Kill La Kill If is a 3D fighting game was released in 2019 for PS4, Switch, and PC. It was developed by A+ Games and published by Arc System Works, and it is based on the anime television series titled as Kill La Kill.
To be honest, I've never actually watched the TV series except you guys may have seen or heard of it before, but I did hear many positive things about this anime TV series which most of the media critics and fans did enjoy watching these kinds of show was known for its frantic and over-the-top action, gorgeous visuals, high-energy storytelling, and of course two hot-headed chicks is the reason it got popular has maintained a dedicated fanbase and strong viewership numbers since its release in 2013.
After the popularity, it also got adaptated to manga series got released 2 months after the anime TV series and then of course the video game adaptation.
Before I begin talking about the video game adaptation I wanted to talk about my thoughts on anime fighting games as an sub-genre.
There are many of great anime fighting games when we had titles like Arcana Heart 3, Under Night In-Birth, Skullgirls, Persona 4 Arena, Dragon Ball FighterZ, Blazblue, and of course Guilty Gear.
These of the kinds of fighting game sub-genre which combines 2D fighting and anime that makes these games quite unique at the time with the cool numbers of fighting rosters, stylish fighting systems, and of course the cinematic story campaign featuring visual novel cutscenes and duel battles is something that I adored the anime fighting game as an sub-genre.
There's one of the fighting game that are totally different from what I've mentioned above, so instead of going for the traditional 2D fighting game approach which is why I've discovered the 3D fighting game that not many of people have played or ever talked about it...that is Kill La Kill If.
So despite the positive reception and popularity of the TV series, the game itself has mixed reception by gaming critics were not impressed with the results where as it gained not many but has a small numbers of fans did actually enjoyed the fighting game which is why the sales units are pretty low that leaves the game quite niche at the release.
I decided to review this 3D fighting game to show you what's really good and bad about the game's story, combat, rosters, and various of modes to discuss everything.
So without go further do, let's start the review.
Presentation
The story campaign is split in two chapters with 10 episodes featuring an entirely original alternate version of the plot in the anime series.
The 1st chapter follows a "What if?" storyline with Satsuki Kiryuin as the protagonist instead of the original protagonist Ryuko Matoi, so you have Satsuki fighting to unite the student council and overcome her's mother's brainwashing schemes, where as the 2nd chapter focuses on Ryuko takes center stage to uncover her own branching path of twists and turns.
Despite the game's storyline has nothing to do with the original timeline from the anime series, it's basically an alternative timeline of the original story that made sounded different with the "What if?" scenario that has resulted an alternative outcome which is why I finding it quite good is because instead of sticking to the original timeline its good to have another alternative branching path that makes the "What If?" storyline quite interesting in story campaign.
I say the cast of characters in the game are actually awesome in the story campaign, so you have Satsuki and Ryuko are the twos badass hot chicks with their nice-looking outfits and stylish blades.
Then you have elite fours like Ira Gamagori the big muscular dude with heavy armored suit, Hoka Inumuta the tech genius does a hacking job, Nonon Jakuzure the sassy pink hair girl loves to play drums, and Uzu Sanageyama the cocky athletic guy with long-ass sword and his green-colored mecha. Then you have two antagonists such as Nui Harime are pretty sure look cute on the outside but she's definitely inside sadistic and childish does such an evil things, and lastly you have Ragyo Kiryuuin who is Satsuki's mother is kinda look attractive judging with her appearence...well despite her portrayal as wickedness and treacherous person does a horrible stuff in the story cutscenes you can't go wrong with that madam just got her perfect look...that's all I got to say guys.
The game's presentation is looking spectcular especially I really liked the anime as a animation genre for video games, films, and TV shows.
I say the game has really cool animation opening at the start of the story campaign with stylish title cards and crazy fight sequences just like you normally see the opening of anime cartoon series.
I also wanted to praise the design of the cutscenes are well animated throughout the sequences just looks really stunning to watch.
The game has 6 fighting stages sharing with the different settings of the sceneries such as you have honnou-cho open field which is the small town filled with many tiers of houses at the background, then you have the medium sized stages such as naturals election stadium are concidered naturals with the daylight fighting arena and bright looking sky where as the polling grounds are much more darker tone with crooked fighting arena and devilish looking sky, and then lastly you have ragyo stadium runway are long and narrow with limited space fighting arena where as the ragyo stadium grounds and thread palace are extremely large stage with long distance fighting arena.
These are all 6 fighting arena has the mix of small and large size of stage can be benefiting for any players that has a choice to choose any of the suitable arenas for them to battle on.
