Kill the Past - A not quite comprehensive retrospective on the career of Suda51

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Dear Escapist friends,

with the release of No More Heroes 3 coming up, I would like to take opportunity to look back on the career of what is probably my favourite writer/director in the industry: Goichi "Suda51" Suda. Now, as the title implies, it's not gonna be covering everything he was involved with. For one, there is not much I can say about the Twilight Syndrome/Moonlight Syndrome games, as, at this point, they've never been translated from Japanese. Which is quite a shame, considering those were his directorial debut, but what can I say? I don't speak Japanese and I don't think reading a recap is gonna be enough to offer any insightful commentary on them. I will also focus on games that credit Suda as both writer and director, glossing over games like Michigan: Report From Hell, Killer is Dead, Lollipop Chainsaw, Let it Die, Shadows of the Damned and other works where his involvement was more tangential. To keep some semblance of focus and also because most of these games are not really any good. That said, the games this retrospective will cover will be, in order:

The Silver Case
Flower, Sun and Rain
Killer7
The 25th Ward
No More Heroes
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes

Those games share various story elements, themes and, debatably, a universe (or at the very least a multiverse. It's complicated.) and make up what Suda himself christened the "Kill The Past" series. Maybe, by the end of this series of short essays, we will have an idea of what that phrase actually means. Like, I'm not making any promises. But we might, you know.

Anyways, let's start at the game that lays the groundwork of what would, later on, become Suda51s narrative and stylistic obsessions: The visual Novel "The Silver Case".

The Silver Case was initially released for the Playstation 1, in Japanese only, though, by now, is out in languages you actually speak, on platforms you actually own, including, but not limited to, Steam, the Switch and the PS4. Silver Case's gameplay is described pretty easily: It's a fucking visual novel. There is some minor navigation of 3D environments and some very rudimentary puzzle solving that may, if you're generous, technically make it an adventure game but you'll mainly engage with Silver Case through reading. It does do some interesting things with its presentation, though, that do foreshadow Suda's knack for stylish direction. In addition to the text and illustrations you'd expect from the genre, Silver Case makes use of live action FMV scenes, animated sequences and some 3D animation to deliver its story. lending a sort of mixed media flair to it. It does have rather stylish direction, to be honest, not only including different mediums for its cinematics, but switching up the style of its illustrations, text boxes and backgrounds to fit the mood and content of its individual chapters.

So, what is it actually about, then? Well, on face value, it's a hard boiled detective story, experienced from two different perspectives. A police officer the player gets to name (The closest thing to a canon name he has is the moniker "Big Dick" which, for my and your amusement, I'll use to refer to him) and freelance journalist Tokio Morishima. Both those men investigate a recently escaped serial killer named Kamui Uehara, arrested around 2 decades before the events of the game, for the murders of various political and industrial figures. For people more familiar with Suda51s later work, this might sound pretty mundane. And interestingly enough, it keeps feeling that way for the games early half. The first case of the game seems to conclude the Kamui case in a way that, while leaving some very obvious loose ends, in a relatively grounded and realistic way, with the following two cases, both side stories, continuing on a similarly mundane note, only occasionally hinting towards more mysterious things going on behind the scenes. And for someone more used to Suda's more overtly surreal later games, he is being remarkably subtle in the earlier parts of Silver Case. There is quite a bit of dialogue that suggests weirder things. For example the fact that the games setting, a fictional city named "24th Ward" in Japan's Kanto municipality, is governed by a kafkaesque bureaucracy of nebulous NGO's, companies and agencies. Its police force appears to consist of 3 different competing agencies (Big Dick himself being a transfer from sort of a counter terrorism SWAT unit named "Republic" to the regular police force called "Heinous Crime Unit) and there is a running joke about characters frequently namedropping mundane sounding organizations like the "International Feminist Coalition" or the "Frontier Party" as if they were clandestine secret societies. Despite hinting at some of these dystopian trappings, Silver Case only really starts to indulge in its own weirdness roughly around the 50% mark, just as I was wondering if, back in 99 when it came out, Suda was perhaps more restrained in his weirdness. But he wasn't, of course, he has always been a surrealist and halfway through, Silver Case shifts gears to turn into something much weirder. From this point onwards, there's gonna be spoilers. Just a heads up.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

