Killer is Dead

The story of KiD has gone from the straight forward nature of Shadows of the Damned (Well, as straight forward as you get with Suda), back to the more obtuse style of Killer7. Upfront the story is a rather confusing mess, but as time goes on you begin to have a loose understanding of the events unfolding before you. By the end you come to realise that if you look past the eccentricities, what's left behind is a pretty standard plot. Make of that what you will.

The moon holds a corruptive force that is thrown about at the whim of a man named David, a man who dresses in a gold mankini thing with extra straps; with a cape and crown. Those touched by this corruption are transformed into beings known simply as Wires. You meet David in a mansion on the dark side of the moon which belonged to the client that hired you. You then arrive on the moon with the intentions of slaying him, but it doesn't exactly go to plan. So begins Killer is Dead.

Get all of that? To enjoy the story you have to accept that it's going to be weird and won't begin to try explaining it. You just have to go along with it. Of course the moon is evil, of course the main antagonist struts around with his exposed buttocks in the breeze, of course you fight what is in essence Thomas the bloody Tank Engine. Of course! It's most certainly not for everyone, if you can turn off that thinky thing we call a brain then you'll have a decent time.

Walking down this road of absurdity is the fantastically named Mondo Zappa. An assassin who works for an agency that exterminates monsters for a fee. As time progresses we discover that Mondo is suffering from a bit of amnesia (as you do), memories of events prior to joining the agency are missing. This is disconcerting to our hero to say the least. Mr Zappa also has, shall we say, a penchant for members of the opposite sex, which ties into one of the lesser modes of the game. Outside of Mondo, the characters that inhabit this world are rather one note to say the least. You never really learn anything about their histories or motivations. Bryan Roses your boss loves machinery, has a lackadaisical attitude towards the payment for the service that they provide and likes to laugh. Vivenne is the person that get's Mondo from place to place, gets annoyed when they don't get paid and... uh, that's about it. Mika, Mondo's assistant, is what someone who doesn't watch anime might think of if you asked them to think of an anime girl. Loud high pitched voice, limbs flailing with each sentence, enthusiastic to an annoying degree and sulky. Personally she didn't bother me too much, however I would understand if you wanted to throw your controller at the screen when she opens her mouth.

The story plays out across 12 episodes. Like No More Heroes, the cases aren't necessarily linked together, but there are ties to the overall narrative in most of them. Most play out as you'd expect. Make your way through rectangular and square rooms with numerous encounters and then fight a boss. Nothing particularly groundbreaking here, but it gets the job done. As basic and boxy as the levels are, they at least look good.

The bosses of Killer is Dead are a colourful bunch as you'd expect from a Grasshopper game. From zombie music moguls to killer trains; KiD isn't short of interesting adversaries. These bosses are more fun to behold than to fight for the most part. Not because the fights are bad as such, it's just that they're quite easy. Each boss is giving a little set up at the beginning of each mission. These are told through cutscenes done in a style similar to that of the 2D sections of Shadow of the Damned. They're quite well done for the most part, although I wish there was some more details for some of the bosses.

On the topic of difficulty, KiD is a surprisingly easy game for the most part. Death is a rarity and if it's cold hands ever embrace you there's a system to get you out of it. Instead of simply restarting from a checkpoint you have the option to revive yourself. By selecting this Mika will fall from the rafters and attempt to resuscitate Mondo. Mash square with all of your might and you'll be back on your feet in no time. These are limited to three per mission however you can buy more in the gift shop before entering a mission. If you run out then you'll have to continue from checkpoints only.

If there's one thing people can't deny about KiD it's that it has style. It's got style exploding out of every orifice. Many times I found myself just staring at the environments or struggling to concentrate on the fighting because of the symphony of colours, animation, lighting and sound that was overwhelming me with it's beauty. When you build up your combo, Mondo will begin to perform flashier attacks accompanied with the sword which begins to emanate blue and then purple streaks, enemies will violently explode into a cloud of purple smoke and the Perfect Dodge attack will turn the environment red and Mondo white as he relentlessly slashes his target. As gorgeous as the game can be, it's look can lead to a few problems. Dark locations for one. Doors get lost within the blueish abyss, which then required me to navigate the area by rubbing my face along the walls. Thankfully dark areas such as these are in the minority and when they do appear, tend to not last that long. More importantly, it can negatively impact the combat. Throwing in five or more melee enemies doing their own thing can make a battle quite hectic. You'd be forgiving for getting lost in the chaos. Making good use of the block and dodge will help in these instances, but it can be a nuisance.

Outside of the story, there are still some activities to partake in. These come in two forms. The first a series of challenges doled out by the nurse Scarlett who sits aloft on her floating hypodermic syringe. In order to acquire these challenges you have to find Scarlett throughout each mission. She's not exactly difficult to find, but it does add a pleasant distraction to the proceedings. There's a decent variety to the challenges. From the standard kill everything and combo challenges, to killing enemies in order from smallest to largest and killing specific enemies amongst big groups.

The second set of side quests are obtained through completing story missions. These take areas from the levels you've played and gives them a unique objective. In one you'll find yourself trying to light all the torches scattered throughout the level whilst your health depletes. In another your goal is to retrieve a pair of headphones and then make your escape under a time limit. These are all quite short and there's enough variety to them that they're worth playing. Plus you still get money and upgrade points from these.

