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| "But on the real, we do it big in the club, gettin' all the groupie love." - Video game |
Killer is Dead is another game by Grasshopper Manufacture, the folks behind stuff like Killer7, Shadows of the Damned and most recently Lollipop Chainsaw. All around cool guy Goichi Suda returns to write the script this time around, and we get to see a guy try to direct a Suda 51 game without the guy actually being Suda 51. It follows amnesiac assassin Mondo Zappa, whose only defining characteristics are that he likes soft boiled eggs and has a robot arm, as he kinda does contracts. Maybe a couple, but mostly goes to the moon because this game has like nine missions that aren't two minutes long and he goes to the moon. Twice. The game does see you carrying out some more interesting contracts in the second half, however short lived they might be. There's an evil train, a yakuza with a ghost tiger, and a blue guy who wants to steal music. Or something. One of the bigger issues this game has is padding for length, which it shouldn't need considering how short it is. About a quarter of the game is spent in Mondo's dream sequences, which just dish out exposition to you on a heaping platter. For a fast paced action titles like this, a break in the action can be a breath of fresh air, but by the third time I started to wonder if this yearly release schedule Grasshopper is on really lends itself well to super fleshed out action games. (Note- it doesn't.)
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| This should've happened more instead of flashbacks. Probably. |
So I'm making it sound like I really thought this game was schlock, but that was actually just a clever tactic I was employing called get-the-worst-shit-out-of-the-way-first. The first thing to give this game props for is that it's a kinda orgasmic sensory overload in a pretty major way. The harsh shadows mixed in with vibrant colors calls back to Killer7, one of the most visually amazing games in the past fifteen years. It's stuff like this that really shows how art design trumps graphical power any day of the week. The game falls into the trap of occasionally making you fight in a pretty boring, grey area, but it's smaller touches like a view of the snowy mountaintops from on top of a train or the purple and red sheen from your opponents that really brings the scenes together. Although it is pretty perplexing that the most visually interesting area in the entire game, an apartment turned MC Escher-style candy house, is the first major area of the game, instead of being saved up for later. The other issue with Killer is Dead's visuals apart from some sometimes boring scenery is that the game suffers from some pretty serious screen tearing, which is very apparent whether you're in combat or not. Ex-Silent Hill composer and now in-house Grasshopper go-to music guy Akira Yamaoka really delivers this time around with an interestingly eclectic mix of catchy electronic tunes occasionally infused with some strong bass, frantic drums or warbly lyrics. It's something I've never really seen him branch out into, usually staying with more traditional instrumental work, and it's exciting to see. The music in Killer is Dead stirs old memories of Grasshopper's previous, and just as talented composer Masafumi Takada, which is always a good thing.
The core gameplay of Killer is Dead is pretty standard hack and slash fare. You have one main button for all sword strikes and one button for fist attacks, which are usually used to break an opponent's guard. There are very few moves available in the game so it instead relies on a simple albeit fun combination of timed parries and dodges for any sort of combat depth. There are a few sub weapons (hint- they're all some kind of gun, unless they're a drill), but they can't be strung into your combos as they could in say, Bayonetta. This renders them mostly useless barring a few enemies which your sword can't reach, and it makes you wonder if it was too much trouble to implement these weapons better into the combo driven gameplay, for the sake of variety if anything. This game actually includes a cancelled feature from Shadows of the Damned, the 2011 Grasshopper release, called Gigolo missions. These have been stirring up some controversy online, but lemme give you the rundown. You have drinks with a girl and you give her presents and you get a trinket to help you in game. These barely factor into the game at all and it seems strange that they'd play such a large part in the marketing of the game, except in an attempt to break out of the niche Grasshopper has in the market and into a much wider(?) audience of people who buy videogames because they want to see ladies.
Killer is Dead is an odd duck. In an industry mostly conscious of Grasshopper's games, it seems like this game was being marketed on oddity alone, like Suda51's name plastered on the marketing should count as a brand. Previous games such as Killer7 and No More Heroes have thrived on their own type of weird that I think a lot of us can respect. They don't try to prove anything to anyone, and they certainly don't flaunt it on the box. Killer is Dead's story comes off as trying really hard to capture that "Suda style" without understanding the core ideas of it, the underdog appeal that breaks through the mold of this saturated-to-hell market. As the credits slammed onto screen after a strangely standard ending as a punk song blazed through the speakers, I couldn't help but miss Shadows of the Damned's more subdued, quietly weird closer, with a song by the actual group The Damned. It's a real sign of how quick the industry changes when you can wish for something from just two years ago, but that's the nature of games in general. But at Killer is Dead's heart is a team of people that really care, and when everything comes together, it shows you can still catch that Grasshopper lightning in a bottle one last time, no matter how fleeting it may be.
7.5/10
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| The game's antagonist David is like a glitzier version of Prince. Assless chaps actually included. |
The core gameplay of Killer is Dead is pretty standard hack and slash fare. You have one main button for all sword strikes and one button for fist attacks, which are usually used to break an opponent's guard. There are very few moves available in the game so it instead relies on a simple albeit fun combination of timed parries and dodges for any sort of combat depth. There are a few sub weapons (hint- they're all some kind of gun, unless they're a drill), but they can't be strung into your combos as they could in say, Bayonetta. This renders them mostly useless barring a few enemies which your sword can't reach, and it makes you wonder if it was too much trouble to implement these weapons better into the combo driven gameplay, for the sake of variety if anything. This game actually includes a cancelled feature from Shadows of the Damned, the 2011 Grasshopper release, called Gigolo missions. These have been stirring up some controversy online, but lemme give you the rundown. You have drinks with a girl and you give her presents and you get a trinket to help you in game. These barely factor into the game at all and it seems strange that they'd play such a large part in the marketing of the game, except in an attempt to break out of the niche Grasshopper has in the market and into a much wider(?) audience of people who buy videogames because they want to see ladies.
Killer is Dead is an odd duck. In an industry mostly conscious of Grasshopper's games, it seems like this game was being marketed on oddity alone, like Suda51's name plastered on the marketing should count as a brand. Previous games such as Killer7 and No More Heroes have thrived on their own type of weird that I think a lot of us can respect. They don't try to prove anything to anyone, and they certainly don't flaunt it on the box. Killer is Dead's story comes off as trying really hard to capture that "Suda style" without understanding the core ideas of it, the underdog appeal that breaks through the mold of this saturated-to-hell market. As the credits slammed onto screen after a strangely standard ending as a punk song blazed through the speakers, I couldn't help but miss Shadows of the Damned's more subdued, quietly weird closer, with a song by the actual group The Damned. It's a real sign of how quick the industry changes when you can wish for something from just two years ago, but that's the nature of games in general. But at Killer is Dead's heart is a team of people that really care, and when everything comes together, it shows you can still catch that Grasshopper lightning in a bottle one last time, no matter how fleeting it may be.
7.5/10
Awesome post, Sol!
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