Grand Theft Auto V Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 5/27/2025)

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Grand Theft Auto V

Developer: Rockstar

Publisher: Rockstar

Genre(s): Open World

Platforms: PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, Xbox One, PC

Release Date: September 17, 2013

Grand Theft Auto V has not aged particularly well. This isn’t to say that 2013 is now an ancient period of the medium, as plenty of other games released the same year still uphold the modern standard of gaming proficiency. This also isn’t to say that GTA V has pruned up while its peers retain their youthful luster past their prime generation either, as the high-definition visuals of GTA V are still astounding. I’m also not accounting for my own personal history with GTA V in my opening statement either. The “fifth” entry in this trailblazing Rockstar franchise was the very first M-rated game I purchased on my own without supervision at the age of 17 when it was released. Now, as of writing this, my 30s are creeping on me so suddenly that I can taste the oncoming arthritis in my knees. So, with all of the counterevidence I’ve given and anecdotes I’ve retracted, why am I introducing this modern classic with such a dismissive stance? Because GTA V has greatly overstayed its welcome. You see, GTA V exhibits what I call a “Van Wilder complex,” referring to the comedy film where a man maintains his status as a college senior despite advancing past the acceptable age to still be indulging in the spoils of campus life. It’s still drinking itself silly every other night and hooting and hollering at the prevailing drunken debauchery, even though most of its peers of the same age have settled down with their careers and prospective marital partners. It’s not a decrepit geezer by any means, but the noticeable signs of slight aging make his behavior rather unbecoming. Still, in the case of GTA V, it has to maintain the mantle of fraternity life because there haven’t been any new members to succeed its once-mighty reign, so it can finally retire. Failing to claim a successor has also sprouted some complications over time, namely that GTA V’s content represents the ideals of a newly bygone era that are no longer kosher in our age of heightened sensitivities. Lastly, and it’s the aspect of GTA V’s prolonged legacy that rubs me the wrongest, is that it is widely considered to be the greatest outing in the franchise. This stems from a trend across the series titles in which every entry tends to surpass the previous one on a technical level and the overall scale of freedom the game facilitates. Initially, GTA V might have seemed to fit the trend splendidly. With hindsight, even without a successor to compare to, it’s obvious to me that it never should’ve been held in such high regard in the first place.

I guess I’ll summarize my overall assessment of GTA V by borrowing the analogous insights from master American filmmaker Martin Scorsese: GTA V is akin to an amusement park ride, a rollercoaster whose adrenaline-pumping thrills are potent, yet are admittedly cheap and fleeting. Unadulterated mayhem has always been synonymous with the Grand Theft Auto series, and I suppose one can just toss their brain aside like a pair of shoes in a pool locker room when reveling in the anarchic bedlam. Still, despite the fact that the player always had an endless opportunity to mindlessly spill the blood of innocent bystanders, rinsing and repeating when confronted with overwhelming police blowback, each game offered something substantial in its narrative that dug into a layer of substance beyond the superficial playground of murder on the surface. Players always came for the carnage, but the game implored them to stay for the protagonist's growth arcs, character interactions that tactfully balanced drama and humor, and biting social satire on modern American society at large. Not to mention, progressing each game’s story always unlocked a plethora of new features, areas, and finances to diversify and expand the scope and scale of said carnage. As noted in my comparison, the prevailing issue surrounding GTA V is that progressing through the game’s narrative seems more like a formality than ever, an obligation that is treated like a secondary lark instead of the primary driving force of the game. Never before has a GTA campaign felt so haphazardly composed. Its characters, missions, and overall structure not only fail to reach the remarkable pillar of interactive storytelling in GTA IV, but seem to lower all of the bars in these regards to a degree that is immeasurably disappointing.

I could comment that the game’s introductory prologue mission is indicative of GTA V’s lack of tact, but it does sufficiently set the scene for the major characters and sets an overarching conflict premise for the duration of the narrative. One could even make the argument that it resembles the beginning cutscenes of the older (3D) GTA games, as opposed to the protagonist arriving at his destination with varying contextual setups like in San Andreas and GTA IV. Immediately, GTA V begins guns blazing, literally, with a robbery conducted by three men that has become increasingly turbulent with the interruption of a police squadron. During their getaway, one man is shot dead while another’s fate is hanging in the balance when he’s incapacitated by another bullet. With the screen shifting to a grave being lowered into the earth during a funeral service, we’re meant to believe that the man perished in the police fire. However, the man whom everyone suspects is being buried is alive and well and watching the ceremony from afar, suggesting that he’s slyly eluding the legal ramifications of his actions and starting his life anew. A decade later, Michael Townley, the man who cheated the law and has changed his name to “Michael De Santa,” is emphatically griping to a shrink about his family. A criminal seeking professional help to deal with feelings of stress and anxiety? Does “Woke Up This Morning” play as he drives home from this session? I kid, but believe me, the Sopranos comparisons will arise in due time. GTA V’s tutorial mission is an adrenaline hook that effectively reels the player into the game like sticking a trout through the eye, and I’d rather be introduced to the core conflict premise that set the stage for the game’s future events in an interactive manner rather than having to imagine it for myself through spoken exposition. Still, if you’ve played through the game before, you know that pumping the high-octane action to this extent before the player has a second to breathe or blink is indicative of GTA V’s lack of self-restraint that persists throughout the game.

GTA V’s prologue mission also might be slightly misleading to some players in terms of where the game primarily takes place, provided they ignored the gobs of trailer content that Rockstar excreted onto the public in anticipation of the final product’s release. No, GTA V hasn’t reverted to the snowy, rural countryside in a subversive series first, as the all-purpose depiction of the midwestern region of the USA in North Yankton has served its role in contrasting the humble origins of the main characters to the congested urbanity they’ve absconded to. The extravagant concrete jungle in question is Los Santos, Rockstar’s depiction of the sunny, “city of angels” celebrity mecca located in the fictional state of San Andreas. Evidently, Rockstar’s prerogative in developing their works in high definition is to give every urban environment they’ve rendered a makeover, brushing away the grains of primitive polygons to uncover a crisp, glossy sheen of heightened graphical realism. While the high-definition graphics certainly make the environment and its denizens more appealing to look at compared to the subdued, blotchy lens we’re accustomed to looking through from San Andreas on the PS2, GTA V’s next-generation refurbishment extends far beyond nipping and tucking the visuals. With the HD hardware of seventh-generation consoles, the three borough grid of Liberty City that vaguely resembled the USA’s most populated metropolitan area was painstakingly reconstructed as practically a digital simulacrum of the Big Apple, complete with the heinous congestion of traffic and dizzyingly roundabout highway system. In GTA V, Los Santos has been given the same treatment as the urban USA area located on the opposite side of the country, broadening the expanse of the city by widening its perimeter and fleshing out the architecture and other setpieces with exquisite detail. The downtown section of Los Santos sees several shining skyscrapers looking over bustling city streets with people conversing over chai lattes, the beaches and their boardwalks see droves of people playing volleyball and sunbathing, and the houses residing alongside the Hollywood (Vinewood) Hills have never looked so opulent. The Los Santos equivalent of the Playboy Mansion is even rendered somewhere in the city as an easter egg, whose topless tarts running about the pool area test the thresholds of gaming censorship as the series is known to provoke. Nothing this frivolous, yet finely realized, could have ever been rendered in San Andreas on sixth-generation hardware. The depressing, gray and brown haze that permeated GTA IV’s visuals has also been washed away, with Los Santos’ sunshine radiating incessantly. Some may define this as a sorely-needed quality-of-life enhancement that was actively decided by the developers, but this pleasant weather condition is a natural occurrence for a map modeled after a city in southern California, as opposed to the temperate, northern NYC. As marvelously spacious and crisp Los Santos is looking in high definition, one aspect of its reworking is how it changes the scope of the city from when it was last constructed. In San Andreas, Grove Street and the surrounding ghettos served as the nucleus of Los Santos, with ritzier places of the city feeling outside of its jurisdiction due to how disparate it was to CJ’s general surroundings. With Ganton and Idlewood becoming mingled in with the rest of Los Santos’ districts in terms of precedence, the city finally feels like a unified metropolitan monolith.

The map of San Andreas did admittedly extend far beyond the city limits of CJ’s hometown hub to two other urban areas inspired by more major cities that fall under the Pacific time zone. Sadly, we are not granted the privilege of seeing San Fierro and Las Venturas with a glorious graphical rehaul, as Los Santos maintains its focal point as GTA V’s primary epicenter for the duration of the game. Still, the entirety of the game’s map does offer alternate areas that deviate from the urban sprawl. GTA V reinstates the rural areas situated directly outside the borders of Los Santos that were present in San Andreas, with the contrast being more prominent than it was previously, given that they’ve also been expanded to encompass half of the entire map. Every step north of the Los Santos city limits becomes more modest and desolate, reaching the realm of Blaine County. The unpretentious district that directly juxtaposes the glitz and glamour of Los Santos comprises the trailer-infested, desiccated desert town of Sandy Shores, the farmland of Grapeseed, and the rustic, salt-of-the-earth town of Paleto Bay that will remind most returning players of the quiet, redneck burgs of San Andreas’ Red County. Blaine County also encompasses plenty of natural geographical locations such as Raton Canyon, several mountain ranges, and the Alamo Sea, whose branching rivers run all the way to the rocky shores of North Chumash to the west. The notable residential areas of Blaine County, with their own distinct zip codes, present enough map diversity to distract oneself from the noise pollution of Los Santos, but all of the more organic land surrounding it exposes a grave oversight with GTA V’s map. Their ambitions to broaden Los Santos and its neighboring rural stretches to unprecedented lengths have resulted in much of the map being nothing but vacant space. Sure, it’s logical that there would be some spots with little to no activity, but if I had to wager an approximation, the total percentage of natural land that comprises GTA V’s map is more than just half. From a gameplay perspective, traversing through miles and miles of rugged, empty terrain for the sake of geographical consistency is incredibly dull and tedious. At least have the decency to designate this type of terrain to a single, contained area of the map instead of bordering almost every significant place on the map around it.

