No More Heroes (2007)

No More Heroes is a stupid, over-the-top action game about a douche otaku assassin with a mail-order plasma katana whose main motivations are becoming the best at killing and getting laid by becoming the best at killing. You save by taking a shit, you mow down some lawn or pick up trash for money and you tore your opponents to absolute shreds. Oh, and you can also pet your own cat.

Yeah... This game is something else. Luckily, the game is aware of its stupidity and doubles down on it, which is its saving grace. Otherwise, a plot or script as dumb as this wouldn't really fly.

And as a game, this wouldn't fly if the boss battles and cutscenes weren't absolute hypefests. Between the boss fights, the game is purposefully a chore to play to underline the fact that you are just an idiot doing meaningless work to achieve meaningless victories. The odd jobs you take between the boss battles weren't too bad, and the game is quite short so you don't need to do them too long anyway.

I had fun. On to the sequel.

This has been sitting there for a while now and I think it's time for me to be honest with myself and just uninstall and never think about it again.

While the style has its charm and the boss battles can be entertaining, the endless hordes of samey combat and boring busywork in the open world really push me out of the game and made me not want to continue playing.

I think the most irritating thing is the sound design, which is incredibly shallow. Very short loops of the same music in every arena and the same exact screeching screams coming from every single enemy.

I know that I'm missing on some good stuff here, but it's so smothered by the annoying cruft that I don't feel it's worth it.

No More Heroes Review

Theres not much to this game really, its an okay beat em up but not much else. Stories about Travis Touchdown spending all his money on this girl at bar her names Slivia. He finds hes broke when he goes to a video store and now he needs a job. He joins this Assassination Association Silvia gets him in, Its a ranking of the top killers in the Association. Travis's goal is to become the number 1 ranked assassin by killing all the others and being the strongest...Oh and also because Silivia agreed to "Do It" with him if he becomes number 1 so some...added motivation.

Gameplay

The gameplay is pretty simple. Travis has a beam saber which is lightsaber pretty much. You can do high and low attacks and you can also stun and roll. Enemies that block high you have to use low attack, enemies that block low you have to use high attacks. If you use a stun movie than you can do a wrestling move and these are based on the enemies you fight, so he does different moves to certain ones, moves like Suplexes, German Suplexes, Belly To Belly, Tombstones, Jackhammers, Dragon Suplex and a bunch of others. During combat when you get the enemies health all the way down than you finish them off with like a QTE where Travis slashes them in half, if you line this up than Travis can slash multiple enemies in half at once. You also have a charged low and high attack, charge this up all the way and you instantly take out weaker enemies. Your lightsaber also runs out of energy as you use it, so you have to press a button and wiggle the right stick and it charges up.

Theres also a slot machine thing that happens in combat, its kind of like Final Fantasy Crisis Core, these slots go as you kill enemies and various combinations give you different abilities.Some are where Travis can slash very fast, one where its called Dark Mode where Travis walks and if you press the corresponding button Travis kills enemies instantly. Theres other ones where the finish moves appears every time, one where its like a shooting game where you get a reticle and if you hit an enemy they get slashed in half. The issue with the slots is they barely pop up, like i was getting stuff early on by late game i barely even seen anything at all.

Exploration

Honestly this games pretty straight forward. You start in your apartment and your broke and need money still because every Ranked Assassin mission you need money to pay a fee to enter. You go to this place and get jobs in a somewhat sandbox environment in town. Travis has a Motorcycle akin to AKIRA, to get around. These jobs are often fun little mini games like, hitting coconuts off a tree and and bringing them back (He has like a Solid Snake combo for this) One where you pick up trash off the street, One where you clean up graffiti and various others.

Than theres these other places like a video store, a training place to do mini games like Bench pressing, dumbells and Squats. These raise your Hp and Strength in combat. The Video store, you buy video tapes to get a bunch of wrestling moves, because if you don't know Suda is a wrestling fan. Hes done a story for Fire pro, he also attends wrestling events. Theres other assassination missions as well and these are more like side missions and there okay... But its another way to get money. Theres a place to get a new lightsaber or upgrade it as well.

When you have enough money you go to to ATM to pay the Assassination fee, than you go back to your apartment and get a cutscene usually with Silvia. The Assassination Ranked missions are the main missions and theres usually a boss in everyone. You fight a bunch of regular enemies before you get to the boss.

And thats pretty much it for the game its pretty straightforward once you reach number 1 the games ends i beat this in 11 hours.

Negatives

Taking the side missions is such a pain because they have these Metals you Bronze, Silver, Gold these are based on if you do stuff fast enough or kill every enemy. Theres some missions like this really dumb baseball one where you have to time to hit a ball and you only have 3 tries til it ends. To get a high score on this you have to time the hit to take out enemies, this isn't the issue...the issue is failing it you have to go alllll the way back accept the mission again than go alllll the way back to do the mission again... Theres no retries or anything so this was very annoying and i didn't bother doing it. Its very annoying having to keep going back accepting missions to do over. You also cannot accept more than one either.