While the whole Kamui plot seems to take a backseat after the first case (In which it was revealed that not the near catatonic Kamui, but a copycat named Ayame Shimohira commited the recent killing spree) takes a backseat to a case about the Heinous Crime Unit investigating a suicide in an apartment complex, mainly used to flesh out the supporting casts personalities, and another one about a series of terrorist attacks on a powerful corporation, Kamui comes back into focus afterwards. It eases the player into it's surreal dystopian trappings with a case about a Cyberpunk cult (Admirers of Kamui, who is seen as sort of a counter cultural icon) who alleges to be communicating with extradimensional aliens trying to unleash a computer virus and then dives deeply into what will lay the groundwork for Suda's wider universe and the themes he'll keep exploring for most of his career. In the games last third in turns out that, while there was a real serial assassin named Kamui Uehara at one point, both the current Kamui and his copycat Ayame are the product of a top secret experiment to kidnap more than 1,000 children, keeping them in secret underground shelters and indoctrinating them with the personality of the original Kamui, not only trying to breed a class of perfectly obedient citizens, but also trying to induce a mysterious condition of the original Kamui that gave him silver eyes, granting him eternal youth, along with some other supernatural powers. Mind you, that's the short version.

What makes Silver Case a very potent work of dystopian fiction is how it plays with the unreliability of information. The player gets just enough insight in the goings on behind the 24th Ward to see it as what it is, a deeply inhumane experiment on its own citizens, instigated by a cabal of mysterious faceless technocrats, but the player is left in the dark about the exact scope and scale of the greater conspiracy. Does the 24th Wars ruling class consist of two parties at war with a third party that has been driven underground after a political purge? Is the feud behind those three parties only a smoke screen and they're all part of a global Illuminati-esque coalition named ELBOW? Maybe neither of those factions exist anymore, and the 24th Wards mayor, who acquired the original Kamui's Silver Eye, rules the city as a totalitarian dictator with the help of a mysterious computer specialist named Nezu. The player gets to hear all these conflicting narratives and while some of Silver Cases sequels and spinoffs elaborate on them, they layer further mysteries on top of them, rather than clearing them up. Silver Case is, effectively, a dystopian parable, disguised as a weird science-fiction conspiracy thriller, disguised as a detective story. Stylistically indulgent as the game gets, it also show Suda at his most overtly clear about his morals. Silver Case has him firing on all cylinders, providing his perspective on the ideas of government, policing, crime, technology, social dynamics, terrorism and many more. All of those will be recurring themes throughout his work. Flower, Sun and Rain, Killer7, 25th Wards and No More Heroes are all, to some extent, sequels or spinoffs to Silver Case, which makes it rather unfortunate that it's very unlikely to be western players first exposure to Suda51. That said, it still remains probably the most important game to play to understand where exactly Suda, as a writer, is coming from.

It's also Silver Case where the phrase "Kill the Past" is first uttered, attributed to Kamui, though first heard from a member of a group of anti-corporate terrorists, trying to get revenge for a past injustice. This mantra will reverberate through all of Suda's work from this point onward, suggesting a focus on finding closure with both your own and your cultures history and emerging from it a stronger person. As ambiguous as Suda keeps the exact form of the evil forces controlling his world, it is very clear that he views them as something ancient and sinister, desperately holding onto and trying to expand power it feels entitled to. In the end it turns out that the nominal Silver Case, according to public narrative describing the murder of the 24th Wards party elite by the original Kamui, was actually the story of the geriatric government officials murdering first Kamui, then each other, to get a hold on the power of his silver eyes and the closest the game has to a main antagonist is Mayor Hachisuka, who emerged victorious from this massacre and used the Silver Eye's powers of eternal life to kill his own son and take his place as the lifelong ruler of the 24th Ward.

It's not saying much, but Silver Case is probably Suda's most easy to understand story until the much later No More Heroes. Its direct followup was "Flower, Sun and Rain", and adventure game originally released for the Playstation 2, but never translated. Its Nintendo DS port was the first Suda game to be translated into English and might have been a lot of people first exposure to Suda51, which is unfortunate, because quite a bit of its story hinges on the player being familiar with the lore of Silver Case. Either way, FSW is where things are actually gonna get weird and what the next post will be dealing with.