Placing the player in a glossier version of a playground they have fond, sentimental memories of wreaking havoc in is all fine and dandy, but it’s the new features that every sequel bestows that truly prevent the player from reverting back to the old murder machines. In GTA V’s case, the game needed enough content to fill in the vacancies left by the inordinate range of hilly peaks that encircle Los Santos. Rockstar’s solution that slightly adds some character to the desolate places is the inclusion of wild animals. Elk, coyotes, jackrabbits, etc., will be roaming around the elevated plains of their natural habitats, while more domestic animals like dogs, cats, and rats can be found on the streets of Los Santos. God forbid you encounter a cougar while hiking up a steep mountain trail, for the rancorous, bloodthirsty beast will never hesitate to send you straight to the nearest hospital (which, considering how remote their territory tends to be, is not a quick trip). Full disclosure, yes: any animal one finds around can be exterminated as easily as any of the humans the series is used to serving up as impulse fodder. If killing and skinning animals in Red Dead Redemption didn’t provoke the wrath of PETA, then they figured it was fair game to finally transfer less capable creatures into the fray of their longest-running series free of consequence. However, one particular animal is completely immune to all potential harm, and that’s a rottweiler named Chop. Owned by Lamar but commanded by Franklin, the latter character can choose to have the pooch accompany him to sic the scrotums of all that come across him. If the player so chooses, they can interactively do Franklin’s bidding by looking through Chop’s perspective, which is only used for a single mission. Playing fetch with Chop is also a little lark of a pastime to increase the bond between Franklin and his furry, shockingly deadly companion. If calling Chop proves to be too inconvenient in the midst of action, each character’s “superpower” will certainly be useful in a pinch. Essentially, GTA V rebrands the “deadeye” feature from Red Dead Redemption, where a character can engage an extraordinary ability for a brief moment that allows for adrenalized moments to be more manageable. In addition to Michael’s move that blatantly copies John Marston’s “deadeye,” slackening the traffic around Franklin on the road so he’s able to swerve and turn smoothly while driving, plus Trevor’s “rage mode” that increases both his defense and offense, are all ridiculous from a conceptual standpoint. The “deadeye” mechanic naturally fit John Marston’s role as a gunslinger in the wild west, so it gives the player a suspension of disbelief between what they controlled on screen and what is actually occurring with the character. Here, each character inexplicably possesses superhuman capabilities, a shoehorned mechanic that is totally unnatural and nonsensical. Minigames are littered aplenty throughout Los Santos as well to take a respite from the chaos if one is so inclined, including gambling, tennis, golf, darts, etc. GTA V’s contributions in immersing players into its freeform world are ultimately marginal and or recycled from previous titles, but at least it still puts enough content on the player’s plate to make them hungry and curious enough to reach that desired time sink.

Then there are the series’ core mechanics that have been tweaked and altered extensively throughout its then-twelve-year period as a 3D open-world series. This section is also when the review becomes consistently contentious, as these aspects of GTA V are where the game falters considerably. I can’t believe I once thought that GTA V’s driving and shooting mechanics were a stark improvement over the previous game’s. Admittedly, GTA IV’s direction with these idiosyncratic assets of the series was a bit unyielding. Still, once I became accustomed to the game’s more realistic physics engine, I began to appreciate the intricacies of the driving mechanics and felt a profound sense of accomplishment when I drove proficiently enough that I wasn’t inadvertently ejecting Niko from the driver’s seat between every destination. On the other hand, the player is guaranteed to never face any initial complications when they step into any vehicle and rev up the engine in GTA V. The weight of realistic acceleration and vehicle momentum has been shed from the driving equation like a snake’s skin. Immediately, as the player puts their foot on the gas, it's pedal to the metal with very little in the way of rational physics inhibiting the player from safely swerving and turning despite the calamitous speeds. This applies to most if not all vehicles at the player’s disposal, ignoring variables such as the immense bulk of a fire truck or the longer, rectangular bodies of a limousine. Every single car, no matter the size, is also as durable as a cast-iron pan, so any damage received by driving recklessly is ultimately moot in the long run. It’s the farthest cry from the days of GTA III, where an abrupt shift in altitude could’ve upset a vehicle enough to burst like a ruptured appendix. As much as I groaned and griped about the fragility of GTA III’s vehicles, subsequent titles improved upon this issue to the point where it was no longer something I considered. In GTA V, the developers have overcorrected to the point of preventing the player from being inconvenienced by their lack of driving finesse. Auto shops have replaced the blunt, simple services of the series staple Pay-and-Sprays, where the player can modify and augment attributes of any car, such as speed and defense. What exactly is the incentive to visit this service when every conceivable vehicle zooms off like a rocket and can be bruised and battered with impunity like a Hot Wheels car?

The shooting in GTA V is also an indication of something that was once faulty and vexing in GTA III coming full circle to a degree of agreeability, albeit far too agreeable to the point where it becomes an issue again. The shooting of GTA has progressed from the awkward imprecision of its first 3D outing to directly targeting the desired opponent by pressing the trigger, with San Andreas and GTA IV supplying a health indicator as a nifty visual reference. GTA V decides that depicting a target’s health had become unnecessary, instead having the targeting reticle burst outward upon executing the target. It sounds like a regressive choice on all fronts, but signaling how much more firepower is required to put an enemy six feet under really is superfluous. Whereas the vehicles of GTA V are solid as steel, human beings have become a bunch of namby-pambys who can’t tolerate even a smidge of searing lead. NPCs and enemies no longer writhe around in grievous pain after being shot in a non-vital area like the arm or the leg, for any spillage of blood from any piece of anatomy is liable to be fatal. Even though aiming at any area of the body will efficiently subdue anyone pointed at, the game even course-corrects the reticle to automatically hone in on a person’s head, ensuring a critical hit just by pressing the targeting trigger. Needless to say, the immediate, effortless alternating of the two back buttons on the controller negates the satisfaction of a skilled kill. What was wrong with working one’s way up to a critical area while targeting with shaky precision in GTA IV? Every headshot I accomplished in that game felt gratifying, but here, I feel as if a condescending force is obliged to do it for me. To add to the newfound trivial nature of the series’ shooting, Ammu-Nations are no longer a necessary, continual source of ammo replenishment. Sure, the stores still exist and involve at least one mandatory look-around for one mission. However, the game automatically supplies the player with enough firepower to penetrate Fort Knox as the game progresses, with exorbitant ammunition to boot. I now know the jaded feeling of being a rich kid on Christmas, albeit with an adulthood self-awareness that knows where this disillusionment stems from. The weapon wheel that organizes each of these weapons is, however, a bona fide quality-of-life enhancement that should’ve been implemented several entries sooner.

If delving into the driving and shooting mechanics of GTA V didn’t already speak volumes on this point, I’ll say it clear as day: GTA V is stupidly facile. It’s the gaming epitome of the expression that something is so easy that a *insert a perceivably mentally deficient creature here* can do it. I’ve struggled more with brushing my teeth at times than at any point while playing GTA V. Since we’ve already discussed how the mechanics of the game have been nerfed to oblivion, we might as well throw the general punitive blowback of the police into the fire of modern GTA discourse. How do the boys in blue respond to the transgressive, anti-social acts that the player will likely be committing continually throughout the game? With relative lethargy, actually. GTA V continues the previous game’s wanted system, in which the player must avoid the blue and red circles on the radar that signify the police’s range of perception. Liberty City’s boys in blue were very vigilant in their efforts to crack down on illegal activities, so it was quite challenging to evade their militant, hawk-like gazes. On the other side of the country in Los Santos, Chief Wiggum is evidently the commissioner of LSPD operations. Zipping beyond their immediate reaches will take a few seconds, provided that the player isn’t accident-prone, and when the police lose sight of the player, the perpetrator in “hot pursuit” can simply obscure themselves in a shaded corner until they seem to concede defeat. Those who express the idiom that you can run but can't hide evidently have never committed a crime in Los Santos. The player will lose all but their equipped weapon if they’re apprehended, but having them use lethal force will instead result in spawning at a hospital, paying a $5000 fee. Considering that every character already has a substantial amount of money that only increases with progression, it’s as insignificant as paying a toll. Honestly, because the penalty for disturbing the peace is practically inconsequential, it fosters a greater sense of freedom than any other game in the series, even though it's ultimately another indictment of the game’s general emphasis on leniency. Again, I can relate to a child of the upper class, living day by day, only receiving slaps on their wrists for their poor decisions.

Naturally, the encompassing ease of GTA V complicates, or rather, uncomplicates, the array of missions that progress the game’s story. On top of lackadaisical police chases and elementary gameplay mechanics, checkpoints are littered all over in what feels like every step of the way across all missions in GTA V. Dying was not a common occurrence during my playthrough, something I thought I’d never utter when discussing a game from this franchise, so I can’t say with certainty how severely the game will punish the player for their failures. Still, whenever I did croak due to a miscalculation or lack of attentiveness, I swear that I only retraced a couple of steps upon respawning. Still, whether or not any of the missions fail to rekindle the red-faced frustration of some GTA classics, such as “Espresso 2 Go!” or “Supply Lines,” what really matters is the fun factor and diversity of the mission selection that GTA V bestows. Overall, I think that GTA V shuffles the objectives of their mission itinerary adequately enough so as not to lose the player’s interest, even though their lack of stakes ultimately bogs down their engagement. Ducking and covering will be as prominent a mechanic in GTA V’s missions as it was in the previous game, but the percentage of them has marginally decreased, probably because the onus is no longer on GTA V to showcase such a system. “Did Somebody Say Yoga?” sees Michael reluctantly humoring the activity his wife has traded for tennis, which is a rhythm-oriented sequence that trips up most players for some reason. “Monkey Business” makes wonderful utilization of the game’s diving mechanics, while planes have never been so graceful in a GTA game as when Trevor flies over the arid hills of Blaine County in “Nervous Ron.” One mission in the game that lives in infamy is “By the Book,” an interactive torture sequence where the player selects five different cruel instruments to forcibly coax information out of an FIB person of interest. The torturing itself isn’t all that involved from a gameplay perspective, but it’s still an upsettingly sadistic display nonetheless.

While GTA V doesn’t have any trouble providing diverse, high-octane missions to supplement the story’s daunting length, the prevailing issue lies in how they are paced and coordinated. For example, trying to maintain Michael’s balance with a sequence of analog directions and button presses in the aforementioned yoga mission does not end with Michael (rightfully) attempting to sucker punch the sleazy Fabian into his pool. Michael’s immediate decision to bond with his son, Jimmy, ends with a hallucinatory sequence where Michael is experiencing the effects of whatever drug his son slipped him. These two events easily could’ve been divided into separate missions, but a mission only offering yoga would’ve compromised on GTA V’s stubborn initiative to inject a constant surge of adrenaline at every waking moment in its story. Every single mission in GTA V is completely apeshit in one way or another, involving destruction on a scale that rivals the climaxes of every thrilling action film ever created. No matter the point in the story where the mission takes place, bedlam equivalent to the Bay of Pigs will commence. Michael will publicly kick the shit out of series stalwart Lazlo on live television, then go on a covert mission for the FIB to find a body in a morgue that cannot be conducted quietly, and then scale down a skyscraper trying to kidnap someone in broad daylight while Trevor is flying a helicopter overhead. Each of these missions are romps most riotous, but the overstimulation of excessive action leaves me numb to most of them. At the same time, the few exceptions that involve hauling crates at the docks and monitoring the travel of a car from a helicopter are definitely among the most boring missions in the series.

Really, this kind of conspicuously grandiose mission should be reserved for the heists, a prominent mission type in GTA V that does signal a milestone in the game’s story. These intricately planned missions, often constructed by Michael’s old friend, the pudgy, crippled, conspiracy-conscious Lester, where he’ll devise an intricate schematic that is malleable enough to pursue the heist from different approaches. Preparation for the heist, such as hiring additional manpower and procuring a getaway vehicle, also elevates their significance over the average illegal escapade. Forgetting the fact that dying during a heist after meticulous plotting is inconsequential, the act of storming the establishment or sneaking through it always exudes a thrill that is more deserved than the typical mission, plus accomplishing it always pays off with exorbitant dividends. Still, the heists are most emblematic of the problem that persists with most missions in GTA V: the scale of chaos committed is too large to ignore. For most GTA missions, no matter how the body count stacks up, they tend to still be contained to those involved in the criminal underworld and a select squadron of cops assigned to deal with them. With these characters constantly committing crimes of the century, targeting public places and highly secured businesses, you’d think someone would notice a pattern and they’d garner a reputation. Hell, the news of each heist is broadcast on every radio station, yet no one can surmise any suspects. Packy McReary can be selected as a supporting figure for the late-game heists, and he’ll boast about the bank vault score he partook in back in GTA IV. That heist had stakes, its difficulty matched its magnitude, and it was the only mission of its caliber that consequently changed the course of the game for its remaining duration. When the characters can just rob several secured businesses willy-nilly, it dilutes the impact of what a heist should have by proxy.

