Killer 7 is kind of like running through an interactive schizophrenic episode. Events don't flow logically from one to another, bright environments seem dark and bleak, your motives and goals are inconsistent and arbitrary, the senses are basically lying to you, inappropriate emotional outbursts punctuating long sequences of dullness, and there's a whole mess of violence and laughter. The player is made to feel like they've gone mad, and are just along for the ride. I love it.
Well... that's one way to start the day productively. Seriously enjoyed this because it's a game that's baffled me but I never understood why. It's a very fascinating analysis and interpretation. It's bizarre I have a history with this game... In that, I couldn't finish it because it gave me a headache. I don't hold it against it, I was around 12 years old and simply couldn't comprehend what was going on... But I kinda want to check it out again because I've been on a classics binge recently.
I always saw Killer7 as a Horror game where the horror is the absurd reality of the modern day. To view what we are used to seeing from an extreme perspective, a perspective from one that hasnt been grown in this culture.
I will say one thing about Killer7: Whether you think it's a brilliant masterpiece or insufferably pretentious, you sure as hell never forget it. And ultimately I think that's what Suda 51 was aiming for.
On clunky mechanics enhancing the narrative experience: the fact that Kaede is scripted to die when she reloads during the Handsomemen boss fight, which is something you've absolutely experienced if you've ever tried to reload in the middle of a fight as Kaede, is such a good punchline. Using the actual mechanical experience to communicate a joke. God I love this game
I bought this for the GameCube the day it came out. I used to visit my best friend's house and we'd smoke a spliff or two and dive into the insanity that is Killer7. We loved it, but as you allude in this video we were often overcome by the sheer WTF-ness of it all, but quickly realised that was the beauty of it. To this day, Killer7 is one of my all time favourite games.
Why is the GameCube version better? I've just ordered the GameCube version (haven't played the game before) and didn't know that there were differences
I just recently learned what Dissociative Identity Disorder really is like, and it's making me see a whole new level to this game. The Gatekeeper, soul shells, Harman's room...either it's all a happy coincidence or the amount of detail in this game is even further beyond what I thought.
Articulating what makes Killer7 so fascinating has always been an interesting challenge. It certainly conveys a particular feel that holds up some strange appeal, yet its unconventional and genre-bending nature makes hard to define it. Personally I like to think Killer7 is about the sensation as opposed to context alone. Like a drug of absurdity. Love your channel, by the way. I found out about it after Ryan Hollinger mentioned it.
This is a game that shines as the absolute best reason to prioritize game preservation. A game like this never should have been made, and the fact that it exists is a beautiful anomoly, the kind of thing that really is anathema to better business sensibilities. And to date, i don't know if there is a way to obtain this game digitally in a legal way. I find it troubling, because this is the kind of mindless originality you don't find terribly often outside of the work of David Lynch. This game should be taught as art, and it troubles me just how few people have been exposed to it, and how few WILL be exposed to it as time goes on.
Probably the best thing the game is doing how it handles its characters. We dont know anything or very little about Mask, Kevin KAEDE, Dan, Coyote but they are instantly likeable just from their looks, abilities and quotes alone. You have other videogame characters with more stories, but you dont remember them. Killer 7 gives very little in characterization but those character sure as hell stick with you.
Best game ever, plot, incomprehansable story, mechanics, characters, everything. It make me really happy to see that there are people that appreciate this game, back in the day I told all my friends about this game and no one liked it, just me and for some reason made me feel like it was my treasure haha. Great video man, hope u keep giving us great content. All da way from Mexico I salute you!
The Silver Case is essentially the same kind of story, only in a more visual novel/puzzle game format. I need to finish it. What I played up to that point was really good and kept getting better. Same thing with Flower, Sun, and Rain, which was a spin-off of Silver Case. It had an undeniable offbeat style with samey puzzles that shouldn't have worked, but it was the DS game I kept putting back in at the end of the day. Suda51 during that point in his career was a lot like David Lynch in that he used his bizarre dreamlike imagery and personal style to tell a very bizarre story in a way that nobody else has. Silver Case especially felt like a David Lynch production, especially when it came to Lynch's views on cops.
I played this game when I was like 12 years old. Me and my cousins would sit around and try to make a story for the characters because we didn't understand what the fuck was happening. Sometimes we were too scared to progress lol. Completed it in the end, though. It really is an amazing game. Awesome vid btw dude!
Even if they try to bill a videogame to have a "great story", I no longer bother to get my hopes up because they're always disappointing to me. It's all because of killer7 - no other videogame can ever compare the experience I had with this fantastic and one of a kind game.
Great video. I played Killer7 when it came out on Gamecube and couldn't stop playing it until I had finished it. It honestly is one of my favourite pieces of art of all time. Yes, not just games, art. Obviously it's opinion, but in the video you said the narrative wasn't enjoyable, but I honestly found it really enjoyable from start to finish. Sure, it's a mess, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it. I was going to say it's far from a perfect game, but I actually think it's very close to being a perfect game. The only real issues I had were a few of the puzzles being so vague I didn't know what to do (this may be less of an issue now that I'm not 17 and hopefully a little smarter) and a few of the areas where you can get surrounded being almost impossible to deal with unless you knew in advance what you'd be up against. To a lesser degree I made the game more difficult for myself as I overly relied on Con and Kevin Smith, so when I couldn't use either of them, my other characters were massively underpowered. Oh man, I could reminisce about this game for ages. Hopefully my laptop can run it in an emulator. It was a sad day when I sold my Gamecube and could no longer play this (but I kept it regardless) and then a sadder day when I sold my Wii and the game with it.
