In gaming, we rarely come across titles with as deep and complex of a plot as that found in Killer7, which is both this game's primary draw, and where some of its strongest faults derive from. Killer7 is a game by the...interesting Suda51 and his development company, Grasshopper Manufacture. Its premise was to creatively, and artistically, tell a story of conspiracy, lies, government relations, and the assassin syndicate involved in the matter. Throughout the game, you will play primarily as six of the members of the assassin syndicate Killer7, all who have different styles of weapons, and different abilities to help you through the game. Firstly, the gameplay should be brought up. People who are expecting a first person shooter are going to be disappointed by this game, because it is simply NOT built as a first person shooter, nor does it really play like one. The gameplay is most akin to that of classic adventure games like Myst, where you travel about a world on set paths, come across puzzles to help advance you along, and move to reach your final goal to advance the story. In this game, however, most of these puzzles are quite simplistic, which is countered by the fact that as you are exploring and delving into the game, you have to deal with invisible enemies known as "Heaven's Smiles." This comprises of the primary action aspect of the gameplay. When moving around, you will hear laughter, indicating the presence of an enemy nearby. At this point, you go first person by holding the right trigger, scan the area to make the invisible enemies visible, then proceed to shoot them down, attempting to hit critical points to gain the most blood from the enemy. Blood gained not only allows you to do special attacks, but it also is used to help boost stats for your characters. It adds a nice touch for the player to boost up his/her favorite character, but you'll end up using most of the characters frequently, as the game forces you to use most all of them due to obstacles in the game that only one of the characters can address. This causes you to frequently go to the start menu to reselect characters again and again just to get through areas, and can get ultimately frustrating. As an FPS, this game is hardly passable...as a unique approach to an adventure game, it's interesting, but still not quite perfect. This game's story is quite brilliant, with strong use of symbolism and metaphors to describe issues in culture and international relations. On the other hand, there are very noticeable plot holes in the progression of the game, with some making the player ask him/herself, "What the...what does this have to do with anything!?" These moments are most distinct after one finishes the game, and realizes that such moments neither were brought up enough, nor were they resolved in a clear manner before the game is done. This results in the player resorting to have to speculate as to how these plot fragments line up, which is both fun to talk about, but frustrating to argue, as some holes have little evidence to clear up any specific point/solution. Essentially, Suda51's problem was trying to fit too many elements into this game, and ended up sacrificing a shorter, but more coherent, story for a longer, and rather confusing one in its place. Granted, this isn't so horrible that it makes the game impossible to understand/have fun with, but it is still distinctly noticeable. The last issue to talk about is in the artistic direction, which was good for the most part, except for one thing that just really didn't make as much sense as it should: Anime cutscenes at several points in the game. While these cutscenes were fun to watch, their existence (aside from one chapter of the game) did not make sense in regards to significance in any sort of metaphorical way, or logical in how they were applied, realistically. I still scratch my head when some of these appear, thinking, "Why didn't they just do an in game rendering of this scene?" This isn't an extremely horrible issue, but it is quite distinctly there, none-the-less. Despite these flaws, many things in the game were done quite right. The general artistic style of the rendering was interesting, unique, and effective for the world the game was set in. The character design was great, with distinct characters appearing frequently throughout the game, with the most distinct being the dozen that were central to the gameplay and story throughout the title. In addition, the audio department really did a fine job on this game, with music, sound design, and voice acting all being rather spot on, making the story come to life more in the cutscenes. In the end of the day, this game does many things right, but enough things wrong to keep it from really being a spectacular title. If the gameplay was a bit more engaging, the story had a bit less stuff going on in it for the sake of coherence, and the art direction was a bit more unified and consistent across the board, this could have been one of the single best games of the year. I had an incredible time experiencing this title, and I hope Suda51 attempts to do another game in this style in the future, if only to polish off the rough spots, and give the gaming world a gem that will shine through as a new standard in style and storytelling. If you are interested in deciphering a complex, deep story, while having some fun with the unique, hybrid style of gameplay, this game should satisfy you. However, if you are expecting a gritty, fact action FPS, stray far from this title, as it won't suit you at all.
Let me start by saying that Killer 7 isn't a game for everyone. It's unique controls, crazy art style and bizarre storyline will likely deter many potential players. But it's obvious this game wasn't designed with mass-m... Read Full Review
Killer 7 is perhaps one of the most confusing games I have ever played. However that may be that shouldn't deter you from at least giving this original game a try. Killer 7 accomplishes something that most game developer... Read Full Review