Criticizing the outlying context of GTA V’s heist missions is just one of several missteps in GTA V’s overall story, and divulging the extent of the game’s total number of holes is enough to trigger a sense of narrative trypophobia. A great deal of the story’s shortcomings stems from the spectacularly flawed trio of protagonists, and I don’t just mean from a moral standpoint. Let’s start with Michael, since his arc starts earlier than the rest of them. Because he’s still rife with depression, anxiety, and deep-seated anger issues despite his life of luxury, the Tony Soprano parallels are clear as a windex. Is it really fair to compare Michael to television's most complex character it's ever conceived? Considering that Michael is from the same series that birthed Niko, the most complex character in gaming, I believe that Rockstar is completely capable of crafting a protagonist with exquisite layers. Michael, however, missed the mark. Beneath the machismo demeanor and intimidating job title, Tony Soprano exuded plenty of other personality traits that subverted someone of his stature. He could be genuinely funny, sweet, and sensitive, almost making us believe that he could’ve been a productive member of society if he had been born under different circumstances. Michael, on the other hand, only expresses the unsavory surface traits of anger and self-loathing, without the moments of charm that made Tony likable. The nuclear family dynamic that provided more insight into Tony’s character is equally present with Michael, but every member of the Townley/De Santa clan is fucking horrid. His wife Amanda has shamelessly banged every other male NPC in Los Santos, his son Jimmy is a spoiled bum that manages to be less sympathetic than AJ, and Tracey is the bimboification of the one Sopranos family member who subversively didn’t fall into the obvious trappings of a teenage daughter character. Whenever Michael confronts each of them for their individual problematic behaviors, all they do is deflect it by reminding Michael that he’s also a bad person, a glass houses scenario if there ever was one. Still, they might be onto something, considering that there is no logical explanation for why Michael does what he does. Unlike Tony Soprano, who was trapped into leading a life of crime, Michael’s life decision of being a career criminal stems from an unknown origin. It’s matter-of-factly what he does to support himself financially, no more, no less. Because Michael is relatively one-dimensional, he falls a little behind Tommy Vercetti in the rankings of GTA protagonists, only because the man from Vice City was unashamed of his lifestyle.

Once Michael makes his criminal comeback and slips up by quoting a film to a witness that only he would be fond of, it introduces the character that was THE talking point among all the gamers at my high school. Trevor Phillips is, by far, the most rousing component to GTA V’s story and perhaps the entire game. During the first cutscene where he’s the primary character, he curb stomps Johnny Klebitz from GTA IV to a bloody pulp for confronting his adulterous rogering of Ashley, then proceeds to oust all the surviving members of the Lost. I knew that girl would be the death of him. Then, alongside the paranoid Ron and simpleton Wade, Trevor then embarks on a streak of endeavors ranging from wiping out an entire family of rival meth cooks to blowing up an entire trailer park. Don’t get me started on the atrocities he commits towards Wade’s cousin Floyd and a teddy bear named Mr. Raspberry Jam once he arrives in Los Santos. All of these missions in the desert are intended to frame Trevor as a man who should not be trifled with. He’s the embodiment of an untethered ID under the influence of methamphetamines, a flesh and blood boogeyman that presents the pinnacle example of why parents tell their children to never converse with strangers. Hell, he supports the argument that adults should follow the same advice. He’s incredibly entertaining but alas, he’s equally as one-dimensional as Michael. However, the developers evidently made an effort for the player to think otherwise. A character of Trevor’s persuasion (Frank Booth from Blue Velvet comes to mind) is usually reserved for an antagonist role as a formidable force of malevolent unpredictability. When this type of character is given as much screen time as Trevor, there needs to be a considerable fleshing out of his traits so they can comfortably fit a protagonist role. We’re meant to believe that Trevor has a soft, sensitive side to him, exhibited most prominently when he kidnaps the abused spouse of cartel kingpin, Martin Madrazzo. He treats this elderly woman with uncharacteristic care and affection, but it doesn’t really expose any sort of vulnerability. Because Trevor is defined by his intense unpredictability, this impulsive, scatterbrained action is still evocative of his dominant surface-level trait. Mommy issues might be a subject of discussion but if this were true, why doesn’t he treat Amanda or Franklin’s aunt with the same selective respect? Tony Soprano never discriminated against a select few animals! Because Trevor is nothing but a turbulent source of uncomfortable comedy, I approach him with a grain of salt.

Last, and certainly the least of the three playable protagonists, is Franklin. One might wonder why I’ve chosen to discuss him last, considering Trevor is formally introduced far later in the game, but Franklin truly is the least impactful protagonist. This twenty-something African-American who resides in the 21st-century version of CJ’s old stomping grounds is unsatisfied with his meager life, living with his aunt and collaborating with Lamar, his obnoxious, dim-witted childhood friend. When Franklin meets Michael after he repossesses his son’s car, Franklin eagerly takes the opportunity to put himself under Michael’s tutelage for the subsequent string of heists. Once Trevor is back in the picture, Franklin’s relevance in the story takes a complete nosedive. He’s relegated to being the outlying middle man between the butting heads of Michael and Trevor, but this only works if Franklin were the sole protagonist acting as a nondescript avatar like Claude. The missions assigned to Franklin by Lester are completely removed from the overarching story, shoehorned in to remind the player that Franklin (and Lester, really) are still active characters in this story. Nothing like a protagonist operating from the sidelines to show how insignificant he is, eh? Franklin’s arc essentially culminates in Lester housing him in an expensive, extravagant house in the hills, a shoehorned, sudden event that happens at an anticlimactic midpoint in the game. Hooray? Franklin’s inclusion is either the developers refusing to stray away from the hood environment that defined the conceptual backbone of San Andreas, or that GTA V had to have three playable characters because GTA IV did, like a younger sibling who whines that his older sibling’s piece of cake is bigger and therefore demands to have the same amount. Neither reason justifies the existence of Franklin, who is undoubtedly the series’ weakest protagonist.

Franklin’s role as the neutral mediator between the two actual driving forces of the narrative starts to actually hold some weight when all of their actions eventually culminate in shit hitting the fan (sort of). Suddenly, corrupt FIB agent and massive douchebag, Steve Haines, urgently requests that Franklin whack Trevor because he’s stirred up more shit than a witch’s cauldron. Alternately, billionaire magnate and fellow douchebag, Devin Weston, makes the same demand to Franklin, but to kill Michael instead, as revenge for him sabotaging a real estate deal. The last mission of the game sees Franklin ousting one of them, a choice the player has to make that will result in the decided target permanently being locked from playing as in that save file. Are they serious? In what timeline in any multiple universes would Franklin ever consider killing Michael over Trevor? Franklin and Michael are genuine friends, albeit if their relationship was formulated overnight for the sake of narrative convenience, and working with Michael has been the perfect avenue for Franklin to accomplish his long-term goals. Some have stated that Michael is manipulating Franklin to live a life of crime under his wing, but Franklin doesn’t seem to have any reservations about how he earns a living. Meanwhile, Franklin only sees Trevor as a source of comic relief at best and a terrifying nutcase at worst. Plus, Trevor has kicked far more beehives than Michael, so plenty more people will be appeased if the drug-addled spitfire is dealt with. The player also has a third option to defy all of the threats at hand alongside Michael and Trevor, which will result in all three characters surviving the end of the story unscathed. On second thought, this is the only ending that makes sense from the player’s perspective. Why would the player ever want to sacrifice a playable character and remove all of their individual content? The “Deathwish” mission is misleading, as it isn’t a risk in the slightest. I’d comment that there is no feasible way to kill two men of prestige as they do, but they’ve proven that there are no ramifications for their actions with every event leading up to this.

How does one make GTA V’s ending make sense? Simple, firmly establish Trevor as the game’s antagonist. I’m not saying he can’t be playable, but the game has to relinquish him at some point, and the game even provides just the occasion. Michael isn’t so much afraid of Trevor as a fellow human being and crime compadre; rather, he’s afraid that he’ll dig through Michael’s dirty secrets from a decade prior and strike oil at the full extent of the awful truth. I guess one surprising trait Trevor exhibits is that he’s a bit of a sentimentalist, pining for the days with his old crew intact, including Brad. We know that Brad is dead, but Trevor believes he’s simply incarcerated. Once Michael and Lester make too many deflections on Trevor’s plans to break Brad out of his supposed cell, a lightbulb shines over Trevor’s head that takes him back to North Yankton. Michael follows him to adulterate the evidence, but Trevor soon finds that Brad is rotting in a coffin in Michael’s place. How does this unhinged maniac respond to the extent of Michael’s deception? He avoids Michael for a few days and then harps on it in a pouty, passive-aggressive manner like a scorned spouse. Really, Rockstar? Seeing Trevor respond like this, knowing his penchant for depravity and vehement rage, is fucking pathetic. This should’ve been the point where Trevor becomes the sharpest thorn in Michael’s side, and killing him should be more of a no-brainer.

Grand Theft Auto V reminds me of something insightful, albeit cynical, that a high school teacher of mine once said about the alcohol industry. You see, Coors Light, one of the biggest beer brands in the world, has a gimmick where its cans turn blue once they are cold and therefore, sufficient to drink. As a fifty-something man who had been drinking legally for decades, he pointed out that he doesn’t need a visual aid to know when his beer is cold. What he alluded to is that this gimmick would only impress a demographic too young to legally consume its product, namely, the kids he was speaking to. Alcohol corporations would be overjoyed if children could indulge in their wares to maximize profit, separating law and business like church and state. Children are also not supposed to be playing Grand Theft Auto, but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t designing their games to cater towards this lucrative demographic, regardless. This is why I believe GTA V is as undemanding and streamlined as it is, to placate their impressionable, secret customer base. As an adult, I did admittedly still have fun playing it, but everything from the effortless ease of the mechanics to the slapdash story resulted in a flaccid, impotent experience. Then again, GTA V has become the second best-selling game of all time as of writing this, so what the fuck do I know? I’d like to point out that R-rated movies rarely ever break sales records like these, by the way. It’s about time that an heir appears to knock GTA V off its pedestal and end this unethical, extortionate cash flow. Still, I fear that Rockstar’s successful business model will just produce a new product that will commit the same sins all over again.

