I was obsessed enough with this game to import a poster of it from the US. I own the hand in killer7 book, that I can't read bc it's in Japanese, the grasshopper artbook that thankfully got a translation and the OST that started me always perking up as soon as I know that Masafumi Takada did the score for a game.

I was a bit obsessed when the game came out.

Looking back at it and having played parts of it again two years ago, it lost a bit of it's charm for me.

I think I wouldn't like it as much if I had played it as an adult with the current state of games and esp indie games. Back then - for me at least - Killer7 was the word almost avant-garde game with it's weird graphics, antique railways-system-gameplay and confusing storyline.
But now there are more games like this or maybe it just feels like that too me I don't know.

I love it to bits and pieces but it is absolutely not for everyone and I get it when people don't like it. It's violent, it's confusing and definitely not easily accessible. Still glad it exists.

This is the type of game that generally makes sense once you actually dive into it with an open mind, but you will not be able to comprehend everything thrown at you the first playthrough. Hell, even with the supplementary material it's still hard to wrap my head around. It's political commentary is interesting in a post-war world, although its social commentary is a bit crude by today's standards. In terms of playing through it again, I would recommend going for the PC remaster, as the higher difficulty mode is unfriendly on consoles. This is probably the only complaint I have 'cause everything else is masterful. I'm in love with the music, the characters, the bonkers plot, the ring-related puzzles, the minimalist yet grungy artstyle... It's peak Suda51 and for damn good reason. It's also not a game I would recommend casually. The game will throw you many bones to get you to understand its on-rails shooting mechanic but it's uncompromising in its playfulness and shitpost humor. You will enjoy it or you won't.

I absolutely adore everything about this game's aesthetic and writing, despite the fact I only have a vague idea of what the fuck happened.

Unfortunately the actual gameplay doesn't resonate with me very much. It feels like a cross between a rail shooter and the puzzle solving of a Resident Evil game. This is not a combination that I think works especially well, I ended up getting lost and having to do a ton of backtracking for items which doesn't feel great in a shooter. Also the shooting kinda feels awful.

Overall though this is a super unique game that I'm sure I'll be thinking about and trying to interpret for a while, it's just not a game I want to actually play again anytime soon.

Killer7 is far more avant garde than it is about being an approachable game. In such a way, a lot of things can be praised about Killer7. The protag super powers and way they interact with the world, the way people talk, how death and cutscenes are shown; Killer 7 is a very stylish game, no question. Once you start to remove all the fluff though, you get a game with a ton of cryptic hints, frustrating movement patterns, and a story that doesn't make sense.
I'm not inherently mad at Killer7 for how it presents itself either, but it was completely jarring coming in expecting something akin to No More Heroes only to get Star Fox with puzzles that make some other games blush. Killer7 is a hard sale and I wish it wasn't. It really has a lot of neat ideas and sets up a world that is super interesting to dive into that they even made a book. While I'm not nearly impressed with this game as most, I do wish we get more of this series as it was at least an interesting start.