Be Excellent To Each Other

If there's one truth about Suda 51 it's this: we only know him because of Killer7.

Gamers remember it fondly as it was the year that the GameCube could do no wrong. It was the year of Capcom, of Resident Evil 4, and the dark oddity that capped off the year that was Suda's brainchild. It was a glorious time for sure. Killer7 broke conventions with its on-rails brand of shooting and craziness. The disembodied head of a teenage serial killer rolling around in a washing machine stopping to tell you a twisted story of how this lost soul became a killer. The quirky Power Rangers-esq assassins. The child sex slave merchant that needed dispatching. And, of course, that ending (or end) where your delusional multiple personalities assassins were revealed to be, well, dead. Well they had to be really.

It's a classic game. Whether you like it or not, Suda was in the public domain.

Everything has been downhill since then.

No More Heroes was good but not great. The sequel less so. Shadows of the Damned even lesser so. He's been knocking up some other things along the way, well, Grasshopper has. And here's another. Thing.

Black Knight Sword can be described as follows: Ghost n Goblins in a wacky stylee.

Here's my thoughts before I link a video and leave it at that, because, really, it's shit.

Stylistically and artistically it's a massive success. It's really fucking funny. The art is brilliant. The way the backgrounds change as though a play is being acted out is A-MAZE-ING. It's part Monty Python and I wouldn't be surprised if Suda wasn't a huge fan. The sound effects and music are phenomenal and really add something to the whole theme. The voice over guy needs to come round to my gaff and read me to sleep. The incidental features? Brill. I love everything but one thing.

As a game, it's an utter travesty. It's Ghost n Goblins without any interesting redeeming gameplay features. It's boring. There's no challenge. I cleared the demo and turned it off in a couple of minutes. It's a steaming pot of fetid wank juice.

Now that video.

I'll give the demo a shot tomorrow and report back.

I realise now I've never actually played any Suda games at all, although I have heard of him and his influence obviously. The only reaction I ever have is a unique kind of disappointment because I've got a weird mental block that always mixes up Suda 51 with Swery so my initial hope that the creator of the majestic Deadly Premonition has something new on the boil is thwarted every time. I realise of course it's my own brain that's taunting me here as no one else in the world is implying that Suda and Swery are at all connected. My brain is a fucking twat sometimes.

Also, here's a video that works:

I might have to take a look at that Deadly Premonition. I'm not that fussed with the Dallas references, or whatever it's supposed to ape, though.

Twin Peaks.