killer7

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killer7
Cover art
Nintendo GameCube boxart
Developer(s) Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher(s) Capcom
Designer(s) Goichi Suda (story, writer, director, producer)
Shinji Mikami (story, executive producer)
Platform(s) GameCube, PlayStation 2
Release date Flag of Japan June 9, 2005
Flag of the United States July 7, 2005
Flag of Europe July 15, 2005
Genre(s) Action, Adventure, Rail shooter
Mode(s) Single player
Rating(s) ESRB: M/ MA17+
CERO: Z
PEGI: 18+
BBFC: 18
USK: 18
OFLC: MA15+
Media 2 × GameCube Optical Disc
1 × DVD-ROM

killer7 is a video game jointly developed and published by Grasshopper Manufacture and Capcom for the Nintendo GameCube and PlayStation 2. It was released on June 9, 2005 in Japan, July 7, 2005 in the United States, and July 15, 2005 in Europe. It was a highly anticipated title for its mysterious plot, stylish cel-shaded graphics, and unorthodox gameplay. The game was part of the Capcom Five series of games.

The game was written and directed by Goichi Suda, also known as Suda51, and produced by Shinji Mikami. Mikami is well known for being the creative force behind a group of stylish, original titles including Resident Evil, Viewtiful Joe, and Devil May Cry.

A 12-part comic book series based on killer7 is currently being published. As of March 2, 2007 four issues have been released. They are published by Devil's Due Publishing, and re-tell the events of the game with added dialogue and scenes to better convey Suda51's original concepts, and to make them easier to understand.[1] So far it has received mixed reaction.

Contents

[edit] Concept

The title revolves around Harman Smith, a sixty-year-old assassin who is bound to a wheelchair. He is capable of manifesting seven personalities into the real world, each with their own personal style of killing; the group is collectively known as the Killer7. The dominant personality is Garcian Smith, who, while in the presence of security cameras or television sets, has the ability to call upon the six other members of the Killer7 anywhere at any time. Unlike most multiple personalities, Harman does not just think he is someone else; rather, his personae actually take on a unique physical body when called upon.

[edit] Gameplay

The gameplay in killer7 is that of an unconventional first-person shooter. The game takes place on rails, and the player, using the A and B buttons (or for the PlayStation 2, the Triangle and X buttons), directs the character on-screen to move forward or reverse direction, respectively. The most freedom the player has comes when the player reaches intersections, at which point the player must choose which path to continue.

A substantial part of killer7 is its puzzles – the player must collect rings that are required in some puzzles while other puzzles require a talent of a specific persona, and even further puzzles are solved when not using rings or character abilities based on heavy logic and thinking. There are six rings (not counting the Vision Ring Garcian starts with), those being Fire, Water, Wind, Time, Stamina and Power. If the player hears the twang of a guitar underscore the music it means that a puzzle needs to be solved or an item needs to be used; items are used automatically for you to solve puzzles if the item is in your inventory. A lighter tune is heard when the player has successfully overcome an obstacle.

When the player encounters one of the enemies, known as Heaven Smile, it announces its presence by producing a maniacal laugh. The player then must go to first-person shooting mode and scan their surroundings in order to see it. Destroying any limbs of the Smile or hitting their weak "critical spot" consisting of a glowing spot on their body gives the player "Thick Blood" you can convert to serum, the "experience points" of the game that can be used to level up each persona excluding Garcian at checkpoints called "Harman's Rooms;" there is a limit to the amount of serum that can be converted from Thick Blood, which varies between stages. Serum can be carried over each stage but Thick Blood cannot. Harman's Rooms sometimes offer the ability to save, though not all do, and always exist for blood upgrades, respawn points should one of the Killer7 be slain, and information.

[edit] killer8

After successfully completing the game, a new Start menu will appear. The menu appears almost the same as the previous one except for the new yellow text and the words killer8. As the player starts the game a second time, the younger Harman Smith is now accessible as a new persona. Also new to this mode is the lethal difficulty mode. Nearly every single attack from a Heaven Smile in Killer8 mode is fatal. Almost every single character, save for Mask, and Harman, can die from just one attack. In addition, critical spots are not visible on Smiles in this mode. The bosses are harder to beat, though the damage of their attacks remain the same. In the battle against Greg Nightmare in Target 05: Smile, the seventh Heaven Smile runs toward younger Harman Smith instead of Garcian, because there are now eight personae and not just seven.