Yakuza: Like a Dragon Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 5/15/2024)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Yakuza: Like a Dragon

Developer: Ryu Ga Gotoku

Publisher: Sega

Genre(s): JRPG, Open World

Platforms: PS4, PC, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X

Release Date: January 16, 2020

Guys, I took the coward’s way out. After being won over by the rightfully acclaimed Yakuza prequel, Yakuza 0, I said that I would journey through all of Kiryu’s adventures in Kamurocho in chronological order while anticipating their comparatively lackluster quality to the mobster’s origin story. However, proceeding with six whole games seemed rather daunting, and the assumed diminishing returns on the enjoyment factor while conquering the Kiryu half dozen didn’t provide a great sense of motivation. Therefore, I decided to instead divert my attention to a separate Yakuza property whose grass was equally as green as the Kiryu-oriented games were before they grew as old as their protagonist eventually did. Yakuza 7, or “Yakuza: Like a Dragon,” is the rebranded refurbishment that the series desperately needed, lest Sega’s crime-laden IP wilt away even further into an unrecoverable hospice. The series has officially sprouted a new seed from the decaying branches of the once-mighty Kiryu oak, and I’m happy to report that the seedling spawn is healthier than a garden-fed bovine on a prairie farm in Iowa. Come to think of it, Like a Dragon is surprisingly the precocious wunderkind. Despite the untested, amateur mechanics on display, Like a Dragon has garnered an astounding amount of acclaim. Hell, as part of the initiative to stray away from Kiryu’s long-standing saga, Sega has officially changed the name of the Yakuza series to “Like a Dragon” so it can encompass all ventures unrelated to Kiryu under one Japanese crime-focused IP umbrella. Considering that Judgment had already deviated from the bog standard beat ‘em gameplay in favor of a slower-paced detective story, why did the series decide to adopt the subtitle of its “seventh” entry as its new moniker? Because Yakuza (7): Like a Dragon is truly phenomenal, a testament to the fact that Sega’s need to reinvent the franchise was dire and that starting relatively anew always allows creativity to flourish.

Yakuza games tend to be rather lengthy, so one can imagine the lofty expanse of the narrative that occurs when it’s being arranged through the scope of the JRPG genre. The beginning exposition that introduces the scene and the conflict premise is prolonged to the duration of two whole chapters, with cutscenes so protracted that even Hideo Kojima might have taken an executive stance to cut them down if he were in charge. While I stated that Like a Dragon was like a reincarnation of the Yakuza franchise, the story beats of the conflict premise for Like a Dragon’s protagonist may indicate that nothing can truly be original. Stow away all of the lore exposition involving kabuki theater, an assassination at a Peking Duck restaurant, and a child being spared with the sacrifice of a Yakuza officer’s finger in your memory reserves for now. The focal point that drives the narrative forward is Ichiban Kasuga, an excitable, young Tojo Clan underling who was also adopted into the Tokyo organized crime syndicate due to being an orphan like the mainstay series protagonist we’re accustomed to. The tower of similarities between the two keeps stacking even higher when Ichiban suffers the same set of unfortunate circumstances as Kiriyu did when he was but a Yakuza rookie. Because Ichiban is a lowly plankton in a food chain of great white Yakuza sharks (and because he annoys the piss out of everyone), his family patriarch, Arakawa, proposes that he take a murder rap for lieutenant Sawashiro. Given his sense of loyalty for his crime family and his unbounded admiration for Arakawa, Ichiban turns himself in without so much as asking a single question. After serving 18 years in prison eating rice cakes off the radiator, Ichiban is released back into the public as a slightly greyer middle-aged man with a gaudy, eccentric perm that probably conducts as much static electricity as the Bride of Frankenstein’s vertical hairdo. Almost two decades spent away from the open range of society would be enough to perturb any ex-con, but the streets of Kamurocho are as foreign to Ichiban as an alien planet. No, this isn’t because everyone carries around pocket-sized computers, but because the Tojo Clan that he was eagerly waiting to return to has all but gone extinct. Kamurocho is now under the control of the Omi Alliance, the largest Yakuza organization originating from the Kansai region and the Tojo Clan’s archrivals. Ichiban encounters Arakawa to ask his former sensei about how a steadfast Kamurocho institution bellied up (and about his promise to treat him to Peking duck once he served his time), but Arakawa doesn’t acknowledge his presence. Collaborating with Adachi, an ex-cop turned taxi driver, Ichiban uses Adachi’s connections and knowledge of the Yakuza underground passageways to intercept a meeting that Arakawa is presently conducting. Ichiban believes that encountering his former boss in a more intimate setting will help clear up his hazy memory of him. Alas, all his persistence gets him is a steamy bullet to the chest, courtesy of the man he holds in such high esteem. As the screen fades to black and Ichiban’s fate hangs in the balance, the events leading up to this shocker of an introductory conclusion are very effective at exuding a sense of sympathy for our protagonist. Still, I argue that the cutscenes that don’t involve Ichiban in any capacity could’ve been shown at later instances in the narrative or omitted completely. As it is, they clog the duration of the first two chapters to an excruciatingly bloated degree.

After his intrusion, Ichiban isn’t hauled off by Arakawa’s subordinates into the Kamurocho harbor to serve as a free meal to the industrial waterfront’s various sea life. By some miracle, Ichiban survives the flaming hot sting of lead and is dumped onto a homeless camp one city over in Yokohama. Thanks to the medical assistance of a down-on-his-luck ex-nurse turned vagabond named Nanba, Ichiban makes a full recovery and is free to traverse through the streets of this unfamiliar setting. Specifically, the area of Yokohama that serves as Like a Dragon’s concrete playground is Isezaki Ijincho, the city’s nightlife-centric equivalent to Kamurocho. Love hotels and S&M clubs are lucrative places of commerce in the city’s red light district, poverty runs so rampant that shantytowns have been erected all over, and gangs of belligerent goons are always alert to bumrush unsuspecting civilians just for making eye contact with them, even if they’re looking at the backs of their heads. While the atmosphere of an electric land marked by debauchery and danger transfers over from the regular stomping grounds of Kamurocho, Ijincho differs greatly from the standpoint of urban planning. The neighborhoods of Ijincho forgo the tight grid-based design of Kamurocho’s outdoor corridors in favor of letting the pavement breathe a bit between intersecting streets. Aiding in the spaciousness of this new setting are larger pieces of infrastructure interspersed between the wall-to-wall buildings, ranging from the natural Sakura River that flows north in the western sector to the Jinnai Station in the center. Actually, Ijincho’s access point to Japan’s efficient public transportation subtly serves as the dividing line in the center between the two halves of Ijincho. I’m positive that I’m not the only one who noticed that half of Ijincho north of the Jinnai Station is far more opulent and more approachable with its parks, federal buildings, and swankier restaurants as opposed to the grimy aisles with dive bars and sex-centric entertainment on each side of every street in the southern district. Compare the snazzy tourist trap of Chinatown in the northeast to the vacant slum of Koreatown just below the train station, and you’ll see the contrast of Japanese gentrification at its most apparent. Black haze obscures any part of Ijincho that the player hasn’t visited yet on the map, so even visiting the northern half seems like a reward for progressing enough in the narrative past the filthy homeless camp that served as Ichiban’s spawn point. Still, no matter the general area, Ijincho is overall far more pleasant to traverse than Kamurocho because the sprawling expanse of the city pronounces the parameters of each neighborhood. Because the individual areas are broader and more defined, it allows the player to create a clearer mental image of the map’s overall layout. However, the wider breadth of Ijincho’s streets does allow for moving automobiles to act as obstacles in the foregrounds, and let’s just say that interacting with Ijincho’s domestic drivers might affirm some negative cultural stereotypes.

Besides their eerily similar origin stories, I don’t think that Ichiban shares much in common with Kiryu. One might think that they’d be kindred spirits given their shared unfortunate experience, but a connection based on grief always proves to be a shallow one. If I had to describe the contrast between the two Yakuza protagonists, I can’t think of a more fitting way to illustrate it than by comparing the different demeanors between a cat and a dog. Kiryu is naturally the furry feline in this analogy, hiding his good nature underneath an aloof, withdrawn exterior. Ichiban, on the other hand, exhibits so many traits of “man’s best friend” that it’s a wonder that Arakawa and the other Tojo executives didn’t throw him treats around the office or bat him on the nose with a newspaper when he was out of line. The expendable, frizzy-haired ex-Yakuza grunt never exudes any pretensions of acting hard-headed and collected like his crime connections would connote. Ichiban can’t help but be an overly optimistic doofus with an unbridled enthusiasm that makes him endearing to some and irritating to others. You’d think with his immature disposition that he’d been in the slammer since he was a child instead of 24. Even though his childlike tendencies and naivety might be unbecoming of a middle-aged adult man, his arrested development is not a hindrance in tackling the challenges of both surviving and succeeding on the feral streets of Ijincho. Ichiban’s lack of cynicism and self-doubt, which tends to be characteristic of a seasoned adult, gives him an inflated level of confidence. Match that with his unwavering streak of benevolence stemming from his adorable aspirations to “become a hero,” and Ichiban is an indomitable force for all that is good and wholesome. He’s a dog off its leash with the cognitive acuity of a human, which allows him to apply his relentless positivity to better society as any domesticated canine would do if they could. Still, when approaching people whom Ichiban deems as his “masters,” who are the higher-up Yakuza in this case, he conveys expressions of genuine devotion to them so resolute that Webster’s needs to conjure up a more appropriate synonym for loyalty that matches Ichiban’s intensity. That is why it’s heart-wrenching when Arakawa pulls the trigger on his Tojo Clan pup. Imagine if Fry from Futurama had shot Seymour if they managed to cross paths once again: people would’ve fucking revolted in disgust. I never had such a strong emotional reaction to witnessing any of Kiryu’s hardships, so I suppose Ichiban is more than a substantial replacement as the series’ narrative backbone. Who would’ve thought that positivity and friendliness would radiate more charisma than stern stoicism?

Ichiban’s dog-like characteristics also extend to Like a Dragon’s combat, for his perspective in which it is portrayed is likely how a dog sees people with their unrefined eyesight and limited mental capacities. Or, it’s the everlasting effect of playing too much Dragon’s Quest in their formative years. Above the changes in the protagonist and setting, the true radical departure from Yakuza’s defined characteristics that Like a Dragon adopts is turn-based combat instead of the tried and true beat ‘em up gameplay. One might argue that basing a JRPG around the modern, urban landscape of Yakuza is ill-fitting, but I’ve given so many examples of “domestic JRPGs” at this point that the evidence needed to make a rebuttal to this claim seems obvious. If the argument stems from the awkwardness of turn-based combat compromising on the urbane and intimidating aura that a series centered around gangsters is intended to exude, let’s not kid ourselves; the Yakuza series has always been a bit silly, and the sincerity of the rough, macho characters only adds to to comedic tone. That is why the visual of a thug politely waiting for his turn to crack Ichiban’s skull open with a lead pipe doesn’t strike me as off-putting in the slightest. Like Kamurocho, throngs of bellicose baddies walk the streets of Ijincho, darting their hostilities towards Ichiban in a flash. They might be the same types of delinquents, punks, and other urban rabble-rousers that exist in Kamurocho, but we’ll never know their true identities thanks to Ichiban’s warped perspective. Whether it’s his overactive imagination or spending time in solitary confinement for a sizable portion of his prison sentence made him develop onset schizophrenia, the wretches of Ijincho are depicted in an eclectic array of fashions. The only other man who seems to share Ichiban’s twisted perception of these malevolent men is a bald guy who brandishes a wicked scar. He refers to the hundreds of reprobates that roam the city as “Sujimon,” giving Ichiban a device that catalogs their information once he encounters them. Do I have to state which Nintendo JRPG series this feature is borrowing from? The weaknesses and resistances of the enemies can’t be committed to an easy formula like Pokemon, but the range of enemies is equally as diverse. The wacky ways in which Ichiban perceives these malcontents are too numerous to list, indicative of the sheer variety on display for the player to contend with. The player will still grow tired of the frequent encounters with these assholes just to gain a crumb of cash and experience, but that’s just a continuation of a series’ staple hiccup.