If you want to see killer7 remastered for this gen consoles please consider signing this petition i started. maybe we can stir something up. thanks guys! www.ipetitions.com/petition/killer-7-hd-remaster
The talk of the recent Steam port’s brought this game back to my attention. I have a pattern: I see a new game’s hook and promo material, wonder at the mystery of it, but can’t afford to buy it for myself for years, sometimes over a _decade._ In that time, the game mythologizes in my mind, like so many other secrets that a young person’s barred from engaging in. Then I finally buy it, it infodumps plot on me and establishes a gameplay and narrative loop that takes the magic away. Its systems are so transparent that optimal strategies emerge and I just plow through to the end, even if I’m doing my best to explore and faff about, waste time and break things along the way, to squeeze some amount of mystery from the repetition. By putting your finger on the defamiliarization - by emphasizing the _mechanical importance of confusion_ - you’ve helped me name what exactly I’ve been looking for. I’ve always been a sucker for games with completely novel systems, even if they’re a bit unwieldy. The fact that you have to pay attention to the tutorial and can’t just snap into another game’s frame of mind is its own draw, and Killer 7 looks like it pushes that beyond the extreme. It builds an entire game around figuring out what the hell you’re even looking at.
Great to see a nicely researched bit of analysis on Killer7. I wish there were more games with that nonconformist approach to everything. Even Goichi Suda's newest games seem to pander to lowest common denominator audiences nowadays to get through to the big publishers.
One of the things that makes Hand in Killer7 less useful for understanding the plot than one would hope is that it was, supposedly, based on an earlier version of the game's plot.
This was absolutely phenomenal, you put so eloquently and succinctly to words what i'd been feeling about this awesome game. I hope everyone watches this videos and goes to play Killer7
Aw, thank you! That means a lot. I'm still proud of this video and Killer7 remains one of my all-time favourites, so it's nice to know that people are still watching!
its simple commentary on politics and sociology is perfectly hidden with its abstract art. thats what i want. thats what i got. its amazing. suda51 at his finest
the fact that the game is an on rails survival puzzle horror comedy dramatic sci-fi supernatural filmesque experience piece with the designers from resident evil and minish cap and okami ALL in the same room playing around to make a game means i recommend it to everyone. its scary. its disturbing. its hilarious. its exciting. and its challenging.
One of my favorite games visually as a kid. It intrigued me like nothing else, in the same way Manhunt did. I had no idea as to anything that was going on in it though, but that art style, and the general overarching style is fantastic. Stylistic in a Sid and Nancy sort of way, it's just visually cool superficially even if you have no idea as to anything else going on.
“The story ends up being the design document and the framework for the entire game and its gameplay. They’re really one and the same. If somebody came to me and said you had to separate those two things, I don’t think I’d be able to create a game.” Suda51 I think one of my favorite things about Suda's work is the trend of gameplay as part of the narrative. The money grind in NMH, the constant walking on Lospass Island in Flower, Sun, and Rain. I truly can't think of anyone else who has married the two so closely.
It's pretty hard to summarize Killer7 but the impression i got from it is that it was trying to suggest that our world is as fragile and unstable as the assassin's state of mind. But of course, there is allot to discover . It's a shame that Suda51 will never make a game like Killer7 ever again.
@@paulakroy2635 I love NMH1, and TSA has its moments with it being a dev biography of sorts. The Silvercase games are very good too. Curious to see how NMH3 turns out.
As many have said - fantastic video with many interesting points on the game. The only issue I'd say is that the "subversion" of the trailer is clearly not intentional as the publisher would put together the marketing materials rather than the developer. I'd honestly be incredibly surprised if Capcom didn't create trailers / promotional materials that made the game look different because they were concerned that a slow paced methodical art game would sell poorly rather than doing it the other way around to create an artistic effect. Other than that - great video!
I'm glad I found this post but sad that I haven't seen it sooner. _Killer7_ has stuck in my head as one of the most strikingly unique games I've ever played. There is one game that comes very close, and that is _El Shaddai_. I tried to explain the game to others after I played it and replayed it several times eventually completing it at least 2 times. And I realized that if I told them the general plot, it was equivalent to the marketing that the studio did. It would bring certain expectations and ultimately disappoint people who aren't prepared to be subverted. Ultimately, I had to only describe the video game as video game designed for art's sake. And for people who don't have a background or study in art, immediately are repelled by the idea. But that's the thing with this game. I find myself drawn to pieces of media that completely subvert the media they would normally be classified by, or parody it but also give it a warming embrace. Or sometimes the media just leaves me either so puzzled or uncomfortable. I seem to be drawn towards that. I think when I purchased the game I was given a warning about its weirdness (and I think the store clerk was trying to be nice). But at that time, I was really sick of gaming cliques. I was like a game had to fit one of the 10 pre-determined boxes that existed at the time. Action-RPG, platformer (further broken down to 2d or 3d, but at the time of _killer7_ release, if you weren't 3d you didn't get published), FPS, 3rd person action/shooter, RTS, puzzle, casual, racing, sports, sim. Anything else wouldn't get published. So I was ready for anything described as 'different' or 'bizarre'. Just do a search for video games of 2005, and you will see a very predictable and narrow pattern of titles. There were games that showed up previously, and after that were wonderful and complete pieces of art. For example, _Vib Ribbon_, _Parappa the Rapper_, _Katamari Damacy_, _Braid_, and everything that Edmund McMillen has made. Yeah, while MGS subverted us a bit, and caused us to scratch our heads, it was just only for some stark moments, and I think was just easy patches for their overly convoluted storytelling. _Killer7_ was just so abrasive and different at the time, it just made it either captivating or annoying to someone. For example, like I said, I can sometimes really like being challenged or subtly subverted. The most abrasive film I've ever seen is "Enter The Void". I've never finished it. And I've seen some fudkec pup films. But I recently got surprised by the indie film "Drib". "Drib" is a documentary about a mockumentary, about a fake ad campaign, built around a performance artist pretending to be a violence viral video creator, supposedly based around on actual events that happened involving an anonymized energy drink company. Throughout the film, you can never tell if this was all real or bullchips. But overall, undernneath it, was a general artistic critique of film, TV, nodern advertising and documentary making. Killer7 seems to really pull you in with many different hooks. Is it a critique of video games? Is it a criticism of US foreign policy? On war? On sensational violence? On media and news? On expectations? For a long time I've felt alone thinking that I experienced a video game, in its whole as a rather impactful piece of art. That doesn't mean that I understand it or extrapolate any meaning to it. I t just means that the experience was memorable, impactful, and challenging. And at the end a great time. I'd have to compare it to the film "Upstream Color", a follow up film to the very creative and groundbreaking indie sci-fi darling "Primer". The movie is strange, uncomfortable, and moving. It captured me and made me feel things. But I can't begin to describe those feelings. As I mentioned earlier, the only other piece of game as artwork I've experienced similar to that is _El Shaddai_. Quite a peculiar and strange title that is based on the Apocrypha Hebrew story in the "Book of Enoch". The original biblical outtake was very apt for a video game, or even an anime series. A story about a mortal named Enoch, who is blessed by God, to become the Metatron (I'm not kidding), sort of a semi-immortal superhero. He is then tasked to destroy the fallen angels, and the Nephilim (offspring of angels and humans, which are hilariously animated as giant hotdog like creatures), otherwise God will decide to flood the earth and wipe out most of humanity (see Noah and his Ark). So, an epic, tale old as time. But this game gies you nothing of that. It's based on some weird rock-paper-scissors button mashing. The animation styles change several times, from 3d to 2d, realistic to abastract, to classical to cartoons. The characters are hilarious. One of the fallen angels is like a Michael Jackson wannabe that dances when you fight him and Lucifiel (bad translation of Lucifer) provides running commentary on your exploits over cell phone to god (your save point). This game was quite unique, challenging, and very artistic. But the battle mechanic was just to simple and repetative compared to the jarring and ever changing gun battles in Killer7. Enough rambling... Loved the experience of Killer7. I might just have to dust off my Gamecube or wait for the remastered edition coming to steam this fall,
WOW. Great video and insight. I've loved this game ever since I first completed it. I have refused to play it again simply because I want to keep that initial playthrough unspoiled in my mind. I'm still confused. I'm still bewildered. And I'm still in love.
