00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog play it and discuss my guest today is a friend of the show. 1 of the hosts of fine time podcast and the gamer assassin persona Andre welcome to the show man. 00:25.94 Andre Thank you? Ah, glad to be here I know this sounds cliche but I am really glad to be here. 00:32.22 Dave This is going to be good. We've got a a very special game to talk about today and it's about time we we collaborated on something after you know chatting and discord servers for a while now. Ah before we get into our game I do want to point out to everybody that this Andre. This is game number 100 covered on tales from the backlog. We've had a bit of a milestone today you are it is ah it's special because you're here. It's also special because it's game number 100. 00:51.93 Andre Oh my God I'm here for a special episode I would have wore something nicer than this if I had known. 01:06.80 Dave Ah, which is which is wild. It's not episode number 100 I've done a bunch of other discussion type episodes. But this is the one hundredth game and that game is killer7 we're in a tight spot today. killer7 is the game. 01:19.97 Andre Oh it's dark and we are in a tight spot I Um yeah I feel I feel great see like fine time doesn't do episode. We don't really count stuff on there. So like I'm sure once we get to like. 01:34.66 Andre We're going to overshoot a hunAndred. That's our joke. It's like wait was that a wait this upload this upload here is 1 number 100 too bad we didn't you know like yeah I I figure I figure that's exactly what's going to happen to us good on you for remembering. 01:44.90 Dave Yeah, of course yeah I keep track of at least the the games that that I do on here. So yeah, killer7 is the game today. It is an adventure game slash first person shooter developed by grasshopper manufacture and Capcom. Published by Capcom for the gamecube in the ps2 in 2005 and for those who don't know including me a couple months ago grasshopper manufacturer is the company ah headed by goichi suda aka suda51. So if this is your first time listening to the show if you have not played killer7 don't worry. We're not going to spoil anything storywise for a while you can check down in the show notes for a timestamp for when these spoilers begin up until then we'll just kind of like talk broadly about the story. We'll talk about gameplay and stuff like that as well. 02:35.42 Andre Is is this So is this to suggest you've never played another grasshopper manufacture game. Oh you are really starting it because like people usually go for like. 02:44.65 Dave That is correct. 02:51.49 Andre No more heroes are like what's the most popular like Lollipop Chainsaw or something like that. We're really oh, you're getting like the essence of suda51 one like right off the bat here. That's excellent. 03:00.94 Dave Yeah, this is the first one and if people are listening and don't know what killer7 is what like this concentrated suit of 50 1 game is all about we have some elevator pitches for everybody I say this is in on rails. Fps slash adventure game that is unapologetically itself. There is nothing quite like this game Andre. What's your ah elevator pitch for killer7. 03:28.76 Andre I would call it a politically charged graphic novel I Guess good luck figuring out what the politics are outside of like a couple things but like it's it. It's it's at its hurt. It's an adventure game where you use items and solve stuff. 03:47.85 Andre You know, like the old school idea of an adventure game. You know, but also like ridiculously violent conceptually fucked up. It's really great. It's a really great game. Can I say that as my elevator pitch. It's great. 04:01.26 Dave Um, yeah, it could be part of the Maybe that should be part of more elevator pitches to just say say actually you know what we're about to get off this elevator. It's a good game. You can say that. Um. 04:09.99 Andre Um, yeah, it's really good it. 04:14.30 Dave I played this on pc I did not play it on like the game cube or anything like that. It took me 14 hours to play. Um I know you've probably played this game several times. So um about how long does a playthrough take you do you know. 04:26.57 Andre I when I played it on steam last year I took about 20 hours I like kind of really took my time this recent playthrough took me more like 12 I didn't do nearly as much dinking around or whatever mostly because I remembered what to do at this point. 04:43.57 Dave Yep. 04:43.61 Andre But um, but yeah back in the day I'm sure it took me a similar amount of time on I originally did play this when it came out on game cube on July seven two thousand and five seven seven haha and um, yeah, it did take me I kind of poked at it all summer because it was such a weird game I did I wanted small doses. 05:02.61 Andre You know it's kind of but sometimes it can be a small doses game. It's like okay that was a lot I need to. 05:09.10 Dave Ah, exactly we can just go dive right into personal histories then so you mentioned you did play it the day came out on the gamecube. What was it that made you want to play this. What's the draw. 05:19.31 Andre This was right up my alley you know like this was my aesthetic I know that's like a overused term but it really was especially shit how old was I at the time 2020 Three ish years old still in my early twenties this was the shit to me, especially whenever it was unveiled as part of the capcom 5 that was the game I had my eye on the most I was like oh this 1 looks. 05:47.33 Andre Excellent and it was I didn't really have any expectations of gameplay or anything I mean I didn't know if it was going to be an action game which it really isn't ah you know a resident evil type of game which it has elements of but really isn't It was all those things and more so I was very satisfied with this end product. My expectations were met and from here. Um I just kind of you know suit a 51 but you know I guess like I said before everyone's I think. Um, nucleus point for this is no more heroes a few years later but for me, it was killer7 that really set me on that path. 06:29.27 Dave Nice, um, yeah for me like we've already said this is my first time playing a suda51 game. Um I had not heard of suda51 until like maybe three or four years ago when I started talking about video games with people online. You know in Discord servers and such. Um, had never heard of him never heard of this game. Never heard of no more heroes nothing like that. Um I had a game cube back then but I was I was I'm younger. So like when I had the gamecube I was playing you know super smash brothers and Mario and I didn't really branch out into other stuff on the game cube. 06:48.76 Andre Wow. 07:05.48 Dave I didn't play resident evil 4 for example, like it was really like a Nintendo games machine back then 07:10.39 Andre I mean I can't imagine you at that age would have been interested in a game like this anyway, you know like just just the nature of it like people call games adult this is truly a game for adults. Not just because of the content but just like literally like I can't imagine anyone. Yeah, even as look at a teenager edgy teenager would be interested in killer7. 07:34.66 Dave Yeah I I think so I would I was 17 I guess when this game came out and um, yeah so I don't yeah I don't really remember what I was playing but it wasn't this and it wasn't um, it wasn't really on my radar for a long time until. 07:50.75 Dave Way in the early days of tales from the backlog. We used to open every episode with a like what are you playing lately segment and a former guest on the show. Adelaide brought up killer7 back in I think it was the silent hill 2 episode. That's what she was playing at the time and. 08:07.24 Dave She described it and I was like that sounds really really unique and cool and while she was talking I looked up screenshots I was like oh that looks really fucking cool. So I put it on the steam wish list I think I bought it pretty soon after that, but what actually made me want to say Okay, let's push this. Let's do it. Let's play. It was on fine time your podcast you had a 2 part series on the capcom five that I thought was like a really excellent series that you all did and it really pushed killer7 up the queue. 08:41.17 Andre Well shit. Thank you. I'm glad you enjoyed those episodes. Um I Really I really worked hard on them and I Really we we had the idea kicking around for a long time but we didn't want to do a tool is right because we're going to play. 4 whole as games you know so and kind of talk about them in a single kind of unified format which is not easy to do all the time. So I'm glad you enjoyed the results and it made you want to play Killer seven because easily that was our favorite of the of the 5 secretly 4 because 1 didn't come out. But yes, yeah. 09:12.59 Dave Nice right? exactly? So Ah that gave me the push to play it and I to get into some opening thoughts here I come out of this experience thinking like number one I thought it was a really fun game to play I enjoyed the gameplay quite a bit. Ah, there is really nothing like it. It struck me as like a very arcadie game and I appreciated that in the way the game play is designed um I came out of it Also thinking that there again. There's nothing like this game I have never played another game that that looks or plays like this or deals with. Weird ass story and characters in a way that this game does This is a weirdo game in the best way I think um I will get into it I Also like I thought the story was kind of interesting but I also had a lot of trouble following the story but that didn't detract from the overall experience of It. Just. Very very memorable game and one that will stick in my memory because I'm not likely to play another game like it. 10:16.88 Andre Yeah, it's I mean memorable. You nailed it. There's just there really isn't anything like that and it's very rare that you can just say this is wholly unique unto itself because killer7 is whether you like it or not and I was here's a thing. The reason why I suggested this to you liked for us to do this because I said to you even if you don't like this game you're going to find it really really interesting at the very least you know and you ended up liking the game so which which is good. Um, so we don't have to argue about it but like he it's like um yeah I I did. 10:40.64 Dave M. Yeah. 10:52.66 Andre I Just knowing you and knowing your tastes I thought you would find it interesting and I'm glad you did. 10:58.29 Dave Yeah, for sure. So we are going to take a little music break and when we come back, we are going to set up the story of killer7 killer7 takes place in an alternate version of earth real world real countries. Alternate history type thing. It takes place in the early twenty first century in 1998 in the game story. There was a treaty that ended all international conflict. All nuclear weapons were destroyed by firing them into the upper atmosphere and blowing them up with other missiles. 11:48.56 Andre Yeah I mean just like that that seems like he could go wrong. But you know hey, whatever. 11:49.27 Dave Fun strategy. 11:54.97 Dave Yeah, exactly what? what could go wrong? Yeah, um, this ah event becomes known as fireworks with a capital f and it symbolizes world peace to the general populace and in an effort to combat terrorism and pandemics and Cyber terrorism and all of those fun things. 12:00.68 Andre Yeah. 12:12.32 Dave A committee shuts down all air travel and public use of the internet Fun um air transportation is replaced by a system of intercontinental expressways. However, there's a new terrorist group called the heavens smile that appears. 12:17.79 Andre Ah, yeah. 12:29.77 Dave Targeting the united nations and this international ethics committee so already we have this interesting you know real world alternate history set up in a game released in 2005 centered around terrorism. 12:42.75 Andre He hey hey Dave remember back in 2005 when games were not political at all near up. We make everything political nowdays Dave don't you know that. 12:49.59 Dave Right? Everything has to be political and why why can't we go back to the the glory days when there were no politics in video games right. 13:02.47 Andre It's just um I mean look it's always silly when people say that but it it becomes especially sillyow when you go back and play a game like this I mean like everyone always goes to like a metal gear or something which obviously is a easy target but you don't have to look that far. You know sometimes. 13:15.23 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah. 13:19.00 Andre Um, anyway I think this is like a super like interesting alternate reality because like yeah and by the way they lay all of this on you in like 1 cut scene. All of this information. They just tell you this in like 1 anime cut scene. 13:28.11 Dave Yeah, you. 13:34.58 Andre And oh by the way I don't know when else I'm going to have a time to mention this. We both played the Steam Port The the anime cut scenes are obviously still very game Cube quality like this is the most game Cube Ass game Cube Port you could ever have. 13:39.74 Dave Yeah. 13:48.63 Dave Yes. 13:50.94 Andre This almost I mean I almost never advocate for this. This almost seems like a case for a I to like kind of clean this up. Yeah, yeah, yeah here. 13:57.11 Dave Oh to upscale, it. Yeah, it's it's at like fucking what like 480p or whatever resolution the game cube was running on. It looked real bad blown up on my ah my monitor. Um, just also mention like just real quick. It is ah it felt like a lazy pc port. They didn't even change the buttons in the tutorials from the game cube buttons for for playing on mouse and keyboard they didn't change it at all I had to figure out the controls for myself. Yeah, exactly. 14:18.54 Andre Ah, nope. 14:24.47 Andre Do you like how you still seem to like slot a and slot B Anyway, um yeah I Just like. 14:30.67 Dave So anyway back to the story. 14:37.82 Andre Yeah, you'd like you said that that is an aspect of the game I didn't really think about at the time believe it or not I just I maybe just because it was the times but like you know the I Iraq war was happening. There wasn't really end in sight any end inside at that point and it was just like 14:55.17 Andre You know W was settling into a second term. It just felt like the times you know killer7 even though it was like an alternate reality. It was weird but it just kind of you know back? then maybe I just didn't really think of it that way but like yeah killer7 really did reflect the tenor of the time. But yeah, 18 years or mood for a minute now me playing it in 2023? Ah yeah, that it's it's pretty apparent. 15:20.61 Dave Yeah, it's obvious it's it's kind of like well you're you're going to make a game based on what's going on in the real world. Well the real world was obsessed with terrorism back in the early 2000 s 15:33.57 Andre Yeah, everything was everything was such and um, you know one of my favorite things and this is just one of the many reasons why I love killer7 one of my favorite things is seeing America and in in in this case american like political conflict through the eyes of japanese people I guess you could say um because in pseudo fifty one is especially good at this because he seems to enjoy like. 15:56.64 Dave Yeah. 16:07.77 Andre Almost like taking a hatchet at the Japanese culture like there's a there's a character in this game. That's like a bit like a complete anime stereotype. It's like the girl with the big eyes and purple hair and she has a machine gun. She has like the the crazy Intros like the crazy almost like shonen anime Intros like I fight for Justice and power and like et cetera almost like. 16:17.60 Dave Yeah 16:27.41 Andre I guess maybe it's more magical girl but like you know it's like that kind of thing and then it has like fake power rangers like fake as power rangers I guess we'll get to that. Ah, but soon it's clear that suit of 51 has like this deep understanding of America too because like. 16:30.75 Dave Well yeah, of course. 16:45.15 Andre And I'll give you an example, you know how like when you get to the cloud man ah stage I guess you could say and the one in Texas um, with ah Mr Ulmeyda and ah the it starts out with the anime sequence with the guy saying. 16:49.18 Dave Yeah, the one in Texas. Yeah. 17:00.56 Andre Well, we don't get too many black folk around here like talking to gar so Garcia Smith the main character that's not something you usually hear from a japanese game. That's something you hear from an american game you know because they know what Texas is like or whatever or certain parts of Texas I should say. 17:12.83 Dave Yep. Yeah, yeah. 17:17.83 Andre But like for for that to come from a japanese game is a real special understanding of America I think. 17:25.95 Dave Yeah that's something that a long time ago I gave credit to earthbound for having a similar kind of understanding of ah America and like the things that they were kind of referencing in that game and it's something that I took points away from final fantasy 15 for just being like a. A theme park of wild west stereotypes at least at the beginning of that game but yet um, that's that's a good point to ah to bring up and it when done right? It is impressive and there was never a point in this like you might get from a kojima game. 17:44.55 Andre It kind of it kind of is yeah. 18:01.14 Dave At some points where you're playing this. You're like they don't know anything about the Us which is sometimes like you you play a metal gear solid and you're like does Kojima know how the government works here at all. But ah yeah, you're right this there seems to be an understanding here for sure. 18:09.80 Andre I Don't think he does. 18:16.98 Andre I played death stranding about a year and a half ago and the answer to your question is yes who. 18:18.80 Dave Um. 18:24.83 Dave Ah, so in killer7 you control a group of assassins they are called the killer7 because there are 7 of them. They're the only ones who are able to take on this this terrorist group called the heavens smile their heaven smile is not like a group of. Fighters they are like they're a supernatural force they are monsters. Basically it's not like a you know a terrorist group as we might think of them in the real world like is that that a good description for heaven smile. 