The variation of Like a Dragon’s turn-based combat certainly doesn’t stop with the types of enemies looking to batter Ichiban for his lunch money. There’s also the factor of Ichiban’s line of defense against these lowlives that the player will select in a menu when it’s their opportunity to strike. At first, Ichiban will only be able to execute a series of fairly flabby punches, with some modest special moves integrated into the mix that cost a meager amount of MP (magic points). Once Ichiban stumbles into the offices of Hello Work, the local career advisory institution, Ichiban’s set of combat skills grows exponentially. I was initially under the impression that this feature directed the player towards a specific minigame that netted them a respectable sum of yen upon its completion, but I couldn't have been more misled. Essentially, Ichiban’s “job” chosen here is equivalent to selecting a role-playing battle class. For instance, the musician job (that a job clinic would never assign to anyone as a prospective career in a million years), involves Ichiban clubbing enemies with his acoustic guitar, strumming some sick cords whose sonic waves deal serious damage, throwing his mixtape to enemies like a Venice Beach drifter, etc. Ichiban will blind foes with a giant, wooden pepper grinder as a chef, slap them with confectionary treats as a “host,” throw a crystal ball to enemies like they’re bowling pins as a fortuneteller, and perform a deadly windmill of spin kicks as a break dancer (which, again, is not a realistically viable career option). Each job also has a progress meter that is separate from Ichiban’s general level scaling, and earning enough experience after battles will unlock more effective moves with said job. The system of simply waltzing down to the Hello Work clinic and having them hand over a job posthaste to Ichiban seems so far-fetched that it's comical, especially since he’s a former Yakuza with a criminal record. Still, alternating between classes on a whim just by visiting Hello Work whenever it’s convenient ensures that the turn-based combat is unlikely to grow stale, and increasing the amount of skills available in battle through experience just adds more range to the exciting possibilities of combat.

Turn-based combat also adds another dimension of difficulty to Yakuza’s gameplay. I may be declaring this prematurely, as I’m basing this statement solely on Yakuza 0, but the series’ standard beat ‘em up gameplay rarely offers any non-optional challenges in its narrative. Oftentimes, when facing off against a narratively significant boss in Yakuza 0, the severity of the onslaught they inflicted on Kiryu wasn’t anything a few Staminan drinks couldn’t patch up. Somehow with the mechanical swap of turn-based combat, there were a few instances in the story that amounted to genuine roadblocks where I had to reload and reconsider my tactics to succeed. The methodical nature of turn-based combat forces the player to consider every decision they make carefully, ensuring that they can’t act hastily or mindlessly punch and kick their way to victory. The consequences of failing to be fastidious with a turn-based system also come with stricter penalties. When I said that the wastrels of Ijincho were roughing up Ichiban for his lunch money, I was only half kidding. If Ichiban falls from having too much damage inflicted on him, the game will fine the player half of the total amount of yen in their pockets, as per the traditions of JRPG penalties. Considering that the amount of money a Yakuza protagonist has coincides with his progress, every Zen piece is precious and should be preserved at all costs. Another piece of JRPG protocol that Like a Dragon follows is that Ichiban is the designated leader in battle, so the fight ends if Ichiban is knocked out, even if his party members are still standing. Really, the only way to stave off having Ichiban’s bank chopped in half like a magician’s assistant is to humor my one perpetual grievance with the JRPG genre: grinding. What makes the tedious, repetitious process all the more vexing in Like a Dragon is that common enemy encounters will only warrant chump change of experience. A more efficient way of grinding is by spelunking in Ijincho’s sewers, where the rarer, more ferocious “Sujimon” roam. The issue with this venture is that not only are the sewers a drab dungeon crawler area, but their labyrinthian designs, where the player is intended to burrow deeper away from the entrance, make the additional grinding process anything but a convenient detour. To my dismay, Like a Dragon isn’t immune to the typical experience level-based contingency that plagues so many titles in the genre, and some sections are grating as a result.

To ensure that Ichiban stays as his perky, man-child self in the heat of combat, the player must utilize the talents of his fellow party members. As the game progresses, Ichiban will gather up a ragtag of misfits who will all follow his lead, working under different sets of causes. The cynical and self-conscious disgraced ex-nurse Nanba initially collaborates with Ichiban to hoist himself out of the homeless rut he currently resides in. The affable, uncle-like Adachi was similarly told to step down from his position as a cop after acting insubordinate towards his commanding officer, who was wrapped up in a false-arrest conspiracy. The (canon) token female member of Ichiban’s crew is Saeko, who joins the boys after a mutual boss of theirs allegedly commits suicide. Unlike Ichiban’s other cohorts, she was not dishonorably discharged from her day job as a barmaid, but it’s unlikely she has glowing Yelp reviews because she’s not afraid to get confrontational with the more boorish, pervy patrons. Each of Ichiban’s partners come with their own “class” with its own distinctive menu of moves, but their skill sets are just as malleable as Ichiban’s once they visit Hello Work and change their “jobs.” I implore everyone to stick Saeko to the hostess job for the long run or to use her in steep situations. I can’t explain it, but the “sparkling cannon” move, where she shakes up a bottle of sparkling wine and sprays enemies with the bubbly and festive alcoholic liquid once it’s uncorked, dishes out an astounding amount of damage, while also afflicting an illness that counts as a status ailment. Is there a prevalent recessive gene across Asia that makes them allergic to grapes or carbonation? Are they all just lightweights? Anyways, besides sticking Saeko to a long term career (although I’m sure everyone will be curious to see what the “night queen” job entails for reasons that aren’t frowned upon), the fact that each one of Ichiban’s partners feature the vast potential of skills that he does soars the variety of gameplay options to the stratosphere.

If the player requires further assistance, Ichiban can use his newly acquired smartphone to call the “poundmates,” special offensive or defensive services that can be summoned to either deal damage to enemies or buff the party for a commission fee. Many of these helping hands are earned through completing the side stories, and they’re usually the more memorable and involved ones (saving a crawfish named Nancy from a hungry homeless man, resurrecting the career of a famed Korean actor, etc.) found around Ijincho. I didn’t think I’d be using the supplementary service all that often initially, but considering how few of Ichiban and his partner’s attacks deal damage to multiple foes at once, I ended up ringing the line for the poundmates more than a middle-aged white woman dials 911 on her neighbors. God bless you, Gary Buster Holmes. Ijincho doesn’t deserve you.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have made Ichiban’s partners sound as if they’re merely tools serving Ichiban to keep the man afloat in combat. They are all human beings, after all, with their own issues and stories that coincide with the struggles that life has thrown at them. Individual story arcs revolving around Ichiban’s partners take place at their designated watering hole, the Survive Bar, where Ichiban gives moral support and minor suggestions to the specific partner over a round of drinks. Once the partner confides in Ichiban five separate times, their “bond” will reach its maximum, allowing the partner to gain more experience in and out of battle, as well as unlocking new career options at Hello Work. Should it be any surprise that Sega has taken a decent helping of influence from Persona in molding Yakuza as a JRPG, considering that the company owns the rights to both franchises? The “social links” between Ichiban and his partners are a nice little nod to one of Persona’s patented life-simulator idiosyncrasies, but an even more overt instance of Like a Dragon borrowing Persona’s properties like a little sister taking her older sister’s clothes is Ichiban’s personality traits. Separate from his experience level in combat, similar to Persona, Ichiban must also be proactive in enhancing his non-physical attributes that mostly pertain to situations outside of combat. The six traits in question run the gamut of personhood, including passion, style, confidence, intelligence, kindness, and charisma. Completing a number of various tasks around Ijincho that vaguely correlate with a specific trait enhances each of them to a maximum of ten levels, and the unsavory adjectives that describe Ichiban’s lack of finesse with these qualities at the start become more glowing as the player sculpts Ichiban into a model human being. Once the player improves Ichiban’s personality to its limit, new career and even romantic options will be readily open to Ichiban. It’s an exciting prospect for the well-intentioned spastic, for sure. What exactly does the player need to do in order to turn Ichiban from a repugnant dud into an erudite, beguiling stud? Well, practically anything the game offers. Veteran Yakuza players will be more than familiar with the giant checklist that each Yakuza game implements in order to give players routine sparks of accomplishment by completing every conceivable aspect of the game in either small or large quantities. With the personality traits as another relevant, stackable progression point in Like a Dragon, the developers have wisely chosen to bridge the two together. Checking off any task on the board will result in one of Ichiban’s personality traits increasing slightly, with the rate of increase extending even more as the number needed to satisfy the task stacks higher. Because Yakuza’s progression is more free-flowing than the regimented day and night cycle of Persona, the player is given almost limitless time to hone Ichiban’s personality and sharpen him as a man of debonair sophistication far before the final chapter. While this does, however, ultimately verge into yet another aspect of grueling grinding, offering a tangible award for completing the most prevalent aspect of busywork the series exhibits makes the player more inclined to go the distance in completing this arbitrary list more than any game before it.

Whether or not they’re for the benefit of Ichiban’s personal growth, the minigames that Like a Dragon offers around town should at least inspire a modest sense of curiosity for most players. If they don’t, it’s because the minigames across the Yakuza series in previous titles have been spotty, to say the least. I’m still demanding a refund from whoever was running the underground catfight club in Yakuza 0, and that was thirty years prior to the events of Like a Dragon. Mahjong and Shogi are both still too cerebral for my feeble brain, and the batting cages still demand a high level of starting proficiency as if they’re under the pretense that the protagonist is training for the professional baseball league. While some returning minigames might not be all that stimulating (for me, at least), I was consistently floored by the new ones that Like a Dragon offered. The “Can Quest” minigame involves gathering a mass quantity of aluminum detritus along the shantytown block while riding a bike, which can be used as a currency to trade at a covert hobo market in exchange for health items, small amounts of yen, and meager pieces of armor. This system is intended to offer Ichiban an avenue to purchase goods and services at his most economically destitute, but I still continued to revisit this minigame once Ichiban climbed out of the homeless camp because collecting cans while crashing into competitors was genuinely a blast. To really boost Ichiban’s personality stats, he can sign up to take academic tests on a myriad of subjects at a vocational school. They mostly boil down to trivia questions, but trivia is one of my many fortes that I was glad I could flaunt to raise Ichiban’s stats. Watching old movies at a cinema is probably intended to make Ichiban more cultured, but the player spends most of the time in the theater fending off bipedal sheep wearing suits in a whack-a-mole button-pressing sequence so they don’t use their powers to make Ichiban start sawing logs in the middle of the film. I can’t tell if this scene is a clever externalization of falling asleep at inopportune times, or if it’s just another daffy indication of Ichiban’s questionable mental state. Possibly the most outrageous and mechanically intricate minigame that Like a Dragon debuts is Dragon Kart, a bona fide kart racer in the vein of Mario Kart. Don’t expect race tracks as extravagant or mechanics to be as refined as the kart series this minigame is modeled after. Still, I can’t help but marvel at the fact that something so uncharacteristic to the series like this is competent enough not only to be feasibly playable, but it's possibly the most thrilling minigame that the Yakuza series has ever devised. If Dragon Kart doesn’t evolve through subsequent Yakuza entries to the point of besting Mario Kart because the developers have scrapped it in favor of the Japanese card games or anything baseball-oriented, you’ve lost yourselves a valuable customer, Sega (I’ll probably just buy it anyway and sulk in solitude). The same goes for any of the aforementioned minigames I lauded, for it would be a shame to dispose of the strongest collective of new minigames the series has ever bestowed.