Overall, it has interesting story, awesome characters, and spectcular presentation design.
Gameplay
The game has various of modes to select such as you have story campaign which features two chapters with 10 episodes such as Satsuki and Ryuko to uncover their alternate events, and you have 1 on 1 versus mode which includes free battle for local play and of course the online battle for player or ranked match, and then lastly the practice mode which has tutorials, training, and challenge.
The game has 10 playable rosters to play on both versus and practice mode such as Satsuki, Ryuko, Ira, Hoka, Nonon, Uzu, Nui, Ragyo, and of course the 2 DLCs roster such as D.T.R and Mako.
The game is played in 3rd-person perspective on the fighting arena, so you and your opponent must face to face on the arena battle and who ever the person knocks out their opponent with their life bar down wins the round.
For the controls, push the left stick control is to move your character around, and press the cross button is to jump but press it again while in mid-air will allow player to jump dash towards the opponent.
Press the square button to use close ranged attack for the close combat melee, and press the triangle button to use long ranged attack for far distance melee.
Press the circle button is to perform guard break attack which temperaily destroys opponent's shield block.
Hold the right shoulder button is to weld guard which allowing you to block an opponent's melee attack, but while holding the right shoulder button you can able to perform two movements by pushing the left/right of the left stick control for evade allowing you to dodge opponent's projectiles where as the up/down of the left stick control is to dash forwards or backwards.
You will also have SP gauge on the bottom of the life bar up to 3 level displaying how much your gauge power you have filled up on the bar, so this will allow you to perform a special moves known as deathblow which has 3 flashy special attacks such as close-range deathblow, long-range deathblow, and of course the guard break deathblow which delivers a heavy damage blow on the opponent, so these can be used by holding the left shoulder button then press any of 3 buttons such as square for close-range deathblow, triangle for long-range deathblow, and circle for guard break deathblow.
I say the controls are pretty straight-forward is because it feels quite simple and easy to learn things that are not complex and confusing to play.
It's just all slashing, dodging, dashing, and jumping around the fighting arena makes the fighting control a lot easier to get into.
The combo system works pretty decent with the button mashing system where you can able to attack the opponent with lot of slashing, juggling, and dashes forward at the opponent feels really natrual to press and I say I really liked the deathblows on the opponent which does a really cool blows at the opponent just works really good.
I also want to mention a special technique called bloody valor system which is a ultimate form of deathblow meaning that if your SP gauge meter is fully packed to level 4 then this will activate it by pressing both of the shoulder buttons together which triggers a rock-paper-scissors QTE sequence which has 3 action buttons such as taunt deals the most damage, provoke heavily recovers your SP gauge, and of course the mock recovers your life, so if the attacker wins or ties the QTE they trigger a cinematic clash and win the debate will award you with your valor level up to maximum of 3 stars.
If your valor level reaches 3 stars and you have a full SP gauge with 4 bars then this will allow you to perform a cinematic match ending blow which instantly kills off the opponent for good.
These fighting system are actually done a fine job which does not feel anything dull to play for the 3D fighting game.
I did manage to enjoy the story campaign quite a bit with few of the story battles that plays really fun on both character's scenario with action-packed stuff going on in the game, but unfortunately it suffered with the short-length playthrough in which you can beat the game for like an hour-in-half in each chapters that makes a total of 3 hours long which I don't think it's quite enough to progress the story campaign enough, so despite the game has a good story I wish they could have add a bit more of scenarios for more characters could have helped the game a bit.
The game does have various of game modes to play such as the 1 on 1 versus mode in which you can able to enjoy battling with your friends through local play or online battle which is quite acceptable for fighting games that was known for a 1 on 1 multiplayer battle, and it also has a useful practice mode where you can able to learn a combat and moves throughout the tutorial as well as the training mode which helps you to practice a various of the fighting moves displayed on the command move list, so if these game modes aren't quite enough then you have a 2 challenge mode such as survival challenge where you must face a various of opponents until you are defeated and then you have a horde mode called covers challenge where you must face off against multiples of covers in 3 distinct rule variations such as 1 min challenge which you must defeat as many covers as possible before the timer runs out, 100-man brawl where you must defeat all 100 covers as fast as possible, and of course the endless battle where you must continue fighting against endless waves of covers until you are defeated.
All of these game modes are pretty solid to play which is sounds great, but the annoying part in the game is that all these game modes are locked behind story campaign in which you will need to complete some of the episodes in order to unlock all the game modes, so that is not quite convenient for those who wanted to play the game for online match, local versus, and practice challenge had to first beat some of the episodes till it unlocks.
