Trailer videos and suda fans will make Killer7 seem pretty cool! Then you play it. It's first impression is a gnarly one. Everything feels stiff, lots of going back and forth to get the fire ring and gate keys, game systems and mechanics are bizarre- as are the cutscenes. Nothing wrong with a little intrigue but this game drowns in confusion.
It's hard to think "Whoa, these Killer7 guys are COOL!!!" when you are reading slow NPC dialog or the awkward in-game cutscenes. Everyone talks like an insane rambler. Sometimes interesting, but mostly boring. Hard to latch on-to what the character is saying when it's just nonsense. It's almost comical but it's not even funny.
The game is just UGLY, I'm sorry. Cell shading should help the game from aging too bad, but it does the opposite I fear. The menus and UI look way better than the stone faced character models.
The element rings. What a boring and needless addition. As you gather more rings, you never need to collect them again. So you'll run into an "Obstacle" that requires a ring you'll already have. By the second half of the game you'll have them all! At that point it's just "press the action button to press a switch" with extra steps. You can either trial and error all the rings if it isn't obvious enough or save yourself some time and use the map.
The map. The map is so good for just telling you what character skill or element ring is the solution for any puzzle. The fact there isn't any "You are here!" indicators on the map tells me that was their way of balancing it. While it turns "puzzles" into mush, the player could use the extra help so I'm still glad it's in.
The blood system is kinda wack. I get the idea, right. Make killing enemies worth a damn else the player just runs through the level as invisible Kevin. But what they came up with are "Character specific environment actions cost blood" "puzzle hints cost blood" "Healing costs blood" "leveling up character stats cost blood" "Combat specials cost blood" "waking up certain personalities requires a minimum kill count to awaken, varying per stage." The game is pretty linear though and enemies respawn frequently. Some levels you don't even need to think about how much blood you have, you're overflowing with it or you'll be looping a few same rooms to get by. It's not the worst thing ever but it just feels unnecessary... certainly wish the game explained it better.
The combat is kinda fun? There's a few enemy types that go beyond "a fun challenge" and go into "annoying as hell just turn invisible and run through them" territory, the biggest offenders are the boss fights. Parry timing is fun to pull off and I'm glad there's infinite ammo. Landing consecutive weakpoint shots feels pretty nice!
This game was rushed to save the gamecube, I get that. grasshopper had a way bigger vision for the game than this. Unfortunately, what we got is just not good.
It's hard to think "Whoa, these Killer7 guys are COOL!!!" when you are reading slow NPC dialog or the awkward in-game cutscenes. Everyone talks like an insane rambler. Sometimes interesting, but mostly boring. Hard to latch on-to what the character is saying when it's just nonsense. It's almost comical but it's not even funny.
The game is just UGLY, I'm sorry. Cell shading should help the game from aging too bad, but it does the opposite I fear. The menus and UI look way better than the stone faced character models.
The element rings. What a boring and needless addition. As you gather more rings, you never need to collect them again. So you'll run into an "Obstacle" that requires a ring you'll already have. By the second half of the game you'll have them all! At that point it's just "press the action button to press a switch" with extra steps. You can either trial and error all the rings if it isn't obvious enough or save yourself some time and use the map.
The map. The map is so good for just telling you what character skill or element ring is the solution for any puzzle. The fact there isn't any "You are here!" indicators on the map tells me that was their way of balancing it. While it turns "puzzles" into mush, the player could use the extra help so I'm still glad it's in.
The blood system is kinda wack. I get the idea, right. Make killing enemies worth a damn else the player just runs through the level as invisible Kevin. But what they came up with are "Character specific environment actions cost blood" "puzzle hints cost blood" "Healing costs blood" "leveling up character stats cost blood" "Combat specials cost blood" "waking up certain personalities requires a minimum kill count to awaken, varying per stage." The game is pretty linear though and enemies respawn frequently. Some levels you don't even need to think about how much blood you have, you're overflowing with it or you'll be looping a few same rooms to get by. It's not the worst thing ever but it just feels unnecessary... certainly wish the game explained it better.
The combat is kinda fun? There's a few enemy types that go beyond "a fun challenge" and go into "annoying as hell just turn invisible and run through them" territory, the biggest offenders are the boss fights. Parry timing is fun to pull off and I'm glad there's infinite ammo. Landing consecutive weakpoint shots feels pretty nice!
This game was rushed to save the gamecube, I get that. grasshopper had a way bigger vision for the game than this. Unfortunately, what we got is just not good.
SanjuroDjango
3 months ago