18:51.79 Andre Yeah I think so yeah, they are they are creatures not like we are the heaven smiles responsible for this, you know? yeah they do that too. There's some of that too or at least it's hinted at you don't really see a whole lot of it. 19:08.62 Andre But like yeah they are a bunch of monsters. 19:08.93 Dave Yeah I've got final fantasy 7 on the brain because I'm playing the remake again and it's not avalanche we're talking about here this they're monsters. They're the enemies in this game. killer7 are the only ones that are capable of taking them down killer7 are these 7 personas. 19:27.33 Dave Or projections kind of of a man named Harman Smith and all 7 of them are different characters. They all have different sets of skills. They have different personalities so we'll just run through them real quick. We mentioned Garcian Smith who is kind of like the public facing persona for the um. 19:46.73 Dave killer7 he's a black man wears a suit. Um, you know, real clean cut unlike a lot of the rest of them. Um. 19:51.60 Andre Oh yeah, if if he he is cold as he is. He's the normal one which is like you know. 19:58.94 Dave Yeah, you he's the he's the one who like yeah you you would see and you'd be like oh that's just a just a normal guy you know or like a professional assassin almost um Dan Smith is a combat focused irish american persona. 20:03.80 Andre Yeah, yeah. 20:13.48 Dave Ah, the next one I believe it's pronounced Kaede Smith is a japanese woman. Yeah, um, she can reveal hidden things around the environment. She has a sniper pistol Kevin Smith is a shirtless british muscle dude not to be confused with jay and silent Bob Kevin Smith 20:28.82 Andre And he really means silent folks a man doesn't speak a single word. 20:34.56 Dave Yep um, Coyote Smith is a latino thief character Con Smith is a chinese ah ah blind young youngest of the group and smallest of the group which kind of plays into his traversal abilities or puzzle solving abilities. 20:52.72 Dave And the last one is called Mask De Smith and ah mask is a mexican luchador wrestler. Um, fun fact. The Surname Smith was given because suda51 loves the band the smiths so me and suda51 fist bump. Love it. 21:06.94 Andre You know I have a confession right now to make here on tales from the backlog I'm a huge Morrissey like solo material guy I have never really gotten into the smiths like I've never I've just never listened obvious I know like the hits if you want to call him that. 21:26.12 Andre You know, but like I never really like explored that says discography. Also I really like Johnny Mar I like all his projects throughout the year so oh yeah, of course he's on this right? I've just never explored the smith I have no idea why I haven't done that. 21:39.21 Dave Interesting. Yeah I recommend it I really like the Smiths the band especially if you're already on board with Morrissey and the things that he sings about and stuff like that. Yeah, check him out. 21:50.29 Andre Yeah, I'm a huge of a huge Morrissey person. So like yeah I I don't know why that? Um, you know when you were talking about ah con Smith there. Um, you know I just made me think of one of the presentation aspects of the game that I really enjoyed is that like. 22:08.11 Dave Um, yeah. 22:08.85 Andre You know how wouldn't you have to as KSmith like get into a small space in a little cut scene where he does like a little flip a little acrobatic like you know what? I mean like under something I love that shit. That's so there's a lot of flare even when you reload your gun. It's like a cut scene. 22:20.35 Dave Ah, yeah, there's a lot of flair. 22:27.76 Andre You know it has to show the whole character doing it. 22:28.88 Dave Yeah I I was going to bring this up because like we have these characters. We have these 7 smiths basically and then Harman who's the the main person but you don't play as Harman for more than a few seconds at a time you play as the 7 you can switch between them whenever you want. But like so they're kind of the main characters but they don't talk to people outside of like each character might get a couple of cut scenes and garcian gets more as the story goes on but like maybe you get like 1 cut scene of Dan talking to somebody or like 1 of coyote talking to somebody. The rest of their ah personality is given through these animations that they have the abilities that they have and stuff like that. So I'm glad you brought up the um like those animations for reloading the other thing that gives them the personality. Ah, like a direct window into them as a person is when you shoot one of the heaven smiles on their weak spot which we'll talk about in the gameplay but bring it up now. They all have one like bespoke line of dialogue like ah a little quip they give when they hit the weak spot on an enemy. 23:42.38 Andre Yes, and that's like for me the defining audio of this game and the thing that has never left me over the years was especially coyote smiths when he hits a weak point. It's like a I'll do my best. It's like a oh you're fucked. 23:58.74 Dave Yet, he really and he really enunciates you're fucked. 24:04.39 Andre Yes, very very he got up to the micro fucked. It's very it's very satisfying maybe that's why I pick him the most I just love to hear that. Ah I do like Con Smiths fuck you. It's like very childish fuck you you know. 24:16.31 Dave Yeah, yeah, it is very very teenager. Yeah, um, there's 2 that I I found myself like while playing this I would walk around the house saying to myself and sometimes say to the dog and stuff like that it was coyotes and then Garcians where he just goes son of a bitch. Real smooth. Yeah. 24:36.25 Andre It's he's very resigned to it's son of a bitch this is like ah this is the fifteen Hundredth heaven smile he's killed you know? Um, yeah it it gives all this stuff gives the all the 7 so much personality. Even um. 24:42.50 Dave Yeah. 24:51.60 Andre Even Kevin Smith who doesn't say a single word. He looks so distinct and looks so he almost looks dead. He almost looks like a zombie you know compared to the rest of the cast. He's wearing sunglasses. He doesn't say a word in the whole game and it's like but he has my favorite power the invisibility. 25:07.32 Dave Right. 25:09.66 Andre Because there is some there is some bullshit enemies that I just kind of like do do do like sneak past and just like you know, got past everybody. 25:12.31 Dave Yeah. 25:18.11 Dave Yeah, you know now that I think about it like everything else that they could have done to distinguish the 7 smiths from each other from character designs backgrounds their animations when they run their animations when they're just standing still the way they hold their guns. Everything's different between them. It's just you don't hear them talk very often. 25:40.43 Andre Um, yeah, and it's just but they all they're all memorable in that way. They give you just enough to um, by the way I never really got that Dance Smith was supposed to be an irish american. 25:47.97 Dave Yeah. 25:58.11 Andre Kind of persona. He didn't really give that um, feeling to me. He was just kind of a dude. He just looked like a dude he stepped out of a manga to me So like I don't know he had that he had that main character look to him. So. 26:02.50 Dave Yeah, just kind of a dude. 26:11.20 Dave He does yeah and his ah his his kill line. He just goes this is too easy. That's all it is so. 26:15.11 Andre Yeah, you know it's not like it's not as it's not fuck you you know? So you're not, you're not going to remember it exactly but it. It's so good. Um, ah can I say that I loved using ah Cade Smith's 26:21.88 Dave Is yeah, it's not your fucked Love it. Um. 26:34.26 Andre Power. It is literally a fountain of blood. She like what she like slits her wrists and just blood just fountains from just everywhere to reveal a wall which I mean it's a weird way to reveal the wall I bet anyone who's never even laid eyes on this game is thinking like what the hell are you talking about? you have to. Create a fountain of blood to like move past invisible walls. Yes, you do that is killer7. 26:51.13 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, I'm not I wasn't clear on like where the blood comes from. But yeah, it's It's real weird. Um I I was tempted like. Wondering if that comes from like her backstory or something I don't think it does. It's just a weird power. 27:10.84 Andre Yeah, yeah I don't I don't think it does either with but meet action. No never mind I can't say that yet we have to go behind the spoiler curtain for that. Never mind I will hold that thought for later. 27:22.20 Dave Ah, yeah, speaking of weird um the seven also run into a couple of recurring npcs throughout the game. 3 main ones you have yuan who is kind of like a hint system in the game you can. Pay some of your blood currency to get a hint for whatever puzzles going on. You have Travis who is this tank top wearing dude who's just kind of lounging around a lot of places you go Travis gives you backstory on like what's going on in the world and then you have ah this. 27:58.60 Dave But if there was a mascot for this game. It's probably I was Iwazaru is wearing this red kind of bdsm Gimp costume is his eyes are sewn shut. It's a real. 28:09.80 Andre Yep. 28:11.40 Dave It's a real design. It's something that like oh someone's been thinking about this design for a long time and Iwazaru is there to kind of like set your um missions in motion and just kind of. 28:18.85 Andre Um, do do you think like no good. Sorry. 28:30.97 Dave You go and talk to him and he just he he half talks about like what's going on but the other half is just telling you how fucked everything is and how you're in a tight spot. This is bad. This is really really bad. 28:46.75 Andre Oh yeah, Master we're in trouble. Do you like? um, do you like how he just pieces out during Cloudman because he's like oh man Afros are weird I better Go like just say it's so that he's just like not there. It's just like ok that was that was strange I guess he was sorry you need to explore your feelings on this. This is not good anyway. Um, like um I do like that. Um I'm sorry I can ever pronounce the ah yoon hyun 29:04.33 Dave Um, oh man. Yeah. 29:19.42 Andre Yoon Hyun. Um, yeah I'm I'm really bad at at saying that one. Um he I like that if you do take the hint from him. He just has permanent double fingers like right at you. It's like oh you poor bastard he had to use my hint you piece of shit. 29:31.70 Dave Um, yes. 29:35.65 Andre You go the the game makes you feel really shitty for wanting the hint you know and this is ah this is obviously before that Well I guess like stuff like game if Aques existed or whatever. But like if you wanted that ingame hint they really made you feel like an asshole for it which is funny. 29:49.42 Dave Yeah, there are good hints though. So they they usually helpful. 29:54.28 Andre Yeah, they are pretty helpful. Um Iwazaru to me it sort of defines the game though as you said he's like if you say you said he's almost like the mascot Travis as well because Travis has all the gossip. He has all the lore. Also. 30:11.66 Dave Um. 30:12.33 Andre Travis is great because like you said his tank tops. It always has a different word saying like you know sexual or like you know, ah Bronco it always has some some phrase on it. You know it's just like what what the hell is going on I love it. Um. 30:18.00 Dave Yeah. 30:25.77 Dave Yeah, they're always funny. Yeah. 30:31.63 Andre Sometimes just this Killer did you know someone took all the files from the actual game. All his shirts and like turned them into shirts on like red bubble or whatever like the actual like you know like yeah, so if you want that shirt that says sexual or whatever. 30:42.41 Dave Um, oh yeah. 30:47.65 Andre And Grasshopper Manufacture tweeted and said hey we're totally cool with this. Go go buy these shirts like so that was yeah yeah, that was that was great. They did that anyway I was Aru is a mascot of the game to me as well. He's it's he's weird. It's cryptic. It's. 30:49.76 Dave Nice Hell yeah, awesome. Good on them. 31:04.85 Andre Often Funny and super interesting I always wanted to hear what he had to say even though it made no sense at all. Sometimes it's fantastic. He is the soul of the game to me he was aru. 31:15.95 Dave Yeah, and iwazaru is a good point to kind of jump into like I said in the beginning I had a lot of trouble following the story. This is 1 thing that makes it tough is is iwazaru and Travis and Yoon Hyun. And other npcs that you meet there are some other recurring ones but I don't know their names and they're not like well I don't want to say they're not important but they're not as important not as central to the delivery of the story. All of them. Yeah, they don't have. 31:44.60 Andre Yeah, those are the 3 really. 31:51.40 Dave Real voice acting like the Smiths do they talk in this warbled um Gibberish Basically sometimes you'll you'll pick out a word or something like that if you're reading along with what they're saying which you should be because you will not understand them. Um. 32:08.62 Dave So This This is one of the things and along with the storytelling which we'll talk about in a second I had a lot of trouble focusing during these um I have some trouble with attention and so I have trouble with attention during games where they're speaking English So when we have this where it's It's not. Ah, real language.. It's just warbled nonsense that they're speaking I had trouble paying attention. Sometimes it was our sticks around and you can talk to him again. Sometimes he just pieces out So if he said something important that was lost forever for me and a lot of the story got lost because of that. 32:38.61 Andre Yeah. Um I Understand what you mean I think sometimes it would be detrimental if you could talk to E Wizar when he said something like really out of date I Guess is why they kind of make him disappear. It's not.. It's an imperfect system. But I think they did that for a reason not just like well you missed it. 33:01.31 Dave Right. 33:03.19 Andre You know, but um, as for the gibberish speak. It's It's obviously an artistic choice because they're dead. You know the dead people speak that way. The people who are alive have actual voice acting but most of the people you talk to are dead so you know and then of course if you talk to somebody that was. 33:09.60 Dave Um, yeah, right. 33:16.49 Dave Right. 33:22.51 Andre Alive before they had voice acting and they are no longer alive then you know they're going to speak to you in that in that gibberish manner which I which I don't know I think it's a great artistic touch I Understand what you're saying though about um, following along. 33:28.32 Dave Right? right. 33:35.91 Dave Yeah, yeah, it's it's tough and and maybe it makes me a bad podcaster for not giving 100 % of my attention but I am only human I suppose I could have gone and watched it all on Youtube but I didn't really want to do that. It's part of. This podcast is the goal of this podcast is not to fully explain and fully explore the story of killer7 we're talking about our experiences playing it so that's part of my experience. The other part of it is that the story while it has a relatively simple, understandable. 33:53.11 Andre Nah. 34:12.59 Dave Setting and setup like we brought up before it then goes into complete fantasy land told in very weird nonlinear and confusing ways we have a political storyline about the relationship between countries. We have a storyline about Elections. We have the story of the smith syndicate and how they came to be and then we have multiple smaller stories about all of the different characters that you meet and how they get into the position that they are now or. 34:32.70 Andre Yeah. 34:45.32 Dave Maybe you meet them and maybe they die. Maybe you kill them and then they become ah a different type of character later in the game. There's a lot going on in the story I probably picked up on what I consider to be the most. Ah, the easiest part which is what happened to the smith syndicate. How did they come to be I got that part but the the political stuff I had a really hard time following it. Um, and then some of the other kind of like other storylines I went to read the Wikipedia entry after I finished the game and I was like holy shit that was going on. Ok. 35:18.90 Andre Yeah there's so it's a lot. It is a lot but quite frankly I don't think you're supposed to pick up on every detail because they didn't make it in such a way where you're supposed to I'm not sure any of us are supposed to care. That much I feel like it's one of those things where you're supposed to just kind of let it wash over you. You know it's it's vibes over substance I guess if I want to put it in a short way and I know people think that's like. Sometimes derogatory to say to something that's like super stylized that doesn't mean that it has no substance. It's just that like it. It's I don't know I'll put it this way since I compare everything to 90 s hip hop and I'll do so again. So like busta rhymes. 35:59.17 Dave Ah. 36:11.63 Andre Is like my one of my favorite rappers of all time. Not my absolute favorite but he's like top 5 right? that man had absolutely nothing to say in those raps Dave nothing like I dare you to tell me what put your hands where my eyes could see is about. 