Suda 51 and Swery 65 meet in a strange roguelite slasher that is messy, alluring, and hard to avoid.
What happens when two of the most unpredictable people in video games decide to work together to build a spooky hotel? You won’t be safe. With Hotel Barcelona, you get a slasher roguelite game that feels like it was put together during a late-night horror session.
Rumors about this partnership had been going around for years before it finally came together. On one side is Goichi “Suda 51” Suda, who made No More Heroes and Lollipop Chainsaw and is known for his punk rock style, grindhouse looks, and stories that often feel like they are in control of chaos.
On the other side is Hidetaka “Swery” Suehiro, who wrote Deadly Premonition and The Good Life and is known for his strange small-town tales, emotional oddities, and love of strange Americana.
Both of these artists have made a living by taking risks. Rarely are their games as smooth as a mirror, but they are full of personality. The Hotel Barcelona seems to be the purest example of that idea; it is unfiltered, strange, and blatantly at odds with itself.
You play as Justine, a new U.S. Marshal who is sent to look into a fancy hotel near the border between Pennsylvania and West Virginia that is said to be haunted.
But this isn’t just a case of lost people. The hotel has become a dark haven for some of America’s most infamous serial killers. Things go downhill quickly.
After a terrible accident, Dr. Carnival takes over Justine and gives her supernatural powers while whispering dark words of support in her ear. Now, justice and the desire to kill are in the same person. The emotional core of the story is that mental tug-of-war.
The hotel feels like a character; it’s a hellish place that looks a lot like the Overlook Hotel from The Shining. Each wing of the building and the places around it are based on well-known scary movies. A hooded slasher stalks camp sites in the woods, an alien-like predator rules the sewers, a horrifying butcher works in a slaughterhouse, and there’s even a cursed video game cartridge that locks you in a classic RPG battle.
The mood goes back and forth between scary and silly.
One minute you’re fighting a huge nightmare, and the next you’re switching to “Popcorn Mode” to get popcorn pops instead of blood. Somehow, it works even though it shouldn’t.
In roguelites with a lot of story, you get new conversations after every run, but the story here moves more slowly. New storylines are added slowly between boss fights. That means you have to work for answers if you want them. Does that grind make you care more about the characters or test your patience? What you do will depend on how much you like the climb.
Hotel Barcelona is a 2.5D action roguelite game at its core. You have to hack, slash, shoot, block, dodge, and parry your way through randomly placed rounds full of enemies. At the end of each run, you face a boss.
Everyone always dies at the same point: you enter a stage, fight enemies placed randomly, collect materials, try to beat a boss, and then you die. When you die, you go back to the hotel hub. But unlike harsh roguelikes that delete everything, you keep most of the money and items you earn.
The “Phantom” method is the most interesting twist.
When you die, the last run you did is saved. On your next try, an AI-controlled copy of your old self fights with you and copies the moves you used to make. These ghost versions can show up up to four times. They can feel like a small army behind you in boss fights. They can turn the screen into beautiful chaos in crowded places.
During runs, there is also a clock that keeps going, which keeps the pressure strong. With random stage changes, changing enemy power levels, and character sizes that go up and down, no two tries are ever quite the same.
Combat is based on time, close-quarters weapons, and long-range weapons. You can block, dodge, and counter, but it takes time to get good at them. At first, Justine feels stiff. She doesn’t move perfectly, and early fights can feel awkward. A lot of her fluidity is locked behind improvements. So, being frustrated early on is part of the curve that was meant to be there.
The blood splatter gauge is a key part of the game.
When you kill someone in melee, the gauge fills up, which makes your critical hits, defense, and energy stronger. When it’s full, you can use Dr. Carnival’s Awakening, a powerful power surge that kills enemies but takes away any buffs you have. Do you trade in your steady bonuses for powerful strength now, or do you hold on to them for survival? The push-and-pull really helps with the plan.
Boss fights can be very hard to handle, or they can be surprisingly easy. Hitboxes don’t always work the same way, and it’s not always clear when a boss’s moment of invincibility ends. It can be annoying when things are rough, especially on high-stakes runs with extra challenges.
There are different levels of difficulty, from Easy to Slasher mode, as well as “Bondage” factors that make the game very hard to play. Conditions, such as instant death or disabled skills, can be turned on to get bigger rewards. If you turn on too many, it will be very hard to win. But if you engage just enough, you’ll be on the edge of excitement and disaster.
In Hotel Barcelona, progress is based on cash. Things that enemies drop, like money, teeth, and ears, can be used to get permanent weapons and improvements. There are many branches in the skill tree for different types of melee skills and powers.
It is important to remember that if you leave the hub without spending your money, you will lose it.
You have to make a choice before you go back into danger. Not hoarding is a choice. You can’t avoid grinding. You have to beat bosses over and over again and collect their hearts to unlock key skills and make Justine more responsive.
The experts say that this late-game grind can feel too much. The grind rarely feels like a waste of time, though, because you keep important items after you die. The method works if you like seeing a weak recruit grow into a powerful monster killer over time. If you like having power right away, the early hours might test your willpower.
The Hotel Barcelona looks like a bad dream from a B-movie, with lights and blood. The designs of the characters are bizarre, exaggerated, and full of personality. There are a lot of strange NPCs, horror themes, and other strange things in the hotel hub.
In a normal sense, it’s not finished. Animations can feel stiff, and at first glance, UI features can be too much to handle. But that roughness seems to be done on purpose, or at least liked. It shows the wild energy of the people who made it.
The changing settings—forests, basements, slaughterhouses, and arcades—make the game visually interesting. Strange things happen all the time.
The sound design leans a lot toward evil. Unsettling background sounds mix with over-the-top effects for battle. Dr. Carnival’s voice adds dark humor to tense scenes, and the conversation from non-playable characters is a mix of strange and awkward.
There are some voice casting decisions that don’t make sense, especially for background characters. Even so, that’s part of the game’s slightly off-kilter charm. The music is full of energy, which makes both the fast-paced fighting and the creepy wandering more fun.
The Hotel Barcelona isn’t trying to be as fancy as the best roguelites on the market. It’s not trying to be perfect. It’s about personality.
Fans of Suda 51 and Swery 65 will get exactly what they want: a weird, messy, and personal experiment that is full of fun references to horror and inside jokes. It might feel rough to fight. It may take a long time to grind. But the journey is memorable because of the people, the style, and the crazy ending.
If you want smooth handling more than anything else, you might not mind how stiff it is. But if you’re ready to accept chaos, laugh at the ridiculous, and keep reading over and over again for the sake of the story, this hotel stay might become memorable. Now for the real question: are you checking in for safety or for chaos?