 

[BrawlMan]

I'll talk to you when you get to Killer 7 and NMH games.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Too bad you aren't going to cover Michigan: Report From Hell (which, by the way doesn't take place in Michigan, the setting is Chicago). I understand why as Suda wasn't really involved, but it is an amazingly bizarre game. From game mechanics to characters to story, all design decisions are completely baffling. It has some of the 'best' voice acting I've ever seen in a game too.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Let's move on to Suda's next game, which serves as a... well... sequel? Sidequel? Let's go with spinoff, of Silver Case. I am, of course, talking about

Flower, Sun and Rain

FSR was originally released on the Playstation 2 in 2001 in Japan. It was, however, not that version which eventually made it overseas, allegedly because... well, you know how a a bunch of planes crashed into a pair of skyscrapers in 2001? Flower, Sun and Rain has a running joke about an exploding plane concluding every single one of its 18 chapters. It was assumed, perhaps not unrightfully, that that sort of thing would not go over well at the time. It eventually did get a port to the Nintendo DS in the late 2000s which in turn did get a localization and... well, Flower Sun and Rain in quite something.

People who feel it'd be too mainstream to name Killer 7 as their favourite Suda51 game tend to name this one and it sure is a very memorable experience. Where Silver Case was a visual novel that could only with a lot of good will be considered an adventure game, FSR unambiguously is one. You play Sumio Mondo, Japanese "Searcher" by trade, as we assume from context a kind of detective hired by the owner of a hotel on a small, tropical island to prevent a terrorist attack. In order to so, Sumio has two tools at his disposal. A laptop sized device used to input codes into all sorts of machines and contraptions named Catherine and the tourists guidebook to the games setting Lospass Island. Sumio will have access to whatever parts of the island is accessible to him in any given chapter, explored from a third person perspective, talk to characters, solve the entirely number based puzzles and solve the islands mysteries. Or rather, try to do so. Very slowly and inefficiently. With long stretches of no discernible progress. While being in small hotel on a small island with some, let's say "very difficult" people. Sandwhiched between the overwhelmingly paranoid Silver Case and the nightmarish, ultraviolent Killer7, Flower Sun and Rain is a comedy. It presents a very ballsy attempt to serve as a zany parody of hyper dense, post modernist conspiracy thrillers while, at the same time, actually working as a hyper dense, post modernist conspiracy thriller that adds to the story, setting and lore of the Kill The Past series. It is a game that's very different to engage with because it's hard to tell how seriously you are meant to take it at any give time. See, this is how the average FSR chapter plays out:

Sumio wakes up in his hotel room to a call of hotel manager Edo McAllister urging him to come down to the lobby so he can brief him on his job. Sumio is sidetracked by one of his fellow hotel guests or one of the islands other inhabitants to do some sort of tedious task for them. As a matter of fact, for the first few chapter, Sumio doesn't even make it down to the lobby, always getting distracted by some request or another. Helping a wrestler with his workout routine. Getting strung along by a condescending french engineer who's obsessed with Italian football. Mixing cocktails. Finding a wig for a pair of standup comedians. Basically, doing anything but actually tracking down the terrorist he was hired to arrest. Fortunately for him, Lospass Island is caught in a time loop, so even though every day ends with an exploding plane, he gets to start over the next day. Meanwhile, the game keeps a very playful, jokular tone, frequently breaking the fourth wall, most notably in a chapter where Sumio gets into an argument with a bratty kid who make fun of the character portraits not looking like the 3D models and the music consisting almost entirely of arrangements of classical pieces. It takes about half the game until the main plot comes back into focus, however shaky that focus may be. What opens up in the latter half of the game is a conspiracy plot about secret underground cloning labs, weapons in the shape of humans, local tribal mythology, silver eyed hyenas and secret societies that's every bit as wild as Killer7s, if a lot smaller in scale and never exactly dropping its comedic undertone. As a matter of fact, arguably one of the games funniest bits is when, in one of the final chapters, the games main antagonist shows up in Sumio's room, telling him to stop his dawdling and finally get to the airport for their final confrontation.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Flower, Sun and Rain is either one of the most important games to the Kill the Past series, or a giant pisstake. Quite possibly, it's both. Also in the second half various characters from Silver Case make an appearance, and while the games story only makes marginally more sense if you've played Silver Case beforehand, it does treat them as people the player is meant to be familiar with. Then, on the other hand, what the game reveals about protagonist Sumio, specifically, is hard to reconcile with what we know about his backstory from Silver Case and... listen, while being a more light hearted take on the Kill the Past series, FSR's story is still a tangled, inpenetrable headscratcher. Or, as a friend described it aptly "It's like a hundred different arrows pointing into different directions, all of them leading nowhere.". The Kill the Past series overall is giving off the sense of a jigsaw puzzle that refuses to give you all the pieces. You can make out some of the shapes and figures, but overall, too much is left floating in a void to make out the whole picture. This approach would perhaps be irritating, if it weren't for Suda's worldbuilding being detailled enough that you can tell that he does have all of this planned out, quite possibly using a large whiteboard and multiple strings, and is very deliberate about how much of it he chooses to reveal. Suda chooses to tell his universes story spread out over various different games with various different tones that exist in various different genres to explore various different themes. So, what themes does FSR explore?