36:14.36 Dave Hell yeah. 36:29.49 Andre Do you know what? that song's about because I don't and it doesn't matter. It's it's pretty words right? That's how I kind of feel about killer7 It's just a cool vibe that you enjoy in video game for if I want real storytelling I'll turn to something else. You know like killer7 36:48.63 Andre Yeah, you'll get something you'll get something but don't come here thinking you're going to get some like nice concise tight. Story. It's too weird for all of that and it doesn't make any attempt to tie it together. You know it's the buster yes busta right killer7 is the busta rhymes of video games that was that's my ah statement for today. 37:07.41 Dave Yeah I like that I like that if I clipped stuff for social media that would be the clip but I don't do it. So everyone who listens to the episode will they'll be the only ones who get to enjoy that. Ah I like that as soon as you brought up busta rhymes I was like you're right I'm just kind of. 37:24.60 Dave Bobbing along to the to the rhythm that he's gone with you know in his songs. Yeah I don't go to busta rhymes for lyricism for sure. Um I I do think that this game does have things to say especially with that political storyline. Um I don't feel like. 37:43.77 Dave Just don't feel like they would make this setting and go through the trouble of having this kind of like political and um, you know what's the international relations based storyline if if there was no thing that suda51 wanted to say there but I had a really hard time connecting with it. Um I think I can see where it is but like I just couldn't follow and it's I think it's like if I go on Wikipedia and read it I can follow it. It's not like it's too confusing or too smart or something like that. It's purely the way the story is delivered I didn't know what like. Timeline I was in half the time in this game. Let alone being able to piece together. You know all of these moving parts in this like developing story of international relations now that yeah, you're right I should I should back down here. That's right game games. 38:31.35 Andre Yeah, games are not political though. Dave I need to remind you of this again. Okay. 38:41.99 Dave Games only became political in the last like 5 years or so yeah. 38:47.93 Andre Yeah, um, it just yeah I I I hear you I totally hear you I guess I Guess for me, maybe this will this will explain it Better. I Never actually tried at some I don't think at any point during this game even my original playthrough I ever was like okay that's going to come around to this or what does that mean for that I just kind of took I literally just took every scene as just its own thing. 39:16.22 Andre From the get go and so maybe that's why I never like got too confused about it because I never tried to understand it so I did maybe I think I just came at it from a totally different perspective. 39:22.56 Dave Um, yeah, well this could you could experience it this way and if you do you will be left with just a a collection of very memorable scenes. Very creative characters, memorable people and memorable scenes that happen because there there is a lot of stuff like later in the spoiler section we're we're going to just kind of rapid fire through some some memorable stuff that happens and we've got some real weirds you mentioned the Knockoff power rangers earlier. There's a whole chapter about them. 39:56.46 Andre He yep. 39:58.75 Dave Like there's a bunch of memorable stuff and memorable in a way where like this is clearly a game something I give like the the kojima games credit for and all the others where there's like a you know Kojima doesn't make metal gear solid games by himself, but those are his visions. And this game is suda51's vision and you will never mistake it for anything other than that. 40:22.10 Andre Yeah, it is. It is totally just his yeah you know and like I said actually um ah about a year and a half ago I did play death straining which I did Enjoy. Um, for the most part there was some things about it that I found really obnoxious, but like for the most part I enjoyed it just because it was so fucking weird it was so you know like and that's all I really wanted from it and that's what I got and killer7 is the same way it you were talking about scenes like. 40:41.59 Dave Yes. 40:54.11 Andre Scenes that happen like cool scenes and like other stuff. It's like whoa that was weird and I think that really illustrates how I think about this game like there's that I mean I'm not going to go into too many details here because I don't want to spoil but there's a boardroom scene with 2 japanese businessmen. 41:11.80 Dave M. 41:13.24 Andre That starts a chapter and they're saying stuff like you know for 65 years it worked so hard to restore this country and now it's all going up in smoke again because of this current conflict or whatever and it's like by the way games are not political everybody and um and ah you know there's that thing right? There's a deadly game of mahjong. 41:23.90 Dave Again, yeah. 41:32.90 Andre Do you remember that one four guys playing Mahjong ok, there's the fitness club scene where Dan Smith kind of has this moment against ah Curtis Blackburn a few a villain in the game. 41:40.31 Dave Yeah. 41:44.54 Andre And he's saying stuff to him in vagueries and I'm glad this was vague because he's they're talking about orphans and shit and he's like oh he only takes the girls and stuff like that and I'm like whoa I'm glad to not know any more about this. That's that's that's fine. Um, by the way, do you like the reoccurring bit. 41:57.13 Dave Yep. 42:02.17 Andre Of ah the guy calls Garcian on the phone dear Mr Smith have you decided on your vote if you have it let the republican party make use of your precious vote. Thank you in heaven I say I loved it I I didn't feel right if I didn't hear that to begin a chapter in Garcian's trailer 42:07.86 Dave Ah, yeah, yeah. 42:13.81 Dave Yeah, exactly? Yeah yeah, that all of those and like you know there's there's more stuff that we're going to save for the spoiler section. We've been talking about the story for a while now but there is a lot of like. Individual stuff that I do think like if someone puts in the work I've seen I've seen like what's what's the word. Ah fuck thumbnails of Youtube videos of people who did put in the work I didn't watch any of the videos I just you know didn't grab me that way. But I do think that if you're going to put in the work I think that you could come out of this with like ah a very clear story like that. But for me and it sounds like for you too this this will exist as like a collection of very memorable scenes. Um that that stick out and they're they're cool. They're weird and. 43:11.62 Andre Yeah, and that's all that's what I came for and that's what I got so I fortunately came with the right mentality to this game from the beginning. 43:11.74 Dave Everything in between. 43:26.70 Dave So let's talk about one of the other things that's really striking about killer7 which is the way that it looks um this just first of all, this is a game that if you look at screenshots of video games. You will never miss the killer7 screenshot like you'll. You could give me a thousand screenshots of a thousand different games I will find the killer7 screenshot if there is 1 nothing else really looks like this. It's very distinctive. 43:52.61 Andre Ah, yeah, it's It's one of the more distinctive I mean I hate being so hyperbolic but it's True. It's honestly one of the most distinctive games I've ever seen like as a art style as like a. Visual identity as direction I mean like literal camera angles and shit like it's just it's just insane in a great way because the game is insane. Um I would I would describe these. 44:19.61 Dave Yeah. 44:26.55 Andre Visuals as you know if we think back to 2005 you know it. It was a time where you were trying to go for styles that you couldn't quite depict before in video games like the previous generation didn't have the fidelity to do something like killer7 right. 44:42.42 Andre So like you know, yeah, we had like cell shaded stuff right? That's where your mind goes first like the striking visual I did like the the profiles I guess of the characters right? You could take that back to like stuff like Jet set radio if you want but like but then you add the dark graphic novel. Stuff on top of it and then you think stuff like you know Sin City or 30300 wasn't out yet. But you know what I'm saying right? and that like very political that very polygonal almost had political that very political look full or 7 as yeah. 45:13.91 Dave Not political how many times do we have to say this. 45:19.39 Andre I'm sorry Dave I'm sorry of that very polygonal look that like Gorod shaded you know like no textures look to it almost look at like an old virtue fighter like virtua fighter but spooky right? like that like very like. That that like it's very dark sometimes the lighting is very moody and the color choices too are like outrageous sometimes like just very not just bold but also monochrome or just passed out. Whatever they're feeling like at the time. You know and that that feels more american comics to me right than something like a manga obviously because a manga is black and white. But you you know what? I'm trying to say um it it just makes the whole thing look super surreal which is the point of the game so like mission accomplished when art meets. 46:05.65 Dave Yeah. 46:10.98 Andre Technology in a way like this like I'm trying to think of my favorites whether it's like destiny or Mdk or whatever whenever like the art style meets the technology fully is something that I always appreciate in Killer Seven is like. For me just on that level like top top 3 for me. Maybe. 46:31.83 Dave Yeah, and and games that have like that very stylized look to them and especially on these older consoles. The the ones that are not going for photo realistic graphics or the closest that they could get at the time stuff like killer7 That is the stuff that like I played this I already said I think it's a pretty lazy Pc Port. They did not do everything they could to make it look good on a 4 K screen but the game outside of the cut scenenes like the the anime cut scenenes The game plays sections still look really really good. Um, no complaints there whatsoever. 47:11.63 Andre Yeah, and obviously for this Pc Port. They made the game sixty frames a second. It was originally 30 on game cube. But now I think about it I'm surprised at game this textureless and kind of like. Single camera like you know, fixed camera perspective was not 60 Maybe they just didn't feel like working on it. You you notice the the reload animations are still annoyingly 30 like they're very yeah i. 47:27.95 Dave I did I did they do kind of I almost wondered if it was a stylistic choice in a game with so many other stylistic choices. 47:40.85 Andre It's weird I think they just couldn't fix it in time or something because well it's only noticeable because you see them so often usually a reload animation and game isn't a big deal. It's a big deal and care will killer7 as he said so um, but yeah. 47:57.15 Andre Um, porting importing a mid 2000 s game keep game to to steam is um, is ah, not always the easiest thing in the world. So I'm glad they? Yeah It's a very bare bones port as we said it still has like slot a slot b saving like you have memory cards even though you don't. But it works. Um, one thing I also really like about the visual identity of this game is like the artistic use of Japanese Kanji very yeah, which it would just use in a variety of ways. Especially. 48:24.43 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 48:31.36 Andre Like when you start a chapter you do this thing where you do you put a laser site over your target and then you press the a button it just goes and they explode into like these bloody Kanji It's so wild. It's It's amazing and when this game came out I knew zero kanji. 48:38.95 Dave Yeah. 48:47.57 Andre Now playing in 2023 I know over a thousand kanji so now looking back at this game I get it I can now you don't have to read the stuff obviously I played the game back in the day I just took it as like artistic flair. That's all it needs to be. But if you can read it. 49:02.90 Dave Um, yeah. 49:05.14 Andre You It's a little bit more of a treat. It's It's fun. 49:07.94 Dave Yeah, nice little bonus. Yeah for sure. Um, a couple of like if we're still talking about visuals and I agree those those um parts with the Kanji when you open up a chapter those are striking. There's a couple of like when you first boot up the game. The main menu is striking the the use of colors the the cackling laughter in the background and then you start a chapter and you get this screen where you put a laser site on a shadow. Basically you shoot and it like you said it explodes into these these bloody. 49:41.11 Dave Circles and they form a Kanji but it's it's It's very artistically done So it really sets the tone for like what's going to happen for the rest of the game. Um from a gameplay perspective I Think the visual style works really really well too. We'll talk about. 49:49.69 Andre Yeah. 49:59.76 Dave In Gameplay we've already mentioned you're kind of on rails in the game and you're you can't you don't have freedom of exploration and movement. You're going where the game lets you go and you're looking for items. It's an adventure game. So a lot of you know point and Click adventures you get into this this shitty. 50:18.55 Andre Yeah, oh. 50:18.96 Dave Version of Pixel Hunting. You know what's Interactable. What's not interactable that is not a problem in killer7 because a lot of the areas are really minimalist except for the stuff that's important like the enemies. The items that you can pick up. Maybe there's this weird environmental Puzzle. You have to solve but you'll know that that's the thing you have to solve because everything else is pretty like like I said minimalist bare bones in a good way. 50:47.10 Andre Yes, completely agree I the clean look of the game supports the um like you said adventure aspects of it, especially the fact that you. They never. You don't have to search for items you just you're literally there. It's like oh you want to pick up this thing press this direction and press a okay you got it right? and I like that all that stuff is easy if you will so you can just kind of enjoy the killer7. 51:11.12 Dave Yeah, it's one of those games where like if you explore all the rooms if you go to all the places that are available to you. You will find all the key items you can you need pretty so pretty easily like There was a couple times I needed to check a guide but it was because like there was a 2 way intersection I went one way and then forgot about the intersection to go the other way or something like that. It wasn't like I went in this room I scoured this room and there was a key hidden somewhere that I couldn't that shit never happens in killer7. 51:34.63 Andre Yeah. 51:46.53 Dave So ah, much appreciated. Um, and then the heavens smile enemies we've we we mentioned them before they're the antagonists. They are the monsters that you're fighting. They all have these very cool creepy weird designs. Um lot of different designs. There's most of them are humanoid. But they look like you know lizards or like little Godzillas or something like that. Um, they all have these weird faces these creepy smiles. But then there are a lot of other strange designs that don't map on to like traditional monster designs. There's one that's a rolling ball and there's one that's. This ah Masa look. 52:24.42 Andre That's I'm sorry I Always I Always forget about them until I play the game again. It's like oh no, this is so weird. Yeah. 52:30.92 Dave You see them. Yeah, the rolling balls. Yeah, and they jingle like Jingle bells when they're rolling. It's real weird. Um, ah there there's another one that's like a um like a mass of flesh up in the ceiling. That's just laying eggs. it's it's there 52:37.29 Andre Yeah, hey. 52:48.55 Dave Strange but despite all of these weird designs and you know we mentioned minimalist design and other aspects you're looking for the weak points to shoot them and the weak points are very obvious very clear. No matter what kind of heaven smile they are I never came up against one unless they don't have a visible weak point. 53:05.74 Andre O. 53:07.92 Dave Never came up against one where I was like I don't know what the fuck to do. It's always just like no shoot that spot. 53:13.16 Andre Ah, although there are a couple enemies like you said where I straight up did not know what the fuck to do and even on my like what third or fourth playthrough here played a couple times in game q played last year played right now I still don't actually really know what to do and that's where the Kevin Smith comes in or it's like. 53:30.60 Dave Right. 53:32.23 Andre I'm just going to zip by these guys because I really don't know what to do. But I'm glad that's an option right? They obviously knew like okay if someone just wants to like quote unquote cheese the game they can like if they if you really want to you know and I like when games games back then kind of wanted you to work for it. 53:49.64 Andre But so time but obviously killer7 doesn't have a whole lot of tradition in the way of like bosses or like you know like you see I mean like it does have bosses but do we really want to consent I mean not really right? So yeah. 54:02.67 Dave A lot of yeah, a lot of the bosses are they're not traditional boss fights. They're more like this is a weird puzzle that you're going to have to figure out with the abilities that you have. It's not like here's a regular heaven smile but you have to shoot it 60 times instead of 2 you know it's not like that. Um, I think the smiles are a good chance to talk about sound design too because that's another striking thing about the heaven smile enemies. Um, they're invisible when you first find them. But you'll always know they're there because they do this weird laughter. That's ah how they announce themselves. Um. 54:36.92 Andre I Love it. 54:42.46 Dave And then you use 1 of your you you right? Click if you're playing on keyboard and mouse to show them and then once you kill them. They do this like shrieking laughter when they're dead kind of like the shrieking laughter in the main menu when you first boot up the game. It's ah again, weird. 