Please note: this is of the North American version of No More Heroes - the Japanese and European games have removed the blood and severed limbs in favor of black clouds and enemies that slowly burn away. And the pictures featured do include blood. Lots of blood. Thank you. US box art, featuring Travis playing his beam katana as an air guitar. Oh, yeah, he's cool enough to do that. Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture NA Publisher: Ubisoft Genre: Action-Adventure There are a lot of games out there; a lot of them are pretty, a lot of them are cool, a lot of them are good, and a lot of them are bad. When I go out looking for a game, I usually know what I’m going to get – I don’t have much money, so I want excellence, I want the crème de la crème, I want to get the games that are going to be the talk of the town. When I first heard about a little thing called “No More Heroes,†it didn’t seem all that impressive. But, as I read more and more about it, saw it in action, I was hooked – this was the game that I was going to buy. It’s unfortunately taken me this long to get No More Heroes, but I’m glad to have finally gotten it. From the moment you start the game, you know that this is going to be one heck of a ride – you play as one Travis Touchdown, a resident of Santa Destroy, who has just come to the realization that he is flat broke. This wrestling-obsessed, porn addicted otaku spent all of his cash on a hot chick at the bar, and was in serious need of a job; Touchdown soon finds one taking out “The Drifter†with the beam katana, the Blood Berry, he won in an online auction. He does so, only to be congratulated by Sylvia Christal as the 11th best ranked assassin. From hereon out, Travis isn’t on a quest of redemption, to save the world, hell, he’s not even in it for the money – he just wants to be number one. The plot is absolutely ridiculous, but you have to love Travis Touchdown for the unique individual that he is, and that he’s on a rather egotistical journey to prove his worth. But it really isn’t all about him; if he becomes number one, Sylvia just might do it with him, and that’s cause enough, right? Truthfully, the plot is really pointless, as it doesn’t really go anywhere beyond setting up the hilarious ranked matches and providing a number of laughs. Still though, its cleverly written and can easily be ignored in favor of the gameplay, or just the ranked matches alone. Did I mention that there are copious amounts of blood? The general flow of the game is linear, but set in the free-roaming town of Santa Destroy, a rather off-putting city that seems to have every feasible accommodation, yet have a small population. You begin off each day by receiving an invoice – this invoice must be paid to the organization setting up your ranked matches and overruling the entire ordeal, the UAA (United Assassins Association), before you can engage in the bulk of the game. There are a number of ways to make money, however, in Santa Destroy, and you’ll have to exploit them all numerous times to meet the funds required. The simplest way to make money is by taking on a side-job around the city, which range from collecting coconuts to mowing lawns. All of these jobs use the Wiimote in various ways, from frantic waggling to precise motions to distract a kitty. These are all surprisingly fun, though a few of them don’t have enough of a payoff to make good money, and some of them are downright annoying, such as the spread out graffiti-cleaning side-job, or the actually fatal scorpion collection side-job. By doing these menial tasks, you can unlock a number of Assassination Gigs, higher paying jobs that essentially all ask you to kill massive amounts of people. There are absolutely no complains to be had here, really, as they work just as they need to. While, yes, the several baseball gigs are extremely frustrating, that doesn’t really impact gameplay in any way, shape or form, and a grand total of 20 allow for a number of ways to make it rain blood. The upcoming No More Heroes patch 1.1 will nerf lawnmowing and buff kitty catching After earning all of these large sums of cash, you can deposit the money and get on with the game, or you can choose to spend your money around town. Area 51, a clothing store, offers a wide array of items to pimp out Travis with a number of fashions, all at an unreasonably high price. Thunder Ryu Bldg. offers up training that can increase your strength, vitality, or extend your combos, essential for the end of the game, but it’s possible to miss a session and not have it become available until a second playthough. You can purchase videos at Beef Head Videos, all of which teach Travis a new wrestling move to use on stunned foes, some of which are astoundingly brutal. Finally, you can occasionally purchase a new beam katana from Naomi’s research labs alongside a number of upgrades – each beam sword is more powerful and more necessary than