Having plenty of stuff to do is all well and good, but you need some decent gameplay to make it worthwhile. As far as I concerned Killer is Dead has it. On it's face it's an extremely simple 3rd person action game to the point that you may think it going to be rather boring to play. I felt that way at first, then a few upgrades later that feeling went away. One of the first abilities you'll unlock is a handy dash, the upgraded form of this is in essence the stinger from Devil May Cry. This now means that you can zip across the battlefield with no break in the action, which maintains a pretty smooth and fast pace to the combat.

Other upgrades awaiting your hard earned upgrade points includes a useful counter. After a perfect block a prompt will appear for your counter attack, this launches your target into the air and keeps him suspended there for a short period of time. Surrounding enemies caught in the blast radius of the counter will find themselves propelled away from you, this gives you ample time to decimate the helpless foe in front of you. Along with your block is a dodge, as with the block there is a perfect version of the dodge. Get out of way at the last second and the game will slow down time and ask you to press the attack button. By doing so, Mondo will charge towards the unfortunate fellow that dared to attack, it is then your job to mash the attack button as hard and fast as you can. You can also use this on the gunner enemies, even if they're on the other side of the room. This is an incredibly simple yet surprisingly satisfying mechanic. And finally you have what is called an Adrenalin Attack. By holding R1 time will stop and with one tap of the attack button your target will be dead. You can bust this out anytime against fodder enemies, but the bigger and armoured units will require you to wear them down first.

Along with his trusty sword, Mondo also has the mechanical arm Muscleback at his disposal. In melee combat this is used as your guard breaker. On lesser enemies a tap will do the trick. Higher ranking opponents will look at you in disappointment as you feebly try to destroy their block with your pitiful attacks. For them you need the upgraded form which allows you charge the breaker. This will knock back the bigger enemies and floor smaller enemies including those with shields. The Muscleback can also be used as a gun, hold down L1 and you'll switch to an over the shoulder perspective with a crosshair now present in the middle of the screen, aim and press R1 to unleash your blood fueled rounds. Oh yeah, there's a blood meter. Don't worry we'll get there in a second. Along with the gun the arm can transform into three other weapons. A drill which can be used to destroy shields that some enemies carry, a gun that fires freeze rounds which slow enemies and a charge shot which when upgraded will kill everything everywhere. You can cycle through these anytime during combat with quick tap of R2. After a little time, the gunplay actually works quite well and you'll find yourself using it without thinking. When all of the systems are thrown together the combat quite simply feels good.

Now, the blood meter. In KiD blood makes the world go around, by world I mean Mondo. Basically, blood acts as fuel for Mondo's abilities. His firearms need it, the healing upgrade needs it and that lovely adrenalin attack requires one segment of it. The latter can be problematic since you need that attack to finish off certain enemies and bosses. This can lead to you not being able to finish a hard fought boss fight even though his life bar is empty. Thankfully you can replenish your blood at a decent rate so it's not the end of the world, but it can make the end of the fight a tad anti-climatic.

Not everything smells of blood roses in the combat though. My main problems centre around the camera. As I said the fights can get quite hectic and as a result keeping the camera focused on the action can be a fight unto itself. What the game uses instead of a lock-on is an auto-target system. This works well enough in normal encounters but as soon as you try to be precise it falls apart. Granted this is mainly a problem in the side challenges, precision isn't really required for the story or side missions. Many times I found myself attacking every enemy except the one I wanted to target. This problem became particularly aggravating during challenges involving killing specific enemies only, killing anything else would fail the challenge. Simply implementing a lock-on could have alleviated these problems. Why they chose not to I have no idea.

Along with the ability upgrades, you can also level up your health and blood meters, meaning more health and blood at your disposal. The reason I'm bringing these up is because of a neat little feature that appears during combat. When you have a high enough combo, a little circle will appear after killing an enemy. On this circle are four options, one for upgrade points, one for health upgrade points, one for blood meter upgrade points and finally one for a health re-fill. This is a pretty good incentive for you to do well since you'll level up at a much faster rate. It also allows you to progress how you want to progress, instead of being at the whim of the designated drops.

Now, unfortunately, there's a part of this game we have to talk about. The bloody Gigolo mode. For those not aware, in Gigolo mode you visit a girl and proceed to stare at her in a less than pleasant manner. Your end goal is to build up your chosen girl's heart meter through strategic gift giving. In order to give a gift you have to build up Mondo's Guts meter. You do so by doing the aforementioned ogling. Be careful not to get caught doing it though as you'll make your companion uncomfortable!

Your reward for completing this superfluous and awkward nonsense varies. The three alternate weapons come from these missions. The first available Gigolo mission gets two of the three weapons, the last comes from the third girl. If you're wondering why this split happened, it's because the second girl is the lovely nurse Scarlett we talked about earlier. Her Gigolo mission is actually the challenge room, so breast staring is at your own volition here. When not receiving compunctious weaponry, you'll receive a meager 50 upgrade points.

I didn't find this mode as off putting as some, but I can certainly see why some reacted the way that they did. That doesn't mean I'm okay with the thing of course, whilst is does fit in with the character it just doesn't add anything that isn't already said during the other non-pervy segments of the game. Thankfully these make up the smallest part of the game and only two of the three involve stealth peeping. These can be avoided entirely, but you'll probably want those extra weapons. It is what it is, for better and indeed for worse.

Killer Is Dead is an odd one to say the least. For some like myself, this will be an enjoyable foray in an incredibly stylish, peculiar and eccentric experience with a simple yet satisfying combat system. For others pretty much the antithesis of what I just said.

Oh well, can't please everyone.