55:01.40 Dave But memorable and serves the gameplay really? well. 55:04.50 Andre It's really cool. It's I mean obviously we've talked about a number of sound design things in this game but like that that in particular is so good because it's like it's so instantly. I don't want to say iconic because like not enough people have played this game to have considered it that but like it would be if it was popular in which it will never be popular because it's killer7 but um, it. It's great I love the guys who um, not the not the ones that are in a ball. 55:20.64 Dave Right. 55:26.35 Dave Right. 55:34.89 Andre But the ones who do like sort of somersat somersaults towards you and are just like Ha ha over. It's like oh my God shut up and don't want to hear you anymore? Um, but yeah, the occasionally um. 55:37.70 Dave Yes. 55:50.53 Andre Ah, me and a friend still like we played the game back in the day and when we talk now we still give each other a like another heaven smile. We still think of it every so often or ah or a you're fucked like we we still say that shit to each other. So. 56:01.91 Dave Exactly Yup, yep again coming back up in the sound design too. Um, the music in killer7 is credited to Masafumi Takata who I know personally from the god hand soundtrack. 56:06.80 Andre It's if you want memorable there. It is. 56:21.43 Dave Which just bopps I love it and the kid icarus uprising soundtrack past episode of tales from the backlog I don't like that game but I do love that soundtrack. So good job to ah to them and then the other person credited is Jun fukuda. So. 56:30.11 Andre Hello. 56:38.80 Dave What do you think about the music in this game. 56:40.44 Andre I think the music in killer7 is really good. It's obviously very 2005 it still has that like leftover like ah jungle or like drum and bass sound to it to a lot of it. Um, when you're just kind of walking around especially in the I'm thinking of the um. Ah, music park level where you're just kind of cruising through those hallways those weird hallways and you hear you have that music going. It's great. Um, it's it's that unmistakable like 2000 s electronica which it to me is good I like that shit. But that's fine. But you also have you or you know you have like Moody Piano moments you have some like creepy atmospheric stuff sometimes you know and then you have silence when it's says us here. It's it's almost like resting the evils of old you know like the the 90 s ones where you just had this variety this grab bag of whatever. 57:20.95 Dave You. 57:34.55 Andre Was needed at that point. Um, there is one there is 1 song in this game though that really slaps is when you ah Jesus Christ I forget the name of the place when you're going to the gate to the next place and you have to go up and downstairs and all of a sudden places club jam. 57:49.89 Dave Oh yeah I wrote that in my ah I wrote that in the notes it's It's really like one of the only notes I wrote about the music is the Vinculum gate Dance music Fucks I Love it it in it. It stands out too because um, like you had said. 57:53.77 Andre Which is insane. Oh. 57:59.57 Andre Yeah, then Vinculum Gate gate. Thank you. 58:09.64 Dave For a lot of the levels. There isn't music. You're you're walking around. It's it's footsteps and atmospheric sounds. You got to hear the heaven smiles when they come up when they do their laughter. So um, the lack of music really helps there and then suddenly when it's time to like go to the boss you go to this. 58:28.90 Dave Special place. Um, you go up and down these stairs and this bumping dance music is playing and like you're only in that room for like 10 seconds but I'm sitting here bobbing my head and then you have to go back through that to go. You know to the end of the level and I'm waiting to go back in there because I can get that hit of that song again. 58:45.40 Andre I Like how when you're giving the guy the soul The the things like you can hear it from the outside. It's like a version where it's like you're outside the club and you hear the booming base or whatever. It's like you can kind of hear it I love when games do that. 58:46.54 Dave Ah, love it. 58:52.28 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah. 59:00.40 Andre Ah, so it. It's good, but you can stand there and listen to it. it's it's great it is a full last song you can listen to it for more than the 10 seconds so anytime you want to any anytime you want to shut up and jam you can ah you can stand there and listen to it. But no I think the the music of this game is really good. 59:04.58 Dave Yeah I have listened to it on Youtube in fact, yeah. 59:19.63 Andre Um, like like you said it's It's not always like music music. You know sometimes it's atmospheric stuff but that counts too. That's always good so you know I really enjoyed it. 59:26.40 Dave Oh yeah, course it it seems to me like other than that that dance track a lot of the music is like it works to set the mood of wherever you are or whatever is happening. And this is a game with a bunch of other like really loud aesthetic choices and the music is one of the more like not traditional because nothing in this game is super traditional, but the music does kind of hang back and let the other stuff take the center stage I Guess yeah. 01:00:00.39 Andre For for sure. Totally agree. 01:00:04.86 Dave Well, let's ah, let's listen to that venkculum gate dance track here and when we come back, we're going to talk about the gameplay in killer7 Vinculum gate music. So we have kind of touched on the gameplay a little bit killer7 is a very Arcadie. On rails game so you not a rail shooter in the sense that you are only moving forward but you you can control if you go forward, you can turn around and run backward. You have free reign over the tracks that they've laid out in these levels so say like you're exploring a school you can. Run down the hallway. Sometimes it'll give you the option to go into classrooms. But if you go past a classroom and they don't want you to go in there. It won't even give you the option to interact you'll just keep running so you don't have free reign you are on rails. Um I think this is another one of those design decisions where. 01:00:56.00 Andre Yep. 01:01:03.65 Dave They have a certain thing they want you to do. They have certain things that they want you to find certain like things puzzles that you're going to be working on. They want you to focus on the important stuff. Um I I think that taking away all of this control helps. 01:01:20.37 Andre Yeah, because like imagine this game where you could roam around wherever you want you would get so lost because a lot of the areas I mean like they're showing you exactly what they want you to show you for a reason. This I will try to avoid getting into one of my rants about how we need to take back the control of the camera from video games. But that's that's another.. That's another thing. Um I It will surely frustrate. Some people who will probably just think why can't I just go over there. The answer is. Most likely. There's nothing to see there. The answer can be Also they don't want you to see that yet or whatever which is fine. But I think that will be the thing and I think that's why this game. 01:01:53.20 Dave Yeah. 01:02:07.96 Andre I mean I think everyone who was played the game likes it because you got to be a certain type of person to even like seek this out but I don't that's why I don't think this game could ever have been a mainstream hit because of that adherence to its adventure game roots. Can you imagine I swear. It feels like under the wrong publisher they would have been like well why isn't this a first person shooter or why isn't that you know like I feel like this game could have been easily ruined by a number of people electronic art. So like I just don't I just don't um. 01:02:30.67 Dave Me. 01:02:41.70 Andre I Like that it was allowed to be what it is I guess I like that you just kind of move from place to place on rails and it's just that. 01:02:48.13 Dave Yeah, yeah, and it is a first person shooter but only when you're holding your gun the rest of it's in third person so you get to see your character run. You have these dramatic camera angles and stuff like that. Um, so I agree with you I think that like. 1 of the reasons that they did it this way is because they only want you to focus on the important stuff. Why ask yourself if you're 1 if you're playing this and wondering why it is this way would you have preferred to be able to interact with every door and they just say up the door's busted is that better I don't think it is they just. 01:03:22.93 Andre No. 01:03:25.27 Dave Remove all that shit like I'm thinking of ah silent hill or something like that where there's tons of doors but you can only interact with like 30% of them. So this game just says now you're not interacting with the ones that aren't important just move on. Um, so basically what you're doing. 01:03:32.40 Andre And. Just yeah. 01:03:42.93 Dave Is you again, you do have free reign of where you go. So you're making your way through these levels doing backtracking from time to time doing these adventure game puzzles and a lot of what you're doing in the meantime like from point a to point b is since you're on these tightly controlled tracks they have these. Tightly designed combat encounters set up where sometimes there are a certain number of heaven smiles there sometimes heaven smiles will continuously respaw if you take too long in 1 area again. You'll always know that they're there because you'll hear that sound cue. 01:04:21.30 Dave You have to do is you have to stop. You can't run and shoot you have to stop pull up your weapon hey resident evil 4 capcom 5 stop and shoot. Um, you have to stop pull out your gun right? click to like scan the environment and reveal the smile that's out there waiting and then kill it. 01:04:40.36 Dave Smiles too like sometimes combat can get a bit repetitive because the smiles all they're basically doing is running at you. There are very few long range attacks in the game most of what they do is just run up and if they touch you they explode some of them kill you in 1 hit most of them. Don't. And it depends on what character you're using too. How badly you get hurt. But that's what you're doing you. You go through these hallways shooting the weak points instant kills the heaven smiles and you get to absorb blood. It's kind of like your yeah. 01:05:00.12 Andre Yeah. 01:05:18.73 Dave Ring the bell everybody but it's kind of like um, it's your currency but it can also be used to heal you. So I guess I'm not going to do the dark souls reference. But that's how you get money in the game using blood so you get those from killing the smiles and you get more blood from hitting the weak spots for those instant kills. 01:05:25.90 Andre Oh no. 01:05:37.58 Dave Um. 01:05:40.65 Andre Yeah, it's it's a very interesting type of of um how do I say it recursive is not the right term I want I I like it basically because you can spin that. Currency if you will the way you want because you can use that stuff to upgrade your guys. You can upgrade the ones that you want and and there they do have stoppers in place to like because like when you go back to the Tv by the way you see like if you're in the save room. You can select your ah. 01:06:16.35 Andre Your next smith on it on a really old Tv which I mean just talk about talk about aesthetic but like I mean you can also go there to have the blood guy turn in your blood but at some point during a chapter. He might just put up the Hey that's enough blood. He puts up the closed sign for the day and it's like Nope you can't do any more of that. 01:06:32.67 Dave Yeah, you can so you can grind a little bit but there's a point where they'll be like okay that's enough and you're not leveling up anymore in this level. 01:06:44.47 Andre Yeah, which which is good I liked it I like that they had a cute little way of like you know hey I'm on break now. No um to to do that And um I like that That's also the way you restore your health. 01:06:51.92 Dave Um, yeah. 01:07:02.23 Andre I was these days I always get dumb and just call it the woke eye the fucking Illuminati I like you know like it shows your shows your health. Um, which is weird I like the sound effect. It makes so when you get full. It has this like very energized like electronic like like this buzzer sound. 01:07:19.69 Andre I can't even begin to imitate it. But I that's another piece ah aspect of um, sound design I enjoy but the fact that that's also used for your special moves. The thing that reveals your life is also like the currency you use to do like have Kevin turn invisible or have. Dan do the hellian shot or whatever I like that I like that about the game I guess that it's the same pool. 01:07:38.16 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:07:45.28 Dave Yeah, um I like it's in in if if anyone's listening and thinking like oh well I'm I'm using the same resource for like 3 different things. Do you ever feel like you're not getting enough. The answer is no I never felt that way. Um, you don't get enough to fully level up all of the Smiths or even level up all the skills on 1 or 2 of them. Ah, but you'll quickly find your favorites and like the general advice that I came up with is like find 1 or 2 that you really like of the Smith characters. 01:08:18.95 Dave Level them Up. You know, level up their damage level up their health stuff like that and then keep everybody else like a little bit lower. You know, but you don't have to worry about. A situation where like you need all of your smiths@maxlevel or something like that. It's not that kind of game. 01:08:35.95 Andre Yeah, it's not that kind of game. Also, there's very there isn't a whole lot of situations where they make you play as a particular one. 01:08:45.48 Dave Right. 01:08:47.92 Andre You know that happens on very rare occasions. But it's not very ah and if even if it does You're not going to be like underpowered or you're gonna be fucked if you if you don't if you're go I'm sorry you're gonna be fucked if you if you don't Ah, if you. 01:08:58.80 Dave Thank you, Thank you. 01:09:03.80 Andre Ah, if your guy is underpowered like say you haven't powered up Kaede or something like that. You're not going to be like oh no, they're making me play this one little section is her I'm screwed. That's not going to be the case. 01:09:16.00 Dave Yeah, um, sometimes at the beginning of levels. You'll only have access to like 2 or 3 of the smiths and by killing enemies you'll gain access to the other ones so you will get all of them at a certain point in all the levels. Um. So as you're going if a character dies then you start back at the save room at the Tv you pick another smith and you have 2 choices you can pick Garcian and try to go back to the spot where the last person died Garcian's big ability is he can revive the other smiths. Ah, so if you get back there. There's a nice cut scene of him picking up this bloody burlap sack and reviving. Ah the Smith or you can just take on another persona and continue on with the level I never did that I was just took garcian out. You're never that far away from a save room anyway. So. 01:10:02.57 Andre Me too. Yeah, also that is the only way you can game over if Garcian dies because if you're out there trying to revive your get your other guy and he dies. That's how that's the only time you'll have to reload your save. Yeah. 01:10:20.99 Dave Gotcha yeah. 01:10:22.20 Andre So that that can't happen. It's it's rare because the game isn't that difficult and also you know exactly where the meat bag is right? but um, and also I meant to say this during um earlier but it's I guess it's more of a gameplay thing. So I'm glad I forgot until now. 01:10:26.94 Dave Right? yeah. 01:10:37.70 Andre The fact that like just storywise a camera will be on you and then Garcian will change into one of the other Personas all of a sudden That's one aspect of like story or whatever that I actually do wish I knew a lot more about like why did why did that happen. 01:10:53.30 Dave Yep, same. 01:10:55.72 Andre Yeah, like there's a bunch of surveillance cameras as there is in life anywhere right? So like let's say you're walking up to a gas station and then all of a sudden the game will cut to the perspective of that camera of him walking into the gas station and then he'll just change into Dan Smith or whatever for some reason. I understand sometimes it does that because that's the person who's going to talk in the next cut scene. So it needs to be that person but sometimes it'll happen for seemingly no reason they just want you to play this little section of the game is that that character I guess it's like okay I guess it's weird I don't know. 01:11:14.75 Dave Right. 