This has been a long time coming. I've always called myself a Gamecube ride or die, and yet I've never touched any of the essential games that were part of the Capcom 5 (well, 4 in the end). Of course, most of the games in the Capcom 4 ended up not actually being exclusive Gamecube games, but they're still very important to the console's DNA and style, and I feel bad for neglecting to play any of them up until now. At the same time, the release of No More Heroes 3 this year, along with me joining this website and seeing all the people I follow who deeply admire Suda51, has caused me to go on my own Kill the Past journey through his catalog. Before this year, if you asked me how I felt about his games, I would probably say something like "they're probably good but not for me". But now, at my 500th game played on Backloggd (let's pretend this is the case and it's not actually the 501st), there's no doubt that these games are extremely For Me.
Now so far I've spent this review not talking about the game and that's because I'm kind of intimidated by the idea of doing so. I don't just wanna sit here going "the themes are good and the graphics are nice", something as incredibly dense as this deserves more than that obviously, which is why I'm thankful for the people I follow and their great reviews of this game. Like previous Suda games, there's a lot of details to get lost in, different factions and figures with different interests all coming to head, a fully-realized world just as complicated and really only slightly more absurd than ours. No one really tells you exactly what is happening or why, and that's because they have their own interests to protect and people to control. Its commentary on the war on terror and international relations, specifically that of the U.S and Japan, remains sharp and unmatched, and it also has a lot of characters doing really cool stuff and saying cool shit.
Like The Silver Case, the way this game played felt so different to me at first that I almost considered dropping it. It's not just the unique control scheme and on-rails movement, but all the different terminology and mechanics thrown at you, the whole cast of characters just kind of dropped on your lap with their own unique abilities. The game provides tutorials, but you have to read them yourself, and there is a lot of reading. It's intimidating, but I understand that the team behind this game probably thought having to go through a prolonged tutorial at the beginning of the game for every single thing in the game might have been a bit much and would have broken the pace of the first level and any other level with new mechanics. The thing is, after the first level the whole process of this game became second nature to me. Like, to the point that I would go to other games and hold A to go forward.
Previous Suda games have been so not-action that it's a very pleasant surprise to get to this game and actually really enjoy the action here. It never stopped being tense, the process of entering a new room, hearing a laugh, pulling out your gun to scan for anyone in the room and reacting quickly to whatever enemies appear. Despite always having a good amount of blood vials to recover health, it's very easy to get combo'd by two or three Smiles to death, and it honestly gets pretty terrifying at points. When you scan only to find an enemy three feet away from you, or one of them hauling ass from behind you and you stop them right before they hit, it legit got me as good as an actual horror game would hope to. It doesn't help they let out an incredibly loud scream right before they blow up in your face.
I really love the blood system in this game and how it encourages play that I would normally avoid. In order to level up your characters and have blood vials to recover health, you need to kill enemies. Not just kill them though, but find their exact weak point, which usually requires some precise aiming and distancing from the enemy. It all really comes together in a beautiful way, and it helps that every character is honestly useful and worth keeping alive and leveling up. Characters I wrote off as being uninterested in like Con ended up proving themselves very helpful and fun later on. I also really like the way levels will give you only a certain combinations of Smiths to start off with, which also encourages trying out guys you may have looked over, and being able to unlock other characters serves as a good reward for performing well as those characters. It becomes pretty clear as the game goes on that Dan is easily the most powerful and will probably be most people's preferred choice, especially as he gets upgraded, but I never really wrote off the other characters. Also, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with one character being better than others in a single player game, in real life there are lot's of people better than me so it makes sense. (Side note: I think the solution to Donkey Kong 64's character management problem would have been to make it like Killer7's. Obviously this game came after that so it's a dumb suggestion, but I couldn't help but think about it).
Visually, this game is unmatched. Every part of it looks immaculate, and the use of fixed camera angles is genius. I've realized as time goes on that games with fixed-camera angles weren't like that by accident, it wasn't because they didn't figure out how to be Mario 64, it's that it allowed deliberate camera movement and composition. I have a new found appreciation for it. While I'm talking about presentation I might as well bring up how good the voice acting is, because I think it's incredible. I feel like this is the kind of game that if it released now the voice acting would be a lot more generic and more typical of Japanese games with English dubs, but the performances and cast here is perfect for this game. Just going through the character select TV and hearing each Smith's voice line is enough to prove this.