Killer7 looks related to the anime 'FLCL' (Fooly Cooly) by Gainax. There's a manic energy within both; that leaves feelings & INTENT in place of context (at least until repeat examinations of each). The speed leaves gaps your emotive mind fills in
As someone who doesn't play games very often, I actually experience this "distancing" effect regularly. I'll pick up an Assassin's Creed or a Halo and, having no real habits or expectations, I'll immediately start thinking about what it must mean that the character controls a certain way, or that the camera behaves a certain way, and so on. Killer7 struck me with its movement system. It feels like you're constantly being presented with a choice: Plunge deeper into... whatever the game is, or turn around. You have to consciously decide to push forward. If it used a joystick to move, I wouldn't have even considered this, but the weird "hold A to go forward" meant I couldn't ignore it.
I must have spent a week straight playing this game when it came out. It captivated me to no end and I just couldn't explain why. When asked I casually offered that it was the first video game art film I had ever encountered.
so glad you did a video on this. one of my favoeite games. i remember combing the message boards for weeks after I beat it. mgs is my favorite series and you were spot on with the comparison.
I just beat this game last week and can't stop thinking about it lol it's so damn original and the kool characters and heaven smile just kept a smile on my face the whole way through XD
idk how I missed this video, having been a fan of Killer 7 since it released on gamecube, and a fan of Hamish since the dark souls/depression video. Killer 7 remains one of the most interesting games I've ever played and has probably damaged my perception of reality since playing it as a 15 year old.
Also I just wanted to let you know: I usually watch video essays at 1.5-2x speed because I never feel like I have enough time, but that quote about perception _had so many layers_ that I had to go back and listen at normal speed just to catch _what was being said_ and decided it wouldn’t be thematically appropriate to speedrun this particular video. It’s the first time in months that I’ve let a 20 minute talk _last 20 minutes._
Good deconstruction. keep em coming! I've seen the game discussed with perhaps one of the most different opinion's i've witnessed on the otherwise hivemind-y /v/. some those who like it present similar arguments to you, but they also bring up suda51's lighthearted, almost juvenile sensibilities in some of his other games as support for their argument that the game is a joke at the players expense, in a good way. The horror argument is handled a little rashly i think. I had to stop and rewind for it to "click" that the clunky controls is a common survivalhorror trope.
Awesome video - subbed and looking forward to exploring more of your content. You mentioned games that exhibit contempt for their audience - I would absolutely love for you to do a video on Drakengard. It's widely reviled as a nightmare to play, but it's themes deal with unreliable narrators, how so called war heroes are depicted over the years by different nations - and like K7, it's also commentary on the games industry as a whole. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
This game looks like it would make a good letsplay; just like get jacksepticeye hammered drunk and challenge him to figure out what the fuck is happening.
How unfortunate that you ended up with it on PS2. I guess without a comparison to make the PS2 version might be just fine, but its a good deal worse than the GC version if only for the sake of load times.
Ahh. I'd remember that this game has a fucking jumpscare death scene. At my first gameplay, it was so, so......... confused. was like, how to play this shit/ confusing storyline & characters etc etc.
Shake it up. In a nutshell. It's easy to shake up a nut in a nutshell. It is a captive audience. Interesting that the screen flashing at the bottom makes it look like the video time bar is glitching. Go figure.
+TomaSega ha, yeah music is something I've done for over a decade now, so when I started this show I felt it was only right that I made the music rather than relying on royalty free stuff. It's available to Patrons for download.
Hey man, you stole my idea haha Alright, just kidding, I've been thinking about doing this for the past two years and I just discovered your channel. My idea was to look at games not as an entertainment media (which it also is), but as an artistic media and, specially (since I'm a Literature student), as a medium with narrative and storytelling capabilities as valid as those of movies or books. My ultimate goal is to allow videogames to be seen in a different way. It is frustrating to see people dismiss videogames as toys, without really looking into them and seeing the amazing things you can do with them. So yeah, as you probably guessed by now, I really like your videos, and hopefully, you and me (and some other youtubers that are slowly working in that direction, too) are just a small part of a growing trend of gamers with an academic background trying to apply our knowledge to this wonderful medium. Keep doing your work man, I'm right now in the writing stages, and hopefully I'll be able to start recording in a couple of months or so. I wish I could support you on Patreon, I can't haha but for now, you have my suscription and my full support. Just a little question and a piece of advice: Where are you from? Your accent is not that easy to understand, and knowing that I would suggest that you speak a little bit slower. Anyways, great job man, seriously. Edit: About my piece of advice, I wrote it while listening to some of your earlier videos, listening to this one I realized you have actually improved a lot in that regard, cheers!