01:11:26.70 Dave Um, yeah, so the different smiths we mentioned they all have different like out of combat abilities but they all they'll well you play similar because they all have guns but they all have a role to play and like. This is you have 7 characters and I definitely had my favorites but this is not a game where I only used my favorites. There was always a situation for the other characters. So just run through them real quick Dan has just a really powerful pistol. Um, he has a charged shot combat ability. That's his special ability kayote fights with a sniper pistol. So there are situations where you need to shoot something. That's really far away. There's a couple of like you know quote boss fights where you need that. Um. And then she also has that ability where she can reveal hidden walls and stuff like that. Um Kevin can turn invisible and he fights with throwing knives and he can throw them really quickly so that helps coyote can pick locks out in the environment which is really I mean essential. It's not great. It's essential. 01:12:33.97 Andre Yeah, yes, you got to have it. 01:12:37.54 Dave Um, coyote has another pistol con can run really really fast in his special move. He has 2 special moves. He can fit through small places. He can also run even faster. That's his like power up and he fights with double pistols. So if you have a situation where you need to so shoot something quickly. 01:12:57.31 Dave And a lot you can use con and then mask has these 2 hand cannon like grenade launcher type guns. Um, and you can destroy some walls and stuff in the environment and I love I love this. You can do wrestling moves on stuff in the environment. So like let's say there's a stack of 2 by 4 s blocking a door the way you get rid of it is mask will pile drive those into the ground because he's a wrestler. It is. 01:13:26.72 Andre Ah, that's so ridiculous. It's the kind of thing honestly that I did not think about at all back in the day didn't bat a single eyelashes like sure you can he can pile drive the 2 by 4 s okay, you know, but now I think about how ridiculous it is nowadays but like when I was like 20 01:13:36.00 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:13:43.21 Andre 3 or whatever. It's like a you know? So what? Okay, um, yeah, all of them. It's I like that. All of them are useful. There is a time and place for all of them and you can also pick favorites. 01:13:46.61 Dave Um, yeah. 01:13:54.85 Dave Yeah. 01:13:56.82 Andre There isn't very like he is very rarely a case where you have to be this particular one that almost never happens you can usually use whoever you want and I like that I you know I I don't know about you I Ah but I almost always roll. Ah. Coyote if I can not just because I you're fucked but like I you know I don't know I think that the power of this pistol is right for Me. It's a little inaccurate compared to some other ones but I liked it. A mask is really great. Once you power him up like he starts out. Not so great. But as the game goes On. You can find some. 01:14:34.19 Andre Power Ups for him that really you know then he can just wreck anything. It's It's kind of ridiculous I like the the star turn of it. 01:14:43.17 Dave Yeah I didn't use mask a whole lot because his guns only shoot once before you have to reload and it's a pretty long reload. Um I rolled with Dan Dan felt like the you know get used to playing killer7 just play as Dan he has a bunch of health his gun is really powerful. Ah, he's easy Kaede I rolled with because of the yeah, the sniper pistol and then once I played as coyote and heard that your fucked voiceline I was like I'm I'm throwing coyote in the rotation. The only one I like really didn't use that often was Kevin. 01:15:20.18 Dave Ah, except for situations where I needed to be invisible. 01:15:21.95 Andre Yeah I used Kevin a lot you know I use them a lot more than I typically do in this current playthrough just because you know I know where stuff is and I know where now I can chee some stuff by being invisible. 01:15:36.50 Dave Yeah 01:15:37.60 Andre You know where I where's the perfect time to do it. So I used them more than usual, but before it was just kind of a once a mile thing like okay this this kind of gives me trouble if I need to use invissibility I can then um, then yeah. I do want to say 1 thing and I don't know how much you know about this topic but before we get in. We're going to talk puzzles in a second and I want to talk about it this way or kind of introduce it this way if you don't mind. So. 01:15:59.50 Dave Sure yeah. 01:16:02.56 Andre Our our friends bill and thrak. They do a podcast called the 3do experience which is it's current. It's currently on hiatus but like I wanted to shout it out anyway because there's a number great episodes anyone out there can go listen to so go listen to them. They recently did an episode on d. 01:16:05.10 Dave Right? yeah. 01:16:18.37 Andre The Kenji Eno project Kenji Eno in if I didn wonder doesn't know that is he used to. He had a company back in the day he made a very weird number. He made a very great number of weird rather um games in the 90s. 01:16:36.97 Andre Um, one of them being d as I said and there's a sequel d two. There's enemy 0 these games are so bizarre and so out there hey kind of like killer7 right? um. 01:16:49.17 Andre While during this recent playthrough and partly because I heard their episode on d I was just thinking in myself was suit to 50 one like he had to have been influenced by Eno's work I just it just seems impossible that he wasn't maybe he wasn't but to me Kenji eno. Is like the original like japanese like yes kojima existed but you know what I mean like in this kind of like weird space making these weird games with the technology available to him at the time the best he could. I kind of feel and of course I like Kenji Eno's games as much as as I like suda51 because I'm that kind of weirdo but again I don't know how much you know about ah his his work but it had to have influenced you to fifty one I couldn't help but thinking about it while playing this. 01:17:39.41 Dave Gotcha yeah I never heard of that before um and it turns out that d is just a terrible game name for Seo so when I'm trying to find screenshots. It's ah it's rough is that the game with the person for it with a Tv for a head 01:17:54.60 Andre No, it is not. 01:17:57.90 Dave Okay, yeah, failure. Um, so yeah I guess I'm going to have to hit up bill and thrak 01:18:01.35 Andre I mentioned I mentioned Johnny Marr earlier and one of the one of his side projects is with Bernard Sumner from new order and it's called electronic the band is called electronic that is the worst Seo and on the face of the planet. Yeah. 01:18:13.60 Dave Oh yeah, exactly electronic electronic band shit electronic music shit electronic concert Damn it? yeah. 01:18:21.26 Andre Yeah, electronic yeah electronic ah 90s no, that's not going to work right? like it's just yeah, sometimes it just yeah, ah Bt again. No I want electronic. 01:18:30.93 Dave I keep getting all this Moby god damn it. 01:18:40.23 Andre Ah, who. 01:18:40.55 Dave Um, so we've explained the gameplay. We've talked about some of the strategy behind it. But I said at the top of the show I found the gameplay to be really fun. A little bit repetitive but repetitive fun things and never like the only rare times where it was like. 01:18:58.42 Dave Um, I go into a hallway and there's like 4 heavens smile right? fucking there and it was like I don't know what I could have done there to avoid this other than that rare occurrences I had a really really good time playing this. Um, the fact that I was not able to connect with the story. You know like. Weird shit that I don't quite understand will only go so far I wanted to keep playing this a lot of times because I thought this gameplay was really fun and I want to know how you feel about it. 01:19:28.60 Andre Yeah I mean that's exactly how I feel about it. It just made me want to see what's next I wanted to see the next weird thing. That's all I really need in a game like this, especially something a venture. And it's like usually in Venture. It's about the story you want to see what's happening in the story Next you kind of do in this but you know you're not going to like understand it understand it right? You just want to see the next weird thing like I said I wanted to Okay, what's going to happen when I go into this room. Oh We're going to have a weird game of Mahjong. 01:19:50.19 Dave You hear. 01:20:01.28 Andre And 1 of the weirdest cut scenes have ever seen. Okay, you know like you just you just want to see it. So yeah. 01:20:07.62 Dave Yeah, the ah the other aspect of this is the adventure game puzzles which we've talked about before and we've we've actually talked about their design a little bit and how they're um, they're friendlier than a lot of adventure games are as far as puzzles go um the. Logic behind using items in specific situations is usually pretty easy to figure out There's not a whole lot of you know like tie a rope around the chicken and then put it in the cannon and then that's going to help you defeat the poison ivy or some bullshit like that. There's um, there's. Very few items that you actually get and I think crucially one of the things that makes this easier than a lot of adventure games is there. There are these rings that you pick up that have elemental properties and you'll use them to solve adventure game puzzles. Those are the only things that persist. From level to level and a lot of times those are the only things that you need there are other things that you find that you'll use for puzzles but like you're not going to pick up something in level 2 and then use it in level 6 unless it's one of those rings. 01:21:19.15 Dave And there's only 7 of the rings. So you're not going to get overwhelmed by options and you're not going to like come to a point and be like oh there's a thing stuck up on a streetlight I wonder should I use the fire ring here. No, you're not going to use the fire ring. You're going to use the wind ring to get it down and. 01:21:36.99 Andre Ah, great. Yeah, a lot of it makes sense and I like that they give you a lot of help like we said we had that that hint guy earlier who if you do you really want a big ass and or sometimes you'll just straight up tell you what to do. 01:21:38.40 Dave So a lot of it makes sense and I appreciate that. 01:21:47.59 Dave Um, yeah. 01:21:50.99 Dave That that's the thing too like he will give you a hint. It'll be a vague hint but it will be a hint and then if you want like the Capital H hint you can pay him for it. 01:21:53.16 Andre You know. 01:22:03.97 Andre Yeah, and I think that's great and um I was aru and Travis will also tell yourself I was aru will say sometimes before you get somewhere? Oh you know let the hellian handle this one you know meaning Dan Smith because he knew the hellian shot. You know, like and stuff like that so they will tell you give you hints about how to beat enemy sometimes I mean that's not a puzzle puzzle. But I mean I guess sometimes it kind of is um I like that they stuck to the pre renderdered old school pre renderndered. Um at that that this point anyway. 01:22:36.16 Andre Ah, Resident Evil like kind of like oh you know here's the like remember the horse racing one I won't say anything more where it's like these weird little like you know like pre-rendered horses like doing this thing like that that was kind of you know I like that I like that stuff it really fits in with the game. It almost sounds incongruent with all the like. 01:22:54.85 Andre Cel shading and you know like textureless stuff but it it really does work um in and the map is like great. It tells you everything? Oh when you come back here here as like a big old wind ring like you know things showing on if you really can't figure it Out. You just look at the map and say oh here it Is. Or the next sole bullet is over here. Okay I need to do this or the map just tells you everything which is fine. 01:23:15.64 Dave Yeah, yeah, the ultimate goal of most of these levels is you have an assassination target because you're a team of assassins. But before you can get to them. You do these puzzles. You pick up these items called soul bullets as rewards. Sometimes you only need 1 sometimes you need like 6 of them. It just depends on the level and that's going to be the thing like once you've collected all the soul bullets then you can move on into that area with that dance track. Um, and then go fight the boss or something like that. So that is like your ultimate goal That's what you're trying to get those are the the macguffins I suppose. But um, you're right, a lot of times you know I would get to the end and the guy would say like you don't have enough soul bullets and they'd be like fuck I missed one? Well just check the map. It will tell you where it is. 01:23:56.64 Andre Yeah. 01:24:11.37 Dave You might have to solve a puzzle to get it. But you'll at least have a direction where to go. 01:24:14.39 Andre Yeah, it's very helpful. They don't want you to be too stuck on any 1 thing in this game for a reason they want they want you to keep it moving. They want they want success out of you. 01:24:19.35 Dave Um, yeah. 01:24:26.45 Andre You know and it's it's it's kind of especially in a game where it's kind of easy to die like you said, not everything will like 1 hit k o you but sometimes it can and then if it happens at Garcian too. You're kind of game over now again, you're never too like you said you're never too super duper far from a safe point and even if you do get set back a little bit. You know exactly what to do already. So it's not really that big a deal so they they want you to keep this this train roll in which I I appreciate. 01:24:47.15 Dave Yep. 01:24:53.73 Dave Yeah, the only thing that I kind of like didn't like about that whole setup is you can only save and save rooms and you can only save in some save rooms some of the save rooms. There's there's a woman in the save room. 01:25:12.20 Andre Yes. 01:25:12.43 Dave Um, her name is samantha and it's almost like when she feels like it you can save like sometimes you'll go in she'll be in this you know servants outfit and she'll save for you Sometimes she'll just be like lounging in the chair and you can't even talk to her. She's like now fuck off now right now. 01:25:29.67 Andre Yeah, yeah. 01:25:32.12 Dave Um, and you know I've said before I said on the Resident Evil episode like I have so much more free time to play video games than a lot of people my age but sometimes I still like I want to stop playing I Want to save the game and turn the fucking thing off but and you just can't all the time in this. 01:25:45.57 Andre Um, yeah. 01:25:49.66 Dave It's not like you're going to go hours without being able to save but sometimes it would be like okay cool I found Harman's room that means I can save ah shit Samantha's just chilling. She's not going to help me save right now and that's kind of a bummer. 01:26:02.10 Andre Yeah, you know that's the luxury of playing games nowadays especially think about a jrpg back in the day where it's like where it wasn't necessarily stingy with save points but you knew if you were about to get into some shit you may not be able to save for an hour so you better have time to be able to do that. 01:26:19.65 Dave Yep. 01:26:21.96 Andre You can't just go to your Nintendo switch and just press the power button and suspend it you know like so you you better be prepared that you can do this right now you know and now now we don't have to worry about stuff like that. But. 01:26:23.81 Dave Right? so. 01:26:34.80 Dave Yeah, um, yeah, it's like it's something that annoyed me but it was never something where it was like well I'm just going to turn this off because I have to go now I didn't run into that situation. So I guess I was a little bit smart about it where it was like okay I've found a. 01:26:51.83 Dave I found a place where I can actually save I got something to do coming up soon I'll just call it for now. That's basically what it boiled down to um, we'll talk a little bit in the spoiler section. Also now that we brought up Samantha um I have some issues with the way they handle. 01:26:59.20 Andre Yep. 01:27:11.75 Dave What I think I and I'm even unclear if she's the only female character in the game but they kind of treat her like shit and give her a really strange and like kind of offensive depiction. We'll talk about that in the spoiler section. Um, but I do want to just shout that out. It is something that bothered me. 01:27:22.19 Andre Interesting. Okay. 01:27:30.81 Dave And I didn't have a thing that came up in the spoilers or the story section earlier about it. We'll talk about Samantha later. Um, yeah, but ah yeah, the um adventure game puzzles the combat I think it all works together pretty well and aside from. 01:27:36.12 Andre Ah, okay. 01:27:47.61 Dave Not being able to save every time I wanted to and a couple of situations where either I don't know how to fight a heaven smile and they kill me or there's like 6 of them and they kill me I didn't have a lot of frustration with this which is. Something that I really appreciate and I think you said something to the effect of they don't want you to be stuck. They want you to be able to keep moving. Um and I think that that's true and this was a really fun game to play. 01:28:09.90 Andre Yeah. 01:28:17.78 Andre Yeah, it's it's an acquired taste this killer7 Ah, obviously it's not for everybody which you know reflected in its sales figures at the time this game did did jack shit at retail. 