Killer 7 Review

There is plenty of voice acting in this game. While it isn’t done so much during the actual action that will ensue in the game, it is very much there. Most of it occurs in the various cutscenes and FMVs that Killer 7 offers, and it’s all done extremely well. Harman Smith is a bit on the older side when it comes to age, but his voice definitely makes you feel like he is a true assassin with having a sort of low but bass filled voice. The same can be said about Garcian, the negotiator. When you hear him talk, you can feel the level of intimidation and intelligence that he has, which is just what a great negotiator should have! He makes sure to get his point across just like Harman does, and he’s not afraid to speak his mind. Unfortunately they are the only two Smiths you really hear from extensively in the game, but just the sheer quality of their personalities make up for the lack of the rest of them talking!

Now that doesn’t go to say the others don’t talk, they simply don’t do it nearly as often. During certain cutscenes in the game, characters like Dan Smith and Mask de Smith were given a small number of memorable lines, so that’s always a good thing! But when it comes down, most of the talking the other personas do are the various things they say when you achieve an instant kill shot or the lines they have when you can view them on the various tv’s throughout the game. This is definitely where the “mature language” comes in because each of them swears in some fashion. Unfortunately if you’re on the younger side, this game probably won’t be a part of your collection anytime soon simply because of the sheer “openness” of the spoken dialogue. You will hear plenty of cuss words throughout the game, but all it really does is add to the mature atmosphere and bring the characters more to life than they may have been. Sure some of the one liners get repetitive after a while, but just hearing some of those lines multiple times doesn’t necessarily get boring until much later in the game!

Where Killer 7 suffers a little bit in this department is the sounds. Now that’s not referring to the various sounds of your weapons and special effects, those actually sound great. No matter which gun you use or what explosion you may hear, they sound incredibly authentic and if you have a stereo system for your tv, you are in for a treat! Where the sounds suffer in this game is the way all the NPCs like to talk to you. It’s actually rather strange how Capcom chose to go about it, and sometimes it’s just downright annoying to hear dialogue driven sounds that make you think you’re playing a game from the 8-bit era! There are a good number of NPCs that will be either telling you clues about the plot in the game or helping you with your mission objectives. But what’s annoying about it is the fact that the way they speak sounds like nothing but a bunch of jumbled up electrical signals. It almost seems as if Capcom took the voices of people who actually spoke for them and meshed them with some odd computerized technology so it’s virtually impossible to hear any words they’re saying! They all talk in some strange muffled fashion that really makes you thankful for being able to skip through what some people say to you.

But with those small annoyances out of the way, you are definitely in for a treat when it comes to the music and sounds of Killer 7. Yes sometimes you may get fed up with how much you may have wanted the NPC’s dialogue to have actually been spoken, but you should be able to look past it for the quality that everything else offers you!

Killer 7 is truly a love it or hate it kind of experience when it comes to the gameplay mechanics that it utilizes. It does indeed function with rail shooter controls that normally are only seen in actual arcade first-person shooter games. But nevertheless, while it does have its low points, it can be a total blast if you are willing to give it a chance!

For those of you that may not understand what “rail shooting” really means, it’s basically a form of movement that is placed on a preset path. In other words, you press and hold one button, and the character does all the moving for you. You don’t control the angles or anything, simply holding down one button that will cause whatever character you are using at the time to run on the path that Capcom designed for you!

So like stated, Killer 7 runs on a rail shooting movement engine. So what happens next? Well, while you are making your current persona run along the preset path, you have to listen in carefully to the various laughs and cackles of the Heaven Smile, as that is the only way to know of their close presence. At any time you hear some form of creepy laughter, that is your cue to draw out your character’s weapon and begin scanning! Drawing out your weapon happens with the simple holding of the right shoulder button and holding the left to scan. Why do you have to scan? The Heaven Smile hide themselves from you with the use of optic camouflage and scanning is the only way to make them appear in physical form. So while you do your scanning, you will eventually spot a certain area on your enemy’s body that is sort of “sparkling.” That just happens to be their weak spot, and if you hit that location perfectly with one shot, it’s instant death for them!

Killing the Heaven Smile allow you to collect the blood you need. You’re probably thinking that’s extremely gross, but hey, it’s the way this game is. Just what is the blood used for? Well it’s used for two things, healing your character as well as upgrading the various members of the Smith Syndicate! At any given time during the game, you can hold a total of 20 vials of “thin blood” that you can use at any time you wish to heal any damage your current character may have sustained. The way you know if your character is going to die or not is the eyeball that is displayed on your screen. Each time you get hit by whatever you may be with, that eyeball begins to gradually close shut. The more your eye is closed, the closer you are to dying. So anytime you notice your eye being closed to completely shutting, you should use some of that blood to heal yourself!

Now when it comes to upgrading your team, that is done through the use of the “Harman’s Rooms.” Each mission has a multiple number of these rooms, and there you can save your game, upgrade the Smith Syndicate, or talk to your guide Iwarazu! How do you upgrade your characters? Well it’s simple. Along with the thin blood that you collect from the dead Heaven Smile, you also collect thick blood! This comes in combination with the thin blood, so you really never have to worry about not being able to collect enough of each. You are able to carry a maximum of 1000 units of thick blood during the course of a mission, but that’s really your cue to get to a Harman’s Room and get it processed! Accessing the tv in a room, one of the channels happens to be a “Blood Room.” On this channel, you see a creepy male character in front of an elaborate looking machine that will produce serum from the thick blood you’ve collected. There is a set number of serum vials you can process in each mission to prevent you from maxing out each character during the very first mission, and that’s totally understandable. With this thick blood, you can upgrade the four different skills of each persona however you please. Abilities such as power, which increases the power of your weapons, or speed which increases the speed in which you fire or reload your weapon and so on. Some characters have exclusive abilities like Mask de Smith who carries dual grenade launchers and has an “explosion radius” skill to go along with!

Also, with each character’s unique weapon, such as Dan Smith’s incredible revolver, Con Smith’s dual automatic pistols and Kevin Smith’s knives come exclusive abilities given to them! These can be such skills as Dan Smith’s “collateral shot” which is basically a big glowing ball of destruction from his revolver, the invisibility skill of Kevin Smith, the lock picking skill of Coyote Smith and the incredibly fast running speed skill of Con Smith! The most bizarre skill is most definitely Kaede Smith’s, in which she literally slits her wrists to absorb special blood while being able to break down barriers with her own! By the way, it’s definitely recommended to not try that at home, it would probably hurt a lot!