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Killer is Dead - Nightmare Edition
PC (Steam)
Might Wanna Poke It With A Stick
3.5/5 stars
Goichi Suda, or Suda51, is a name to recognize in the character action genre. While I myself have not played many, if any of his games, I still have at least heard positive things from titles such as No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw just to name a few. Though I must admit, when I first saw Killer Is Dead, I wasn’t too sure what to think. I recall possibly reading an article for the game once before it released, saw the game in a few stores and seeing some mixed to negative reviews for the game. But still, I’ve been one to try and develop my own opinion with videogames, at least when it isn’t blatantly obvious the game is going to fail.
Killer is Dead began development around 2011 and was apparently inspired by the song “The Queen is Dead” by The Smiths. The game ultimately was designed to be the “yang” to the previously developed Lollipop Chainsaw, and a lot of that can be seen by the colors used and the environments used between the two games. Lollipop Chainsaw had more of a bright, vibrant color scheme and had more day levels, whereas Killer is Dead uses more of a darker color scheme and takes place during the night most of the time. Either way, the game was released in August of 2013 (May 2014 for the PC version) and was met with mixed reviews. Many of them saying that this was Suda51’s most nonsensical work yet.
So is this game just average? And is it really that nonsensical? No and yes. In that order. Might as well go over the plot first considering that’s probably going to be the hardest part to explain.
If you want a short description of Killer Is Dead’s story, then I can summarize it with “The Moon” and “Shut up, No”. Ultimately because it’s really hard to draw out what the actual plot of the game is. The game is told in an episodic format, but it doesn’t carry any kind of overarching narrative with it. To make a comparison, Metal Gear Rising had a similar structure over a 6 chapter game, but at least in that game you could follow its plot from point to point, and it at least tried to tie everything together at the end. Here? Stuff just happens, and there’s this conflict between Mondo, our protagonist, and this guy named David, who’s our villain. Well, let’s see if I can try.
Our story centers around our hero, Mondo Zappa and his assistant, Mika Takekawa as they do their job at Bryan’s Execution Firm. Where they are hired to execute people for whatever reason their client gives. However something starts to go wrong when they are contracted to take out a man named David, who resides on the dark side of the moon. And before you ask, yes this is a thing they expect you to take as normal. Much like Mondo’s robotic left arm. When Mondo arrives on said moon and encounters David, he reveals that he plans to take over the world… Somehow. And leaves right when Mondo’s arm starts acting up by absorbing what is apparently Dark Matter. From this point you do missions, there’s something about a woman called Moon River, Mondo apparently has amnesia, a zombie musician, a swordsman possessed by a demon tiger, killer train, then you visit Area 151 and stop a giant mutant for aliens and NONE of this has to do with the conflict with David. Okay the bits with Moon River, sort of, only because they give you a glimpse of Mondo’s past, where we get the reveal that Mondo and David are brothers, and the monsters (called Wires) were actually the previous inhabitants of the moon and were turned into this when David killed their ruler, Moon River. So we have the climactic showdown between brothers, Mondo wins and becomes possessed by the Dark Matter, ending the game with Moon River making a contract to execute Mondo, as he now rules the moon.
Now if any of you got confused or lost by that, don’t worry. You’re not alone. The biggest problem with the story is simply the fact most of the game has nothing to do with the conflict between David and Mondo. Not to mention how it just goes all over the place so much that trying to make sense out of it will only lead to headaches. And an easy description of the game isn’t that hard of a task with some of Suda51’s other titles. No More Heroes: Otaku turned assassin tries to get laid. Lollipop Chainsaw: Cheerleader VS Zombies. And at the very least No More Heroes, and its sequel tried to convey some kind of message. In Killer Is Dead, I honestly don’t know what I’m looking at. It’s a mess. Plain and Simple.
As for presentation, it’s a little more mixed of positives and negatives. I like the graphic style and the texture work on the characters, giving it a sort of graphic novel-esque look to it, granted throughout the whole game the shadows tend to have a problem of sticking out, but also being EVERYWHERE. As in the most common color you’ll see in the game, is black, or whatever color the shadows turn into (depending on your television screen/monitor, and the lighting of the room you’re playing in).
The sound track, I can compliment. It has a number of tracks that did stick with me, and honestly make me want to get the soundtrack. They’re more situation pieces of electric and rock with some tracks on smooth jazz here and there. It works, and it helps convey the feeling you’re supposed to have in each scene, even if the story will leave you confused.
