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Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review: Running on GaaS?

Blaine Smith — Sun, 04 Feb 2024 20:32:50 +0000

Even before launch, Rocksteady Games faced an uphill battle with their latest release. Mainstream gaming media holds little love for the games-as-a-service model, and more recent forays into the DC Universe haven’t exactly ended well. Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is a stark contrast from Rocksteady’s trademark gritty Arkham games, a legacy that almost feels condemning at this point.

So, does Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League stand out in a crowd of games struggling to survive, or is this, as some feared, the downfall of Rocksteady?

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Review

Kill The Justice League’s story follows the traditional superhero trope: There’s an impending world-ending event of biblical proportions that only Earth’s greatest heroes could hope to overcome. Well, that was if the entire Justice League hadn’t been turned into Brainiac’s mind slaves.

Instead of the usual spandex-wearing goody-two-shoes, players take the mantle of the Suicide Squad, a ragtag group of Arkham convicts set loose on Metropolis. This was pulled off by Amanda Waller, who, quite honestly, may just be the greatest villain in the entire DC Multiverse. She’s more terrifying than any of the Suicide Squad; I’d rather go toe-to-toe with Brainiac.

The story follows Harley Quinn, Deadshot, King Shark, and Captain Boomerang, the latter of which has quickly become one of my all-time favorite characters. They all set out to take down the Justice League and destroy the evil Brainiac before he enslaves what’s left of the human population.

It’s a rewarding narrative, one that toes a careful line between routing for the antihero and just flat-out destroying our childhood dreams before our very eyes. Its most impressive feat is the ability to create a bond between the player and members of the Suicide Squad that’s strong enough to endure some of the heinous events of the latter stages of the story, events that could sour the experience for some.

Unlike the humor, which is smashed out of the park in the first 30 minutes. The writing is fantastic, effortlessly blending a rather doomsday-like scenario with quick one-liners and banter between allies, all timed and delivered to near perfection. Some of the game’s funniest moments don’t even require words; the facial animations are some of the very best this industry has to offer. An entire joke can be delivered with the raising of an eyebrow or the rolling of the eyes. Supported by fantastic performances throughout, it left me feeling both fulfilled and empty. As a live-service title, the story was so much better than I was expecting. Despite this, it left me lovesick, wondering how much more we could have had in a more traditional single-player setting.

Running in at about 10-12 hours, the story felt short. It does flow through the games-as-a-service end-game style grind in fantastic fashion, arguably the most thematic we’ve seen in the genre to-date, but if that GaaS style end-game grind isn’t your thing, the experience may not feel deserving of the price tag.

Each of the four main characters – Deadshot, King Shark, Captain Boomerang, and Harley Quinn – each boast their own arsenal of weapons, abilities, and traversal powers. I typically struggle with games that require diverting of attention between too many skill trees and loadouts. While Suicide Squad’s user-interface makes it a seamless and effortless process, I still found myself drawn to Deadshot – a character I played throughout much of the game.

Once the story is over, when the GaaS grind begins, these games live and die by the quality of the combat. Thankfully, Kill the Justice League’s combat system is one of the most exciting I’ve played in a long time. Hulking brutes, long distance snipers, armored melee units, fortified tanks…the game throws a bevy of different enemies at you, each requiring different tactics and solutions. The satisfaction of stringing together the perfect counters, launching to the next group of enemies with combined traversal abilities, and hitting special attack to clear an entire platform never grows old or feels stale.

After every cutscene and story segment, I was eager to get back to the skies of Metropolis and just kill stuff for the fun of it. Both fitting of the genre and the theme, I suppose. However, that enthusiasm did dwindle somewhat when it came to the boss battles. While none of them were bad – you battle against the majority of the Justice League at one point or another – none of them really stood out either. Not really a crime, but when you are battling against characters as iconic as those seen in the Justice League, I expected combat on far grander scales.

As with all the GaaS launches of recent years, much of the pre-launch discussion was sharing the woes and concerns of the genre. I get it, they are not for everyone. Grind and repetition are often seen as negative elements of the gaming experience, but there’s still a large audience that thrives on the challenge and lives to log in each and every day. Is this that game? I’m not sure, but it has a hell of a lot more chance than I thought it would have.

The live-service elements, while limited in variety, do boast an impressive array of character customization and loadout options. Every aspect of the characters can be enhanced and improved. Personal stats, weapon rarity, weapon traits and perks, special abilities, there’s a huge list of min-maxing opportunities that offers the perfect playground for fans dedicated enough to withstand the limited mission choices of the post-game scenario.

Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League is a great game for a certain type of player, having all the hallmarks of a fantastic single-player cinematic experience. It features a great story, excellent voice acting, beautiful environments, and captivating characters, but it all feels cut short to service this live-service model. I had a lot of fun playing through, and I’ll likely dive more into the end-game grind. Still, I still can’t help but ask: What if?

This review of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League was done on the PlayStation 5. A digital code was provided by the publisher.

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Judgment Review

Blaine Smith — Thu, 20 Jun 2019 13:24:19 +0000

Fronting as the Yagami Detective Agency, Tak and Kaito battle through a story of love, deceit, and betrayal in SEGA’s Judgment. Is this Yakuza spin-off worthy of the games’ spiritual predecessor, or was Kiryu the driving force behind the franchises’ success?

