Ok, I finished the game. But because I still don't understand the plot 100% I can't really do a review yet. But here's some thoughts:
The game is an adventure click and point game. People were wondering if it's an FPS or an action game or a doctor game and here's the answer: It's an adventure game like how Silent Hill (2) is an adventure game. In fact I'd say the most similar game in existance to Killer 7 is Silent Hill 2. The main difference between Silent Hill 2 and K7 is that Killer 7 is very linear, while Silent Hill 2 is slightly less linear (you still have to go from A->B but you get to run around the city in between). Both games are horror mystery stories that are vague and provide clues through imagery, notes, and puzzling dialogue. Both have action/fighting along the way but in both games the fighting is not the main point of the game. Killer 7's battles aren't any less shallow than Silent Hill's battle engine.
Levels in Killer 7 are great, lots of a variety over a course of about 10 locations. All are filled with great art and really nice camera angles. And each place has a very different 'style' or 'feel' to it; for example one particular section of the story has no in-game cutscenes at all, instead every cutscene is shown through anime scenes by Xebec. The usage of anime cutscenes in the game is very nicely played out.
Music is just completely excellent. Whoever did the soundtrack deserves much respect for making tons of tunes that fit perfectly with the varied locations. Ambient sound effects are good too. Looking forward to the ost, although this is more the case of music that works awesome in the situations and probably isn't that listenable on a cd.
Boss fights were pretty good. Each was varied and some were a bit like RE, while others were a bit like a FPS battle.
The story is good...I think. From what I got of it, I think it could've been a little better and was less bizarre than I expected it to be; but it's still a strong plot and I need to wait until someone can explain it in deep detail to me to see if the plot holes are filled.
Length is about 15 hours, maybe a little less. The new mode when you finish it is much harder and plays slightly different, but I'm not sure if I'd want to go through a harder version. I may play the regular version again because some of the levels were darn cool and going through the 2nd time after having learned the plot twists may make things make sense in the story.
Voice acting on a whole is pretty good. I hate most english voice acting unless it's really good quality. There are a handful of bad actors, but some of the main ones are actually quite good and Cam Clarke even sings in the game and it doesn't sound half-bad!
So overall is it worth the $50? Well since the adventure genre was my favorite genre until it died and I moved to rpgs, playing an honest to goodness high budget adventure game was easily worth the $50 and much more. Seriously though this game is for a very limited crowd, everyone should thank Capcom for giving Grasshopper all this time and money to make an adventure game. This is probably the highest quality adventure game since Grim Fandango and may be the last high budget adventure game we ever see at this rate. To me Killer 7 was worth every penny that Capcom put into it, and I'm recoomending all my friends to buy the US release at launch because I'd really like the game to sell decently and make Capcom feel it wasn't such a bad idea to make an adventure game in our modern game industry. Who knows, maybe if the game does well they might actually fund another one in the future!
Lastly, I'm sooooooooooooooooo glad this game got ported to PS2. I don't know wtf they were thinking making this for GC because it's
not for the GC age range. This is not mature like GTA or Mortal Kombat; this is very deservedly 18+ in the same way that Lost Highway or Natural Born Killers is. And it's not just because of what's shown either, in order to understand and appriciate the story you have to be pretty grown up and intelligent. Personally I'd say the target range for this game is 20+; and if it was only on the GC not that many people over 20 would give it a chance. Sure the PS2 port supposedly has shit loading, but at least it'll let people try the game out.
I'd probably give the game an A if the story completely makes sense and there are no plotholes, and a B if a lot of things are just ignored and random for no reaon other than being random. If this year wasn't filled with such AAA games like RE4 and DDS:AT2 as an adventure gamer I'd say Killer 7 would have a run for GoTY, but since there are so many AAA titles in 2005, I'll just say it'll most likely be in many top10 lists and I wouldn't be surprised to see some magazines/sites give it a 9+/10 like the Japanese scores.