01:28:21.58 Dave Yeah. 01:28:30.59 Andre Um, ah obviously sales figures from back then are murky but like it's very It's very understood that the sold probably under 80000 copies which like back then that's not like the absolute worst thing depending on your budget but for something like Hill or 7 which was obviously high budget. No, obviously it's not going to work. Um, so you know an acquire taste. However, if this if us talking about this game if this sounds like it's for you. It is trust me it is this game will occupy a unique space in your mind. 01:29:01.68 Dave Yeah. 01:29:07.66 Andre Like nothing else will I promise like it is unafraid to be exactly what it is you know and you know we've been talking about this all this adventure game stuff by 2005 adventure games were like this were pretty rare. 01:29:22.83 Andre You know we were kind of getting out of the the last throes of them maybe in the very early two thousand s with like a miss sequel or 2 right? we did. We weren't really making games like that anymore and then you add in the fact that it's very much for adults. And then only certain kinds of adults. You know? Yeah like he said you have to be the right kind of person to enjoy this You're really limiting your audience here and and I kind of touched on this before but think about how many publishers would have insisted that they just make this like a first person shooter. 01:29:53.49 Andre Or whatever. Just no, we need to make it like this. We can't make this adventure game in 2005 capcom allowed pseuda fifty one to do this and grasshopper manufacture and I'm just I'm so grateful that it exists. 01:29:57.46 Dave Yeah. 01:30:08.37 Andre You may not like the vision of killer7 but it's somebody's true vision and I will never no matter what I will always appreciate that whether I like the game or not. 01:30:16.17 Dave Yeah I Think that's a really good way to put it. There's a lot of whinging out there about homogenization of video games and you know chasing trends and things like that and then you get something like this that Is. Doesn't seem to be chasing any trend whatsoever there is. There's nothing about this game where I was like oh they're pandering to this audience. Nothing about this game felt like they were like well let's try and latch onto this. You know the rising the rising draft of these other types of things like but in 2005. 01:30:51.82 Dave Whatever trends were going on like first person shooters. This is a first person shooter but it's not like halo or something like that. It's not like call of duty. So. 01:30:55.70 Andre No, and you can never market it as one because if you market it hey here's a new fps from Capcom you be like people get this home be like what you the hell is this mom am I allowed to be playing this. 01:31:08.31 Dave Ah, yeah, yeah, so when we are wrapping up here and we're talking you know closing thoughts and talking about you know, recommending this to people I think that you said it really really Well. Where. If This is something that you value if you value playing unique games with unique visions that are the authentic version of like that vision that someone had I don't I don't get the feeling that this game was watered down from the original vision and if it was God help. Suda51 because this games weird as fuck. Um, So if you value stuff like that if you take a look at this aesthetic or if you've enjoyed the stuff that we've talked about I think killer7 is definitely worth a try. I am not going to sit up here and say that everyone's going to love it. It's it's. 01:32:01.90 Dave A polarizing game and I think that it earns that reputation it earns those differing opinions. But I do think that like this is something to be valued to play stuff like this and this is why I like there's part of me that thinks that like a tourism and autor worship is harmful. 01:32:04.55 Andre Okay. 01:32:19.72 Dave But then the other side of it is you do get really authentic pieces of people's visions like this and ah you know I've covered some kojima stuff on the show and there's more upcoming and with projects like that you get the good parts. You also get the warts because no person is perfect and the closer you get to 1 person's vision. The more of those warts will show too but this is valuable stuff like this is valuable so killer7 if it sounds interesting like AnAndre said worth a try and it's not expensive but you can buy it on steam a couple bucks. It's good. 01:32:50.15 Andre Yeah, yeah, even if you were for some reason found like a old like game cube version I don't recommend PS2 but like an old gamecube version even just do that I still think that version would hold up just fine them. 01:33:05.32 Dave Nice. So ah before we get into the spoiler section. We'll take care of a little bit of housekeeping. Um, first things first AnAndre have mentioned fine time at the top of the show I mentioned the capcom 5 two part series that you all did but what. Other types of stuff. Do you do on fine time. Can I introduce the show and obviously tying in with this episode will recommend those capcom 5 episodes. But if there's anything else that you feel like is representative of fine time we can point people that way too. 01:33:37.78 Andre Um, but what just like a particular episode or 2 or something or um, you know there's some episodes I'm really proud of we'd um I would say I think November Two Thousand and Twenty two me and a friend Venn guessed on the show and we talked about. 01:33:40.94 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 01:33:54.45 Andre Mega man and bass and how when it came out. It was like revered as like this super super famicom import nowadays its reputation is trash and we we went through like a lot of stuff like. 01:34:07.93 Andre Whether it's like Youtube like groupthink or like you know, like how how this game's reputation got tarnished from something that was people loved now. People just say it sucks and then we talk about the game itself and why we like it but then also we take those criticisms and sort of defend the game against it and I think it's one of the. 01:34:15.86 Dave Yeah. 01:34:27.80 Andre Better things that we've put together on fine time I was super proud of that episode because it came out kind of perfect I almost don't say that about anything I do but honestly I wouldn't change a thing about it I think um, there's that if I'm trying to what else what else did we? Ah you said the capcom 5 stuff. 01:34:36.52 Dave Nice. 01:34:46.80 Andre Um, oh you know ah an episode and this I'm partially saying this because this is our most downloaded episode on fine time but around that same time I would say like fall beginning into fall late summer. Um 2022 we did an episode called arcade archives. Ah, beginner's guide because it's so intimidating you get the one a new arcade archives game comes out every week you on the e-shop or or psn you just see it there and it's like well what is this and there's hunAndreds of them but me but we're those kind of arcade heads where we just hey. 01:35:21.73 Andre If you don't know what you're doing out there. You want to get adventurous. You don't just want to play pac man or something you know here's some stuff that you can play and people seem to appreciate that so I'm I'm glad because people always ask me What do you recommend to play this and I'm terrible at recommendations because I'm like. I don't know your tastes I don't know you right? So I can't give you a recommendation for you. Um, this is a I thought that episode was a nice general way to say hey here are some things that I think a lot of people can enjoy. So yeah, maybe those 2. 01:35:52.67 Dave Nice, awesome and then um I guess just give the general pitch for like what are what is the the general premise of fine time aside from those you know single episodes. 01:36:04.51 Andre Um, fine time is just a show where we talk about what we're interested in sometimes it's what we're genuinely playing rather I guess I could put it that way sometimes it'll be the latest and greatest like I mean we're going to record right now and talk about Maria wonder. 01:36:19.79 Andre Um, but sometimes it's like hey I've been playing this obscure turbographic cd game that I want to talk about whatever we're genuinely playing. That's what we're going to say we do industry news hot takes on industry news because we love that we love like talking like oh what's the latest bullshit about like in television amio or whatever like what's the you know like obviously we've been like ah lo ling at a lot of the ah Microsoft you know Activision merger and stuff like that. So we like talking industry stuff and then we play silly games you know. 01:36:53.24 Andre Um, like ah we we do the thing we often do a thing called pokemon real or fake I know Jack shit about Pokemon so Steve will make up pokemon names are sometimes a real and I'll have to guess real or fake. Well Kevin laughs at me. It's great. It's a perfect formula. All Kevin does is sit there and laugh. It's perfect. Um. 01:37:06.98 Dave Um, nice. It's got a good gig. Yeah. 01:37:12.74 Andre Yeah, it's it's great. Um, but we just we just like to have fun. We like to have fun with video games. We like to have fun with the audience and be our authentic selves. So yeah, fine time. 01:37:20.89 Dave Um I I think that like doing a podcast where you jump between topics and then a lot of it is just kind of like what are you playing or what do you want to talk about this week I think that. 01:37:40.25 Dave It's a hard thing to pull off and make yourself stand out from other podcasts that do news and what are we playing and things like that. But I think that you guys have a great mix of chemistry knowledge about what you're talking about which is important you guys know a lot more about video games and video game history than I do. Um, I'm just here talking about exactly I played this game. We're talking about it this week I don't really dig into news or history all that much because I don't know shit so you guys do I think it contributes a lot to a really fun and informative show at the like and those 2 things are hard to pull off at the same time. 01:38:19.97 Dave So I want to give the recommendation for everyone out there to go check out that megaman and bass episode. Go check out those capcom 5 episodes. Um I first found the show because you all did a review full spoiler review of Bayonetta 3 which was a game that I had just finished and I was like this game sucks. Why is no one talking about how it sucks and you guys talked about how it sucks I was like they get it. They get it. Thank you and I've been listening since then that was over a year ago now so good show. Yeah and everyone can check down in the show notes for a link to find time and yeah. 01:38:41.16 Andre Um, yes, thank you very much for that. 01:38:56.92 Dave Go check out the show. It's quality stuff for tales from the backlog. It's the same calls to action call to actions. Nope I did it right? The first time calls to action as always. We have an active and welcoming Discord server. 01:38:56.99 Andre Thank you very much. 01:39:13.40 Dave We would love to have you come join. There's an invite link down in the show notes come join the discord and come chat if you have thoughts about killer7 that is a good thing to jump in and do you can support the show by leaving a rating and review on your podcast platform of choice if it is Apple Podcast Spotify or podcast addict they allow reviews and that's really helpful. So if somebody you know searches killer7 they'll be able to find this episode and if you want to support monetarily you can do so at patreon.com/realdavejackson all patrons get to vote in polls for what games I do on the show. And killer7 was in one of those polls it lost. But then I was like you know what fuck it I'm playing it anyway. So that's why we're but you can vote in the polls the game that won that poll was rain world and that will be coming up soon. Um, so monthly polls. You also get bonus episodes and you'll get to support. 01:40:10.71 Dave People named Dave or at least one so that's we can all agree. That's a good thing. Yeah very important work. Yeah, so AnAndre and I are going to take a break and when we come back, we are going to do full spoilers for killer7 01:40:15.73 01:43:25.56 Dave Okay, Andre and I are back and we are going to do full spoilers for killer7 now I said in the non spoiler part that I didn't fully. Like understand the story so we are not going to explain the story of killer7 you're going to have to go elsewhere for that if that's what you want, but we are going to kind of give our thoughts on the 3 main storylines the storyline with the past of the smith syndicate. We'll talk about the ah political plot and then there's a third storyline that develops which is Garcian's identity and garcian is kind of like the main Smith persona so we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the ending that we got. And then we'll just kind of rapid fire down some other memorable stuff from the game. So one of the key things that you find out fairly early on in the game and then it gets developed and developed until like the last level is like kind of all about this is that. 01:44:16.79 Andre Yeah, sounds good. 01:44:32.60 Dave All of the Smith Personas Kevin Garcian all of them. Um as well as Yoon Hyun and Travis are all dead. Um and they were all either like I was never clear on if they were all actually killed by Harman Smith or if they were. Their involvement with him in some way like Garcian um, well you actually you do see Garcian and die never mind. Um, if they're all dead or if they're all involvement causes them to then be looped into this like involvement I was never clear on how. Harman like he has like a superpower basically that he can choose a a person he kills or a dead person in general and be have that become one of these like projections and you learn how this happened. 01:45:22.86 Andre Yeah, and it's it's I You know I just on the surface of just like from a gameplay perspective I like I Love the part where you. Go into the hotel and you see how you kill each in every individual character I Loved all that shit that was great I loved actually seeing it. You know. 01:45:37.80 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, that yeah, that hotel level is really cool because like you. 01:45:52.71 Dave You go in and you solve puzzles in the rooms where kayday and Dan and all of them died but you don't that's not what you see the first time you see that later it it like recontextualizes the spaces that you've been in as. 01:45:57.64 Andre Hello. Yeah, 5. 01:46:08.48 Dave Oh that's why that puddle of blood was there is because coyote was sitting there when you shot him and killed him stuff like that. Yeah yeah, so um, that was cool. Um, when you go to this level you hear like this kind of. 01:46:10.95 Andre Right? And that's why that electrocuted bath was you know, etc. Yeah. 01:46:26.41 Dave It's almost presented as like an urban legend like this is the place where the killer7 committed these murders these 6 murders and the 6 murders turn out to be all the people in the killer7 that aren't garcian basically Garcian's the one going and doing these hits and then. 01:46:44.27 Dave I Suppose that Harman decided like yes these are the people that I want to use my power and like you know summon to do these this work for me. 01:46:55.40 Andre You know I still to this day. It doesn't matter how many times I play this game I still will not totally get what's happening there. So Harman is Harman hired see I can't even think of a hypothesis I have no I have no idea. 01:47:04.17 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:47:13.73 Andre I Really don't and that's fine it's for me. But. 01:47:14.66 Dave Um, right? you see my hypothesis would be that Harman hired Garcian to do this but then at the end of the hotel level garcian kills a younger version of himself. So. 01:47:27.34 Andre Yeah. 01:47:30.30 Dave Then we get into this territory where I'm okay this is like dreamy weamey It doesn't make any sense I'm just rolling with everything I see now. Yeah. 01:47:37.57 Andre Yeah, with your third eye which he which he doesn't Okay, that was one thing I Also you know how when you get I Hope we're not skipping to a head but when you get into the thing where you like um where you open the safe in the school. 01:47:46.00 Dave That was fine. Yeah right? I Yeah I was kind of on the trail of like. 01:47:51.86 Andre And his third eye kind of bleeds it bleeds across the top of his forehead there but you don't really know that that's a thing yet. You only find that out later so it's like kind of weird. Yeah. 01:48:06.60 Dave Whatever's in that safe is related to Garcian So I wondered like is that his dead body in there and that's what causes this like is there some weird paradox being formed here or something like that. But this this is not a game where I was like determined or confident that I would be able to make sense of this stuff. So a lot of it was like. 01:48:09.27 Andre You know. 01:48:25.62 Dave Yeah I think that maybe that's what's going on and I'm just going to leave it at that I'm just going to have fun theories about what's happening. 01:48:28.61 Andre Yeah, ah, maybe you know I typically almost never watch Youtube videos about this kind of stuff because I just don't care I just accept whatever the game is given me or whatever I think this is one case where I might actually watch someone's killer7 because the game is so obscure that it's like the people who are doing this really give a shit like somebody cares right? So I would like I guess I would like to hear someone's theory. Maybe I should seek that out. 01:48:54.68 Dave Yeah, yeah I think that that would be interesting I was thinking about doing that in preparation for this episode but then I was like I don't want to come in the spoiler section and act like I know what's happening as if it were my own ideas. 01:49:11.25 Andre Exactly. 01:49:14.60 Dave If I watched a Youtube video I would literally just be taking notes on what they say and then presenting that as my own idea and I don't want to do that. so um so yeah you you go through that hotel mission. Um, it's the last level but you find the truth about how basically everyone you've been talking to or controlling. 