I can tell right now. The man in the green suit is a vampire. So as people died he created zombies. Probably about the government being run'd by vampires.
Spoilers: Not at all, he's actually the incarnation of Mara Papima, or the dick/chariot demon in SMT and is fated to play chess with Harman for all eternity.
Yeah, the PS2 version is shit, so here's the "shoulder buttons" he's talking about. Hold down R to get into FPS mode and then press Z to scan the enemy for weak points. That's basically how you treat every single enemy in this game aside from bosses.
why the fuck sometimes the first person perspective keep closing everytime i shoot something???? this game is awesome but this problem is really keeping me out of the game
man, i don't think this game really wants to make a commentary about capitalism actually, it's just a story told using a postmodern perspective that i don't think it's bad. i don't agree with the "there's no object" perspective of postmodernism in politics (i consider myself as an old left marxist person), but in art, at trying to tell a story, i think it's actually pretty interesting and effective way to keep some people thinking about it's subjects.
I recently started playing this game, and I was loving it at first. Love the creepiness, the trippy vibe, the visuals, and even the on-rails set-up. But damn is the game tedious as hell. Puzzles are needlessly cryptic, constant enemy respawns coupled with frequent backtracking and an infuriatingly monotonous and time-wasting death mechanic make for one boring and tedious experience. The gunplay isn't very good or interesting which is an issue that's only exacerbated by the constant enemy encounters. The creepiness and tension are quickly eroded by these issues and replaced with great annoyance and boredom. I haven't made it to the end, and so maybe some crazy twist will tie things together, but so far, I feel the praise for this game's writing and artistic merit is absurdly overblown. Yes, it's different, cleverly so. It's also stylish and weird as hell. But there's no substance. It's weirdness for the sake of weirdness. I'm baffled as to why this game is held in such high regard.
12 minutes in and it’s just a redundant spiel about the game doing the unexpected and being unconventional. How the fuck do you read a script you wrote and not realize you’ve been restating the same point for over ten minutes
God, I HATE this postmodern nonsense! I like you man, but this approach to stories is utter bullshit based on a shaky opinion of art. Someone that says art is about X and tries to reinvent the wheel based on that makes it utterly worthless to the regular person. When did postmodern narrative EVER help anyone outside of academia understand the dangers of capitalism?! It's all so impenetrably esoteric. It's even worse when a piece of art spites its audience on the principal of "alienation". You can make your audience uncomfortable with your art, but when it alienates them, they get NOTHING from it! It utterly diminishes the point of communicating something to people.
freddytheshadowninja Well, I don't see how any of that applies to the video, but that's maybe just cuz the term "post modern" is one that everyone throws around expecting people just know what the fuck it means somehow. Ironically, even still, I somehow know exactly what you mean -_-
Even after all of the reading I've done into postmodernism, I still have a hard time saying exactly what it is, too! Pretty much the only consistent characteristic between postmodernists is that straight-forward is too easy and that they think the "uninitiated" can go fuck themselves. The critic that WoG cited, Shklovsky, is an influence for postmodernists and his principle of defamiliarization is used to justify all kinds of bonkers writing choices. I don't say "postmodern" to call up some genre that would help you understand what I'm talking about; I use it because, like this game, postmodern art defies understanding and probably has no real message behind it.
freddytheshadowninja to be fair this game has a plot that makes sense (the expiration of the usa/japan self defense treaty and the aftermath). the rest is hard to figure since suda uses ovearching themes, which you wont figure unless you play the previous games (the organ trading=shelter children program from silver case)
![The Entire [Prototype] Story EXPLAINED!](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/b2U7q_8VURw/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Entire [Prototype] Story EXPLAINED!](/img/tr.png)
Killer 7 is kind of like running through an interactive schizophrenic episode. Events don't flow logically from one to another, bright environments seem dark and bleak, your motives and goals are inconsistent and arbitrary, the senses are basically lying to you, inappropriate emotional outbursts punctuating long sequences of dullness, and there's a whole mess of violence and laughter. The player is made to feel like they've gone mad, and are just along for the ride.
I love it.
Well... that's one way to start the day productively. Seriously enjoyed this because it's a game that's baffled me but I never understood why. It's a very fascinating analysis and interpretation.
It's bizarre I have a history with this game... In that, I couldn't finish it because it gave me a headache. I don't hold it against it, I was around 12 years old and simply couldn't comprehend what was going on... But I kinda want to check it out again because I've been on a classics binge recently.
ryan, if you haven't replayed it since this comment, grab the PC version and go nuts. i feel like you'll adore it.
I always saw Killer7 as a Horror game where the horror is the absurd reality of the modern day. To view what we are used to seeing from an extreme perspective, a perspective from one that hasnt been grown in this culture.
A pleasant reminder of how fucking insane killer7 is. Can't believe I forgot half of this stuff
I will say one thing about Killer7: Whether you think it's a brilliant masterpiece or insufferably pretentious, you sure as hell never forget it. And ultimately I think that's what Suda 51 was aiming for.
If you thought it was pretentious then that's probably you giving up on trying to figure it out and trying to make yourself feel better.
art is pretentious in itself
Well it depends because the story depth is actually there and it is nothing short of amazing.
On clunky mechanics enhancing the narrative experience: the fact that Kaede is scripted to die when she reloads during the Handsomemen boss fight, which is something you've absolutely experienced if you've ever tried to reload in the middle of a fight as Kaede, is such a good punchline.
Using the actual mechanical experience to communicate a joke. God I love this game
I bought this for the GameCube the day it came out. I used to visit my best friend's house and we'd smoke a spliff or two and dive into the insanity that is Killer7. We loved it, but as you allude in this video we were often overcome by the sheer WTF-ness of it all, but quickly realised that was the beauty of it. To this day, Killer7 is one of my all time favourite games.
If you ever play this game again, play the GameCube version. It's way better than the PS2 one. Great video.
and now the PC version just came out
Why is the GameCube version better? I've just ordered the GameCube version (haven't played the game before) and didn't know that there were differences
@@johnnykonja the PS2 version was hastily ported from the gamecube version and is worse to control.
