Daily Challenge - 2024-04-26
Score: 213 / 300
🟦🟦🟥 🟩 = 75 | R | Banjo-Tooie
🟩🟥🟩 🟥 = 59 | P | The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
🟦🟩🟧 🟩 = 79 | S | Unravel Two

Play @ https://howlongtobeat.com/play

I scored 142 / 300 playing HowLongToBeat: Daily Challenge

2024-04-21:
1. Home - 17 / 100 | Spread
2. Mega Man 5 - 75 / 100 | Reveal
3. The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening DX - 50 / 100 | Probe

Play @ https://howlongtobeat.com/play

I scored 183 / 300 playing HowLongToBeat: The Game - Daily Challenge

1. Persona 2: Innocent Sin - 60 / 100
2. The Evil Within - 44 / 100
3. Unravel - 79 / 100

Play @ https://howlongtobeat.com/play

Just never got to it before server closure :( Sounds like you confirmed that you can't even do single player without server connection so it went to the games list upstate.

Limited Run Games is doing a bunch of rereleases of older games. Some of the titles here are very surprising.

https://www.gematsu.com/2023/07/limited-run-games-announces-over-20-new-physical-releases-at-lrg3-2023

That's Alien Isolation.

killer7


Up to this point, I have never played a Suda51 game. For those who are unaware of who Suda51 is, he’s a game designer who has founded Grasshopper Manufacture, a game studio in charge of some absolutely insane video games that are among some of the strangest out there. Game’s like the one’s he’s helped create and produce are often among my favorites just due to how strange and crazy they are. In a world filled with a lot of games that just kinda feel very sameish, stuff like what is made by Grasshopper Manufacture is an absolute treat to play. Grasshopper Manufacture is behind many different game franchises such as Lollipop Chainsaw, No More Heroes, and Killer7. Killer7 is no different, as this is the first of this studio's many games I’m going to be checking out and talking about on this blog. Killer7 was released many years back on the GameCube as one of the infamous “Capcom 5”. The Capcom 5 were a set of 5 games that were to be exclusive to the GameCube, created by Capcom around the early 2000’s. The release of almost all of the games in the Capcom 5 was a disaster financially, except for Resident Evil 4. One of those failed releases was Killer7. As time has passed on, however, Killer7 has picked up a cult following and has picked up it’s own audience that really enjoys the game for what a weird trip it is. Back in 2018, Killer7 received a remastered port to steam, which is where I checked this game out. After sitting down and playing the game over the span of a few weeks, I can confidently say that I really liked Killer7 minus a few problems overall.

Killer7 has you play as the Smith family, a group of assassins that make up the Killer7. The Killer7 is run by an older man named Harman Smith, who you take care of as Garcian Smith throughout the plot. Throughout the game, you are tasked with a variety of assassinations that are linked to weird apparition-like creatures known as Heavens Smile. I’m going to keep it real with you all here, I don’t entirely understand what happened in Killer7’s confusing overall story, but I did quite like it. Each assassination is quite different from others as those chunks of the story range from incredibly dark subjects and portions involving child organ harvesting organizations, to incredibly goofy stuff like fighting a real-life group of power ranger assassins known as the Handsome Men. There is a lot going on with the story which makes it hard to fully understand, and normally that is a bad thing overall, but I actually quite enjoyed this aspect of killer7. The story makes just enough sense overall for the campaign to flow in an enjoyable surface-level way, but gets more confusing and complicated when you try to dig deeper into everything. Questions such as if the actions happening in the game are actually real, or if this is all a delusion is questioned multiple times through the chaos that is killer7’s story. There is also an overall political theme and message to parts of this game that are quite complicated and confusing overall, and remind me a lot of Metal Gear Solid. If I had one main complaint with the story overall, it mainly comes down to the various characters in the Smith Family. I would have liked a bit more time actually going over and giving backstory and characterization to the family members besides only really going into Dan, Mask, and Garcian as characters. Each member of the family oozes with their own style and character, which makes the fact that you don’t get a ton of who each Smith is a bit disappointing.