01:49:22.11 Andre Yep. 01:49:33.48 Dave Has been killed by Harman Smith in some way and then he just kind of there's some superpower you apparently find out that Harman Smith is immortal. Um, as is his rival that you there's that scene early in the game where you're having like this sniper off and you. 01:49:42.51 Andre Yeah. 01:49:52.76 Dave You line up a shot and shoot him and he just he catches the bullet but it like pulls him across the city. 01:49:54.49 Andre Yes I love it. That's one of my that's one of my favorite fucking things ever I love it. It was so it was so ridiculous. It is cool looking and and it also is like a hell of a way to reveal the game is in Seattle because he just shoots him right to the space needle. 01:50:08.76 Dave Yes, yeah. 01:50:12.80 Andre So it's like okay I guess that's a thing but then like that happens early in the game and of course at the end of the game that happens again to reveal I guess it looks like the future but it's also still the space needle. So I guess it's just kind of it's supposed to just clue it in hey this cycle happens forever him and green Dracula over there. 01:50:31.50 Dave Yeah I see I wasn't clued in that this is the far future. So like this this is something I pulled off the Wikipedia entry like the fact that it's like there's a bunch of like I couldn't tell if it was chinese or if it was kanji on the signs in that last you know the far future scene. 01:50:47.93 Andre As if. 01:50:50.59 Dave I was just like oh this is yeah you know well Shanghai has towers like that. So I don't know maybe they're in Shanghai this time. But apparently it's the far future again. This is like I don't know where I am I don't know when I am I'm just taking it in at this point but I guess we do have like this eternal struggle between Harman. 01:50:54.12 Andre Great. Yeah. 01:51:10.42 Dave And his rival who I didn't write his name down and. 01:51:13.40 Andre It doesn't matter I don't even remember but get. 01:51:20.25 Dave Let me try to get this get this straight. So after you finish the game. Um, let me see your way did I write this down. Ah oh yeah, um. 01:51:34.88 Dave After you beat the last level you get 1 more thing in Garcian's trailer and we'll talk about Garcian's trailer more um and Harman looks like he's dead in there and there's that door in Garcian's trailer in the back the one with like the the safe lock on it. 01:51:38.94 Andre Yeah. 01:51:53.71 Dave The one that has all like the screaming and shit coming from from it the entire game. That's one hell of a tease for like because every time you're in the trailer you hear this like wild screaming happening from behind the door and I'm just like. 01:52:06.49 Andre Yeah, yeah. 01:52:09.86 Dave Every time I was in there I was like well I'll go see if I can open it. You never can until 2 times at the end of the game and it's a just a we I don't really know what's going on. The first time you can go in. There's like Harman and his rival are like playing chess or some shit and then the second time you go in. 01:52:23.82 Andre Yes. 01:52:29.13 Dave You go all the way down to the bottom and it's supposed to be like the the mother of the heaven smiles and it's Iwazaru but you kill him and then it turns out that that was Harman's rival or some shit so like I'm still very confused about what the hell's happening in that room. 01:52:43.94 Andre I would imagine that the tortuous screaming was obviously it was iwazaru 01:52:48.95 Dave Perhaps oh with the bdsm thing. 01:52:56.72 Andre I haven't big brained that before that is literally just something I thought of just now because of the way you you talked about it. That's the only I've never had a theory about that until now because why would the screaming sound so tortured and you know what I mean because it's not just someone yelling at fright they're being hurt. You can tell right? So like it is very. 01:52:59.50 Dave Yeah, could be. 01:53:07.80 Dave Yeah, yes, exactly yeah. 01:53:15.70 Andre Unsettling sound God I wonder I would love to do an interview with the guy who recorded those screams I would love to know? um. 01:53:23.10 Dave Ah, what? what? if you what if you searched and it was like some famous you know, voice actors like the guy who did the voicing for magma in yakuza is the one who did the screams in killer7 with some shit. Yeah. 01:53:36.86 Andre Yeah that's that's how we got it started of you. Never you never know sometimes um, but yeah, that's um, there but okay I don't remember if this is the same scene or if in the same area rather. But you know the part where they're sitting there playing chest at this turn towards Garcia and and he just blows him away. He just kills both of them. Yeah is that in the same place I don't even remember. 01:53:55.42 Dave Um, yeah, it's behind the same door you open that door you go in and they're playing chess but I could not even begin to try to think of a reason why that happens No idea. 01:54:10.28 Andre Um, yeah, it's just it's something all right? Yeah, think now go ahead. 01:54:13.70 Dave So this this made me think because ioaru you're told that in there is the leader of the heaven smile and it's iazaru who is actually the rival in disguise. So. It was always been the one that's been helping you kind of pushing you in the right direction helping you assassinate these targets. So I wondered if there was like a in this eternal game between Harman and his rival is this like. You know some trick that his rival was playing to try and get a leg up this round or something like that. 01:54:47.26 Andre Yeah, it all it almost makes it unclear. It almost had the feeling that Harman always wins the chess match or some some weird shit. It felt like it was like the the you know. Literally like the devil an angel on your shoulder with har be the angel and he just has to like eternally fight against this thing I guess this is my only real interpretation of the situation. 01:55:09.15 Dave Yeah. Yeah, it's yeah, it's a story where like I'm glad we at least came to 1 theory possibility together with with what what's happening behind that door because no i'm. 01:55:22.60 Andre He I I tell you I Never I never had a single inkling until just now I'm glad we could think of that. 01:55:31.36 Dave I'm glad we could think of it because there's a lot of these things where we'll just be like is this what's going on and the other one's just like yeah I don't I don't know and we're like yeah that's weird isn't it well moving on. Um, ah after after this is over you get 1 more mission with um Garcian when he has the golden gun. Um. 01:55:42.34 Andre Yep. 01:55:50.95 Dave And you go and kill some more heaven smiles and stuff and there's like I think it's the guy I think it's the rival guy in the green. Um, you get a choice to kill him or not basically. 01:56:05.58 Dave And it's like it's wrapping up this political storyline about like this instability between Japan and the US which I could not follow. Um, yeah, you're learning, you're talking about like this ah secret society you know, um. 01:56:10.88 Andre Because the second half of the game completely forgets about this like you know what? I mean. 01:56:24.16 Dave This school that raises all the US presidents and stuff like that. Um, we get into that plot but with this really abrupt ending where like ok so we we we did the the thing with iazaru I know the thing with iazara was after this um you go in. 01:56:28.50 Andre Yeah. 01:56:43.64 Dave You have a choice to like kill this guy or spare him I killed him because I didn't know who he was and I was like I'm I'm killing him and then you get like this really quick cut to a cut scene where Japan explodes and. 01:56:55.61 Andre Yeah, in 2014 Japan you know was exploded by so-and-s so missiles not intercepted by the United States or whatever. Yeah, that's basically the whole thing you at the us didn't send the missiles are deciding whether to intercept them or not to save Japan or let Japan blow up. 01:57:11.29 Dave Right? Yeah, right? And so like it's a result of this storyline that played out and then apparently this person that I chose to kill. 01:57:14.55 Andre US didn't send the missiles but we still don't know where the missiles came from which whatever I guess but. 01:57:28.94 Dave Because there is another ending where Japan doesn't get destroyed if you let that guy live. Um, so apparently might somehow my choice to kill him like fucked up relations between the US and Japan where the US was like you know what? you're on your own. 01:57:38.75 Andre Yeah, it's yeah, that was weird. So okay I've only ever seen the one this where Jim hand blows up I've never ever I never really thought about the fact that there was a possibility where it didn't so I've only I guess I've only ever killed this guy. I never really I just kind of figured it all went to the same place I guess not so I guess I should see it from the other side sometime you're reload to save and see but um, but yeah, that's that's interesting. Um, oh good. Sorry. 01:58:05.54 Dave Um, yeah, what had if you had something you can just go ahead and. 01:58:14.55 Andre Ok, um, I you know about that school in that that and that whole resolution to like the all the US presidents are decided here at this school and yada yada um. 01:58:24.78 Dave You hear. 01:58:28.34 Andre I Just thought it was like it will one 2 things. It's a very interesting concept and again we talked about it being 2005 boy I Really don't I don't know this just fits the tenor of the time so much I guess in a way that I did not realize maybe just because I'm older now and I can look back on it and i. I Don't know older wiser et Cetera Definitely just the climate of W administration for lack of a better term I I Just it's It's so obvious now in a way that I can't believe I didn't pick up on it before I guess. 01:59:04.12 Dave Yeah, there there is always that thing where it's like the US doesn't have you know royal family like they do in the U K but the US has royal families and so ah, you in a lot of you know politicians. 01:59:12.98 Andre Yes. 01:59:21.27 Dave Least like the the really important ones seem to be the same people they keep coming up again. So the fact that they they kind of portray this in this game as you know? well we have this school for the Ultra elite and everyone who graduates from here eventually becomes the president. Um. 01:59:39.72 Dave I thought it was interesting in that school when you're in the gym. Um, they have portraits of the the past principles and it looked like there's a picture of Harman Smith up there as one of the the past present or principles of that school so that was interesting again. Not sure what? ah what to make of that. But. 01:59:54.56 Andre So maybe he fostered Garcian as a kid to be whatever he needed to be in this current life in this current like immortal life I guess. 02:00:04.12 Dave Yeah I suppose if you do have a story with like dueling immortals then they would find their way to like weave themselves into the goings on of you know the. The big powers of the time or something like that. 02:00:23.39 Andre Yeah, it's it's it's wild just to think even think about it that way. It's just crazy. There was another scene though in this school that I loved and it's the Russian roulette scene I kind of touched on earlier but it was pretty unforgettable that school headmaster was just like. 02:00:35.30 Dave Yeah. 02:00:43.15 Andre You know again, it's Russ Roulette so you know he's going first against garcian and he's so nervous. He's freaking out. He's like oh oh my god oh my god he clicks and it's like almost like this sort of silent like oh my god I'm still alive Garcian when he slices the thing to Garcian Garcian just picks it up takes it. Click puts it right back on the table slides it over in like 3 seconds flat he doesn't give a fuck. He doesn't care at all like in in this other guys like with every every pull the trigger he says. 02:01:14.25 Dave Yeah. 02:01:14.97 Andre Freaking out like like you or I would basically if we were playing russian roulette right? because obviously be scary as l garcy the the the the stoic ne of Garcian I guess was like perfect matched with this like lunatic. 02:01:27.19 Dave Um, yeah. 02:01:28.54 Andre I Loved I Loved everything about that scene. It didn't make any fucking sense but I loved it. 02:01:31.99 Dave It. It was really cool and I also had like um, remember that scene and taken where he was like you forgot the weight of a loaded gun when he tries to shoot him. Um, but it had that kind of thing where he like the the guy thinks that he won and he's he's getting real cocky about it and Garcian takes the gun. 02:01:39.49 Andre Yeah, yeah. 02:01:50.20 Dave Click again, no shot when it was supposed to be the last round and Garcian's like you forgot 1 thing this gun holds 7 bullets and slides it over and then the guy kills himself basically ah love it. Yeah, we we didn't really camp out. 02:01:59.53 Andre Yeah, it's it's great 7 bullets killer7 got to do it. 02:02:09.61 Dave We kind of spread out discussion of voice acting through several things but I don't think we actually got to the point where we were just like hey the voice acting for Garcian because he talks a lot and other characters that talk a lot is really good like so you have this scene where garcian and this person are playing Russian Roulette and Garcian is cool. 02:02:19.13 Andre Um, yeah. 02:02:29.53 Dave Confident totally in control the entire time and like the voice acting and stuff is excellent for portraying this. 02:02:37.25 Andre Yeah, absolutely I think all the characters. It's very men or memorable stuff. Ah Dan Smith has that like very like I'm the hero voice you know and it's like it's perfect for him. 02:02:46.56 Dave With you. 02:02:50.43 Andre Because it works. Ah yeah, ah Kaday all of them have old Kevin doesn't speak but like coyote is from South America somewhere forget um but like you know he has that like perfect accent. Ah um, ah, Master Smith is obviously also hispanic he sounds like it. 02:02:58.29 Dave Yeah, yeah. 02:03:08.43 Andre Like it. Everyone was like perfectly like I don't know everyone was played really Well I think when they don't sound like ghosts. 02:03:17.28 Dave Yeah, yeah, and a lot of like the the side characters because like you said, only the living people get like you know quote real voice acting so um, all of those side characters like um, what's the guy's name omeda. 02:03:34.37 Andre Um, oh yeah, he apparently. 02:03:34.79 Dave Um, the guy with the guy with the scare the afro that scares you was our yeah so he's his voice acting is good. You know all the villains that you come across those? um the power rangers rip offs. They're all great. Um, yeah, it's fun. 02:03:49.58 Andre Yeah, omeda does have a yes I wish Ski What they're actually called it is called him fake as power rangers. Yes, the handsome men. 02:03:53.11 Dave Let's talk about those power rangers. Um, the handsome men as they say in the game. Yeah, the handsome men. Um, yeah. 02:04:04.32 Andre Full ah full ass like anime sequences to introducing them in shit. They didn't hold back like they they really sold it. 02:04:12.10 Dave Yeah, um, there's another interesting kind of like magical thing in this chapter because your your target is the writer of this comic the handsome men and the. Superpower is that whatever he draws in the comic will then happen in real life with the Handsome men. So if he draws the handsome men coming and killing the killer7 then you have you know a situation on your hands. Well he dies like almost immediately because he draws the Handsome men. 02:04:42.86 Dave They get in a fight with the killer7 1 of them does a handsome beam that kills the rider and then we kind of touched on this but the boss like ah if this were in a different game. You would have just yeah, a first person shooter boss fight against the handsome men. 02:04:48.50 Andre Um, yep. 02:05:01.89 Dave But instead they choose to portray it in like you had mentioned a couple times like this graphic novel style where you don't really fight them. Um, you have these duels the handsome men go up against a corresponding member of the killer7 and you have no agency in who wins and who loses. 02:05:21.34 Andre Um, yeah. 02:05:21.46 Dave It's all predetermined. Ah, but your you take part you have to like pull the trigger and stuff like that. But it's really fun like even though I'm not doing the fighting I was like look at they're fighting the fucking power rangers This is hilarious right now. 02:05:34.16 Andre Um, yeah, it's great.. It's really great Stuff. You know and it has that heroic music too. It does like the whole bit. Um I don't There's something I want to mention real quick and I don't know how since we're talking about the power Rangers. I don't know how much I can really say about this I feel a little bit out of my league but like I just feel like it was interesting that like I touched on it earlier that like a lot of the stuff su to 51 is doing in this game is sort of like. I Don't know if making fun of Japanese culture is the correct term but you know what I mean like sort of just taking the piss out of it just sort of taking these very extreme. You know, like like I mentioned the the anime girl with the machine gun earlier and now the fake as power rangers and stuff. It's almost like he's trying to make some sort of societal joke. 02:06:11.41 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 02:06:26.42 Andre That we're not really picking up on I Wonder if there's something deeper there that a Japanese person playing this game would kind of receive because like look if these things were an American game. This would be like almost borderline racist like almost right? but like from a Japanese game. 02:06:40.21 Dave Yeah. 02:06:45.81 Andre Obviously it hits different but like I said I just feel like there's something deeply cultural there that I don't think we can probably get but maybe someone who is better at this stuff can maybe say something on it I don't know. 02:06:53.41 Dave Yeah. Yeah I think it's definitely safe to say that of the japanese games that are set in America and referencing american things this of the ones I've played you know incomplete set but this feels like still the most japanese 02:07:17.16 Dave Of those games this is more this feel Well I was going to say this feels more Japanese than metal gear solid. That's not entirely true, but like on its the things on the screen are so you still have anime style cut scenes you have that anime grow like you said you have. 02:07:24.13 Andre Yes. 02:07:36.90 Dave The ah the power rangers and I forget like the type of show that the power rangers are based on. Um, but yeah this this definitely still feels like there is it hasn't crossed the line so far into like Americana that it's no longer. 