No More Heroes

 "Travis Touchdown: Otaku Hitman" is what the back of No More Heroes says boldly in Red letters. If that isn't enough to emphasise how lucrative Suda51's original Nintendo Wii adventure is then nothing is. But not every Otaku Hitman is an anime obsessed, porn crazed, Lucha Libre trained assassin either. Boy isn't No More Heroes an odd game?

So as you might've guessed, you're Travis Touchdown. After meeting a seductive femme fatal, named Sylvia, you find yourself competing in the United Assassin's Association to become to greatest assassin of them all. Armed with your Lightsaber rip-off beam katana (that Travis won on a internet auction) you plan to take them down from Rank 10 all the way to Rank 1, and it isn't going to be easy either.

Although that's probably because a lot of the time you'll find yourself busy slicing soldiers up for coins, training at the gym to grow stronger or even catching lost kittens with tiger grass. Typically with Suda51 as well, the game has a ton of neat surprises in store also. As an action adventure title as well, it is a impressive game.

The core of No More Heroes resides in it's combat in which you beat numbers of bad guys up with Travis' beam katana. Unusually for a game of it's type, the actual swipes of the sword are not waggle based; slash attacks are performed with the A button while the B button handles beat attacks, in the form of punches and kicks. If you stun an enemy, B can also be used to grapple and throw them by following on screen commands which can vary depending on the move. Both the A and B attacks can also be charged by holding them down and used together in combos which gives more depth to the game's combat system.

In order to actually kill enemies in No More Heroes though, you need to enter Death Blow mode, which requires you to flick the Wiimote in the direction promoted to deliver a fatal attack. Each Death Blow attack you execute starts off a slot machine which can enter you into dark side mode if you're lucky. For example, if you get three Bars you get Cranberry Chocolate Sundae that allows you to kill on screen enemies for a short period of time by performing commands similar to Death Blow mode.

Of course, this works a little differently when it comes to the boss fights themselves with you fighting postman superheroes, samurai adolescents, one legged war vets and even an old granny with a gigantic laser gun. To go into detail about each boss fight would equal to atleast five paragraphs of spoilers, because despite being one-on-one brawls for the majority of the fights, they simply can't be beaten with a hack 'n slash mindset. But, you're going to need to pay for an entrance fee anyway which can be paid off by doing jobs around Santa Destroy, Travis Touchdown's home. Jobs are split up between Part-Time jobs and Assassin Missions.

Before you can do Assassin Missions you have to complete a Part-Time Job and they're essentially a bunch of odd jobs which will have you collecting as many coconuts, mowing a lawn or exterminating scorpions. Each game plays differently with their own set of controls like with Lawn Mowing you'll be rotating the Wiimote as if it actually is the lawn mower itself. The premsis though is basically to get the highest score as possible within the time limit which, depending on how well you do, can award you with a Bronze, Silver or Gold medal.

As for the Assassin Missions, they're mainly tests of your actually combat skills themselves such as killing as many bad guys as possible or, shockingly enough, take out a target as fast as possible. However there are also assassin missions to see how many enemies you can kill with a baseball. Hit the baseball as hard as you can with a powerful swing of the Wiimote and you have three attempts in total. Sadly, the assassin missions are overall not too varied.

Outside of both the Assassin missions and part-time jobs, you can explore what else Santa Destroy has to offer by riding Travis' Bike round town. There are many shops to go to where you can buy new clothes, videos to improve your fighting skills and new weapons, these are all bought using the same money earned during the jobs and missions.

Travis' Bike can perform a bunch of cool stunts and they're useful during the game however it can be very irritating to control as well and can get stuck too, thankfully you can call it back to you however if far away enough.
No More Heroes is also quite a short game, clocking under ten hours.

No More Heroes also has an inconsistent frame-rate which can be annoying as it can go from speedy to slow almost from nowhere. Santa Destroy itself feels pretty lifeless too with almost no pedestrians at all and it lacks general interactivity and personality, much unlike in the GTA games. There are some pacing issues too. You'll find yourself doing hours of enduring jobs/missions, one after another and speeding through the rank matches within minutes.

But with original and fantastic features like the retro inspired sidesroller minigame, the jobs/missions, boss fights and wonderfully executed controls, No More Heroes is perhaps the most impressive of all third party Wii games currently available. If not, No More Heroes might be one of the most memorable video games of recent times instead. Don't miss it.