killer7 may be the first game where I've actively sought out analysis of the plot and themes beyond just basic examinations; it reminded me a lot of NGE where it's pretty digestible once you lock down the core concepts but still rich enough to make exploring various interpretations worthwhile. part of this is because of how the game expresses its ideas both from a modern political context as well as a timeless, cyclical myth. on top of all of that, it's a fun adventure/light gun game in its own right thanks to having a consistent design language and an expansive amount of hints. suda has called this his crowning achievement, and in a lot of ways I think this may be a perfect expression of his narrative ideas with his unorthodox gameplay design.

it's hard to go over the plot without getting into spoiler territory, but I'll try my best. the plot details the affable combat between a set of idle demigods who frequently dabble in world politics. meanwhile, around the turn of the millennium, a new semi-communal world order is established that cements continual peace and anti-terror initiatives within the tight grasp of US hegemony. as a new sect of spiritually-enhanced suicide bombers (the Heaven Smiles) begin wracking havoc across the world and as japanese political forces convene to secede as an independent nation, the US government influences paranormal assassins Killer7 (also known as the Smith Syndicate) to intervene on the side of pro-globalist japanese operatives to promote US interests. in a series of vignettes in the middle of the game, Killer7 are tasked with continuing to deal with downstream effects of their prior operation as well as previous US overreach both public and private. as the game draws to a close, the true nature of the powers of Killer7 are revealed to its members as well as their long-reaching ties to political apparatuses within america.

an interpretation I'd like to discuss is the messaging on east-west relations presented in the game. while the context is lopsided (both in-game and in parallels to the US's vulgar displays of foreign power irl), I don't see this as a game explicitly singling out the evils of western powers over those of eastern ones. I originally had this interpretation myself until I reached the ending, upon which I realized the futility and perpetuity of conflict between sides as presented in the final scenes. with that in mind, the game uses a real-life context familiar to those of the early 21st century (a single global superpower and an exceedingly violent anti-terror movement) to contextualize an evergreen tale of nations jockeying for supremacy. the game does an expert job of dissecting the death drive the individuals involved have for power at any cost. virtually every character is deeply entwined in the existing power structures, and those who are not desperately claw their way into new ones (see Ulmeyda's cult/corporation during the Cloudman episode). the mortals and their grasps at legacy, relevance, and pleasure contrast nicely with the reincarnated demigods who walk among them and absent-mindedly reorient the world order at will in a sort of "long dark tea-time of the soul" to pull a phrase from douglas adams. this is all not to say the game doesn't indulge itself at all - far from it - but the underlying currents of the plot are grim towards the coexistence of different powers even in a globally-enforced peace arrangement.

as others have pointed out, I did want to briefly mention the mid-game sag that makes the plot a little hard to follow. as mentioned previously, there's three chapters in the middle of the game that are self-contained intersituals centered on dangerous forces within the US. the Cloudman chapter is definitely the best of the three, thanks to how it draws parallels between religious cults and the cult of personalities around business tycoons (a too-easy real world example: elon musk's following vs the sketchy finances of his company tesla) all being seasoned to taste by the US intelligence community. a lot of this is conveyed through animated sequences as well, which are in a western style that reminds me of older Korn music videos for better or for worse. the Encounter chapter covers an organ trafficking operation as well as Dan Smith's backstory, which is fascinating with context from the supplementary material but doesn't cover much interesting ground in the game itself. finally, the Alter Ego chapter tosses some interesting ingredients into the mix such as government involvement in private media and corporate exploitation of creative works, but without enough time to simmer these threads feel too underdeveloped to analyze in detail. this chapter is animated in a more traditional anime style, though everyone's faces are lopsided in an exceedingly ugly way that I'm not sure was intentional. this middle section is very playable so it's not an immense drag on the game, but I feel like I have to bring up the faults as well as part of my honest opinion.