02:07:54.76 Dave That there are no longer things hidden from people who aren't Japanese That's where I'm getting at I think you're onto something for shirk. 02:07:57.88 Andre Yes, no I think you're totally correct. Yeah,, that's that that's the best way you can put it unless ah like I said I wish I knew more culturally. You know learning Japanese language you do learn a lot about Japanese culture. But not, you know I mean just because it's so intrinsically tied as language is right? but I obviously don't know enough to really speak on this fully I Just thought it was It was just definitely interesting and I want to you know say that I I saw that even though I don't totally get it. 02:08:16.48 Dave Um, yeah, oh yeah. 02:08:28.17 Dave Yeah, no, you're right like language and culture are intertwined I speak Korean fluently. But there's so much that I'll never know about Korean culture because I'm not Korean it's just you'll never get totally there. So there's always going to be something you'll miss. 02:08:31.10 Andre First with him. 02:08:36.42 Andre Yeah. 02:08:44.55 Dave But that is probably true here it and that kind of you know, pointing that out makes me respect how accurate some of the portrayals of American stuff is too like it seems like the best of both worlds If you're able to tap into both sides. 02:08:58.94 Andre Yeah, and this game was let's not forget. It was cowritten by shinji mikamy who who obviously draws upon some of the same stuff from America as as suda51 does so the 2 of them put in a thing together. Of course it would be like this right? What else would they make besides killer7 02:09:17.84 Dave Yeah. 02:09:18.35 Andre So you know it's it of course. So. 02:09:22.89 Dave Yeah, weird game I was trying to like you know more about ceuda 51 s history than me. This was not like was this early suit of 51 you know like he he worked for other companies. Before he started to be able to make his weird ass games the way he wants to right. 02:09:40.21 Andre Yeah, but like he mostly since the late 90 s did like very small independent ish projects they got published on like you know ps 1 or like whatever but like this was his big breakout big budget with a big publisher thing. And probably the first game of his to release in America I don't know that for sure but like this was his big breakout thing I think like globally not just it not just in America but just in general. 02:10:11.10 Dave That's that's what I was getting at this feels like this doesn't feel like someone's first project this feels like a or like someone's first project on this kind of scale. This feels like a heat check for someone who's been doing well on a large scale. And then they're like you know what you can make whatever the hell you want because you have this clout and apparently that wasn't the case they were just like you know Capcom was just like hey just just make whatever weirdo game you want. We'll put it on there. Yeah. 02:10:30.11 Andre Yeah. 02:10:40.63 Andre Yeah, and I'm I'm so glad they did and um, but yeah, um, this is you know this is still capcoms I p like grasshopper manufacturer doesn't have any control over this that because like it's suit to 51 says he is like to do esql, but it's not up to him. It's up to Capcom. So. 02:10:57.79 Andre Yeah I wish sometime they could get control of this again. So maybe he could do that. But anyway. 02:11:05.25 Dave Yeah, so any other I think we've covered like the story as best as we can, but ah, let's ah, let's just go through some other kind of memorable stuff that happened. 02:11:11.10 Andre Um, yeah. 02:11:17.70 Andre Okay, um I you know it took me a long time like you were saying with like Samantha for like you know sometimes it was only when she's wearing the made outfit is when you could save when she's just sitting around wearing her casual clothes is like okay, whatever fuck off. 02:11:28.45 Dave Yeah. 02:11:34.15 Andre Um I didn't realize that for a long time I just kind of figured. Okay, she's just not paying attention to me I didn't realize it was the made outfit was the save outfit. You know, um I don't know why it took me so long but um. 02:11:39.52 Dave Yeah. 02:11:45.29 Dave This this is real weird like the her character. You know this is a game full of weird characters but her character was just one I had a real hard time wrapping my head around like she has some kind of like. Dominatrix relationship with Harman Smith like she's being paid to be there I think that's clear right? Um, she's in there sometimes you walk in and they're like having sex sometimes she's beating the shit out of him. Um, and then at some point you walk in and she's dead and she is like pete herself and. 02:12:07.00 Andre Yeah. 02:12:22.73 Dave Her panties are showing. There's like something bad happened. It's there was a like a ah nagging thing in my head where I was like I don't like and there's only I think there's one other female character who. Is like the disembodied head you talk with? yeah and it's it was just made me think like ok, there's there's one prominent female character. Um, it's it could have been like a you know. 02:12:39.56 Andre Yeah, the the the girl. Yeah. 02:12:57.68 Dave Empowerment thing. But then at the end it was very much not an empowerment thing and I was like Jesus what the fuck happened with that and then there's the other female character who is just a dead disembodied head that you find in like a cupboard in every level and it was like another thing. It's like I don't want to attribute this to a lot. 02:13:02.35 Andre Yeah. 02:13:17.10 Dave To all of the the Japanese auteurs but of the ones we've been talking about in this episode. It's a thing It is a thing. 02:13:24.23 Andre It is a thing. Um, it really is even Kinjiiano like I mentioned earlier the odd tour he his um his character that he uses in all his games is is a woman. But also man the stuff that happens to them sometimes in those games is why hold? Um, there is a there is a mini ah censorship controversy I remember about d two back in the day where sega of America got squeamish about a couple of shots in the game so they kind of just. 02:13:43.31 Dave I mean. 02:13:58.00 Andre It was the same scene but they just did a couple of different angles and this was so controversial because you know gamers right? Ah and um I remember that back in the day and I was thinking like I get it like I'm not I don't think it was a big deal I think they kind of made a lot. They made more of it at it than it than it should have been but whatever. 02:14:17.78 Andre Point being of me saying that. Um, yeah, the Samantha stuff. It's funny until you so brought it up to me this way. Um, and just now and even before we did the podcast I was like you know? Yeah I Guess so but I don't know if that's a failing on me to think that like man this is kind of a. I don't want to say it's a problem in this game necessarily. But when you put all the evidence together especially with the you know people have criticisms of kojima stuff and whatever in the same way right? and I don't I don't think this is a pattern in suit to 50 ones games I'll put it that way. 02:14:47.10 Dave Yeah. 02:14:55.35 Andre Personally. 02:14:55.44 Dave Okay, yeah, and in this is you know the only one I've played um it was just something I noticed where I was like okay so we have one prominent female character. Her purpose is to be this. You know she her purpose is to be like this dominatrix figure. And then she dies in a way where I was like all right is that the way that she had to die in this story like you couldn't have just found her laying on the floor dead in a pool of blood like everyone else in the game. Um, it's just something that like maybe I'm keyed into a little bit because I'm a bit. More sensitive because I have been playing kojima games and that's an issue in kojima games. Um, so just something that I I thought to mention um and I it it was noteworthy because. Between all the levels you always have these scenes between Samantha and Harman and they're always so fucking weird like I have no idea what's going on there like. 02:15:48.13 Andre Yeah, she's slapping the shit out of him come on old man eat or whatever just trying to force like cream of wheat in his mouth or whatever it is right? like it is just like so so wild, but that made me think like is Harman in this particular immortal life. 02:15:57.30 Dave Exactly? Yeah, so there's. 02:16:07.18 Andre Starting to die so he needs to stay alive long enough for like who the fuck knows I mean I don't even know right? But like. 02:16:13.96 Dave Yeah, that that was part of why it didn't make sense to me because sometimes Samantha is there for this like very obviously like she's there as a sex worker and nothing wrong with that. But that's not her whole role. 02:16:24.35 Andre First. 02:16:30.62 Dave Sometimes she's there trying to get him to eat Sometimes she's there just hanging out and she's like I was just waiting for you to get here see I don't know you watch the old man now I can go to school in shit like I have no idea what's happening with her character. Um, and yeah, just the ending was like okay I was like. 02:16:36.29 Andre Yes 02:16:48.15 Dave I was already on the like. Okay, what's going on here and now the the ending of her storyline was like all right. That's we didn't have to do it like that. But you know it's It's a. 02:16:57.79 Andre It It could have been more interesting I guess than her just being dead. It was liter literal dead end you know I guess it could ah it could have been more than that but it was just like oh I guess she's dead now or moving right along. 02:17:03.73 Dave Yeah. Yeah, but you you raise an interesting question because like if Harman is immortal and he and this other person are on this like this eternal battle against each other then. Yeah. Why is he this like completely feeble old man in in Garcian's in Garcian's trailer like he never talks in those scenes. Maybe you know what it could be. 02:17:28.58 Andre Yeah. 02:17:38.88 Dave Maybe doing like the projection because you're controlling Garcian during those scenes maybe that is just too much like he can't exist in both states at the same time. Maybe. 02:17:45.77 Andre Yeah, and also you know like his to speak to him. You have to go to the Tv and turn to him and then samantha becomes the maid samantha. The master will see you now or the master is awake right? And then you're talking to him. 02:18:04.14 Andre In this and Garcian because he's feels fealty towards him and then like he speak Harman does speak to him in that instance, but that like that has to be some sort of mind thing. It's not you know, real right? I don't know man it was so weird. It was so weird killers Evan. 02:18:16.86 Dave Yeah, yeah, the the whole thing. Yeah, the whole thing. Um, let's see I think we covered a lot of the the stuff stuff I wanted to touch on in the spoiler section here as far as um. 02:18:34.43 Dave Memorable stuff. The the Ulmeyda boss fight I guess is 1 thing I want to talk about how you he turns into this monster because of this um because the heaven smile like virus turns him into this monster and you do but before you do that you have this scene where like because he has like this. 02:18:54.11 Dave Almost like a cult basically in this town right? and you have this scene where he like chooses this lucky winner and he gives them like this sports car and he makes them like drive as fast as they can like to a. 02:19:10.70 Dave Faster than possible speed in a sports car. So fast that like they die from driving too fast and that's their like reward for being picked by the leader that was another one of those scenes where I was like that is really fucking weird I Don't think it fits into the greater story but like that. 02:19:15.35 Andre Yeah. 02:19:29.65 Dave Who had this idea what what's going on here. Yeah. 02:19:32.23 Andre Yeah, and they did that in like an anime sequence too wasn't that wasn't real time. They really wanted you to see and like yeah it was. It was so Weird. His is just like man. It was wild. Yeah I Love that scene ah might be my favorite scene of the game I Just thought that was crazy looking. And then you fight omeda by like oh his brain's out of his head I just shoot it once? Ok, that's over.. It's just like ok I like how they don't really try to make you work for most boss battles that way. But that was that was fun I think the only other thing I. 02:19:58.96 Dave Yeah. 02:20:05.11 Andre Thinking about was that like when Garcian's informant gets killed on the bridge or talking to the car and someone snipes him and it just turns into like I love that scene. It was almost like heat like the movie heat it was it was greed garcian has to get out of the car and they're still shooting at him and I was just like. 02:20:15.10 Dave Yeah. 02:20:21.20 Andre Oh this is interesting I didn't it kind of I didn't expect that to happen. But like yeah I thought that was like a cool little little nugget. 02:20:28.32 Dave Yeah, because Garcian had had been having those informant meetings throughout the game and um, again, something that like I was watching those scenes I was. Obviously I think this is it's portraying Garcian as like the the public facing person. He he's the one who goes out he gets the Intel he helps out with all of that stuff because for whatever reason Harman can't or doesn't want to go out and do that stuff so he sends Garcian and then. Eventually something bad happens there like I guess showing that like because Garcian reacts like he's in danger during that scene. So I guess it was just showing maybe foreshadowing that the killer7 are not immortal like when they're out doing this stuff like they still feel danger. Which then comes back when you do that boss fight in the gym which is unwinnable. Um, where the all of the killer7 like 1 by 1 they can't hurt this like new version of the heaven smile and they all die until garcian gets the golden gun which is cool. 02:21:26.24 Andre Yeah. 02:21:38.13 Andre Right? And so they all like you. You know what? yeah I guess that's the last time you're you use any of them because they all sort of quote unquote die right there because the rest of game you play is garcian especially up to the roof then you open the briefcase. He's been carrying the whole time as all the weapons in it of the killer7 02:21:57.00 Dave Um, yeah. 02:21:57.43 Andre And then um I mean is that what you expected to be in the briefcase by the way I didn't really have I didn't really think about it as the game went on. 02:22:00.12 Dave Oh yeah, it was like a like a pulp fiction situation with the briefcase I guess I didn't really think about it either. But then when he opened it up I guess because he always carries it and then when you pick up one of the meat sacks with the dead bodies or with the dead Smiths. 02:22:18.79 Dave He opens the briefcase. So I was like oh that's his body revival kit or some shit. But yeah I guess it it has all the guns for the other Smiths so he's the the public face of the Smith Syndicate and he's also the the armory or something. 02:22:25.96 Andre Ah, yeah. 02:22:35.67 Andre Yeah, it was it was strange. Yeah I didn't really think about what was in there before Beforehand I was like oh it's just the weapons. Okay cool I guess so but yeah I think I think I'm at a spoiler shit I think we covered our bases. Yeah. 02:22:37.86 Dave I Don't know. 02:22:50.78 Dave Yeah, yeah, the ah the last thing and just real quick for anyone who's beaten the game. Um you after you beat the game you unlock a high difficulty mode and it's called Killer Eight mode which I thought was funny. 02:23:03.49 Andre Um, yes. 02:23:03.91 Dave It's called Killer Eight because you get to play as a new character. 02:23:08.80 Andre Yeah, it's it's ah it's really cool and it's very striking because it's also yellow compared to the red of the rest of the game is killer 8 it looks it looks funny. Yeah. 02:23:13.74 Dave Right? Yeah, so that is killer7 so dre thanks for coming on and and talking about it with me man. 02:23:24.30 Andre Ah, no problem I Love this game and I'm glad you enjoyed it enough where we could really like ah just get into the weird because I figured you would and I'm I'm glad I was right. 02:23:32.42 Dave Yeah, absolutely I'm definitely glad that I pushed it onto the show made myself play it. Um I you know I'm not only looking for this kind of game but I do like to play a unique weird game Even if I can't make sense of the story I. I will still remember the experience of playing killer7 So again, this was a good time I appreciate you coming on everyone who has made it to the end I Appreciate you all listening. Ah you can again, check down in the show notes for fine time which I recommend you check out. 02:24:08.64 Dave Especially I probably just put links to those capcom 5 episodes as well. So if you want to go straight from killer7 to the series on the capcom 5 that makes a lot of sense. So go down and check down there appreciate everyone who listens as always thank you to the patrons. And tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog