KILLER IS DEAD
So I had a dream about being an Assassin who fights Moon monsters and I had a robotic arm but nothing I did or what was happening made sense nor was explained to me. Oh wait that wasn’t some dream or even a acid trip that was Killer is Dead. The new Suda 51 game yay! See folks I don’t know if you know this about me but your fellow gamer Brandon is a Suda 51 fanboy. I love yes people love his work, I have this ability to look past ganky controller schemes and super crazy stories and just have a blast. In fact the only game of his I couldn’t get into was No More Heroes just because it was a piss poor port on the PS3.
Many people have asked me, “Brandon what in the hell is Killer is Dead about?” and I can give no simple answer. It’s about this guy named Mondo who is an Executioner and for a government agency and he kills monsters for money. That is about as rudimentary of an answer that I can give. Is it a correct answer? Sorta, this game is so goddamn crazy and does so little to explain what is happening that I truly didn’t understand the root of the story until the last 4 levels of the damn game. They literally drop you in the game and you just kill this child molesting looking creeper, you know the guy you’d see at the park alone staring at the kids. Yeah that guy but with a cyborg arm, and you walk slowly up to him like the fucking Terminator and cut off his head. The whole game gets crazier and crazier you actually fight a train called Tom. I give it one praise towards the end of game when they finally explain who you are and what happened to you I was actually rather invested in the story. The ending is true to Suda 51’s status where you really don’t see it coming until it is there and I just loved it.
The characters are what help keep the game going, like how most the games are they have some colorful ass characters. Bosses included, you get a badass Yakuza boss fight, along with fighting Alice in Wonderland. I wish I could make this shit up and they are all interesting not your run of the mill oh I am the boss on level three try and stop me muhhaaa. Mondo who is the main character was a little less interesting he was your typical white protagonist with a semi-gravelly voice who cuts up all the villain with his sword made of adamantium. Seriously that thing can cut through some pretty thick material, yet oddly enough not any material it is rather picky. The worst absolute worst character was his sidekick named Mika. She is some teenage girl who is the most annoying character I’ve seen since Harley Quinn. She has an annoying high pitch squeal of a voice and acts like she is fucking two. Literally throws hissy fits and cries all the goddamn time. I just wanted at the end of this game for Mondo to grab her and scream shut up, shut up, just shut the fuck up. While he slowly shoves his sword into her stomach.
The gameplay is what I hear most everyone bitch about, and all I can say it is actually one of Suda’s best functioning titles. This is a hack n slash game plain and simple. It’s not as polished as say DMC but it isn’t bad in the slightest. It actually is rather fun because it is so simple you have a slash button, dodge and counter button and special moves button, this is a simple mechanic that works really well. The game even has multiple level up systems in play at once. You can collect blood to level up well your blood, which is the key to your special moves. You can level up your health with blue diamonds you find. You find these things in the world by breaking shit so it is all automatic and makes collection actually worth your while. Last you pick up these yellow gems that you can use to manually upgrade to new moves and abilities. I do have one huge problem with this game, that is these Gigolo missions. These missions consist of you hitting on girls by staring at them long enough to be able to have the courage to hand them a present. At the end of this Mondo sleeps with them and you win. Why would you do that you ask? Well my friend the only way to earn these special abilities like drill arm and ice gun are to do these pointless missions. Technically no you can skip them entirely but you will be making the game so, soooo, much harder than it needs to be.
Last thing I would like to talk about is the graphics, the cell fucking shaded graphics. Now I know this is a big thing with Grasshopper games but jesus this was without a doubt the most annoying cell shading I’ve ever seen. At times it serious looked like my computer screen was at an angle that I could hardly see you know that dark as hell angle it can be at. That at times got so bad I could not tell what was going on.. Now I know developers will go with cell shading to avoid having extremely bad graphics or just to look cartoony and that’s fine. But for the love of god make the thing brighter please for me I won’t care I promise.