Well, there is definitely one of escapism in there and especially in the context of Silver Case, it's clear that Sumio is trying to escape his past. Lospass Island is a holiday ressort where time literally stands still, and even though Sumio is there on a job, he seems to be going out of his way to not actually finish it until he is forced to. If there is one idea that FSR makes completely literal, it's that it's about a man who doesn't want to move on, something reflected in the very structure of the game. Sumio doesn't Kill the Past, or even confront it, he's trying to hide from it. On the same note, FSW juxtaposes Sumio Mondo's past guilt with a more collective type of guilt. While it's never outright stated it's subtly implied, and confirmed by Suda in later interviews, the native tribal people of Lospass Island fell victim to a genocide. The Lospass Natives you see, more specifically named the "Sundance Tribe" used to raise a type of striped hyena which, in turn, would sometimes be born with the very silver eyes that gave Format Kamui immortality. In the later chapters, Sumio encounters a mysterious old woman, a type of mystical oracle, who appears to be the last survivor of the Sundance telling him about her peoples myths. Once again the idea of manufacturing people shows up, more literally this time, with the secret cloning facility below the island where copies of 11 children are being manufactured, memories being transferred between them. That's certainly another theme that the game is pretty open about, ideas being treated as almost living, viril organisms that transher between people. In one of the games more overly surrealist scenes, we find out that we were playing a different clone of Sumio in each chapter, while one of them currently serves as the vessel for the mysterious terrorist Sundance Shot. Some of this actually parallels Hideo Kojima's musings about memes in Metal Gear Solid 2, which came out roughly around the same time as FSR's original playstation version. If one was reaching a bit, it's also very easy to see Sumio as a riff on the white savior trope (Not entirely literal, as Sumio is Japanese rather than white, but he's still a visitor from a wealthy foreign nation) bumbling through the site of a genocide turned tourist trap.

Flower, Sun and Rain is a difficult game to analyze. Is the gameplay any good? Not expecially. The puzzle solving is based on practically one single mechanic, which is connecting to various machines and putting in various codes, most of which are all but spelled out in the guidebook. I will say, hiding puzzle solution in there right next to lore is actually a rather clever, if slightly underhanded, way to get the player to read that lore. There is quite a bit of walking and backtracking in there, which the game itself has a habit of joking about. Aspects of it are frustrating and will openly acknowledge that they're frustraating. The writing and atmosphere of the game will either carry it for you, or they won't. And it is a unique atmosphere for sure, best exempllified by the games intro cinematic.


It's a story about dark secrets on a sunlit island, contrasting its idyllic, Hiroshi Nagai inspired scenery with a psychedelic, dreamlike mystery story every bit as dense and complex as that of its preceding and subsequent game. I do think the writing shows Suda at the top of his game even if the gameplay is, once again, pretty minimalistic.

It wouldn't be until his next project that Suda would try his hands at an action game, this time under the mentorship of Resident Evil's Shinji Mikami, a name that sure keeps cropping up around interesting experimental games by smaller Japanese directors. Next time we'll be having a look at the game that actually put Suda51 on the map in the west and what remains his most acclaimed work. Next time, we're gonna venture right into the Bloody Heartland of Killer7.

In the Name of Harman...

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Now, this is the big one. This is the reason Suda51 has managed to become a household name at all. What is generally considered, not the least by himself, his masterpiece so far. Killer 7.



I've already mentioned that the other big name behind Killer7 next to Suda is Shinji Mikami, mainly known for being the father of Resident Evil, but connected to a lot of unique experimental Japanese games some cult classics, some househlold names. Devil May Cry, God Hand, Ace Attorney, Viewtiful Joe and, lately, his passion projects, the Evil Within games. Quite a lot of Japanese game directors owe more than a little to Mikami's patronship and... well, you know, I just feel that's something we should honor. It's pretty clear that people like Suda or Kamiya would have never become the well respected personalities they are now if Mikami didn't see the potential in them.