Then there’s the voice acting, and I’m just going to say this now. Most of the English voice acting is pretty bad. Some characters are emotionless (Moon River for instance), while others can just be ear grating (Mika), while others do seem to be having fun with their roles while making it work for the character. I enjoyed Patrick Seitz as Mondo, sure he made him sound like the stereotypical anime badass, but in a game that does try to be over the top, it works. Plus Mondo is given some moments to be a bit of a smart ass. Tara Platt also made the character Vivienne Squall pretty enjoyable as well, same with Alem Sapp as Bryan Roses. But like I said, the rest just seem to fall flat to me, or just become a pain in the ears (Mika). Thankfully the game does allow you to switch to the Japanese audio if you desire.
Finally, there’s the meat of the gameplay, the combat, and this is truly the highlight of Killer Is Dead. The game is blend of third person hack n’ slash and light third person shooting. Primarily the game is focused on fighting with your sword, which is mapped to your primary attack button, you also have a heavy attack where Mondo will bash enemies with his robot arm to break the enemy’s guard, or just pummel them. Unfortunately you can’t precisely chain with these two attacks like in Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising. However the game does have a way to compensate. As your combo increases, so does the flexibility and attack power of your strikes. You can also dodge with attacks with the dodge button, but the best part about it is the Adrenaline Rush. Much like Bayonetta’s Witch Time, Killer Is Dead rewards perfectly executed dodges with a move called Adrenaline Rush, where players are allowed to counter enemy attacks with a flurry of sword swings, or even a counter shot to enemy fire. However this is limited to the enemy that performed the attack. However you can also tap into Mondo’s execution mode by simply holding the right trigger, selecting a target and pressing the attack button. It requires blood, but it allows you to instantly kill an enemy, or finish them off if weakened enough. This is also used as the finishing blow to bosses, so you might not want to go gun happy.
The gunplay in Killer Is Dead, is very light. You essentially have 4 sub weapons (3 you have to unlock) each with different uses. The blaster is your basic shot, the drill takes out certain walls to uncover secrets, but more importantly takes out enemy shields. The Freeze shot slows down enemies with enough shots. And the charge blaster is a charge shot. And rather than each sub weapon using its own ammunition or power, they all use blood, much like the execution mode. And refilling it is as simple as whacking enemies and racking up combos.
Ultimately, despite its flaws, the combat is surprisingly satisfying, and very rewarding. For instance, when your combo reaches the 5th level, for each enemy you kill, you can choose a bonus upon killing them. Either health gems, blood gems, cash, or moon crystals. And this is another thing I really like about Killer Is Dead, its means of character progression. Instead of finding the health power ups and blood upgrades, your health and blood meter level up as you collect their respective gems. And the moon crystal earn you skill points for upgrades (word of advice, go for the manual recovery, and GEKKOU Neo first, you’ll thank me later).
Killer is Dead is filled with 12 main story missions, and a multitude of challenge missions. Not to mention numerous unlockables, and a good number of difficulty settings to challenge you to get that AAA rank. However, then there are the Gigolo Missions… Remember how I said that you need to unlock the 3 sub weapons? These are how you get them. Basically your job in these missions, is to get Mondo laid. You do this by eyeballing the woman until Mondo has the guts to give her a present (that you have to buy, each time you want to play these missions). You really only have to do these missions 3 times, and thankfully you can do just one woman and get all the weapons, and some fan service for replaying the mission. And I wouldn’t have too much of an issue with these if these ladies would just stop calling me in the middle of every level to remind me that they miss me! Then there’s also Scarlette the nurse, while she is labeled as a gigolo mission, she actually has her own set of challenges (rank up the combo, survival, target practice, etc) which you unlock simply by finding her as you play the game.
The Nightmare Edition of the game also comes with the bonus DLC for the game. Featuring the nightmare difficulty setting, where enemies can only be killed specific ways, a new story mission which has no real significance on the plot, and one more gigolo mission… Yeah. I suppose while I’m at it I should go over how the PC version runs considering that’s the version I played.
The PC port is… I’m not sure how to transcribe the noise I want to make to describe it. But if I were to use words, I would use “below bare bones”. Basically your graphics options are limited to fullscreen on/off, and resolution. The game is also locked at 30fps, but this can be fixed by editing a config file, however the game does have an instance or two where it will crash because of this. In my experience that was only the third gigolo mission, “Mondo’s Top Performer”. Plus the game still had a few moments where the framerate would hiccup.
At the end of it all, despite a confusing as hell story, and only a few pesky missions, I had a really good time with Killer is Dead. The rewarding combat, and satisfying gameplay were so good, that they honestly made me forget all the negative points of the game, story aside. Certainly there are some really tedious sections, and some instances where the game doesn’t really convey what you’re supposed to do. But man does the game make you feel like a powerful assassin. Personally, I’d recommend this. Just remember to turn your brain off when playing this.
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