Gameplay for Killer7 is incredibly strange and kind of a mixed bag. I was originally going to play this game with the mouse and keyboard controls that came with the remastered version on Steam, but the Steam port does not explain or give you prompts with those controls mouse and keyboard, so I ended up playing this with a controller. I assume the gameplay would feel a bit better on mouse and keyboard, especially with the shooting, as overall the controls with a controller are a bit strange to get a hold on and annoying overall near the end of the game. Moving around each assassination in Killer7 is done almost entirely on rails, with occasional prompts on certain important bits that you need to interact with for progression. This gameplay may sound annoying and restrictive at first, but I ended up quite liking it by the end. It allows the game to make great use of its fixed camera, which is very reminiscent of older survival horror games. When going around each level you are able to interact with a variety of ghosts who give information on the assassination mission you are on, while sometimes aiding you with items for progression. My favorite of the ghosts was Travis, who just kind of hangs out and spots out theories and information about each assassination target. The ghosts also have this really cool voice filter that makes what they are saying come out sounding like complete nonsense with a few words from the text on screen sprinkled in. It makes them a lot more creepy overall, and I dig it. Also while exploring you will come across various different puzzles that range from pretty clever to incredibly basic run-of-the-mill survival horror stuff. One of the best puzzles was near the end of the Cloudman stage where I had to memorize certain details on a variety of movie posters to fill out a questionnaire. There are also a wide variety of puzzles that are only solvable with certain members of the killer7. For instance, some cracked walls can be destroyed by Mask de Smith’s, or areas where you need to take advantage of Con Smith’s speed to bypass certain enemies.

Another big part of the gameplay comes with the combat, which is where the biggest gameplay frustrations stem. If I could have figured out how to play this game on a keyboard and mouse, my opinion might have been a bit different since aiming with a mouse is much easier than with a controller. More or less, whenever you hear a creepy heavens smile laugh, or see a blurry thing in the distance, you need to aim your character and scan the surrounding to find the enemy. Once you do so, you need to aim your character's weapon at the heavens smile weak point and then shoot them there to kill them. If a heavens smile gets too close to you, they often lunge and explode which deals a massive amount of damage to the smith you are controlling. Whenever a smith is killed, you are sent back to the character select in a save room where you can either choose another Smith, or now play as Garcian Smith, who when you return to the point where your smith died, can retrieve them and revive them back at the save rooms. If Garcian dies, you receive a game over and have to go back to your previous save. Combat overall is pretty interesting and occasionally fun, but I often found it incredibly annoying with some of the many enemy types and the sluggish aim that comes with using a controller. Along with that some of the enemies and bosses have weak points that feel borderline impossible to hit due to their size and confusing location. There is a surprisingly large amount of different heavens smiles and they are almost all fun. Some of them such as the Protectors, Broken Smiles, and Roller Smiles absolutely suck. The boss fights in killer7 are a bit of a mixed bag with there being some really entertaining ones and some dreadful ones. My favorite fight was the whole scripted Handsome Men fight. It’s kind of hard to consider it a boss overall as everything is scripted, but it’s one awesome encounter overall. The worst was probably Shinya Akiba and Hiroyasu Kurahashi. In this, you need to kill these two guys who are reanimated after another character in the story blew their heads open with a gun. In this fight, you need to shoot them in their brains which is only visible after figuring out a puzzle based on shooting them at a particular point on their body. After doing such they reveal their brain to you for an incredibly short period of time before you need to repeat that again for another shot. Their brain I swear is only like 2 pixels on the screen, and is borderline impossible to aim at with a controller. You need to do all this while they hurl balls of some crap at you. This fight took me well over 45 minutes in a single attempt to finally shoot them down. All of this time was mostly spent trying to figure out how to get them in a vulnerable state while somehow being able to hit their separate brains. This fight sucks and is easily the hardest moment in the game.



Before wrapping this up, I do want to highlight the general presentation and art style of killer7. With it being a GameCube game, naturally that comes with the games looking a bit aged, but somehow killer7 looks quite amazing today thanks to the minimalist art direction. Most objects and surroundings are made up of low poly buildings and objects that often have simplistic colors and appearances. This all gives the game and the area’s this really cool appearance that is simplistic yet great. Pursuing this art style heavily benefits this game and gives it this signature look that makes everything here all the more memorable. I often don’t love fixed cameras in games, but Killer7 makes amazing use of it by taking advantage of weird camera angles that give this game an almost cinematic look. Killer7 is a delightfully bizarre experience that I would recommend to anyone looking for something interesting. It has its own flaws but I do think its positives make up for all of those issues.
8/10