Goichi Suda, more commonly known as Suda51, has built his career on odd, eccentric games. Killer7, Shadows of the Damned, and Lollipop Chainsaw all have very few thematic throughlines except for the fact that Suda had a hand in them all. Writer, director, producer, voice actor; he has done it all but talk to GameRevolution. Until today. He sat down with us at PAX West 2018 in a deceptively tiny room to talk about his career, Killer7, his newest game, and more.
Suda started his career in 1993 directing Super Fire Pro Wrestling 3 Final Bout for the Famicom (which you might know as the SNES) in Japan. His work was hardly released out of Japan until Killer7 in 2005. While it didn’t review all that well back in the day, it garnered a cult following and helped bring Suda to where he is today.
His next biggest game was No More Heroes for the Wii in 2008 (in North America). It was one of the few (initially) Wii-exclusive M-rated titles that was full of Suda’s signature sense of humor and unique style. The game reviewed a little higher and spawned a sequel and a few ports a few years later.
His games can usually divide critics but mostly seem to have a fanbase that is attracted to Suda’s types of games. They are usually a bit rough around the edges, which maybe explains their polarized review scores. But it’s that same roughness that likely attracts such loyal fans.
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is the next game in the series. Well, sort of. As Suda51 explains in the video, it’s more of a spin-off but it still stars Travis Touchdown. The game was announced last September and is currently scheduled to come out exclusively for the Nintendo Switch on January 18, 2018. Unlike the other games under the No More Heroes banner, it is a top-down cooperative brawler.