Judgment Review

In a world where even the kids know kung-fu, everyone can crack their neck, matching tracksuits are cool, and floral shirts are worn by hard men, our protagonist, Takayuki Yagami, and his hard-headed sidekick Kaito stand alone in a struggle to find Kamurochos most notorious and feared serial killer, the Mole.

Fans of the Yakuza franchise will relish in the opportunity of returning to Kamurocho, the iconic town that has featured throughout the series of games. Judgment’s Kamurocho delivers a more vibrant, more immersive, and more realistic city than previous games, but still with plenty of nostalgic opportunities with the visiting of past haunts and a few Easter eggs relating to past characters and events.

Judgment enters as a spin-off of the Yakuza franchise, leaning on the series’ thrilling combat, intriguing story, and huge cast of supporting characters to introduce an exciting new narrative in the form of investigative techniques and detective gameplay. While Takayuki Yagami does have ties to Yakuza and the seedy underbelly that comes with it, he’s a law-abiding detective – for the most part, and much of the game plays into that new direction.

During missions, you’ll be interrogating suspects, searching crime scenes for clues, and deciphering evidence to find the correct conclusion. Much of it is great fun and really rewarding – but not all of it. The majority of the investigative scenes are too simplistic, requiring you to move a magnifying glass around the screen to find a single point of interaction – not all too different from hidden object games. There’s also the missions that have you tailing a suspect – arguably one of the strangest design choices in the franchises’ history.

They are far too common, happening throughout the main story and huge variety of side content. It’s a simple premise; you follow a suspect until they reveal the information you require. While believable and realistic in regards to the detective narrative, they become incredibly frustrating, drawn out, and in a word, boring – a word I rarely use to describe the work of developers Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Some of these missions can last nearly 10 minutes. 10 minutes of walking behind a suspect that often walks in circles, seemingly lacking any purpose other than to waste the players’ time. You cannot avoid them, you cannot skip them, but if you can endure them, there’s plenty of exciting opportunities in between.

When you’re not tailing suspects or searching for clues, you’re whooping ass. Judgment places its combat at the very forefront of the experience with nearly every mission or event resulting in the distribution of justice – with fists and feet the chosen vessels of delivery. Judgment’s combat is much faster, more responsive, and offers more fluidity and the traditionally clunky combat of past games. While still retaining a similar feel, Takayuki Yagami’s combat style is much quicker, with more complex combos and more varieties of attacks. It’s still very much a Yakuza game at heart, but with all the right improvements in all the right places.

The story itself lasts approximately 20 hours, and it’s worth every minute. What begins as a dark but seemingly simple investigation into a series of murders quickly descends into a far more sinister and intricate plot that involves politics, real estate, the Yakuza, the medical industry, and a cure for Alzheimer’s, with plot twists and turns at every available opportunity. In true Yakuza fashion, the story is supported by a wealth of side content that can easily wrack up the hours to the 30-40 region.

Kamurocho’s iconic sub-stories return in the form of Side Cases, familiar detective-like work that includes everything from investigating potential infidelity to the capturing of a group of infamous perverts renowned for exposing themselves to anyone in their path. The Side Cases offer a lot of depth to the game world, providing insight into the lives of Kamurocho’s citizens, which often results in yet further opportunities to understand the lives of those involved. A new system has also been introduced that gives Tak the opportunity to make friends with many of Kamurocho’s residents, a feature that is both rewarding and engaging throughout.

While making friends and exploring Side Cases is a thrilling part of Judgment’s adventure, it appears to come at the expense of the series’ fabled mini-games. Those familiar with the Yakuza games have come to expect a level of quality and creativity unprecedented in much of the industry today. Clan Creator, Majima Construction, the Cabaret Clubs, and Yakuza’s past mini-games have been one of the franchises most impressive elements, but Judgment is lacking in comparison.

The traditional arcade games are there, alongside darts, offering brief moments of respite from the often exhausting detective work but as the game progresses, the more integrated mini-games become unlocked. The primary opportunity of investing time into a mini-game comes in the form of Dice & Cube, a virtual-reality mini-game where you throw a dice, move spaces, and complete basic tasks. It’s incredibly rewarding in value, offering the best method of earning money and rare items, but the entire experience itself is bland and repetitive. Judgment’s mini-games and activities are far from bad but they fail to meet the high expectations put in place by previous games in the Yakuza franchise.

If there’s one aspect of the Yakuza franchise that is still very much alive and kicking in Judgment, it’s the masterfully crafted combination of relatable characters and a thoroughly intriguing story alongside some of the wackiest and entirely insane moments you’ll experience in a video game. In one breath I’m examining the latest victim in a series of murders, attempting to understand why the killer gouges out the eyes, and the next I’m shooting a Spider-man-like pervert with a camera off the side of a building using a drone, dressing up as a vampire to distract paparazzi, and being approached by a huge, muscly naked man with the phrase “Have you come to bask in the shadow of my scrotum totem?”.

Humor in games with a mostly serious tone seldom sell me on the combination. One is typically contradictory of the other, and usually results in the serious aspects of the game losing tone and impact through comedic flavor. However, much like they did with the Yakuza franchise, the development team at Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio once again proves that they have the art to near perfection in a game that shocked me as much as it did make me laugh.

Judgment is a must-play for fans of the Yakuza franchise and a fantastic entry level title for those a little put off by the time required to catch up with the Yakuza series. It offers a fun and challenging dive into a wonderfully crafted game world, whose only disappointment is the result of the quality of past works.

This Judgment Review was done on the PlayStation 4 Pro. A digital copy was provided.