@@johnnykonja In addition to what Sam said, the loading times on the PS2 are atrocious
Amen!
I just recently learned what Dissociative Identity Disorder really is like, and it's making me see a whole new level to this game. The Gatekeeper, soul shells, Harman's room...either it's all a happy coincidence or the amount of detail in this game is even further beyond what I thought.
Articulating what makes Killer7 so fascinating has always been an interesting challenge. It certainly conveys a particular feel that holds up some strange appeal, yet its unconventional and genre-bending nature makes hard to define it. Personally I like to think Killer7 is about the sensation as opposed to context alone. Like a drug of absurdity.
Love your channel, by the way. I found out about it after Ryan Hollinger mentioned it.
This is a game that shines as the absolute best reason to prioritize game preservation. A game like this never should have been made, and the fact that it exists is a beautiful anomoly, the kind of thing that really is anathema to better business sensibilities. And to date, i don't know if there is a way to obtain this game digitally in a legal way. I find it troubling, because this is the kind of mindless originality you don't find terribly often outside of the work of David Lynch. This game should be taught as art, and it troubles me just how few people have been exposed to it, and how few WILL be exposed to it as time goes on.
I would love to see a big company and cram it in the most WORST game mechanics decisions ever made to the point they knew what they were doing
It’s on steam now
Probably the best thing the game is doing how it handles its characters.
We dont know anything or very little about Mask, Kevin KAEDE, Dan, Coyote but they are instantly likeable just from their looks, abilities and quotes alone. You have other videogame characters with more stories, but you dont remember them. Killer 7 gives very little in characterization but those character sure as hell stick with you.
No hyperbole. This game is insane! Absolutely nutso. Crazy town. Love it.
Best game ever, plot, incomprehansable story, mechanics, characters, everything. It make me really happy to see that there are people that appreciate this game, back in the day I told all my friends about this game and no one liked it, just me and for some reason made me feel like it was my treasure haha. Great video man, hope u keep giving us great content. All da way from Mexico I salute you!
I don't know. I always thought that gameplay is making it fitting for gamecube controller.
The Silver Case is essentially the same kind of story, only in a more visual novel/puzzle game format.
I need to finish it. What I played up to that point was really good and kept getting better.
Same thing with Flower, Sun, and Rain, which was a spin-off of Silver Case. It had an undeniable offbeat style with samey puzzles that shouldn't have worked, but it was the DS game I kept putting back in at the end of the day.
Suda51 during that point in his career was a lot like David Lynch in that he used his bizarre dreamlike imagery and personal style to tell a very bizarre story in a way that nobody else has. Silver Case especially felt like a David Lynch production, especially when it came to Lynch's views on cops.
Thanks for crediting me, very appreciated.
No problem - thank you for capturing such high quality footage.
I played this game when I was like 12 years old. Me and my cousins would sit around and try to make a story for the characters because we didn't understand what the fuck was happening. Sometimes we were too scared to progress lol. Completed it in the end, though. It really is an amazing game. Awesome vid btw dude!
all time favorite game
theres just so much to it
glad you made a video of it
Glad you enjoyed the video!
Even if they try to bill a videogame to have a "great story", I no longer bother to get my hopes up because they're always disappointing to me. It's all because of killer7 - no other videogame can ever compare the experience I had with this fantastic and one of a kind game.
Great video. I played Killer7 when it came out on Gamecube and couldn't stop playing it until I had finished it. It honestly is one of my favourite pieces of art of all time. Yes, not just games, art. Obviously it's opinion, but in the video you said the narrative wasn't enjoyable, but I honestly found it really enjoyable from start to finish. Sure, it's a mess, but that didn't stop me from enjoying it.
I was going to say it's far from a perfect game, but I actually think it's very close to being a perfect game. The only real issues I had were a few of the puzzles being so vague I didn't know what to do (this may be less of an issue now that I'm not 17 and hopefully a little smarter) and a few of the areas where you can get surrounded being almost impossible to deal with unless you knew in advance what you'd be up against. To a lesser degree I made the game more difficult for myself as I overly relied on Con and Kevin Smith, so when I couldn't use either of them, my other characters were massively underpowered.
Oh man, I could reminisce about this game for ages. Hopefully my laptop can run it in an emulator. It was a sad day when I sold my Gamecube and could no longer play this (but I kept it regardless) and then a sadder day when I sold my Wii and the game with it.
bunnybreaker
Suda51 expressed interest in remaster Killer7 and hopefully he does so you don't have to run it on am emulator.
Glad to hear that. I would love to revisit Killer7 and also more people need a chance to play it.
If you want to see killer7 remastered for this gen consoles please consider signing this petition i started. maybe we can stir something up. thanks guys!
www.ipetitions.com/petition/killer-7-hd-remaster
it's never too late...
The talk of the recent Steam port’s brought this game back to my attention.
I have a pattern: I see a new game’s hook and promo material, wonder at the mystery of it, but can’t afford to buy it for myself for years, sometimes over a _decade._ In that time, the game mythologizes in my mind, like so many other secrets that a young person’s barred from engaging in.
Then I finally buy it, it infodumps plot on me and establishes a gameplay and narrative loop that takes the magic away. Its systems are so transparent that optimal strategies emerge and I just plow through to the end, even if I’m doing my best to explore and faff about, waste time and break things along the way, to squeeze some amount of mystery from the repetition.
By putting your finger on the defamiliarization - by emphasizing the _mechanical importance of confusion_ - you’ve helped me name what exactly I’ve been looking for. I’ve always been a sucker for games with completely novel systems, even if they’re a bit unwieldy. The fact that you have to pay attention to the tutorial and can’t just snap into another game’s frame of mind is its own draw, and Killer 7 looks like it pushes that beyond the extreme. It builds an entire game around figuring out what the hell you’re even looking at.
I don't think words will ever effectively describe the insane masterpiece that is Killer 7. Glad it got a PC re-release recently!