I do wanted to point out the numbers of playable rosters is rather too small which I don't think 10 roster is quite enough for this fighting game which I was expecting 15 or more would have been an acceptable numbers, so I wish that the development team could have been done something right if they would have delay the game's release to give a bit more time for them to make more rosters, so that could have made it better.
Overall, it has decent fighting system, fun story battles, and soild game modes.
Graphics
The graphics in this game is looking quite great on the 8th-gen system for its environmental design on the fighting arena depending on which stage you're fighting on, so some of them are about mid-size arena and the others are quite large which I think having a good balance of the small and large sized potions does make the fighting arena quite appealing in the battle.
The texture surfaces has the sharp details that made it look bold and you could see some of the layouts on the background landscape from far distance, and then finally I like the way the camera angle works on the fighting arena starts rotating around when controlling your player from left to right just gives the dynamic look of the stage.
I say I liked the flashy look of the hit collision displaying the clinging effects with every hit of melee or projectiles just adds up the impact of fighting style.
The animation is well designed and moves pretty smoothly on battle with every great frame of movements and melees it performed are just looking amazing on the fighting battle.
The PS4 version had performed better for the performance side running on 1080p resolution with 60fps which the game has optimised really well without the sign of major frame drops, where as the switch version running on 1080p resolution on docked mode and 720p resolution on undocked mode with capped 30fps which may have some frame dips but not something quite servere during the battle which remains still playable.
Overall, it has great fighting arena design, detailed environmental layouts, and well designed animation.
Music and Sounds
The soundtrack is excellent which I really liked the mix of J-rock and epic music throughout the in-game battle and story cutscenes.
It really suits the game's action sequences pretty perfectly that makes the player feel pumped for fighting game action.
The main menu and characters theme was composed by Akiyuki Kubota did a fabulous job for his original score for this game.
It also features music from the original anime composed by Hiroyuki Sawano (nZk) which has the actual opening theme song on title screen such as "Sirus" sang by Eir Aoi which we all know anime TV show has the coolest theme songs, where as other song such as "Before My Body Is Dry" sang by Mika Kobayashi (vocals) and rap by David Whitaker which kinda gives me the vibes of Evanescence and Linkin Park with simular style of music which is amazing to listen.
The sound effects are quite stunning for its environmental sounds design on some stages, I also liked the clinging noises of the hit collision are quite sharp and impactful during the battle, and of course the voice acting are really good on both English and Japanese dub.
Overall, it has excellent soundtrack, stunning sound effects, and good voice acting.
Special Features
The game features unlockable stuffs such as gallery art, cutscenes, voice libaries, musics, and digital figure parts which these can be unlocked with in-game gallery points.
Overall, not a bad unlockable content.
Advantages
Interesting story and awesome characters
Spectcular presentation design
Decent fighting system and fun story battles
Solid game modes to play (versus and practice)
Great visuals and excellent music
Disadvantages
Short-length campaign
Game modes are locked behind story mode
Small numbers of rosters aren't enough
Final Verdict
Presentation 8/10 - interesting story, awesome characters, and spectcular presentation design.
Gameplay 7/10 - decent fighting system, fun story battles, and soild game modes.
Graphics 8/10 - great fighting arena design, detailed environmental layouts, and well designed animation.
Music and Sounds 8/10 - excellent soundtrack, stunning sound effects, and good voice acting.
Special Features 6.5/10 - gallery art, cutscenes, voice libaries, musics, and digital figure parts.
Overall 7/10 - Kill La Kill If is a fine 3D Fighting Game with bit of small flaws could have done it better if they could have a bit more time to add more playable rosters as well as more chapters on story campaign to make it bit longer, but overall it's still worth for play in which you may going to enjoy story campaign (even its short) with really fun action-packed battles to fight and has a good story sequences with 2 kick-ass chicks going on their frantic battle, and yes you may going to like the versus mode for local play and online battle are also decent as well as these challenge mode that keeps you busy with the game is something that you might find this game quite entertaining to play.
The price of physical copy are likely to go up from £20 to £30 which is not going to be cheap for later future years which means you might want to grab the copy before the price lasts, where as the digital copy from PS Store, Nintendo eShop, and Steam are slightly bit cheaper around between £17 and £18.
Is the game worth to play? I say if you love the original anime series or if you're one of those fighting games fanatic looking for the niche title then yes, you should check it out if you haven't try this game out and see if you might going to find that game quite fun to play.
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