the last. Once you’ve done all of your round and have paid off the prerequisite fees, you can make your way to the next ranked match. These begin with an opening stage filled with enemies for Travis to slice and dice his way though. Here is where the game get really exciting: You attack with a simple button press on the Wiimote, swinging your beam sword. Attacking multiple times strings together a combo, dealing more and more damage until you’ve depleted your foe’s health. At this point, they just don’t die – you must swing the Wiimote in the direction indicated, pulling off an absolutely vicious finishing move that will decapitate, cleave, and otherwise destroy your target in a torrent of blood and money. I must say, these are hilariously, over-the-top violent, but when you strike several foes at once, all of the blood will cause a serious spike in the otherwise proficient frame rate, but it quickly goes away as the bodies hit the floor. The mediocrity of dismemberment by button mashing is broken up in a number of ways – a secondary attack can be used to break an enemy’s block, opening him up for an attack, or possibly stunning him, leaving him open for a wrestling move. These are pulled off by moving the Wiimote and Nunchuck in the directions indicated, but the motions are oftentimes complicated or simply don’t register. Thankfully, however, flailing about is enough to make Travis pull off a suplex. I can't believe that he's doing that in public! Things are also broken up by yelling out favorite deserts. With each kill, a roulette appears on the bottom of the screen, and, when three symbols match, Travis will shout out something like “STRAWBERRY ON THE SHORTCAKE!†and gain momentary superpowers, such as vastly increased speed, instant killing blows, a 1-shot ranged attack, and a number of other unfair advantages. Unfortunately, this means that completely random chance is a serious factor in gameplay, skewing all real strategy in favor of instant pwnage, and, sure enough, you’ll find yourself more often than not left with glowing hair only after you’ve killed everyone in the room. An interesting note is the variation between beam katanas and a ‘high’ or ‘low’ stance. By holding the Wiimote you, you strike a higher stance, and, by holding the Wiimote flat, you strike a lower stance. Each of these feature different combos, but, for the most part, the high stances feature fast but weak attacks, while the low stance sports stronger strikes at a lower rate. An even greater difference is that these movesets change depending on your current weapon – each beam katana features a different sort of moves, with one acting like an actual katana, with another acting like a Cloud Stife-esque blade. The change in attacks is a refreshing change of pace, and will actually make you change up how you attack to accommodate for the slower weapon, melee strikes, or awkward pauses between combo hits. All of this collimates in a final confrontation, the battle with the assassin ranked one spot higher than you. Each of these are phenomenal, amazing, unique and challenging, and are the true highlight of the game. One has you fighting an old woman and her cannon sporting a barrel about a half kilometer long, while another has you fighting a war trooper with her leg replaced with a rocket launcher, while another has you fighting a superhero wannabe; there are no two fights that are similar, and the personalities alone make each one so much fun. Everyone is so different, fights for their own reason, fights with their own style, and is fought with a steady grip and defensive stance. It is a proven fact of science that golden firearms are seventeen times as deadly than their normal, unfashionable murder device. An amazing addition to all of this is a truly amazing voice actor job – every voice is different and matches their character perfectly, from Shinobu’s stress of honor and pride to Destructoman’s over-excided use of “Destroy… THRUST!â€ÂÂ, each line is magnificent, at least from the ranked fights. There are a few sour performances, such as the Area 51 clerk, but these are completely overshadowed by everyone else’s great performances. The boss is felled, Travis climbs a rank, and the day starts anew – all in all, it is a bit repetitive, and the drone of completing the same Assassination Gig or side-job is annoying, but the promise of a new ranked boss fight really does make up for any doubts; I can’t say enough how great these are. But, now that we’ve tackled a legion of baddies, it may be time to take a detailed look at the rest of the game. The visuals of No More Heroes range in quality, leaning more on the “great†than the “bad.