[edit] hopper7

A final mode appears after the completion of killer8 called hopper7. In this mode the Heaven Smile look like normal people except they wear big grasshopper masks, and all are killed in one hit, as if their entire bodies were a "critical point." All other game play is unchanged, however only the first level is playable.

[edit] Plot

The storyline has many interpretations and meanings, with the main strands being: the Killer7 group, political tensions between Japan and the United States, a mutant terrorist group named the Heaven Smile, and the demi-gods Harman Smith and Kun Lan. The Killer7 is best described as a collective of murdered assassins, re-born and controlled by a demigod force that has a human representation called Harman Smith. The Killer7 is in direct opposition with the demigod force represented by Kun Lan, which both created and controls the group of creatures called Heaven Smile, humans who have been touched by Kun Lan's "God Hand".

Pre-release screenshot of a battle in killer7.
Pre-release screenshot of a battle in killer7.

After a series of "Targets," missions which either chronicle the rising political tension between Japan and the rest of the world or are tangential sidestories which have little to do with the overarching plot of the game, the player discovers that Garcian is actually Emir Parkreiner, once an assassin trained by the Japanese United Nations Party at their training facility in Coburn Elementary School. The goal of the United Nations Party is to unify the whole world under Japanese control, using the Yakumo Policy, which was devised by previous Japanese politicians as the ultimate way to achieve power. The UN Party aimed to do this by training children to become assassins and politicians at Coburn. Emir Parkreiner was a star student at the school and was mentored by then-Principal, Harman Smith.

Emir became a hit man and killed Harman Smith and his team of assassins, who were staying at the Union Hotel in Philadelphia. Emir killed all of the Smith assassins and after killing Harman Smith, Emir, who believed he had killed his mentor, shot himself on the roof on the hotel.

Garcian becomes aware of his true identity after reliving his past events when a mission leads him back to the Coburn Elementary School and the Union Hotel. At Coburn Elementary School, Garcian comes in contact with cassette tapes that elaborate on the identity of Emir Parkreiner. When the Killer7 reach the auditorium, the Smith personas all presumably die at the hands of seemingly invincible Heaven Smile. After all the personalities die, Garcian appears and takes possession of his old weapon, the golden gun (an homage to James Bond), killing the Heaven Smile. He proceeds to the Union Hotel, seeking answers.

There, he experiences several flashbacks of the Smith Assassins being systematically shot and killed by someone armed with the golden gun. On the top floor of the Union Hotel a young Harman Smith reveals Garcian's true identity, and Garcian witnesses the final flashback of Emir's suicide, and becomes remorseful and in denial over killing his own team. He opens his briefcase and discovers he had been carrying their weapons in his briefcase the entire time.

Three years later, Garcian arrives at Battleship Island in Japan to resolve the issue of Heaven Smile and the escalating diplomatic tension between Japan and the United States. There, he meets Kenjiro Matsuoka, a president of the United Nations Party. He warns Emir that if he does not kill him right now, the UN will rally under him and plan a massive assault on the United States. But if Emir kills him, then Japan will be destroyed by the United States to hide Japan's knowledge of the fact that the elections in the United States are rigged by the Education Ministry. So the player must decide whether to save Japan or the United States, and essentially forced to continue the cycle of east versus west.

Either way, Emir finds himself back in his trailer house, where he chases down the Last Shot Smile into the basement where it is revealed to be Iwazaru. He finishes off Iwazaru/Kun Lan, finally ending the menace of the Heaven Smile. However, despite Emir's efforts, the battle between deity Harman and Kun Lan, restarts 100 years later in Shanghai, and so the battle between "Good/Evil," Yin/Yang, East/West forever goes on.

Shinji Mikami has been quoted saying, "Me and Goichi Suda (the writer) are fond of plotlines that are 'Open Ended,' and what I mean by that is, when you first play the game you will think, 'What-Just happened?' and it's not until you watch it all again that you say, 'Oh, he was talking about this thing or event here, or he was referring to THAT person' and it's not until then that the plot starts to make sense. These are very complex, very involving stories that you do not usually see in video games these days."