Of course, all Yakuza fans know that the most sizable piece of side content for any entry to the series is the optional business arc. Ichiban will come across a failing business called “Ichiban Confections,” and takes it upon himself to reinvigorate the struggling cookie/biscuit stand because sharing the same name as the company speaks destiny to him (and because he’s the most stand-up guy in Ijincho). Needless to say, a child operating a lemonade stand has more business acumen than Ichiban. This is why the professional guidance of company heiress Eri, her experienced grandmother, Tome, and the obligatory business involvement of poultry with mascot, Omelette, is imperative to the success of Ichiban Confections, with our intrepid hero serving as the heart and spirit of the operation. The goal that Ichiban must meet for the modest roadside attraction is to climb the ranks of the Ijincho corporation chain all the way to the tippy top, or at least that’s the ambitious stipulation given by the lender, the fabulously wealthy entrepreneur, Nick Ogata. Many of Yakuza’s businesses have befuddled players with their excessively stiff learning curves, but Ichiban Confections really takes the cake (no pun intended). Never in any previous capital venture has there been so many opportunities to sink the company to the sea floor, and without a proper explanation from the game on how to combat every issue that might lead to utter disaster. Essentially, the business has to meet three different quotas by the end of a financial period, which are net worth (the funds), employee morale, and overall sales, and then take part in a shareholder meeting where Ichiban and company have to deflect the complaints of three to five shareholders and pacify them. From my experience, one of these quotas will be neglected because funneling money into one contradicts the other. You need to drain the funds in order to upgrade the businesses and the employees, which will, in turn, lower the company’s net worth. All the while, most of the employees available at the start do not have the credentials to keep the businesses out of the red zone in every category. Once I learned to let the businesses roll in their shoddy shapes and put all my eggs in the shareholder basket, sufficiently combating their inevitable anger by mastering the mechanics of that portion led me to success. Soon, I took the Ijincho business circuit by storm. For those of you who aren’t as persistent with this stress-inducing side project and decide to let the cookie stand get devoured by the more profitable predators, I still recommend that you persevere through the anxiety. The profits earned through Ichiban Confections are the only substantial way to earn a high income, and turning the company into at least a contender in the rat race earns Eri as a secret partner. You’re telling me that you’re going to pass up a chance to have two hostesses unleashing “sparkling cannon” in all cardinal directions on the field? Ichiban’s party will become more feared than a guy with two flamethrowers in the Vietnamese jungle.

All optional content in Like a Dragon serves to augment the game and have the player be consistently entertained by the smattering of possibilities at their fingertips. Still, the player shouldn’t feel disappointed returning to progress the story once in a while, for Like a Dragon’s narrative is equally enthralling. What is initially established as a rags-to-riches story with Ichiban acclimating to life in a new city progressively turns into an Ijincho conspiracy that runs deeper than the gang could ever have imagined. The catalyst event for that continual arc happens when Ichiban and his crew find their employer, soapland operator Nonomiya, hung from the soapland’s ceiling in what looks like a suicide. However, a faint hearing of Chinese spoken during a phone call that took place right before his unexpected death leads the gang to investigate the tragic events under the suspicion of murder. Their investigation leads them into the inner workings of the Ijin Three, the trio of mafia factions operating in Ijincho: the endemic Yakuza family, the Seiryu Clan, Chinese Liumang, and the Korean Geomijul. Between their individual criminal schemes of social security fraud and a city-spanning surveillance system, one clandestine escapade that unites all three organizations is a counterfeiting operation that funds political protection against the invading forces of the Omi Alliance and other larger crime syndicates. Once the operation is blown wide open to the press and a coup occurs within the Liumang, Ijincho’s crime soil is ripe to be planted upon by Omi scavengers. Still, there’s the matter of how the waves of Omi Alliance termites can steal territory so easily. Back in the day, before Ichiban’s lengthy prison sentence, he was well acquainted with Arakawa’s son Masato, who was bound to a wheelchair due to having suffered from a collapsed lung as a newborn. He was presumed dead due to his debilitating handicap, but Ichiban is shocked beyond belief to learn that his old Tojo Clan ally is not only still alive, but has overcome his disability and became the governor of Tokyo (under a different name to elude his Yakuza upbringing). It would be a life-affirming success story, only if “Governor Ryo Aoki” weren’t still using his Yakuza connections to flood all of Japan with Omi Alliance influence while ousting anyone he deems as an obstacle or liability in the process. He’s also the reason Ichiban had to serve time in prison, not Sawashiro. Ultimately, what I’m trying to illustrate by summarizing the plot is how a new layer of the conspiracy is unraveled at every step of the story, reloading the sense of shock and intrigue to retain the player’s interest. Soon, the player will forget all about the alleged murder of the soapland owner because the bigger picture has blossomed and captured our attention far beyond what the initial starting point could’ve.

Eventually, the layers keep unraveling to the point where it hits an emotional, poignant core regarding Ichiban’s character. It turns out that Arakawa didn’t perceive Ichiban as a nuisance to be quelled from his presence. He meticulously shot Ichiban in a non-fatal area to have him travel to Ijincho using the trash circuit, a risky maneuver to use Ichiban in Ijincho to retaliate against his son’s political influence. Once Ichiban reconvenes with his former boss without him blowing a hole through his chest with a bullet, he and several other Omi executives make the shocking decision to dissolve the Omi Alliance. Once the decision is set in stone, Arakawa suspiciously ends up dead just like the soapland owner. We’re to believe that Aoki’s decision to kill his own father has made him an unrepentant beast who must be stopped at all costs, but a valuable piece of lore complicates this shocking action. Sawashiro confesses that Aoki is really his son that he abandoned as an irresponsible teenager, but Arakawa actually had a baby in the same set of lockers, and he took the wrong one. It’s heavily implied by Sawashiro that Ichiban is Arakawa’s lifeblood son, considering he shares the same unorthodox birth circumstances occurring around the same time. Not being blood-related to Arakawa doesn’t excuse Aoki’s disturbing decisions, but it does uncover a conversation about his character. Like Kiryu and Majima, Ichiban and Aoki represent character foils that can be compared and contrasted by their similar set of circumstances. For these two in particular, there’s a “nature versus nurture” argument at play. The source of Aoki’s domineering lust for power and control stems from feeling weak and helpless as a child due to his physical encumbrance, but who is to say that he still wouldn’t have been spoiled by special mob boss protection as a patriarch’s son anyway? The reason why Ichiban is so grateful for Arakawa and his Tojo Clan affiliates is that they were the ones who finally gave him a home and a place of belonging after being deprived of a basic human need for so long. Because the upbringings of the two could’ve swapped at a razor-thin margin of chance, who is to say that Ichiban couldn’t have become a megalomaniacal monster in a position of political power instead of the personable goofball he is today?

Awing at the convoluted plot and discussing the depth of the character relationships are common talking points on Like a Dragon’s narrative substance. However, what I gathered from Like a Dragon’s story was a biting commentary on modern sociopolitical affairs. I’ve neglected to mention Bleach Japan in the chaos of Ijincho’s conspiracy because they represent a distinct, analogous facet that reaches outside of Like a Dragon’s story. The organization's mission is to cleanse Japan of any “grey zones,” which involve any form of legal prostitution in the red light districts and any sex-oriented businesses that are turned a blind eye to by law enforcement. Using the example of brothel owner Hamako, people who are involved with this business are more kind and generous than Bleach Japan would ever give them credit for, for there’s more context behind their practices that allow them to be permissible. Still, this context doesn’t stop Bleach Japan from harassing Hamako and other sex work managers, namely protesting vociferously outside their places of business. For an organization that preaches an absolute good, they tend to use violence as a means of backlash against those who stand up to them, namely Ichiban and his crew. In reality, Bleach Japan acts as the face of Aoki’s political revolution, using the mirage of righteous progress to replace what was erased with something that benefits him, not society at large. Does anyone else see parallels between the attitudes of this fictional organization and a certain percentage of young people who feel obliged to squash anything they deem to be problematic? I don’t have to name names; if you’ve been alive and active on the internet over the past ten years, you’re aware of whom I’m referencing. It’s the most pervasive societal trend that occurred in the time of Ichiban’s prison sentence, and the game comments that giving common people this much political control is dangerous, since it's caused a seemingly impenetrable institution like the Yakuza to concede to their demands and fold like a pool towel. However, the game suggests that people who define their lives by all-encompassing, radical activism aren’t all smug, self-satisfied hypocrites, but are rather misguided pawns pulling the strings for political forces who don’t share their beliefs like they say. Kume, the gutless turd who serves as Bleach Japan’s figurehead, stabs Aoki to death once he learns that he’s not really a fighter for social justice, technically confronting the “bad guy” of the story, albeit in the most extreme way possible. It’s a devastating scene for Ichiban as his former Tojo Clan mate dies in his arms. However, the irony of this scene is so rich that it can be cut like butter, which caused me to burst out in hysterical laughter.

Once again, a Yakuza title has run me ragged. Still, like upon finishing Yakuza 0, it’s a gratifying kind of exhaustion felt after experiencing something magnificent. The Yakuza franchise intrepidly makes a radical diversion from their comfort zone of beat ‘em up combat and the continued narrative surrounding their mainstay protagonist to the unpaved territory of JRPG gameplay with another upstanding gentleman at the helm. For most franchises, they’d fumble in some aspects while attempting to rewrite so much of their foundation. Yet, Yakuza: Like a Dragon excels regardless because it retains some strong essentials to the franchise, such as its open-world free roaming, its bombastic sense of humor, and a gripping web of a crime story. The game does get bogged down with the muddy conventions of JRPG grinding at times, but the momentary upsets of this are not enough to weigh down every other glowing positive this game exhibits. I think Yakuza: Like a Dragon is of equally high quality to that of Yakuza 0, an amazing feat considering that a game with an untested mechanic is of the same prestige as the game that served as the apex point of Yakuza’s refinement. And you know what? I’ll probably come to appreciate Yakuza: Like a Dragon even more when I’m trudging through all of the Yakuza games leading up to it.

Killer7 Review

 (Originally published to Glitchwave on 4/23/2025)

[Image from glitchwave.com]

Killer7

Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture

Publisher: Capcom

Genre(s): Action-Adventure, Rail Shooter

Platforms: GCN, PS2

Release Date: June 9, 2005

Have I ever told you kids about postmodernism? Bring some snacks and buckle up, for the subject is so massively abstruse that I’ll probably stumble every other step when explaining it. Essentially, postmodernism is an artistic and cultural movement that encapsulates the prevailing attitudes of cutting-edge creators in the modern era, dating back to the early 1950s. The aftermath of World War II catalyzed the shift in the contemporary artist’s creative process just as regular ol’ modernism was spurred as a reaction to the First World War. Society simply couldn’t continue living naively in the loving hands of traditionalism after the advent of the atomic bomb or the Panzerfaust, and our art needed to reflect our ever-growing existential anxieties. I learned about the term/movement through a literary lens in college, discussing works like Beckett blue-balling us in Waiting for Godot and all of the jazzy and provocative pieces composed by the Beatniks. Still, postmodernism also encompasses plenty of other artistic media, ranging from the pop art paintings of Andy Warhol or the unconventional design of postmodern architecture. Arthouse films tend not to be explicitly tagged with the “postmodern” label, but one can easily draw parallels to a postmodern ethos to the stream of consciousness etherealism that drives 8 1⁄2, or the meta structure of Synecdoche, New York. Can video games potentially evoke elements of this sophisticated form of expression, especially since the medium is relatively underdeveloped and perceived as pedestrian? Why would anyone reading this even question that for a second? I suppose the most notable game to implement these kinds of postmodern elements is Metal Gear Solid, although Hideo Kojima’s stealth series tends to pull the switch at jarringly inopportune moments. The last minute clusterfuck, narrative grenade in Metal Gear Solid 2 was like eating a delicious banana to then chomp on the bitter, black bruise at its bottom. Unexpectedly tasting something off-kilter and much less digestible at the end is stomach-churning, which is why the end of Raiden’s conspiratorial conquest left an acrid taste in my mouth. However, one game released a little later in the era, Killer7, makes no pretenses to ever mask its postmodern makeup. This entry in the Capcom Five campaign was director Suda 51’s breakout title that catapulted him to international renown. Astonishingly so, for Killer7 is perhaps the epitome of a postmodern video game, with all of its abstract elements on display in their full glory.

