YMMV / Thrill Kill

• Common Knowledge: Many people (including contributors to this Tropes page) like to highlight the fact that this game was intended to be released with an AO rating, not realizing that the past tense isn't just due to Thrill Kill never being officially released. As explained in this video by Matt McMuscles, the early intention was for the game to be AO until someone reminded the dev team that most retailers wouldn't sell an AO game and Sony (or any major console manufacturer) would likely not approve an AO game be released on their system, forcing the game to be drastically Bowdlerised.
• Crosses the Line Twice: More than twice, as a matter of fact.
• Evil Is Cool: All of cast are Villain Protagonists, but all of their designs are top notch. Special mention does to Faustus, Mammoth, and Tormentor.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Thrill Kill has a pretty strong following in Japan, bizarrely enough. This is even more bizarre if you take into account similar games like Mortal Kombat are despised there.
• Hype Backlash: For reasons mentioned under Once Original, Now Common, the game might be seen as relatively tame - the fact that there have been two games released afterwards that also got an AO rating for violence alone probably contributes to this reaction. Some have even argued that releasing it wouldn't have affected EA's reputation much, if at all, considering that EA themselves were no strangers to violent video games even before this game. Some would go even further and argue that more violent games had been released prior to this game.
• Jerkass Woobie: While they may deserve their stick in Hell, it may be possible to feel bad for some of the characters.
  • The Imp’s ending has him dreaming of being the president, with an average height...only to wake up and cry at seeing he’s still the same dwarf he always was. Not helped by the fact we aren’t given an explanation on what he did to get into Hell.
  • Violet was a murderous misandrist, but only because a man tried to attack her. While killing the man in her ending may have been an overreaction, it shows how paranoid she had become afterwards. Not helped that she’s being perved on by drunk assholes while she is a teenager.
  • Belladonna was a regular housewife and librarian who lost it after learning her husband and sister were having an affair. After killing them, she committed suicide by electrocuting herself with the cattle prod she used to kill them in the bathtub.
  • Oddball was a hardworking F.B.I. agent who tracked down Serial Killers, only to be driven mad by the people he hunted down and becoming one himself. It’s tragic because, unlike a lot of the cast, he seems to be genuinely insane.
  • If you listen to the news reporter in his ending, you learn that the Tormentor's wife was murdered by a Serial Killer.
• Moral Event Horizon: The most unsympathetic of the cast crosses it.
  • Gabriel Faustus crosses it in his ending when he kills one of his patients For the Evulz.
  • If Mammoth didn’t cross it in life by killing his coworkers and customers just for being fired, then he crosses it in his ending, where upon being brought back to Earth, he kills an innocent old woman by stuffing her and her dog (who is still alive) in a mailbox.
  • Cleetus was already a cannibalistic Serial Killer, but upon being brought back, he not only goes back to his ways, he starts selling his victims' meat to the unsuspecting masses.
• Narm: The cutscenes, due in part to the stiff movement of the characters and the bland dialogue.
• Nightmare Fuel: All over the place. The concept alone is quite unsettling, but it goes even further by just how disturbing most of the characters and their backstories are in the game. Also, the eerie ambience that plays during fights is just plain creepy, with audible moaning and whispers being heard throughout.
• Once Original, Now Common: The game had a lot of hype behind it, being considered one of the most violent and darkest games ever produced at the time. The game is violent, but these days, thanks in part due to Hype Backlash, it's nowhere near as gruesome as what we have seen come out of the gaming industry as of recent. Heck, the game wasn't even that violent in comparison to games released at the time, such as Mortal Kombat 4.
• Overshadowed by Controversy: A game so controversial that EA canceled its release. Take note however, that the game is a lot tamer than EA would want you to believe, and as a result much Hype Backlash has resulted from eager gamers wanting to see what the fuss is about.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley: Violet is very creepy to look at, despite being one of the more innocent characters, lore-wise. In order to get her flexibility across, the designers made her limbs and torso unnaturally long, making her look less "flexible" and more "stretched on the rack".

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