Sure! Here’s the text without the site name, category, date, and full stops: Hotel Barcelona review – Reader’s Feature

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Hotel Barcelona review – Reader’s Feature

• The collaboration between Suda51 and SWERY offers a mix of familiar tropes and chaotic gameplay, but ultimately falls short of expectations due to clunky mechanics and frustrating difficulty levels.

• The game’s aesthetic features a stark contrast between character art and in-game models, which can hinder gameplay, particularly during combat and platforming sections.

• Despite an engaging gameplay loop and roguelike elements, the lack of fluidity and accessibility, even on lower difficulty settings, detracts from the overall experience.

Hotel Barcelona – not the most visually impressive game of the year (CULT Games)

A team-up between No More Heroes creator Suda51 and Deadly Premonition’s SWERY sounds like a match made in heaven, but what exactly have they created?

With such prestigious names as Goichi ‘Suda51’ Suda and Hidetaka ‘SWERY‘ Suehiro coming together to collaborate on a game, the bar gets set pretty high. However, from my experience with Hotel Barcelona, I have to admit, I was disappointed.

Upon booting up the game, it is immediately obvious that this game is by Suda51. Previous traits seen in his other works are seen throughout Hotel Barcelona, making anyone who is a fan of Suda51’s work feel right at home. In the same vein, Hotel Barcelona has the campness and gameplay elements that are seen in SWERY’s Deadly Premonition. It does feel that Suda51’s influence in this game is much stronger, but overall it leads to a harmony of chaos and heavy usage of tropes.

Thrown into the deep end, you’re very quickly introduced to Justine, a new federal marshal. However, it’s not just her residing in her body. Beside the nervous and stammering mess that is Justine, is Dr Carnival, a serial killer who is possessing her soul and sharing her body. He is everything that she is not and it becomes clear very quickly that Hotel Barcelona leans heavily on common tropes seen in a variety of media.

For example, Justine is the classic timid, shy girl who doesn’t want to step on any toes. Whereas Dr Carnival is blasé, carefree, and full of murderous intent. It leads to some very interesting interactions, especially since they share a body.

Immediately, I was drawn to the aesthetic of the game’s cover art, which felt reminiscent of Lollipop Chainsaw but also the art you would see at fairgrounds. I expected a flashy side-scroller with violence and gore to boot, and that is what I got.

However, there were some areas that just fell flat. It combines a lot of elements that I love to see in a game, especially as someone who is a huge fan of the roguelike and lite genre. This certainly fits the bill, with death being somewhat one of your greatest assets in Hotel Barcelona.

Expert, exclusive gaming analysis

The aesthetic between the character art for conversations versus the actual in-game models is starkly different. So much so, I’d say it reminded somewhat of the aesthetic seen in No More Heroes, with the cel-shaded art style. There was very minimal detail to the character designs, providing a minimalist vibe that I really enjoyed. However, it did make things slightly difficult when it came to the gameplay aspect.

Because there were so few details within the character design and the background, with a lot of it relying on flat shading, it was sometimes a bit difficult for me to keep track of my character, especially if she was being overwhelmed by enemies.

I enjoyed the initial gameplay loop of killing, dying, upgrading, and repeating. However, even with there being four difficulty options, it still felt incredibly difficult on Easy, barely providing breathing room to learn what you need to do next. Slashing through enemies in a heavily stylised side-scroller is a lot of fun, and almost has an arcade feel to it.

However, the movement and combat is sluggish and clunky. In the first area, you have to do a bit of platforming to avoid falling into the water and losing a large chunk of health. Because of how slow the inputs are, it made it near impossible to jump over to your next destination without falling into the water.

The artwork is highly variable (CULT Games)

This had a massive detrimental impact on boss fights. Even with all possible upgrades purchased, and new weapons equipped, fighting the first boss on the easiest difficulty felt impossible. While there is the ability to guard, dodge, and even parry, none of those things feel like they are able to be efficiently utilised. While your character feels as if they are moving at a delay, the boss barely gives any time to recover, leading to multiple occasions where I was stun-locked, as Justine took too long to stand up, and it meant that Jacob, the boss, could continuously hit me.

Because of this seemingly poor optimisation, my excitement about Hotel Barcelona as a whole began to wane quite quickly. Even on the easiest difficulty, the game did not feel accessible, nor did it feel as if the upgrades provided any sort of significant boost to your character. Not only this, but you can only access Dr. Carnival’s Awakening ability once you have filled the Splatter Gauge at the bottom to its entirety, where you can then use the ability to either wipe out an entire wave of enemies, or to take a large chunk of health away from the boss.

However, any time spent not killing or attacking enemies goes against you, as you will start to lose progress on the Splatter Gauge. I learned this the hard way, as I was hoping to take Dr Carnival’s ability into the boss fight, only for the gauge to have emptied some by then.

While there is a highly extensive skill tree available, which was one of the main draws for me, it gets to a point on the skill tree where you are locked out of any upgrades until you beat the first boss. While for most games this isn’t an issue, I felt as if the small amount of upgrades available just didn’t really provide anything beneficial, other than the minor health increase.

There are also small stat increases that you can get depending on which hotel room door you go through, each offering a different buff and potential extra rewards for completing a challenge. However, they also didn’t feel that beneficial to me, and it didn’t feel clear to me that I had three buffs under my belt by the time I got to the boss.

One of the main roguelike features that I did enjoy was the fact that any upgrade materials that you gained during a run would be lost once you start a new run. It was quite punishing at times and pushed me to do better so that I could unlock more content.

Overall, my time with Hotel Barcelona was a disappointing one. While I enjoyed the theatrical side of the game, where characters leaned heavily into tropes, there were some issues with the fundamentals that made it near impossible to progress. I enjoyed the overall gameplay loop of Hotel Barcelona, but it lacks the fluidity needed to be a smooth roguelike experience.

At the moment, it feels that there is no real change between difficulties, with Easy also being very challenging, and not as accessible as the text in the game makes it out to be. I’m hopeful that with some patches and tweaks, this game could have a lot of potential to be something brilliant. Until then, it will have to go back onto the shelf.

Score: 7/10

By Amy Eastland

Formats: PC (reviewed), Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5
Price: £24.99
Publisher: CULT Games
Developer: White Owls Inc.
Release Date: 26th September 2025
Age Rating: 18

Being really hard doesn’t help to endear the game any (CULT Games)

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