I realize this statement is a bit reductive, but postmodernism tends to be quite weird. You can’t craft an ethos based on subverting familiarities and traditions and not befuddle audiences as a result. Killer7, if you caught the correlation, is a more disorienting experience than sitting through a David Lynch film festival high as a kite on acid. Actually, I’ll bet that most gamers will attribute Killer7’s creative process to the lysergic hallucinogen, but I promise that the game isn’t a nonsensical kaleidoscope of random nonsense. Postmodern artists have a defined and diligent method to their madness, even though most of them, admittedly, imbibed enough smack and junk to take a permanent vacation to cloud nine. I can’t comment whether or not Suda 51 has ever indulged in mind-altering substances, but I can at least detect a solid foundation of sincere inspirational beats behind Killer7’s narrative that would prove that he’s not entirely whacked out on goofballs.

Drawing more parallels to Metal Gear Solid again, the narrative backdrop of Killer7 takes place in an alternate timeline of Earth that is conceptually influenced by the current state of world affairs, as well as its future state based on the insight of present-day conditions. Suda 51’s depiction of a 21st-century society is surprisingly an idyllic one, as every nation has declared world peace by firing their nuclear weapons into the sky to have them explode in a frivolous spectacle like “fireworks” for the Earth’s people to marvel at. Another token of the total harmony between all of Earth’s nations is a bridge being erected over the Atlantic Ocean that would connect North America to Europe (but not Africa? Hmmm…), a monumental stride in transportation too far-fetched for our reality from both a technological and a unification standpoint. The state of Earth in Suda 51’s timeline is so halcyon that it verges on being corny, depicting an unreasonable idealism expressed by the most naive “activists” from the hippy era of the 1960s. However, the reason for making the state of affairs so saccharine is to effectively juxtapose it with the grizzly conflict of Killer7. In the wake of everyone lowering their defensive arms to embrace their international brethren, a terrorist known as Kun Lun is unleashing his “Heaven Smile” puppets on executive members of the United Nations by bombing them unexpectedly in close quarters. All the while, the USA and Japan are considering severing ties with one another for each nation’s personal gains, with the contentions between them showing cracks in the congruous amity that the Earth had finally achieved. The only people up to snuff to deal with both the fallout of the USA and Japan and the deadly new crop of politically-charged suicide bombers is the titular assassin syndicate of “Killer7.” Suda 51 might be cynically chiding the practicality of world peace when the game gives context to its narrative, but it’s far too early to pinpoint a working thesis. Believe me, the conspiratorial cavern that is Killer7’s story becomes far more dense, dank, and confusing as the game progresses.

Even if Suda 51 is intending to convey poignant messages of political commentary, they’re all going to get drowned out by the game’s, let's say, eccentric presentation. It bears repeating, but Killer7 is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs. The plot premise that I summarized in the last paragraph isn’t exposited until after the first full mission of the game, and it was likely incorporated so the player’s befuddlement wouldn’t consume the player to the point where they wouldn’t eject the game from the console in a state of total, enveloping brain fog. By the time the player finishes the first mission and receives a crumb of necessary context, they’ve already been exposed to an onslaught of oddities too numerous to quickly detail. I’ll delve into each of those bizarre aspects in their respective fields of context, but for now, I’d like to discuss the general presentational package that contains and supports all of Killer7’s turbulent elements. Because Killer7 is the epitome of expressionism, the last aesthetic tint that Suda 51 would ever strive for is graphical realism. A cartoonish cel-shaded visual style works wonders with Killer7’s pulpy tone, both in the sense of the brand of exploitation fiction it evidently draws conceptual inspiration from and in pronouncing the lurid blood splatter that spills at every waking moment in this game in buckets. During significant cutscenes, the game will adopt an anime style fitting for the native country where the developers reside. Still, incorporating this idiosyncratic Japanese animation style per cutscene would be predictable for a game of this creative caliber. One level, instead, shifts to a more Western-oriented animation style with more synchronized mouth movements for its cutscenes. Dialogue spoken by NPCs on the field sounds like someone swallowed a voice-changing modulator found in the microphone of a toy, making subtitles a requisite in translating the muffled vocal utterances. Starting a level involves shooting a silhouetted version of the level’s primary target, dissipating in a cloud of red particles at the press of a button. When the player dies in combat, the game over screen consists of the character’s head exploding into a bloody splatter painting of a Japanese character. I can’t translate the meaning of this character to an English word, but I’m sure it’s something fittingly blunt or edgy. Little flourishes such as these all comprise the ostentatious flair that marks Killer7’s aesthetic and style. Its myriad of quirks might strike many gamers as off-putting, but I found each element of zaniness greatly amusing throughout.

Naturally, the disorientation that comes with all of Killer7’s stylistic choices also leads to the game exuding a surreal, absurdist tone. For a game with evident political themes, Killer7 consistently verges into the tongue-in-cheek realm of camp (there’s the Metal Gear Solid connection for the umpteenth time). NPCs speak in roundabout riddles when dialogue is prompted on the field, sometimes bleating about personal anecdotes that seem to have zero relevance to the situation at hand. Did I mention that the common NPCs who deliver this dialogue are a gimp making a perpetual shushing motion with his finger and an eyeless man who wears tank tops? The playable characters all have their own distinct, cheesy one-liners they say after critically killing an enemy, and the cult leader, Ulmeyda, looks less like he preaches the gospel and more like he’s on the set of Boogie Nights acting as a stunt cock for Don Cheadle’s character. Still, Killer 7’s favorite form of irreverence dips back into a tenet of postmodernism: pastiche. Specifically, in the vein of pop culture references. The wardrobe of tank tops belonging to the aforementioned eyeless man, Travis, all display single-worded phrases and or niche music genres that change with every encounter. During a tense discussion before a boss fight, the immortal cereal slogan “tricks are for kids” is spoken sincerely as a crafty rebuttal. Carrier pigeons are often found on the field with notes in their talons written to aid the player (as much as the game can possibly allow), and the titles of these notes are all songs by The Smiths. Given that they’re one of my favorite bands, receiving any of these notes from these rats with wings made me embarrassed at the excitement they instilled in me. If a certain foot-fetishizing auteur director is aware of Killer7’s existence, he would probably feel a sense of pride that the pastiche style that skyrocketed him as one of the masters of his profession has been translated to a whole other medium. Still, I don’t think he’d take credit for Suda 51’s vision for Killer7 and demand royalty checks. Pastiche is not something that Tarantino has patented, as it has been used to throw a monkey wrench into the standards of storytelling for ages now. Still, Tarantino should be watchful that another creator uses pastiche with the same caliber of artful tact as he.

But there is genuine relevance to naming the notes after Smiths songs other than tickling the ribs of music nerds such as I. The connection to the band and Killer7 relates to the shared surname of the seven playable members of the Killer7 syndicate, with the ubiquity of the surname serving as a blank, “John Doe” status of these covert assassins. As the number in the syndicate name suggests, there are seven central members of the organization. Technically, in the spirit of Killer7’s abstract fashion, the name is misleading. There are really eight members, but also possibly two or perhaps one agent of death acting solo given that we’ve seen the characters switch from one another in a blink of an eye during many cutscenes. Ultimately, don’t let Killer7’s surreal nature distract from the fact that there are seven playable characters the player switches between on either the kitsch, retro television monitor in the save room or in the pause menu. Similar to most games that offer a selection of characters to pilot, the professional hitmen (and women) of Killer7 are an eclectic cast with diverse character traits and abilities. Dan Smith is a thirty-something white man who approaches the grave complexions of his job with a cocky, brash swagger. Once powered up, his .357 revolver unleashes a blast of energy as staggering as a hadouken. Kaede is the token female member of the group with a scope to aid her shooting, also externalizing her angst by dramatically cutting her wrists and bleeding profusely on specific obstructions to unveil their secrets. Kevin Smith is a shirtless mute who trades the inconvenient condition of reloading that comes with a firearm for a ceaseless pocketful of light shurikens, and turning himself invisible to bypass both lasers and combat altogether. As I’m writing this, I now realize that his name and speechless demeanor are a reference to the recurring character of yet ANOTHER famous film director who also plasters his works in pastiche pop culture references. The homicidal Latino, Coyote Smith, leaps through the air like a grasshopper and picks locks like a cunning thief. Con Smith is referred to as “The Punk” due to his adolescent age and vulgar, immature attitude. His speedy movement isn’t as situationally helpful on the field as the others’ special abilities, but there are times when he can squeeze under tight crevices because his height has not reached its pubescent maximum yet. Luchador “Max de Smith” is an offensive wildcard with his twin grenade launchers, which are also useful for destroying cracked walls. He’s also the most noble and endearing of the bunch, which means he’s the only one in the operation I’d crack open a cold cerveza with amid casual conversation. Topping the ranks is Harman Smith, a wheelchair-bound elderly man who holds the prestigious title as the leader of Killer7. The player will get the chance to wield his gargantuan, shield-shredding rifle in certain scenarios, but he’s mostly relegated to cutscenes where he’s tasting a bit of the S&M from his maid/mistress Samantha. Admittedly, the motley crew of killers the player can shuffle at their fingertips do not have dynamic arcs or characterization that supersedes Duke Nukem-esque one-liners. Still, one can’t deny that as a collective, the seven assassins run the gamut of personalities and abilities with little to no overlap between them. Their stark differences also warrant swapping each of them out so often that the player will become readily acquainted with all of Harman’s children, guaranteeing that the diversity in store will impress on the player equally as it did for me.

The eighth member of Killer7 is really Harman due to his elevated position as the gang’s chief chairman, but the final assassin I’ll be discussing, Garcian Smith, should be discussed separately because of the particular role assigned to him. One might be enticed to storm the field as this African-American man with a piercing gaze and dapper, white suit, but taking the reins as Garcian is not recommended. He expresses his one immortal quip of “don’t make me say it again, I’m a cleaner” enough times to penetrate even the thickest of players’ skulls. Besides, the player should already feel dissuaded from playing as Garcian as casually as the others because he’s the sole member who cannot upgrade his stats. Plus, his piddly little pistol inflicts middling damage and struggles to target enemies’ weak spots. Despite how unprepared he seems for combat, the player will likely spend an inordinate amount of time playing as Garcian anyway. When one of the other assassins is overwhelmed and smote on the field, the following cutscene where their head combusts does not signal a “game over” as one would anticipate. The onus is then on Garcian to find the general vicinity of the other assassin’s death, in which their chunky remains are somehow conveniently prepared in a doggy bag over a conspicuous chalk outline. After pressing a button in succession, the slain assassin is then free to control once again with their health fully restored. The process seems a tad cumbersome, but the player can still choose to let their former character lie dormant as a bag of rotting flesh and simply select another assassin as a substitute. Also, it should be noted that dying as Garcian WILL result in a genuine game over that reverts back to the last point saved instead of the closest of Harman’s rooms, so keep that element of danger in mind when choosing to pursue the route of resurrection. The method that Killer7 implements to stave off the typical penalty of reverting to a checkpoint upon death is unlike anything I’ve ever seen across any other video game, and the fact that it’s an optional venture with its own risky stakes adds a heaping load of depth to the process.