on the flipside, the gameplay is pretty easy to parse thanks to a nice heap of quality of life features and smart design decisions. as everyone probably knows, this game is controlled on rails with one button moving you forward and another moving you backwards. while it takes a bit to get used to, it's mapped to W and S on k+m as if it were WASD controls, and at the same time it keeps everything important directly in your path, keeping the player from missing an important item or objective. this also allows for creative camera angles when it isn't locked in the classic grasshopper manufacture worm's eye view perspective. in your way moving between areas are plenty of Heaven Smiles, which you can deal with in a first-person aiming mode reminiscent of a light gun game. enemies are initially invisible but have distinctive laughter that let you know when one is in the vicinity (a godsend considering the odd camera angles), and each can be scanned to visualize them and find weak points. I was surprised by the variety of enemies in this game, many of which encourage experimentation to determine the best way to take them down. minibosses can get annoying here or there, but once the mechanics are learned and you have a good grasp on your combat options it becomes more rewarding to encounter new enemies.

one of the big draws here are the switchable characters, both for puzzles and for combat. there are six that can be swapped between at will via the menu as well as Garcian, who is mainly used to revive other characters when they are killed. by sitting through all of the optional tutorials you can find out the ins-and-outs of each, though I did not do this and found that I was able to sus out their differences just from organic trial-and-error. each one has a unique method of combat that goes beyond simple differences in stats and instead alters the gunplay for each. getting a handle on each character's abilities is key, as most of the chapters lock some personalities behind a set amount of kills that you must meet, though generally it isn't difficult to unlock whichever ones you're missing. I personally focused on coyote in the early game thanks to his wide applicability to puzzles, fast reload time, and solid damage, and I eventually branched out to the others. dan is powerful in combat thanks to his collateral shot charge special, while kaede and mask are situationally useful for certain enemies that require precision aiming/large explosives respectively. the only one I didn't get a lot of juice out of is kevin: he can easily skip large groups of enemies with his invisibility but is rarely useful in puzzles and lacks the firepower of the other characters. then again, I can't fault the game too much for this considering that it was more personal choice that I chose not to use him.

beyond understanding the above mechanics, most of the game really consists of learning the language of the design concepts for each puzzles. when I first played this briefly on gamecube I was quickly confused by the abstract language, frequent codewords, overwhelming amount of abilities, and the unfamiliar combat. on returning though, I feel like I understood how each in-game mechanic maps to a classic game mechanic pretty well, ie thick blood = exp, thin blood = mana pool, warped guitar riff = unsolved puzzle, soul shard = plot coupon, gimp suit guy on wall = soul shard nearby, and so on. learning to separate out the random musings from the side characters from important puzzle hints is vital to getting by, though the puzzles aren't that hard to begin with. the majority just involve using the correct character ability or ring in the right place, and which you should use where can generally be figured out just from whether a given object is interactable or not. more complicated puzzles generally involve passcodes or tiny quizzes or other things that don't really take mental gymnastics to figure out, and there's a built-in character who will give you clear hints in exchange for thick blood/EXP. I'll mention the bosses here as well because they're all puzzles to some extent: they're hit and miss, but nothing terrible. a couple times I got a little confused on the mechanics of a given fight, but none of them are strenuous to the point of being frustrating. some of them are straight-up scripted, and the rest should be easy to deal with as long as you keep your characters leveled up.

some other quick bullet points I wanted to mention:
+so many people have already mentioned it, but I gotta bring up the sound design. the soundtrack is great front-to-back, sound effects are vibrant, and you can even pinpoint enemy positions thanks to the clever stereo panning at play here.
+upside of the steam port: this game feels really natural with k+m controls. downside: all of the FMVs are super compressed and look pretty ugly to be honest.
+the chapter selection menu is really fun, and I love the way that you shoot each target when the chapter is selected and they explode into particles.
+definitely read Hand in Killer7 after playing, it helped me organize my thoughts on the plot and it adds a lot of context that didn't make it into the final game
+the remnant psyches are all a joy to talk to, though I wish I could clicked through the dialogue at my own place sometimes. I initially thought they had animal crossing-style babble, but it seems like they actual speak from an alternative engrish script through a modulator? hard to tell, but neat nonetheless.
+I like the way the mad doctor holds his hands up while cooking up serum for you to level up your characters with, and how he bangs the machine when it stops working aka when you've produced as much serum as you can for a given level.

it's a singular, unique game that goes down smooth while also packing a lot of punch thanks to the amount of depth in its story. after my mixed experiences with no more heroes I think this is the game that really made me appreciate suda's work. I already want to hop back onto my gamecube save just to get that experience, and I'm excited to play his other early games that I've had sitting in my backlog for ages. none of them may unseat this game for me, but anything even approaching this level of quality would be worth playing in my book.