In closing I have to say the game has flaws it isn’t perfect and hell it is hard for me to recommend this to anyone. Suda 51 fans like me already got the game and have played it so I can’t recommend this to them and your average to even hardcore gamer would take one look at this and think what the fuck. So if you would like to try a crazy game I can only say rent it, but I warn you take advisement to everything I’ve said and don’t come bitching to me
about those things. I give this rating for people who are like me and love Suda games no matter what. I give this a low B-.
Many people have asked me, “Brandon what in the hell is Killer is Dead about?” and I can give no simple answer. It’s about this guy named Mondo who is an Executioner and for a government agency and he kills monsters for money. That is about as rudimentary of an answer that I can give. Is it a correct answer? Sorta, this game is so goddamn crazy and does so little to explain what is happening that I truly didn’t understand the root of the story until the last 4 levels of the damn game. They literally drop you in the game and you just kill this child molesting looking creeper, you know the guy you’d see at the park alone staring at the kids. Yeah that guy but with a cyborg arm, and you walk slowly up to him like the fucking Terminator and cut off his head. The whole game gets crazier and crazier you actually fight a train called Tom. I give it one praise towards the end of game when they finally explain who you are and what happened to you I was actually rather invested in the story. The ending is true to Suda 51’s status where you really don’t see it coming until it is there and I just loved it.
The characters are what help keep the game going, like how most the games are they have some colorful ass characters. Bosses included, you get a badass Yakuza boss fight, along with fighting Alice in Wonderland. I wish I could make this shit up and they are all interesting not your run of the mill oh I am the boss on level three try and stop me muhhaaa. Mondo who is the main character was a little less interesting he was your typical white protagonist with a semi-gravelly voice who cuts up all the villain with his sword made of adamantium. Seriously that thing can cut through some pretty thick material, yet oddly enough not any material it is rather picky. The worst absolute worst character was his sidekick named Mika. She is some teenage girl who is the most annoying character I’ve seen since Harley Quinn. She has an annoying high pitch squeal of a voice and acts like she is fucking two. Literally throws hissy fits and cries all the goddamn time. I just wanted at the end of this game for Mondo to grab her and scream shut up, shut up, just shut the fuck up. While he slowly shoves his sword into her stomach.
The gameplay is what I hear most everyone bitch about, and all I can say it is actually one of Suda’s best functioning titles. This is a hack n slash game plain and simple. It’s not as polished as say DMC but it isn’t bad in the slightest. It actually is rather fun because it is so simple you have a slash button, dodge and counter button and special moves button, this is a simple mechanic that works really well. The game even has multiple level up systems in play at once. You can collect blood to level up well your blood, which is the key to your special moves. You can level up your health with blue diamonds you find. You find these things in the world by breaking shit so it is all automatic and makes collection actually worth your while. Last you pick up these yellow gems that you can use to manually upgrade to new moves and abilities. I do have one huge problem with this game, that is these Gigolo missions. These missions consist of you hitting on girls by staring at them long enough to be able to have the courage to hand them a present. At the end of this Mondo sleeps with them and you win. Why would you do that you ask? Well my friend the only way to earn these special abilities like drill arm and ice gun are to do these pointless missions. Technically no you can skip them entirely but you will be making the game so, soooo, much harder than it needs to be.
Last thing I would like to talk about is the graphics, the cell fucking shaded graphics. Now I know this is a big thing with Grasshopper games but jesus this was without a doubt the most annoying cell shading I’ve ever seen. At times it serious looked like my computer screen was at an angle that I could hardly see you know that dark as hell angle it can be at. That at times got so bad I could not tell what was going on.. Now I know developers will go with cell shading to avoid having extremely bad graphics or just to look cartoony and that’s fine. But for the love of god make the thing brighter please for me I won’t care I promise.
In closing I have to say the game has flaws it isn’t perfect and hell it is hard for me to recommend this to anyone. Suda 51 fans like me already got the game and have played it so I can’t recommend this to them and your average to even hardcore gamer would take one look at this and think what the fuck. So if you would like to try a crazy game I can only say rent it, but I warn you take advisement to everything I’ve said and don’t come bitching to me
about those things. I give this rating for people who are like me and love Suda games no matter what. I give this a low B-.