[edit] Staff

[edit] Production Staff

[edit] Voice actors

Despite the massive amount of major and minor characters in killer7, not all of the characters in the game have their voice actors credited to them at the game's end credits. The reason for this occurrence has not been revealed.

[edit] Soundtrack

Main article: Killer7 Original Sound Track

The killer7 Original Sound Track, featuring all original compositions by music director Masafumi Takada, was released on June 20, 2005. It contains 61 tracks spanning over a 2-disc set.

[edit] Reception

 Reviews
Publication Score
Edge 8/10
Game Informer 7.5/10 (GameCube)
7.75/10 (PlayStation 2)
GamePro 1.5/5[2] (PlayStation 2)
GameSpot 8.3/10[2] (GameCube)
GameSpy 2.5/5[3] (GameCube)
2/5[4] (PlayStation 2)
IGN 8.1/10[2] (PlayStation 2)
X-Play 3/5[5]

The reviews for the game were mixed. Review scores have ranged from low 5's from sources like Electronic Gaming Monthly and GamePro, or a 1.5 out of 5 in GamePro's case, to low-to-mid 8's from sources like GameSpot, IGN, and Nintendo Power; however, Edge and gamesTM, were generally enthusiastic about the game, and gave it 8/10 and 9/10, respectively. Some of the reviews from reviewers like IGN and Gamespot have stated that the Nintendo GameCube version is graphically superior, as well as having far faster loading times, and better control than the PlayStation 2 version, recommending the Nintendo GameCube version over the PlayStation 2 version.

[edit] Awards

Although the game has met mixed reviews, some of the game's strengths have definitely been recognized.

  • GameSpot's Best and Worst of 2005
    • Won
      • Best New Character (Harman Smith) [6]
      • Most Innovative Game[7]
    • Runner-up
      • Best Story[8]
      • Best GameCube Game[9]
      • Most Outrageous Game[10]
    • Dubious Honors Nominations
      • Most Gratuitous Use of F------ Swearing[11]
  • IGN's The Best of 2005- GameCube awards
    • Won
      • Best Adventure Game[12]
      • Best Story[13]
      • Best Game No One Played[14]
    • Runner-up
      • GameCube Game of the Year[15]
      • Most Innovative Design[16]
      • Best Artistic Design[17]
  • Fourth place in IGN's Top 10 Tuesdays: Underrated and Underappreciated Games[18]
  • Nintendo Power Awards 2005[19]
    • Won
      • Best New Character
    • Nominated
      • Best Sound/Voice acting
      • Best Graphics
      • Best Adventure Game
      • Best New Concept
      • Best Story/Writing
      • Best Cut-scenes
      • Best "Holy Crap" moments

In 2007, killer7 was named 20th best GameCube game of all time in IGN's feature reflecting on the GameCube's long lifespan.[20] In 2008, Game Informer named the game one of the top ten weirdest of all time.[21]

[edit] Cultural references

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[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ http://www.devilsdue.net/killer7
  2. ^ a b c Review: Killer 7.
  3. ^ Killer 7 (GCN).
  4. ^ Killer 7 (GCN).
  5. ^ Killer7.
  6. ^ GameSpot's Best of 2005 - Special Achievement Awards
  7. ^ GameSpot's Best of 2005 - Special Achievement Awards
  8. ^ GameSpot's Best of 2005 - Special Achievement Awards
  9. ^ GameSpot's Best of 2005 - Platform Awards
  10. ^ GameSpot's Best of 2005 - Special Achievement Awards
  11. ^ GameSpot's Best of 2005 - Dubious Honors
  12. ^ IGN.com presents The Best of 2005
  13. ^ IGN.com presents The Best of 2005
  14. ^ IGN.com presents The Best of 2005
  15. ^ IGN.com presents The Best of 2005
  16. ^ IGN.com presents The Best of 2005
  17. ^ IGN.com presents The Best of 2005
  18. ^ IGN: Top 10 Tuesday: Underrated and Underappreciated Games
  19. ^ http://www.nintendo.com/np_awards
  20. ^ IGN GameCube Team (2007-03-16). The Top 25 GameCube Games of All Time. IGN.com. Retrieved on 2007-03-18.
  21. ^ “the top 10 weirdest games of all time,” Game Informer 180 (April 2008): 28.

[edit] External links

v • d • e
Suda51
Grasshopper Manufacture
Human Entertainment
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