Two of the most famous weirdos in the gaming industry decided to join forces and develop a game based on their shared likes and oddities. A game made by Swery65 (of Deadly Premonition fame) alongside Suda51 (of No More Heroes and Killer7 game). What could/should have been a moment worth celebrating ended up being a bit of disappointment after finally getting my hands on it. Let’s talk about Hotel Barcelona.

I think things immediately started with the wrong foot once the game booted up, and I was presented with an introductory cutscene featuring terrible dialogue, a character that wasn’t even a parody of DC’s Peacemaker (you can’t be a parody when you literally say the same stuff Peacemaker says), and our protagonist, a Field Marshall who suffers a car accident and is transported to the titular Hotel Barcelona, a mysterious hotel in the middle of the woods (also clearly inspired by the hotel from The Shining) that’s also housing America’s most unhinged serial killers as hosts. It’s up to you to get rid of them all in order to escape a wretched loop inside the hotel, set by a witch. And to make matters worse, you are currently being possessed by the spirit of another serial killer.

So this is our premise and the explanation for the gameplay loop. You can explore the hotel, talk to NPCs, upgrade your weaponry, and then jump right into a selectable level, which features multiple branched areas to explore, always culminating in a very challenging boss fight. If you die, you can spend your resources on new weapons, moves, and stat buffs. You lose your resources when jumping into a new run, making farming and grinding a bit more complicated. In theory, it’s all good. Nothing fancy, nothing revolutionary, but it’s not unlike other gameplay structures like The Rogue Prince of Persia, for instance, sans the metroidvania exploration. In practice, well… we have some issues.

Had the game worked as intended, the overall gameplay would have been a simple but effective hack n’ slash combat system on top of a 2.5D level design. It doesn’t work as intended, however. Hotel Barcelona suffers from a serious amount of input lag, one that completely hinders the combat, and as a result, my overall enjoyment with it. You never feel like your commands are being immediately read by the game, and more than once did I feel like my deaths were a result of the game not being quick enough when responding to my reactions. Granted, whenever I felt like the game was just not working properly and making me die more often than necessary, I could just tone down the difficulty slider to something more story-focused, but still. I want to feel challenged by good enemy design, not input and framerate issues.

The framerate hinders the visuals a bit, which are also a bit tiresome due to a repetitive reusage of assets. That being said, the art style itsef is not terrible. I wasn’t a fan of the character portrayals, but I can’t deny that, at the very least, Hotel Barcelona looks and feels unique, while still maintaining the trademark elements that made both Swery and Suda famous. From the latter, comes the emphasis on rural America, horror, and just a tiny bit of pyschological meddling thrown into the mix. That’s the good aspect of Hotel Barcelona‘s presentation. From Suda, comes the insistence in tying everything to a movie reference (if you’re a cinephile, you’re gonna have a blast), and some poor dialogue attached to juvenile humor. That… is the bad aspect of Hotel Barcelona‘s presentation.

But that doesn’t mean it’s all bad in this department. The sound design is easily the game’s highlight, even though it’s still very… weird. And no, I don’t mean that the music is trippy, or that the sound effects are psychedelic. No, it’s more of the fact that the music is basically a carbon copy of actual, real-life rock songs and movie themes… just reworked enough for the record labels to become incapable of suing the development team. You’ll hear obvious nods to “For Whom the Bell Tolls” by Metallica, “Paranoid” by Black Sabbath, and even the Jaws theme song, but slightly reworked, with maybe a different note here, a different vocal melody (and, of course, lyrics) there. And it’s a killer soundtrack, even if it treads the line between nostalgic and derivative.

At the end, it’s impossible not to feel disappointed by the end result. I know that not all games by both Suda and Swery are bangers, and that some jank is basically expected from their outings, but Hotel Barcelona could have been so much better. From a concept standpoint, it’s a banger, I really liked the premise. Regarding the gameplay loop, and the roguelike mechanics as a whole, again, all great… in theory. In practice, this game is hampered by framerate hiccups, infuriating input lag issues, and some juvenile humor coupled to some really poor writing.

Graphics: 6.5 The art style isn’t terrible, but I think the environments suffer from a repetitive reusage of assets. Furthermore, the game struggles with some performance issues.	Gameplay: 5.5 In theory, a simple but functional roguelike loop shoved onto a sidescrolling action platformer. In practice, a game that suffers from a sizeable amount of input delay. It makes the combat feel a lot more frustrating than it should have.
Sound: 7.5 An odd case of a soundtrack comprised of songs that sound nearly identical to real-life rock tunes, just changed ever so slightly in order to avoid getting sued by record labels. The voice acting is average.	Fun Factor: 6.0 Even if the concept is alright, Hotel Barcelona suffers from a handful of issues: performance hiccups, input delay, and some juvenile humor coupled to some really poor writing.
Final Verdict: 6.0

Hotel Barcelona is available now on PS5, Xbox Series S/X and PC.

Reviewed on Intel i7-12700H, 16GB RAM, RTX 3060 6GB.

A copy of Hotel Barcelona was provided by the publisher.