†The worst of the visuals is found in the largest part of the game, Santa Destroy. The entire town is riddled with bad textures, a short draw rate, some slow to update buildings, and a complete lack of the detail seen everywhere else. Free-roaming in a linear game such as this is bad, really bad – many of the alleyways are blocked off, preventing travel though them, hit detection is horrific, pedestrians are riddled with more problems than a meth addict, and travel though the entire thing is really just boring. Granted, going from point A to point B is never exciting, but the distinctive problems of Santa Destroy make it a little hard to bear sometimes. Riveting. The best of the visuals are found in the smallest of environments – Travis’ hotel room, the various shopping locations, and the arenas for the ranked fights are unique and quite detailed. Travis’ room in particular features a number of interesting details, such as the various anime models and the ever-growing collection of wrestling masks on his wall. As a whole, the visuals are fairly detailed and drawn in a unique, saturated, popping style that utilizes shadows on the models in playful ways, but some of the animations can be a little choppy at times and things, especially characters’ shadows, can be pixilated. Yet another one of the unique features of the game is the soundtrack. Many of the numbers you’ll hear are tastefully different, and most will be stuck in your head for a long while after playing the game. Notable work, however, has been placed into the voice acting department, as previously stated, as only two or so performances are bad, while the rest are popping with personality and flair. Overall, No More Heroes definitely succeeds at doing one thing - being different and doing it well. The plot, the characters, the visuals, the combat, all things that are unique to No More Heroes, all things that make this such a joy to play. Problems do exist, however; combat is really just button massing with the occasional wave of the hand, boss battles can be boiled down to simple counterattacks, the real world elements are extremely bad, and the entire game features a sort of redundancy that is noticed shortly after playing. Still though, it doesn’t really even matter how bad No More Heroes is or could have been – I’d say it’s worth it just to play something different and unique for a change, as well as a game for the hardcore gamer crowd that is brutally violent. Everything about the game is humorous, everything is different, everything is just so special that you can’t experience it anywhere else. HEADSHOT Presentation, 9/10: The menus are always easy to understand, and everything is presented in the game's great art direction, a sort of pixilated, 16-bit look that gives everything a nice charm. Graphics, 8/10: No More Heroes sports an interesting art style and a number of detailed environments and characters. However, the visuals take a turn for the worst in Santa Destroy, where the quality decreases immensely to keep up with the Wii's unfortunately poor technical performance. Sound, 9/10: Many of the sountracks are very well done, convey the current theme excellently, and are sure to get stuck in your head. Even more impressive is the wide array of voice talent collected, and the fact that all but two voices are fantastic. Gameplay, 8/10: While the general flow of things is truly redundant and simplistic, it is pulled off with an original flair that makes everything seem much more fun. From the simple side-jobs to your umpteenth decapitation, the gameplay is fun, plain and simple. Issues include most everything involving Santa Destroy, some motion recognition issues, and the overall repetitiveness (button mashing, countering, ect.) of all gameplay mechanics. Replay Value, 9/10: Things never get old, and you'll find yourself coming back for at least more more playthrough, if not more. Second games include additional collectables beyond what the first game had, and having a ranking for all assassination gigs and side-jobs means that you'll be playing for a while to come. Total Score, 43/50: Sure, No More Heroes has its flaws, but what game doesn't? This game is a blast, pure and simple, with a hilarious plot, interesting characters, and an experience that cannot be had anywhere else, No More Heroes rocks its flaws in a way that its unique to itself. Nothing ends your play session like a nice trip to the bathroom... "My spleen!" "If I become number one, will you do it with me?" “You’re the man! Eye of the tiger! He only looks tough because his mother was an ugly *****! Take it to the red zone! Assassin’s way at full throttle! Unleash your power! Show no mercy!†...my God, there are so many pictures that I wanted to put in this review, but all of the really funny ones are a little too mature...
Nice review, I just finished it last week & was totally rocked by it. Here are more quotes It's killing time. Playtime is over. You will pay with your life! At last, I have my chance. I will now avenge my father! Let the bloodshed begin. It's too terrible. It alone would jack up the age rating of this game even further. You're no assassin. You're just a perverted killing maniac.
