More Heroes, Please
Originally written February 20th, 2008. Unlike the other reviews I've been putting up recently, I've gone in and made some changes to this one. Making it better and more readable.
No More Heroes is an odd game, though if you know its creator Suda51 then you should also know that this is nothing new for the auteur game designer. You play as Travis Touchdown, a character who should be easy for many players to relate to considering he's your average gamer otaku. What sets Travis apart from the rest of the world however is his complete and utter insanity. Having purchased a beam katana online he aims to become the #1 ranked assassin in the United States, killing anyone who stands in his way simply for bragging rights and cash. Though despite his murderous way, Travis isn't above doing some yard work or getting a part time job to make even more money.
After meeting with Sylvia Cristel, an agent with United Assassin's Association Travis takes on a job as a hitman and soon strives to become the top killer in the country. To get to these fights Travis must provide the UAA with entry fee which he can pay for by doing odd part time jobs around the city of Santa Destroy, and by taking on assassination missions.
As mentally unstable as Travis may seem to be, he is the sanest man on Earth when compared to most, if not all of the 10 colorful ranked assassins above him, each and everyone with their own distinct and developed personalities. It is because of this that the boss battles and the scenes which take place before and after the fight are the best parts of the game. The opening and closing cinematic for each of the bosses is a treat to behold and it lets you know that besides Travis' simple ambition of becoming #1, there is a story to be told and very complex characters each with their own story to tell.
The game is presented with a cel shaded art style which suits it very well, as do its stylistic transitions between entering buildings, beginning missions, or entering a rankings fight. The characters and environments themselves look nice, however this is somewhat offset by its ugly overworld. The city has a half baked and unfinished feeling to it with major pop-in on trees and buildings and unresponsive civilians and vehicles, it all feels like they just weren't able to finish it in time.
The game also employs a very simplistic retro gaming look with it's pixelated icons and mini-map. No More Heroes is a game that takes pride in being a video game and at times even breaking the fourth wall to let you know that it is aware of its status as a game. It all comes together very nicely and completes the game's slick presentation.
To keep the player from falling into a rut of constantly repeating the same tasks continuously they've thrown in more than enough twists and turns to keep everyone happy. While I can't really go into much detail without spoiling much of the game I will tell you that the game has a far more complex story than you may currently be led to believe, and many levels have a unique twist to keep the combat fresh.
The game is capable of being laugh out loud funny at times, referencing both gaming and nerd culture, as well as just having fun and wacky moments. It is by no means a game that takes itself too seriously, managing to find that perfect balance between seriousness and comedy.
Outside of the boss battles the combat can get a little repetitive, however Grasshopper Manufacture have managed to add just enough of a twist to keep what would normally be a simple button masher from getting boring very quickly. Once an enemy's health has been brought down to nearly nothing one more swing of your trusty beam katana will bring up a context sensitive finishing move which will have you swing or flick the remote in the direction designated by the on-screen arrow to deliver the final blow. Doing so will cause the victim to explode in a flash of blood, coins, and guttural screams.
Travis, being an avid wrestling fan, has more than a few moves up his sleeve which you can use to deliver punishing body slams and DDTs to an enemy. There is definitely more depth in Travis' wrestling moves than in his finishing katana swings as both the remote and nunchuk are used in a variety of different ways. However, a wrestling move will usually not get the job done, leaving just a sliver of health left in the now motionless enemy to whom you must deliver one final blow.
Travis lives in the fictional Californian city of Santa Destroy and although the world is open to you, the game plays out in a linear fasion. After each ranked assassination Travis needs to earn enough money to enter the next fight. This is accomplished with the aforementioned part time jobs and extra assassination missions. Apart from a handful of locations, and garbage dumpsters containing t-shirts and money Santa Destroy is dead and boring. Cars on the street and people walking around don't acknowledge Travis at all, and in fact don't even react to collisions.
Even stranger is that for a game with as much violence in it as No More Heroes, it is impossible to run over a person in the road or cause a car accident of some kind. Should you ever happen to "run someone over" all that will happen is the person will look like they've just been shoved, stay standing, and then just run away. The cars in the city on the other hand will just stop dead in their tracks when coming into contact with you and will wait patiently for you to collect yourself and drive away before they carry on their marry way.
Once you've gotten the hang of using the drifts and boosts with your motorcycle effectively it should not be too hard for you to make your way around Santa Destroy. Unfortunately here's where that "unfinished" thing the city has going on comes into play. When traveling at a high enough speed it is possible for Travis to uproot trees and knock over lamp posts with the greatest of ease, and yet driving into a pitiful little bus stop causes you to crash and fall off.
Another of the game's most frustrating problems which could have been so incredibly easy to fix is that it lacks a "Retry" option of any kind. Sure, when you have entered a rankings fight and you're making your way to the boss you will hit checkpoints. However when attempting an assassination or free fight mission, failure will do nothing more then spit you right back into the streets of Santa Destroy.
In the case of the assassination missions it's a simple matter of simply driving back to K-Entertainment and taking the mission once again and then driving back to the mission point. It is very tedious and annoying but it is nothing when compared to the free fights. A free fight mission is one where you take on a set number of foes, attempting to defeat them all without taking a single hit from them. Doing so results in an automatic failure. The free fight missions unfortunately are scattered around Santa Destroy so failing one of them means that you'll just have to wait it out until that mission suddenly pops back up on your map. It came to the point where I stopped bothering with the free fight missions as I've only ever successfully completed one and was able to easily get by on the part time jobs and assassinations available.
In the audio department No More Heroes infects your ears with infectious tunes, and sharp sound effects. There are some really nice sounding tracks mixed in throughout the separate buildings, bosses, and fights to keep you going. The voice acting is great and is an integral part of the game due to its very heavy dependence upon cutscenes and monologues. The game also makes great use of the Wii remotes internal speaker. If you listen carefully you will hear your beam katana hum as it slices through the air and your foes, while the best part comes before each boss battle. You receive a phone call from Sylvia Crystel and she always has something to say about how sure she is that you will die this time around. However as Travis puts his phone to his ear, you just may have to do the same with the Wii remote to hear what she has to say. Sure it looks silly but it brings a whole new level of sucking you into the game.
When playing on the Mild difficulty (aka Medium) that game is still quite challenging to complete, and yet once the game has already been completed once the Bitter (Hard) difficulty is unlocked adding that much more depth to the game. Combined with 3 different types of katanas to suit the fighting style you may be looking for, the game should be good for more than one play through.
I could go on even more and I can't help but shake the feeling that I've forgotten something but this seems like a good place to stop. The bottom line is that No More Heroes is a good game. Despite it's few annoying bugs, No More Heroes is an action packed title with amazing characters and presentation to boot. It is the best action game on Wii and among the best overall. If you own a Wii you owe it to yourself to get this game,