Great to see a nicely researched bit of analysis on Killer7. I wish there were more games with that nonconformist approach to everything. Even Goichi Suda's newest games seem to pander to lowest common denominator audiences nowadays to get through to the big publishers.
it's not his fault they are litteraly forced on him by his publishers, look at shadows of the damned development
One of the things that makes Hand in Killer7 less useful for understanding the plot than one would hope is that it was, supposedly, based on an earlier version of the game's plot.
Apparently not. It does have a prototype comic on the Blackburn story, but most of hand is indeed reflective of the game as-is.
This was absolutely phenomenal, you put so eloquently and succinctly to words what i'd been feeling about this awesome game. I hope everyone watches this videos and goes to play Killer7
Aw, thank you! That means a lot. I'm still proud of this video and Killer7 remains one of my all-time favourites, so it's nice to know that people are still watching!
its simple commentary on politics and sociology is perfectly hidden with its abstract art. thats what i want. thats what i got. its amazing. suda51 at his finest
the fact that the game is an on rails survival puzzle horror comedy dramatic sci-fi supernatural filmesque experience piece with the designers from resident evil and minish cap and okami ALL in the same room playing around to make a game means i recommend it to everyone.
its scary. its disturbing. its hilarious. its exciting. and its challenging.
One of my favorite games visually as a kid. It intrigued me like nothing else, in the same way Manhunt did. I had no idea as to anything that was going on in it though, but that art style, and the general overarching style is fantastic. Stylistic in a Sid and Nancy sort of way, it's just visually cool superficially even if you have no idea as to anything else going on.
“The story ends up being the design document and the framework for the entire game and its gameplay. They’re really one and the same. If somebody came to me and said you had to separate those two things, I don’t think I’d be able to create a game.” Suda51
I think one of my favorite things about Suda's work is the trend of gameplay as part of the narrative. The money grind in NMH, the constant walking on Lospass Island in Flower, Sun, and Rain.
I truly can't think of anyone else who has married the two so closely.
It's pretty hard to summarize Killer7 but the impression i got from it is that it was trying to suggest that our world is as fragile and unstable as the assassin's state of mind. But of course, there is allot to discover . It's a shame that Suda51 will never make a game like Killer7 ever again.
fatal frame 4 and despite being way more goofy tsa and nmh have the esoteric musings similar to killer7
@@paulakroy2635 I love NMH1, and TSA has its moments with it being a dev biography of sorts. The Silvercase games are very good too. Curious to see how NMH3 turns out.
As many have said - fantastic video with many interesting points on the game. The only issue I'd say is that the "subversion" of the trailer is clearly not intentional as the publisher would put together the marketing materials rather than the developer. I'd honestly be incredibly surprised if Capcom didn't create trailers / promotional materials that made the game look different because they were concerned that a slow paced methodical art game would sell poorly rather than doing it the other way around to create an artistic effect.
Other than that - great video!
I'm glad I found this post but sad that I haven't seen it sooner. _Killer7_ has stuck in my head as one of the most strikingly unique games I've ever played. There is one game that comes very close, and that is _El Shaddai_. I tried to explain the game to others after I played it and replayed it several times eventually completing it at least 2 times. And I realized that if I told them the general plot, it was equivalent to the marketing that the studio did. It would bring certain expectations and ultimately disappoint people who aren't prepared to be subverted. Ultimately, I had to only describe the video game as video game designed for art's sake. And for people who don't have a background or study in art, immediately are repelled by the idea.
But that's the thing with this game. I find myself drawn to pieces of media that completely subvert the media they would normally be classified by, or parody it but also give it a warming embrace. Or sometimes the media just leaves me either so puzzled or uncomfortable. I seem to be drawn towards that. I think when I purchased the game I was given a warning about its weirdness (and I think the store clerk was trying to be nice). But at that time, I was really sick of gaming cliques. I was like a game had to fit one of the 10 pre-determined boxes that existed at the time. Action-RPG, platformer (further broken down to 2d or 3d, but at the time of _killer7_ release, if you weren't 3d you didn't get published), FPS, 3rd person action/shooter, RTS, puzzle, casual, racing, sports, sim. Anything else wouldn't get published. So I was ready for anything described as 'different' or 'bizarre'. Just do a search for video games of 2005, and you will see a very predictable and narrow pattern of titles.
There were games that showed up previously, and after that were wonderful and complete pieces of art. For example, _Vib Ribbon_, _Parappa the Rapper_, _Katamari Damacy_, _Braid_, and everything that Edmund McMillen has made.
Yeah, while MGS subverted us a bit, and caused us to scratch our heads, it was just only for some stark moments, and I think was just easy patches for their overly convoluted storytelling. _Killer7_ was just so abrasive and different at the time, it just made it either captivating or annoying to someone. For example, like I said, I can sometimes really like being challenged or subtly subverted. The most abrasive film I've ever seen is "Enter The Void". I've never finished it. And I've seen some fudkec pup films. But I recently got surprised by the indie film "Drib". "Drib" is a documentary about a mockumentary, about a fake ad campaign, built around a performance artist pretending to be a violence viral video creator, supposedly based around on actual events that happened involving an anonymized energy drink company. Throughout the film, you can never tell if this was all real or bullchips. But overall, undernneath it, was a general artistic critique of film, TV, nodern advertising and documentary making.
Killer7 seems to really pull you in with many different hooks. Is it a critique of video games? Is it a criticism of US foreign policy? On war? On sensational violence? On media and news? On expectations?
For a long time I've felt alone thinking that I experienced a video game, in its whole as a rather impactful piece of art. That doesn't mean that I understand it or extrapolate any meaning to it. I t just means that the experience was memorable, impactful, and challenging. And at the end a great time. I'd have to compare it to the film "Upstream Color", a follow up film to the very creative and groundbreaking indie sci-fi darling "Primer". The movie is strange, uncomfortable, and moving. It captured me and made me feel things. But I can't begin to describe those feelings.