But how often will the player be forced to gamble with Garcian due to a hasty mishap? Well, that depends on how the player fares with the “Heaven Smiles” enemies scattered all across the field. The legion of deranged, toothy terrorists with intrinsic explosive properties is not the focal point of the narrative after the first chapter, but their lack of story relevance doesn’t deter them from infesting the foregrounds of every level afterwards in droves. Combating the Heaven Smiles is where the shooting element of Killer7 comes into play. Regardless of the various weaponry of the seven assassins, the constant objective when faced with one of these creepy, zombie-esque humanoid figures is relatively the same. The player must scan them to unveil their murky camouflage and fire enough ammunition into them before they amble close enough over to the assassin and embrace them with a lethal, self-destructing explosion. The offensive process sounds simple enough, but the caveat is that the player’s range of sight is greatly limited due to a slow spatial movement in the shooting mode and being unable to move the character’s body. A Heaven Smile could easily appear in a blind spot and inflict a smoldering blast to the face, or it could be difficult to locate one in time as well, due to the gun’s trajectory moving a little too patiently. Because the Heaven Smiles can be a chore to spot, the game at least indicates their presence with their mischievous-sounding laughter. If this chuckle then amplifies to their maniacal howl that would intimidate The Joker, it’s a triggering sound that indicates to the player that it’s too late to repel them, and they’ve got a stinging explosion with their name on it. There are also several different breeds of Heaven’s Smiles crowding every corner that come in all shapes and sizes, indicating that their weaknesses all vary. Some Heaven Smiles’ defenses can only be penetrated by a certain assassin’s arsenal, which incentivizes the player to take the risk of playing as Garcian. Because of their ghastliness, extreme violations of one’s personal space, and unpredictability of their numbers and forms, the Heaven Smiles always place the player on pins and needles like effective enemies should. The sinister snickers they emit, followed by the tense possibility of blowing the player to smithereens, almost verge Killer7 into survival horror territory.

Whenever a Heaven’s Smile is directly in the player’s sight, a quicker, more efficient way of dispatching them that is consistently exploitable is targeting a glowing, staticky yellow spot on their bodies. Whether it be on their neck, arms, or legs, finding a Heaven Smiles’ G-Spot and slamming it with a single, steamy bullet will cause the decayed ghoul to evaporate into a cloud of dust. Whether it be the first time executing a Heaven Smile this way or racking up hundreds of critical kills, the satisfaction of reducing one into ash with a single shot never wavers. Besides the gratification of acute shooting proficiency, it’s essential to hone in on a Heaven Smiles’ sensitive area because it coincides with Killer7’s blood mechanic. Killing a Heaven Smile with a barrage of haphazardly-shot bullets will warrant a modest amount of “thick blood” that is then converted into points of experience on the “B” TV channel in Harman’s Room. When the player hits a Heaven Smiles’ vulnerable point, not only does the amount of thick blood double, but the player earns the alternate “thin blood” that can be used to heal the assassins in the pause menu. If the player thinks they can take advantage of this process and farm the marrow of Heaven Smiles to fully upgrade every assassin, the developers have thought ahead of your gaming shrewdness and imposed a limit on the amount of blood one can deposit per level. Tis a shame to waste even a drop of precious blood, but the incentive of collecting the red matter to improve the varied attributes of the assassins needs to remain a factor to keep delivering the reward of progress. Plenty of other games implement a conversion system through gained currency or experience, but Killer7’s portrayal of it is juicy, both figuratively and literally.

I realized when discussing Killer7’s gameplay that I might have inadvertently labeled it as a first-person shooter. Sure, all shooting in Killer7 is conducted in a first-person perspective, but the entirety of the game is not confined to this intimate line of sight. Killer7 best fits the description of a rail shooter like Time Crisis, but that’s only because it’s the closest description it fits that has a defined, tested foundation. Killer7 is something of a “manual rail shooter.” The player is still confined to a single track of progression, but Killer7 grants the player control of the movement and trajectory of the character at all times instead of being accelerated on a single, constant path by holding down a button. Alternate directions will constantly be interjected on every path like speech bubbles in a comic strip, which will still direct the player down a narrow avenue. Questions may be expressed by skeptical gamers relating to if this constrictive method of progression was really necessary when all it does is make the player more vulnerable by hindering their range of movement. When are they going to learn that Killer7’s whole mantra is based on subverting the tropes that have sunk so deeply into gaming standards that they’ve become comfort zones that clench the gaming industry like quicksand? Debate the practicality of Killer7’s on-rail mechanic until the rooster crows: it doesn’t change the fact that the game is planting seeds on unpaved ground that no other game developers have ever dared to tread. To play devil’s advocate for a bit, the only level in Killer7 that conflicts with the restricted range of movement is the Texas level. The vast parameters of the arid, desert suburb allow Heaven Smiles to ambush the player from a wider assortment of angles, and it presents a sharp spike in difficulty that the game never reaches again anytime afterwards.

Warping the foundation of the rail shooter isn’t even the tour de force of Killer7’s gameplay. Beneath the series of tight pathways more serpentine than the NYC transit system, there’s a hearty integration of puzzles and gated progression impediments that draw comparisons to a dungeon from The Legend of Zelda. Or, since parallels have already been drawn to it, a building from a survival horror game, with spooks around every corner to contend with. Naturally, leading the player towards victory by navigating through a series of complex, roundabout routes showcases a delectably layered level design that consistently keeps every chapter invigorating. However, the one issue I have with the game’s puzzle-laden obstacles is that the game has a habit of giving away too much information. It’s acceptable to mark locations of each progression impediment on the map, but also supplying the image of the assassin or the elemental ring needed is far too obvious a hint. The path of acquiring the ring from the mouth of a decapitated head called Susie, whose subtitles consist of emoticons (aka DIY emojis for all non-millennials), proves to be more puzzling than using the rings themselves. There are exceptions that do require a heftier modicum of mental might, but they tend to be few and far between. I realize that with the unorthodox mechanics at play, the developers minded the intensity of brain throttling that the other aspects of the game were undoubtedly already inflicting. Still, giving the player an overt visual hint of what or who to use is downright patronizing.

Fortunately, it’s splendid that the puzzle aspect of Killer7 is not lost in the game’s attempts to hold their hands on the field. In the time spent maneuvering through the winding pathways of each level, the player might forget that the primary objective they’ve been methodically working towards is whacking a guy at the peak of the conspiracy at hand. Through the player’s meticulous scrounging about through each level, they should come across the “soul shells.” These coagulated clots of blood act as keys that access the entry point to a level’s boss, and the gate strongly resembles the vibrancy of a night club (because of course it does). Introducing a new Heaven Smile as a sampler before a boss is enough of a substantial brain teaser, but facing the primary foe afterwards will require a thorough, insightful inspection of their weaknesses. I won’t spoil how to defeat every boss in the game, but I will say that they’re a cakewalk once the player ascertains the method of execution. Still, deciphering the intended tactic with the correct character will prove to be fairly daunting beforehand. The one outlier that was more combat-oriented was Ayame Blackburn, a rival assassin whose viciousness is veiled by a kawaii, bug-eyed anime girl mask.

I suppose that after divulging every gameplay aspect of Killer7 that I should take a crack at analyzing its narrative. Well, fat chance. I’m not being insubordinate simply because Killer7’s story is extremely oblique, and crumbs of narrative context pelt the player every few seconds like the elderly feeding ducks pieces of bread in the park. No, it’s because Killer7 is an unfinished product from a narrative perspective. Suda 51 was forced to cut hours of material in order to release Killer7 at a digestible standard and considering how obtuse it is already, we can be thankful that there were sensible people on staff who objected to some of Suda 51’s wild ambitions. The full extent of Killer7’s story is instead available in book form as “Hand in Killer7,” which I’m sure clears up all confusion neatly. Still, I can only analyze the contents of the game because the book is another art piece altogether. I think I’ve still dug up something of substance in Killer7’s narrative, even with its missing context, but take my analysis with a grain of salt.

A theme I’ve pinpointed regarding Killer7’s story is the weight of murder from the killer’s point of view. The Killer7 syndicate has ended the lives of many at the pull of a trigger, far preceding the Heaven Smile or the main mission targets. In fact, the player becomes well acquainted with some of the syndicate’s former targets, for they follow them around every corner of each level. Yes, the NPCs who speak in riddles with a vocoder lodged in their trachea are all past victims of Killer7’s brutality. The game implies it by expositing Travis’ story, but the game affirms it when Ulmeyda reappears after his vanquishing with a less defined graphical outline, speaking in the same unintelligible voice. Whether the apparitions are benevolent like Iwazaru or vengeful like Curtis Blackburn, the fact of the matter is that every murder the syndicate commits is still externally ingrained on them like a tattoo. This subtle idea becomes all the more interesting when the finale of the story focuses on Garcian, revealing that he’s really a man named Emir Parkreiner who was trained by the Japanese government at a classified “elementary school” to extinguish their enemies. Years later, we learn in a shocking turn of events that Emir/Garcian killed every member of the Killer7 syndicate in a cold-blooded massacre at a hotel. As the game’s rule of murder evidently dictates, he absorbed the personalities of each assassin, making the tattoo metaphor made before all the more applicable. The revelation that the playable characters revolve around Garcian as the ghosts of his crimes is exceedingly interesting, even if there are holes in this reveal because of the game’s abstractions. Relating to the premise that the game has all but been abandoned by its finale, perhaps the underlying sentiment in the world peace proposition that starts the narrative conflict is that no matter how brotherly each nation may become, the stains of blood created by the sins of the past will never truly wash off. I don’t know, how far off base am I?

Pardon my french, but what the fuck did I just play? If Killer7 is to be assessed by its narrative, then Suda 51 is a pretentious egoist who proposes no solution to solving modern international conflicts, especially ones that are apparently between the USA and his homeland of Japan. However, if we narrow our focus on Killer7’s gameplay, then Suda 51 is a goddamn genius. There have been avant-garde narratives, but the label has never fit the mechanics of a video game until Killer7 combined the action-adventure design of a Zelda dungeon with the progression of a rail shooter and deep fried them into an unprecedented surf and turf of genre-bending. Layer the inconceivable fusion of fresh gameplay mechanics with stylistic and impressionistic flairs of postmodernism, and the game emits rays of ingenuity so severe that most gamers will get burned. Personally, I knew I’d at least respect the unbound flourishes of Killer7’s presentation, but the fact that the game was accessible enough to genuinely have a blast playing it is nothing short of a miracle. Game journalists described Killer7 as a totally unique experience back in 2005, but the same tagline having the same impact and relevance is a testament to Suda 51’s brilliance. Hell, I’m almost confident enough to call him a true visionary.