Game Review | September 8, 2013 4:48 pm

By Meta

Released: August 27th, 2013
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: XSEED Games
Genre: third person action
Subgenre: a Suda51 trip
Players: 1
Rated: M for Mature (blood and gore, intense violence, sexual themes)

Goichi Suda, better known as Suda51, is the CEO of Grasshopper Manufacture. He and his team have developed a string of weird, wacky & interesting games that often have unusual stories and characters but are generally well-polished and fun--games including Killer7, No More Heroes, Shadows of the Damned, Lollipop Chainsaw, and now Killer is Dead.

Killer is Dead stars a quiet fellow named Mondo Zappa who begins the story by joining the Bryan's Executioner Office, a cyborg-led company that specializes in contract elimination of monsters. You have an assistant named Mika Takekawa, who is the stereotypical effervescent Japanese anime chick, and are sometimes aided in missions by the company president, Bryan Roses, and Vivienne Squall who is your direct superior & surprisingly handy with a gun.


The story starts off with a bang as you are immediately thrown in to an execution mission with introductions coming later. Most of the combat comes from sword techniques and managing the supply of blood it consumes, but Mondo also has a cybernetic left arm that is used as multiple subweapons and for hacking locked doors.

The swordplay starts off relatively simple with just 1 button for attacking and a 2nd for breaking enemy guard. As you progress, destroyed enemies drop crystals you use to upgrade your abilities and subweapons. When you strike enemies, your katana absorbs blood which you can use to either fire the gun modes of your left arm or perform 1-hit executions of enemies. The higher your hit count combo goes, the faster you swing and the more damage you do--once you get a feel for the timed blocks and counters, you can easily go over 100 hits, and at that point you will be moving around the battlefield extremely quick and obliterating enemies with a single hit.

Managing your blood skills during combat is fun, as you can choose how you want to execute an enemy and whether you get bonus crystals, health or blood from the vanquished foe. It can also be worthwhile to expend some blood firing your cannon's quick fire to headshot weaker enemies or using the freezeshot to slow down a quicker or larger foe. You also get a charged shot later that is incredibly overpowered even before you upgrade it; even the largest enemies and bosses take huge damage and are knocked back. Lastly, you get a drill mod for your arm that can augment your melee abilities and is also used to destroy certain wall sections to find secrets.


Outside of the unique and narrative-heavy boss sections, there is a nice array of 10 grunt enemies for you to fight, each having certain techniques & attacks that work better than others as well as variations that show up later. You often fight these enemies in large, mixed groups, giving the game a God of War/Devil May Cry feel. You have an assortment of evasions, blocks and counters right from the start that can also be upgraded, so the game never feels unfair or cheap--skill and battlefield awareness will win you every fight on every difficulty.

Speaking of difficulty, there are 4 total, all available from the game's start. The default "normal" feels just right to me for introducing you to the game's combat flow & enemy tactics, and you can re-do missions on higher difficulties after completing the story instead of having to make a whole new save file. Also, since all upgrades carry over, you don't have to worry about getting everything in one go. There is an "easy" mode which lets you block and counter with the same button you attack with, and this would be good for people that just want to experience the story. Hard and Very Hard aren't actually much more difficult than Normal thanks to the upgrades you get, but it is a bit annoying that they don't stack so you have to complete the game at least 3 times for completion.

In most levels, there is a sexy nurse named Scarlett that hides in some weird places. Finding her unlocks challenge missions you can play for extra money & upgrades, and finding her hiding spots serves as the game's only "collectible" which is nice.


Between the story/execution levels, you also have Gigolo Missions to go on. These involve you going on a date with a female, staring creepily at her chest & crotch when she isn't looking, then building up the guts to give her a present. Mechanics-wise, these are very shallow gameplay segments since it is a simple process of looking away when they look at you, then ogling them as soon as they look away. You have to purchase the presents with cash earned from regular missions, and they are incredibly expensive--who pays $10,000 for a pack of chewing gum?? Once you get the special glasses (either from doing Scarlett's challenges or from the DLC code included in launch copies) you can figure out what gifts the particular female will like, plus you get to see through their outer clothing.

These "gigolo missions" are meant to convey a sort of James Bond 007-like feel to Mondo, but they come across as distractions at best. You are rewarded with nice bonus items, money and PG-13 sex scenes, but I would at least have liked some conversation options or something. Folks have speculated that the shallow, pervy nature of these missions is meant to parody dating sim games but they seem to take themselves so seriously that it just falls flat.


TL;DR:
+ Fast, frenetic combat
+ Dramatic, weird story & characters
+ Great use of cel-shaded visuals
+ Interesting soundtrack that mixes classical, jazz and electronic
+ Scarlett is the only "collectible" you need to find
+ The charged shot is hilariously OP
- The charged shot is hilariously OP
- Difficulties don't stack for completions
- Will feel either too short or too grindy
- Gigolo missions are shallow (in terms of gameplay )
? the story is WTF i don't even

Overall I give Killer is Dead an 8--the combat is fun and the story is different enough to keep you invested, but the main campaign is too short outside of challenges, and starts to feel grindy on your 3rd playthrough.

If there was more to do in this game that wasn't just mini-challenge sections, it would get a higher score. It is very well made, like every other Suda51 game I've played. When describing them to friends, I often call them "games for gamers" because people who enjoy an assortment of genres and have been playing video games on multiple systems for years will find a lot to enjoy; Suda's games are at their best when you savor them.

Achievements are straightforward and the only difficult ones will be finishing every mission with AAA ranking and possibly finding & completing all of Scarlett's challenges. You will need a huge amount of money but this is just time-consuming, not hard.

There are no extras for your avatar but all launch copies of the game in North America got a free upgrade to the limited edition, which means they come with a nice 80+ page hardcover art book, a soundtrack cd, and a DLC code for the Gigolo Glasses, 2 extra costumes, an extra story mission and an extra Gigolo mission.

Reviewed: KILLER IS DEAD™

Keywords: None