Created as a collaborative effort between Japanese gaming legends SWERY and SUDA51, Hotel Barcelona has a unique premise in which your present and past self fight alongside each other. It is an action game in which previous defeats can lead to victory. The backstory has a simple, The Purge-adjacent premise: While once a luxury hotel, today Hotel Barcelona is a place where serial killers gather from all over the United States.
It is a nightmarish place where the nastiest criminals come and do whatever they want. I got to play a stage set at a camping site where I had to deal with a devilish homicidal maniac named Jacob. His face was covered by not only a hockey mask, but also a football face guard, reminiscent of Friday the 13th killer Jason Voorhees.
Hotel Barcelona’s base is an orthodox 2D action game. You place as Justine and can use both melee and long-range attacks to defeat enemies, until you reach a giant boss at the end of the stage. Collecting resources along the way allows you to permanently upgrade your character.
Like a roguelite, Hotel Barcelona has a high difficulty and expects you to retry stages over and over. Those stages unfold over multiple branching paths, with healing items and stat buffs that can be obtained along the way. Hordes of normal enemies will stand in your way, and there are some additional foes hiding behind tufts of grass for surprise attacks as well.
When you die, you have a chance to make upgrades before embarking on your next run, with th.