At this point I'm just saying obvious shit. "The music is good", "The gibberish voices are good", "The use of different art styles in different chapters is fun", "I want to own every Travis shirt", it's all been said and done. But seriously, playing this game was a level of pure enjoyment I haven't had in a while, I tried to stretch out my time with it as much as I could because I didn't want it to be over. It's good to know I'm still able to have these sorts of experiences with a game.
Now so far I've spent this review not talking about the game and that's because I'm kind of intimidated by the idea of doing so. I don't just wanna sit here going "the themes are good and the graphics are nice", something as incredibly dense as this deserves more than that obviously, which is why I'm thankful for the people I follow and their great reviews of this game. Like previous Suda games, there's a lot of details to get lost in, different factions and figures with different interests all coming to head, a fully-realized world just as complicated and really only slightly more absurd than ours. No one really tells you exactly what is happening or why, and that's because they have their own interests to protect and people to control. Its commentary on the war on terror and international relations, specifically that of the U.S and Japan, remains sharp and unmatched, and it also has a lot of characters doing really cool stuff and saying cool shit.
Like The Silver Case, the way this game played felt so different to me at first that I almost considered dropping it. It's not just the unique control scheme and on-rails movement, but all the different terminology and mechanics thrown at you, the whole cast of characters just kind of dropped on your lap with their own unique abilities. The game provides tutorials, but you have to read them yourself, and there is a lot of reading. It's intimidating, but I understand that the team behind this game probably thought having to go through a prolonged tutorial at the beginning of the game for every single thing in the game might have been a bit much and would have broken the pace of the first level and any other level with new mechanics. The thing is, after the first level the whole process of this game became second nature to me. Like, to the point that I would go to other games and hold A to go forward.
Previous Suda games have been so not-action that it's a very pleasant surprise to get to this game and actually really enjoy the action here. It never stopped being tense, the process of entering a new room, hearing a laugh, pulling out your gun to scan for anyone in the room and reacting quickly to whatever enemies appear. Despite always having a good amount of blood vials to recover health, it's very easy to get combo'd by two or three Smiles to death, and it honestly gets pretty terrifying at points. When you scan only to find an enemy three feet away from you, or one of them hauling ass from behind you and you stop them right before they hit, it legit got me as good as an actual horror game would hope to. It doesn't help they let out an incredibly loud scream right before they blow up in your face.
I really love the blood system in this game and how it encourages play that I would normally avoid. In order to level up your characters and have blood vials to recover health, you need to kill enemies. Not just kill them though, but find their exact weak point, which usually requires some precise aiming and distancing from the enemy. It all really comes together in a beautiful way, and it helps that every character is honestly useful and worth keeping alive and leveling up. Characters I wrote off as being uninterested in like Con ended up proving themselves very helpful and fun later on. I also really like the way levels will give you only a certain combinations of Smiths to start off with, which also encourages trying out guys you may have looked over, and being able to unlock other characters serves as a good reward for performing well as those characters. It becomes pretty clear as the game goes on that Dan is easily the most powerful and will probably be most people's preferred choice, especially as he gets upgraded, but I never really wrote off the other characters. Also, I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with one character being better than others in a single player game, in real life there are lot's of people better than me so it makes sense. (Side note: I think the solution to Donkey Kong 64's character management problem would have been to make it like Killer7's. Obviously this game came after that so it's a dumb suggestion, but I couldn't help but think about it).
Visually, this game is unmatched. Every part of it looks immaculate, and the use of fixed camera angles is genius. I've realized as time goes on that games with fixed-camera angles weren't like that by accident, it wasn't because they didn't figure out how to be Mario 64, it's that it allowed deliberate camera movement and composition. I have a new found appreciation for it. While I'm talking about presentation I might as well bring up how good the voice acting is, because I think it's incredible. I feel like this is the kind of game that if it released now the voice acting would be a lot more generic and more typical of Japanese games with English dubs, but the performances and cast here is perfect for this game. Just going through the character select TV and hearing each Smith's voice line is enough to prove this.
At this point I'm just saying obvious shit. "The music is good", "The gibberish voices are good", "The use of different art styles in different chapters is fun", "I want to own every Travis shirt", it's all been said and done. But seriously, playing this game was a level of pure enjoyment I haven't had in a while, I tried to stretch out my time with it as much as I could because I didn't want it to be over. It's good to know I'm still able to have these sorts of experiences with a game.