REVIEW

Kill La Kill – If Review

by Luke Walsh, August 3rd, 2019

Kill la Kill is an adaption of a popular anime where clothes are magical and less the better in this universe. I was a fan of the anime series with the visual style and animation and was hoping that this game was able to faithfully represent the anime.

Kill la Kill – If is a rock, paper, scissors fighting game and with the help of the publisher Arc System Works who are known for fighting games which has most likely helped polish out some of the bugs a studio finds when they first make a fighting game. Kill la Kill – If – is a beautiful and smooth fighting game.

In combat, you have standard moves such as close, long-range and charged attacks. You can also jump with one of the buttons and double-tap it to dash towards the enemy. Blocking adds the final layer to the mix but it also throws in a load of combos.

Kill la KIll If has a wide range of different combo attacks and more than the usual fighting games. Rather than basic combos, you can follow up with even more by changing the directional input while attacking and it means you can create some advanced combinations of attacks by using these in different sets.

The strategies are also further complex thanks to each character playing so differently. Some characters focus on close-range attacks while others deal more with long-range damage. Some have more advanced special moves that can be used to trick your enemies.

There's enough characters in the roster to have some interesting battles.

Even with the roster being fairly limited, Kill la Kill – If is able to create enough variety to make it enjoyable to try each of the characters out. The differences compound the effect of deciding how and when and what style of attack you will do and anticipating your enemy.

Combat is fairly easy to pick up overall but defence is the hardest part about the game, most characters have an overwhelming number of offensive attacks which are quick yet punchy. Blocking, on the other hand, feels sluggish and hard to recover from once you are caught in your enemies combo. The only way to usually break out is by using your own counter burst as long as you have enough of your meter to use specials.

If you do manage to catch of these attacks on your opponent it will usually active Bloofy Valor which moves the camera angle and gameplay mode which allows you to choose more health, damage or meter. The winner gets their bonus but not at the risk of being trump by the other player as the traditional rock, paper and scissors come into to play where each choice beats another. It’s a nice tactic of risk vs reward.

Kill la Kill – If does a stunning job at making the game feel like Kill la Kill with it’s nice-looking cel-shaded visual, over the top move sets and on-point colours which resemble the anime pretty much perfectly. This is combined with well-designed menus, original music for the game and some from the anime and good food acting from the original actors in both Japanese or English.

Just like the anime, angles can be a little...purposeful

What this has allowed them to do is create a whole new 10 chapter story which is different from the anime’s that uses fully animated cutscenes to tell an alternate story surrounding the antagonist Ryuki Matoi. It’s a short story but an enjoyable one and from a different angle to the anime a nice additional bit of content for anyone who watched the show.

There was not a massive amount wrong with Kill la Kill – If but the team battles where you ended up fighting multiple enemies at once were cool but frustrating at times. With multiple enemies on screen and no way of targetting them you sometimes ended up completely missing the target you wanted. The tactic was mostly to stay as close as possible to the one you want to hit which was a little hard at times when four characters are piling on top of you.

There’s also not a lot of customisation in the game outside of having one alternative costume. You can’t change the look of your favourite character to wear something different, nor can you select what stage you want to fight on or do anything with the cool background music which is present in the game. This is a shame, considering parts of the game are good enough where you want to be able to tweak them a little.

Kill la Kill – If has definitely been made for just the die-hard fans in mind and does it pretty well giving them a decent fighting game and a way to enjoy their best characters in an alternative storyline. The traditional one-on-one battles have had an upgrade in the campaign with the multiple enemies fights a nice twist on traditional fighting games, it is just let down slightly by the mechanics not being able to represent the idea fully.