Killer7 is what you get when you take an ambitious creator and give him a high budget and very little in the way of restrictions. It's simultaneously a political thriller, a cool, over the top action spectacle, a surrealist arthouse project and a personal thesis statement for Suda's artistic ideological. It's... also one of my favourite games of all time, so expect me to shower it with obscene quantities of praise.

Well, what is it about, then? Killer7 is set in an alternate future where, formally, world peace has been declared, all nuclear weaponry has been dismantled, air travel has been outlawed and so has the internet. After a period of peace, a meeting of the United Nations is disrupted by a suicide bomber. Soon it turns out, he was part of a group called the Heaven Smiles, creatures that have, to most people, the appearance of humans but are actually living bombs. To stop the Heaven Smiles, the American government contacs a group called the Killer7, officially represented by smooth, white suited, suitcase carrying amnesiac Garcian Smith, though secretly a collective of 7 different personalities channelled by him, lead by the mysterious, wheelchair bound Harman Smith who, as is established in the prologue, seems to share a long running rivalry with the equally mysterious Kun Lan, the creator of the Heaven Smiles. If Silver Case was a conspiracy thriller with surrealist elements, Killer 7 is, straight out, a surrealist conspiracy thriller, though one that has sort of a method to its madness. It's not as clearly a spinoff or a continuiation of Silver Case as Flower, Sun and Rain, and, as a matter of fact, has a few plot elements that clearly suggest that even if it's broadly the same world, it's a different timeline, but there are shared elements. The Heaven Smiles harken back to Flower, Sun and Rain's human bombs, the Killer 7 have an illustrious supporting cast of spirits they either killed or died in their proximity that echoes an ability Silver Cases secondary protagonist Tokio Morishima gains late in the game, it even features a few cameos from Flower, Sun and Rain. That doesn't change the fact that Killer 7 has a much larger scale than any of Suda's previous stories. "Nuclear Missiles are headed towards Japan" is the note the game starts off on, by the end of it you will have encountered child trafficking rings, a conspiracy behind the American electoral system and a sinister cult headed by a former mailman who funded the Killer 7 universes equivalent to Amazon. It's some pretty wild stuff.

If I had to sum up what Killer 7 is about, essentially, I'd say it's "a contemplation of American and Japanese post war relations through the lense of both eastern and western pop culture", represented, quite literally, by a pair of bored ancient gods playing an ever continuing chess game that acts as both as a framing device and an active part of the narrative throughout the game. There is a kind of straight forwardness to some of Killer 7s symbolism that keeps it grounded, even the the details veer off into the incomprehensible. One of its earlier chapters features American and Japanese political representatives literally holding their top secret meeting in a sleazy gambling parlor and killing each other over a rigged game of Mahjong. It's blunt, sure, but it's what prevents a story as dense as that from over veering off into complete incomprehensibility. The other quality that anchors Killer 7, even when its narrative becomes hard to fallow is its genuinely keen sense of spectacle.

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

Somewhat reducing the often rambling dialogue of Silver Case and Flower, Sun and Rain, while making full use of its animated cutscenes, the cinematics of Killer 7 are an absolute delight. Between quotable dialogue and memorable visuals, Killer 7 may frequently be hard to follow, but it's never boring or unengaging. Now, my personal guiding principal when it comes to arthouse media has always been "be as complicated as you want to be, be as weird as you want to be, be as inpenetrable as you want to be, but every once in a while, blow something up." and I think Killer 7 serves as a pretty good example for how it should be applied. Killer 7 has its share of impressive action setpieces both in cinematics and gameplay, and its share of snappy conversations. Who, for example, could forget the famous Russian Roulette scene between main protagonist Garcian and one of the main conspirators behind the American political system.


Or Dan Smith confronting Epstein-esque human trafficker Curtis Blackburn in his secret torture cellar.


There is an intense, underlying coolness to Killer 7, emphasized by its sleek cell shaded artstyle and heavy use of chiaroscuro.