As I mentioned earlier, the only other piece of game as artwork I've experienced similar to that is _El Shaddai_. Quite a peculiar and strange title that is based on the Apocrypha Hebrew story in the "Book of Enoch". The original biblical outtake was very apt for a video game, or even an anime series. A story about a mortal named Enoch, who is blessed by God, to become the Metatron (I'm not kidding), sort of a semi-immortal superhero. He is then tasked to destroy the fallen angels, and the Nephilim (offspring of angels and humans, which are hilariously animated as giant hotdog like creatures), otherwise God will decide to flood the earth and wipe out most of humanity (see Noah and his Ark). So, an epic, tale old as time. But this game gies you nothing of that. It's based on some weird rock-paper-scissors button mashing. The animation styles change several times, from 3d to 2d, realistic to abastract, to classical to cartoons. The characters are hilarious. One of the fallen angels is like a Michael Jackson wannabe that dances when you fight him and Lucifiel (bad translation of Lucifer) provides running commentary on your exploits over cell phone to god (your save point). This game was quite unique, challenging, and very artistic. But the battle mechanic was just to simple and repetative compared to the jarring and ever changing gun battles in Killer7.
Enough rambling... Loved the experience of Killer7. I might just have to dust off my Gamecube or wait for the remastered edition coming to steam this fall,
WOW. Great video and insight. I've loved this game ever since I first completed it. I have refused to play it again simply because I want to keep that initial playthrough unspoiled in my mind. I'm still confused. I'm still bewildered. And I'm still in love.
I appreciate that, but honestly, revisiting it has only cemented how great this game is in my mind. I'm glad you enjoyed the video!
Killer7 looks related to the anime 'FLCL' (Fooly Cooly) by Gainax. There's a manic energy within both; that leaves feelings & INTENT in place of context (at least until repeat examinations of each). The speed leaves gaps your emotive mind fills in
I absolutely loved this game when I first got it.
One of my favorite games of all time. One of the best pieces I've seen on it too. Very well done, fellow Scotsmate.
Thanks for watching and for all your nice comments! I'm really glad you're enjoying the videos.
As someone who doesn't play games very often, I actually experience this "distancing" effect regularly. I'll pick up an Assassin's Creed or a Halo and, having no real habits or expectations, I'll immediately start thinking about what it must mean that the character controls a certain way, or that the camera behaves a certain way, and so on. Killer7 struck me with its movement system. It feels like you're constantly being presented with a choice: Plunge deeper into... whatever the game is, or turn around. You have to consciously decide to push forward. If it used a joystick to move, I wouldn't have even considered this, but the weird "hold A to go forward" meant I couldn't ignore it.
I must have spent a week straight playing this game when it came out. It captivated me to no end and I just couldn't explain why. When asked I casually offered that it was the first video game art film I had ever encountered.
Excelent video! Keep me thinking, thanks! Fascinating video game like no one!
I'm glad you enjoyed it!
Such an entertaining and informative video. Thank you, Hamish!
so glad you did a video on this. one of my favoeite games. i remember combing the message boards for weeks after I beat it. mgs is my favorite series and you were spot on with the comparison.
Incredibly interesting work!
Continue the inspired and unique videos!
I'm glad I found this video, it's very well done and muses on ideas and subjects about this game I was pondering myself this very morning
great video! glad to see people still talking about this game. its one of my favourites!
Killer7 is the definitive proof of videogames as art to me.
I dunno'. I think that, if you spend enough time with it, killer7 really _does_ start to make sense.
I have played this and Eternal Darkness lately on gamecube and both are a trip
Greatest game ever created. ☝️
I just beat this game last week and can't stop thinking about it lol it's so damn original and the kool characters and heaven smile just kept a smile on my face the whole way through XD
Love the music on this video!
idk how I missed this video, having been a fan of Killer 7 since it released on gamecube, and a fan of Hamish since the dark souls/depression video. Killer 7 remains one of the most interesting games I've ever played and has probably damaged my perception of reality since playing it as a 15 year old.
PC version! Woot!
Who liked my comment?
Also I just wanted to let you know: I usually watch video essays at 1.5-2x speed because I never feel like I have enough time, but that quote about perception _had so many layers_ that I had to go back and listen at normal speed just to catch _what was being said_ and decided it wouldn’t be thematically appropriate to speedrun this particular video.
It’s the first time in months that I’ve let a 20 minute talk _last 20 minutes._
Great video, man!
Very good work
great game, great review. up there with nerd writer.
+ashton simmonds That's a big compliment - thank you very much! Glad you enjoyed it.
Good deconstruction. keep em coming!
I've seen the game discussed with perhaps one of the most different opinion's i've witnessed on the otherwise hivemind-y /v/. some those who like it present similar arguments to you, but they also bring up suda51's lighthearted, almost juvenile sensibilities in some of his other games as support for their argument that the game is a joke at the players expense, in a good way.
The horror argument is handled a little rashly i think. I had to stop and rewind for it to "click" that the clunky controls is a common survivalhorror trope.
Thanks for watching!
Awesome video - subbed and looking forward to exploring more of your content. You mentioned games that exhibit contempt for their audience - I would absolutely love for you to do a video on Drakengard. It's widely reviled as a nightmare to play, but it's themes deal with unreliable narrators, how so called war heroes are depicted over the years by different nations - and like K7, it's also commentary on the games industry as a whole. I'd love to hear your thoughts!
This looks like a good game that I missed out on. I remember holding in store when it was new and buying re4 instead
Bought the game a couple weeks ago, and this video made me want to plus my ps2 back and try it really soon ahaha
you really should take a look at the yakuza games. and now yakuza 0 is out its basicly the perfect time to jump in.
You should keep an eye out for this weekend's video, kyodai...
You should do videos on the other Suda 51 games
you should check out The Silver Case
inherently interesting
will you do other videos on suda 51s other works
I wish this game had supported the guncon 2 lightgun. How cool would that of been?
What are the probabilities of this and the viewtiful joe games ever coming to steam? I wish these more obscure games would get a rerelease.
This game looks like it would make a good letsplay; just like get jacksepticeye hammered drunk and challenge him to figure out what the fuck is happening.
How unfortunate that you ended up with it on PS2. I guess without a comparison to make the PS2 version might be just fine, but its a good deal worse than the GC version if only for the sake of load times.
I wish I could comprehend how to play this game...
What's that background music?
I would calk Killer 7 a "thriller" game
Ahh. I'd remember that this game has a fucking jumpscare death scene. At my first gameplay, it was so, so......... confused. was like, how to play this shit/ confusing storyline & characters etc etc.
