No More Heroes was full of style and substance.
No More Heroes was a blast from start to finish. There were real surprises, huge laughs, and gory fun. Hack and Slashers tend to bore me towards the end, but this one didn't and it's twice as long as most Hack and Slashers.
It does have faults, mostly the world map and somewhat boring level designs. The positives clearly outweigh the bad, so the No More Heroes is clearly going to stick with me for a while.
----------Battle System----------
No More Heroes is a no frills Hack and Slasher. There's alot going for No More Heroes, even compared to other games in the same genre, like God of War. You can just bash your way through the game hacking and slashing but you can have fun with it too. There's alot of things you can learn and upgrade during the course of the game. You can learn various wrestling moves by finding letters or even watching Wrestling tapes.
To use Wrestling moves on people, you first have to knock them out by kicking them during combat. Once they're dizzy (like in Street Fighter II) you can then grab them, and perform a wrestling move on them. The wrestling moves are sort of like QTE but not really since they give you ample time to complete them and they're usually similar acts each time. You can't pick your wrestling move though, it seems randomized to me. However, once you started a move, you have to mimic the sign they give you. This means you have to lift the nunchuck and wiimote left/right/up/down. I like doing the wrestling moves.
The gimmick to the Hack and Slasher is simple and fun. You can attack with the A button, and do a melee attack with the B button. You can Z-target with the Z button, and you can dodge and roll with the D-pad. It's all very simple, easy and fun. The gimmick is this. If you hold the Wiimote UP, then Travis attacks UP. If you hold it DOWN, then Travis attacks DOWN. Some enemies you can't attack up, so you need to always have an eye on that.
The actual battle system never gets old, and was fun until the very end.
Boss fights are always huge and fun too. While the sub-enemies you fight during the game are almost the same through out, the boss will always have a unique fighting style. So you have to learn and adapt. I was probably defeated by half of the bosses on my first fight with them.
You can get a ton of character upgrades through out the game too, if you're into RPG elements. You can go to a gym to upgrade you HP, Strength and Attack combos. You can buy new weapons and weapon upgrades at a shop. You can learn new moves at a shop. You upgrade your health, Zelda style, after you defeat a boss. If you're into small, constant upgrades, then you'll be happy with this.
----------Characters / Story----------
You play as Travis Touchdown, a hired Assassin that joins a guild of Assassins. His goal is to be the #1 Assassin, by killing each Assassin above him. Only so he could have sex with the Assassin Organizations leader, Sylvia.
Travis is an otaku nerd that humps pillows, lives alone with a cat, and an ex-professional wrestler. He is not a cool, sly character that gets all the ladies, or even kills everyone in perfect fashion. He's flawed, and nerdy. So that's what makes him kind of original.
While the humor is completely juvenile, it's still one of the more funny games I've played. Very few games set out attempt humor and actually get laughs out of me. No More Heroes actually made me laugh.
----------Graphics----------
The graphics are hit or miss. The style is there, and the cutscenes show it. Anything that involves fighting is epic and amazing looking too. The gore is over the top, the attacks are huge, the enemies look good. On the bad side of things, the world map looks bland, and chuggy. It's almost like a completely different game. The combat just looks so amazing but when it comes to "exploring" it looks like a first gen PS2 game. The "dungeons" are just linear paths, so they're not very epic or exciting to look at either.
----------Sound----------
The sound effects are great, the voice acting was awesome and the music was catchy as hell. There's not a bad thing I can say about this.
----------World Map----------
The world map is a basic GTA clone. It's honestly not much different at all. GTA might be more lively with cars, things to steal and people, but it's the same idea. There's shops, random missions, and places to visit. There's also a ton of collectables scattered at random on the map.
After you beat an Assassin mission, you unlock more world map, but since everything looks nearly the same, you won't notice much "expanding".
It's clearly not as good as GTA, but it's one of the better GTA rip offs I've played.
----------Time to Complete Game----------
14:59
After you beat the game, you unlock a new difficulty. The game forces you to start a new game after this, but you might be able to access your old save by loading on the menu screen. I did not want to replay the opening again to find out.
