn’t really help the performance all that much and strangely enough it caused the game to feel worse to play. Yeah, I’m not sure how that happened. At least on the PS5, the graphic settings just changes how the game looks and not the performance.
Verdict
Hotel Barcelona turned out to be such a mixed bag for me. In a lot of ways the game was disappointing, but the game also ended up being fun and enjoyable after I actually knew all the aspects of the gameplay and got a handful of upgrades. Hotel Barcelona is definitely a game where the premise and world are really interesting, the game looks amazing, there are some unique mechanics here, and the gameplay feels like you’re hiking up a mountain in the beginning and then going down once you get the hang of things (and some good upgrades), but the execution of it leaves a lot to be desired. I really wonder how this game could have been like if it wasn’t a roguelike or if Suda51 was able to be a part of the development.
I’d say if you’re willing to power through the beginning where the combat feels bad to play and don’t mind this being a Swery game rather than a Swery and Suda51 game, pick it up on sale. Despite all the disappointments and criticism I have towards Hotel Barcelona, I can honestly say that I don’t regret playing it and ended up enjoying the gameplay quite a bit. Otherwise, I’d stay away. I still suggest giving this game a try like I did, as you might just end up enjoying it too, but I understand if you don’t want to.
Recent Comments