In this game you play as Mondo Zappa, an assassin who works for the ‘Executioner Office’, a (probably american?) goverment department that carries out assassination contracts with a worryingly low amount of bakground checks and seemingly zero oversight an accountability… Makes no sense? Don’t worry, basically nothing about this game makes sense.
Killer Is Dead is a game that does some things phenominally well, better than pretty much any other game I’ve played. It also does some things atrociously, so bad at times I nearly gave up playing it.

I’ll start with what it does best. Style. This game is bursting at the seams with great art and great aesthetic. Every single thing in this game looks amazing, even 5 years on. The game has a mixture of cyberpunk, noire and surrealism which, combined with a cell shaded art style, just works on every level. The detail they put into this blows my mind, the whole world shifts and changes along with the music (which I love) to match you sword blows. The basic enemies look like awesome corrupted pieces of scrap metal. The bosses are all unique and fantastically designed. My personal favourite is the yakuza boss, the fight against him stands up to the best martial arts films out there.
The combat, while maybe a little simple is hugely rewarding. A well timed dodge results in time slowing down for you to slash madly and all the visual effects used make this feel amazing.

However there were time that the combat was also very badly implemeted. It felt like they forced the mechanics into situations it wasnt designed for and it doesnt scale well for higher difficulties, resulting in sections that are frankly just frustrating BS. Such as a segment where you are forced into a turret to take out enemy turrets but before you can do anything, other enemy smack you out of the turret and you cant get back in as they are endlessly spawning.
The storytelling is just weird. Nothing is ever built up to, the game just flits disorientatingly from one thing to the next, with no explanations for anything at all. The dialogue is clunky (probably poor translation) and often doesnt even make sense. At other times it genuinely made me laugh and some scenes were dramatic and compelling, but I never felt invested in what was happening, because I basically didnt know what was happening or who anyone was. Plus Mondo’s sidekick Mika annoyed the hell out of me and jarred heavily with the rest of game with her weird kawaii crap.

The biggest issue I have with the game is the side content. Half of it is creepy mini games where you perv on women while they arent looking then buy them crap to win sex with them. Gross.
The rest were mediocre rehashes of story levels and I never felt much need for them as the combat on its own, without the cool set pieces and cut scenes, isn’t that much to shout about.

This is definitely worth playing as you can get it pretty cheap now and its such a unique game. Looking back I wish I’d played the whole way through on normal difficulty, which isn’t challenging but it’s very satisfying to tear through enemies like a demigod. This would have allowed me to truly enjoy the visuals and the style which are what this game is really about. And I wish I’d ignored all of the side content as its a mixture of sexist trash and boring badly reused assets. If I had played the game in that way I’d probably be rating it at least 8/10.