I remembered \[T]/
Another companion ! \[T]/ praise on!
Was quite enjoying the gameplay mechanics, they are not bad. But its certainly not the strong point of the game.
PerCEption
Shake it up. In a nutshell. It's easy to shake up a nut in a nutshell. It is a captive audience. Interesting that the screen flashing at the bottom makes it look like the video time bar is glitching. Go figure.
what's the music? it's friggin awesome!
Thanks! Like the music for all the episodes, I made it specifically for the episode.
+Writing on Games Woah! I didn't know you made it
+TomaSega ha, yeah music is something I've done for over a decade now, so when I started this show I felt it was only right that I made the music rather than relying on royalty free stuff. It's available to Patrons for download.
+Writing on Games Thanks! i'll look into that :)
Animatrix : The Game
Hey man, you stole my idea haha Alright, just kidding, I've been thinking about doing this for the past two years and I just discovered your channel. My idea was to look at games not as an entertainment media (which it also is), but as an artistic media and, specially (since I'm a Literature student), as a medium with narrative and storytelling capabilities as valid as those of movies or books. My ultimate goal is to allow videogames to be seen in a different way. It is frustrating to see people dismiss videogames as toys, without really looking into them and seeing the amazing things you can do with them. So yeah, as you probably guessed by now, I really like your videos, and hopefully, you and me (and some other youtubers that are slowly working in that direction, too) are just a small part of a growing trend of gamers with an academic background trying to apply our knowledge to this wonderful medium.
Keep doing your work man, I'm right now in the writing stages, and hopefully I'll be able to start recording in a couple of months or so. I wish I could support you on Patreon, I can't haha but for now, you have my suscription and my full support.
Just a little question and a piece of advice: Where are you from? Your accent is not that easy to understand, and knowing that I would suggest that you speak a little bit slower. Anyways, great job man, seriously.
Edit: About my piece of advice, I wrote it while listening to some of your earlier videos, listening to this one I realized you have actually improved a lot in that regard, cheers!
where you fae? You sound like a mad edinburgh dude.
laaater
PEACE
I can tell right now. The man in the green suit is a vampire. So as people died he created zombies. Probably about the government being run'd by vampires.
Spoilers:
Not at all, he's actually the incarnation of Mara Papima, or the dick/chariot demon in SMT and is fated to play chess with Harman for all eternity.
Methuselah Utu hehehe.
*Go Go Power Rangers*
Yeah, the PS2 version is shit, so here's the "shoulder buttons" he's talking about. Hold down R to get into FPS mode and then press Z to scan the enemy for weak points. That's basically how you treat every single enemy in this game aside from bosses.
why the fuck sometimes the first person perspective keep closing everytime i shoot something????
this game is awesome but this problem is really keeping me out of the game
Rômulo Gomes are you using an emulator? if so, which one?
i'm using my ps2 actually
Hmmm, I never had any problems like that on the PS2 version so I'm not much help here I'm afraid. Sucks that you're having that issue though. Sorry!
thanks anyway, still awesome that the owner of the channel replied me alshsksakka
How did you get the game in HD?
emulate through Dolphin?
☆☆☆☆☆
😱😱😱😍😍😍😍💖💧👍 like!
man, i don't think this game really wants to make a commentary about capitalism actually, it's just a story told using a postmodern perspective that i don't think it's bad. i don't agree with the "there's no object" perspective of postmodernism in politics (i consider myself as an old left marxist person), but in art, at trying to tell a story, i think it's actually pretty interesting and effective way to keep some people thinking about it's subjects.
You scottish brah?
S
I recently started playing this game, and I was loving it at first. Love the creepiness, the trippy vibe, the visuals, and even the on-rails set-up.
But damn is the game tedious as hell. Puzzles are needlessly cryptic, constant enemy respawns coupled with frequent backtracking and an infuriatingly monotonous and time-wasting death mechanic make for one boring and tedious experience. The gunplay isn't very good or interesting which is an issue that's only exacerbated by the constant enemy encounters.
The creepiness and tension are quickly eroded by these issues and replaced with great annoyance and boredom.
I haven't made it to the end, and so maybe some crazy twist will tie things together, but so far, I feel the praise for this game's writing and artistic merit is absurdly overblown. Yes, it's different, cleverly so. It's also stylish and weird as hell. But there's no substance. It's weirdness for the sake of weirdness.
I'm baffled as to why this game is held in such high regard.
12 minutes in and it’s just a redundant spiel about the game doing the unexpected and being unconventional. How the fuck do you read a script you wrote and not realize you’ve been restating the same point for over ten minutes
Killer7 inspires some degree of gushing.
God, I HATE this postmodern nonsense! I like you man, but this approach to stories is utter bullshit based on a shaky opinion of art. Someone that says art is about X and tries to reinvent the wheel based on that makes it utterly worthless to the regular person. When did postmodern narrative EVER help anyone outside of academia understand the dangers of capitalism?! It's all so impenetrably esoteric.
It's even worse when a piece of art spites its audience on the principal of "alienation". You can make your audience uncomfortable with your art, but when it alienates them, they get NOTHING from it! It utterly diminishes the point of communicating something to people.
freddytheshadowninja Well, I don't see how any of that applies to the video, but that's maybe just cuz the term "post modern" is one that everyone throws around expecting people just know what the fuck it means somehow. Ironically, even still, I somehow know exactly what you mean -_-
Even after all of the reading I've done into postmodernism, I still have a hard time saying exactly what it is, too! Pretty much the only consistent characteristic between postmodernists is that straight-forward is too easy and that they think the "uninitiated" can go fuck themselves. The critic that WoG cited, Shklovsky, is an influence for postmodernists and his principle of defamiliarization is used to justify all kinds of bonkers writing choices. I don't say "postmodern" to call up some genre that would help you understand what I'm talking about; I use it because, like this game, postmodern art defies understanding and probably has no real message behind it.
freddytheshadowninja to be fair this game has a plot that makes sense (the expiration of the usa/japan self defense treaty and the aftermath). the rest is hard to figure since suda uses ovearching themes, which you wont figure unless you play the previous games (the organ trading=shelter children program from silver case)