So, how does it actually play, then? Well, essentially, it's a thirs person shooter with on rails movement and some puzzle solving. There are some nuances there, like a character upgrade system through blood harvested from defeated enemies, which somewhat serves as experience points, you can freely switch between the 7 personalities, all who have somewhat different abilities (Dan is a revolver toting gunslinger, Kaede is a sniper, Mask is a wrestler with a rocket launcher, Con is dual gun wielding speedster, Coyote it Dan, but worse, and Garcian serves mostly as a kind of healer throughout most of the game who can revive dead characters). The different varieties of Heaven Smiles are usually defeated by shooting their weakpoint before the get close enough for a suicide attack, there are some Resident Evil style puzzles and some bossfights, a few of them relatively conventional, a few of them relatively gimmicky. If I had to sum up the gameplay I'd do say it's "perfectly adequate to carry what's mainly a story driven game." Sure, it's no Resident Evil 4, but it never gets frustrating or dull.

Now, let's get to the elephant in the room: I already wrote that Killer 7 is probably Suda's masterpiece. I stand by that. I also wrote that it was made with very little in the way of restrictions. Which doesn't quite hold true. See, Suda51 himself once stated that about two thirds of Killer 7s script were left on the cutting room floor. Now, mind you, it's still very much a game Suda was not hesitant to signed off on, it's no Metal Gear Solid V or 2017's Justice League, it was spared ending up the studio hackjob some later Suda projects ended up as, but there are still certain blank spots there. Only a few of the playable characters get much in the way of backstory or characterization at all, the pacing seems occasionally rushed and some plot points get little or no payoff. It's certainly a story that still has its beginning, middle and end in plce, but is also clearly missing a whole bunch of connective tissue in places. As much as I enjoy Killer 7's plot, it's not quite as rounded as that of, say, Silver Case. Interestingly enough, Suda has not too long ago stated his intention to release a director's cut before he retires which... well, I sure want to see it, especially considering that some of what was left out would probably tie it more to the greater Sudaverse (A leaked cutscene shows off Flower, Sun and Rain's main villain Sundance Shot, for example.).

So, that's Killer 7. Artistically, it has hardly ever been surpassed, it shows Suda at the top of his game as both writer and director. A display of a talent his previous work only hinted at and what cemented him as probably my all time favourite video game writer. I consider it almost a must play, it's gotten a Steam release a few years ago and you owe it to yourself to play it.

So, what came after? Well, chances are, you're thinking "No More Heroes", which is understandable, as that was his next release that actually made it to popular platforms and got a western release. But interestingly enough, one of his most ambitious works storywise was released between those two games, for a long time exclusive to mobile phones and never translated. Suda actually made a sequel to Silver Case that was considered lost until its rerelease along with Silver Case a few years ago. It's called The 25th Ward and... well, it's a trip.

 

[Drathnoxis]

Killer 7 is very stylish, it's just too bad the story is such a mess. You say 2/3 of its script was cut, and I definitely believe that. After I played the game I found a massive plot analysis that tried to claim the game took place in 3 different worlds over 2 timelines or something like that in order to have the story make any sort of sense. I'm not willing to make excuses for games like that, though, I think it's just an unfinished mess that got away from the creators as they ran out of time/money to make it work.

If anybody is interested in watching a playthrough of Killer 7 Supergreatfriend did a very comprehensive look at the game where he showed off the game and went through all of the supplemental material like Hand in Killer 7 and even the comic book.


I think it's one of the best LPs he's ever done.

 

[Worgen]

Everytime I see the title of this thread I think of Enter the Gungeon.

 

[BrawlMan]

@PsychedelicDiamond, usually Killer 7 or NMH1 is considered his masterpiece or both. While I do support the arts and everything, Killer 7's main problem is the gameplay is lacking, even if it is the point. Like you mentioned earlier, 2/3 of the full story was cut, and to get the full picture, you have to look at guide books and wikis. Guide books that were only released in Japan mind you, and had to be translated. At least K7 has a unique style and owns that shit. Nor is afraid no ashamed of its politics, nor tries to double down and act like it does not exist. Unlike many cowardly AAA companies; especially on the Western front. This why I have high respect for Suda51/Grasshopper.

 

[Drathnoxis]

@PsychedelicDiamond So, uhh, this retrospective is abandoned then?

 

[PsychedelicDiamond]

@PsychedelicDiamond So, uhh, this retrospective is abandoned then?

No, I just realized that I should probably replay 25th Ward before I write anything about it because I hardly understood any of it the first time.