The bosses while there good they often play out the same. You wait for an opening to hit them with some attacks eventually they block it off and you have to wait again, keep hitting them they will get stunned and you do a wrestling move to them. The combat needed some more to it than that i felt.

Final Thoughts

While an okay beat em up it needed more stuff to it. I didn't really find Travis as a character compelling really, he just wanted to be strongest and wanted to be number 1 also he wanted to have sex with Silvia... So okay i find that part compelling lmao. Silvia and the Assassins where the highlights of the game though. Silvia is like this german girl (i think shes german) and shes funny when your about to get to the bosses she always has stuff to say and its often funny like she says you always have a certain percentage to die it'll be like " i estimate you have a 100% chance to die" than she'll raise it " this time im certain that "1000 percent chance your gonna die in this fight". Than shes always doing random stuff like getting massages, dancing and stuff, so i liked her.

The gameplay got boring because like i said there is not much to it. What was really cool is the beam saber is a lightsaber but it don't play like one until you get the 3rd Weapon and thats when you pretty much fight like a jedi. I swear and i don't know if anyone caught this but This Beamsaber has an exact combo from Star Wars Episode 3 The Revenge of the Sith game. He has an Anakin combo when he throws the lightsaber up catches it spins it and does a stab and i played that Star Wars Episode 3 game i liked it and i remember that Anakin combo in it.  The game even has a bootleg Star Wars Episode 3 poster in it lol a long with Darth Vader looking enemies.

The Assasins themselves are pretty good characters as well but they obviously get killed off except for some. The Assassins vary from normal assassins to weird people like a cowboy who sings on a baseball field, To an army girl that lays these traps she was pretty cool than it goes to odd ones like a freaking old lady with a shopping cart with a gigantic cannon. They all have a funny aspect to them as well.its just the bosses just felt the same you do the same thing to them and stuff.

As for the story itself theres a reveal to it to give it some intrique but nothing more than that. They even tried giving Travis some backstory like him having a sister and a twin brother. A Twin who looks nothing like him but hes pretty cool lol. The sister who apparently killed there parents for some reason but its just to little to get engaged in it. His sister was cool to but.... Anyway im interested to see how No More Heroes 2 will be and what improvements its gonna have.

My score for No More Heroes is a 5

This feels like the end result of an acid trip involving Tarantino and Miike and they decided to make a video game afterwards. This is a kaleidoscopic fever dream of a petty narcissist who's just trying to get laid. It's one of the goriest games ever released on the WII, which does seem a bit odd given the primary target audience for the console. Like with Killer7, there isn't really substance here, but there are plenty of subversive and clever moments along the journey.

The combat is cathartic and colorful, though towards the end of the game it does feel repetitive. The plot isn't important, it's just there to give an excuse for killing a bunch of eccentric sadists. There's plenty of self-awareness, particularly with how the game ends between Mr. Touchdown and his lust interest, but there are elements in the game that feel sincere. An example of the later would be the prevalence of the Japanese School Girl imagery that is depraved and disgusting. I believe some things need to be shamed.

The game play loop involves mini-games, combat gauntlets and boss fights, with the later being the best part of the game. Each boss is eccentric and interesting usually including some gimmick to make them feel unique. There's a clever subversion of boss fights about 3/4s of the way through that I won't spoil. Between boss battles you are forced to grind out money for your entry fee. This involves re-playing the same mini-games/combat gauntlets over and over again until you have enough money to unlock the next boss battle. I honestly liked the mundane mini-games more than the combat gauntlets, mostly due to the absurdity of a ranked assassin mowing a lawn, but ended up doing the combat more because it made objectively more money. There is an open world, but it's vacuous. There are collectibles hidden around, but they are purely cosmetic.

The port on the PC was unstable for me. It crashed a ton, which resulted in me saving constantly to avoid wasted time. A few times I got close to earning enough money, only to have the game crash forcing me to start over...

Overall, this game is worth checking out for it's singular experience. It's a fun ride, but has a shoddy open world and is riddled with tedium.

This one was disappointing to return to. I loved this game when it was released. It was one of my first wii games, so motion controls were still a novelty, and jacking off to charge your sword amused me when I was 14 (alright, it still makes me smile). I was also very hungry for an open-world game, having missed out on GTA and its slew of imitators.

Replaying this on Switch I was initially reminded of why I liked it so much. The combat is fast and stylish, Travis is an idiot, and the Boss fights are memorable. Also, the motion controls translate to the right thumbstick surprisingly well, so it was easy to forgive the repetition, dull level design and even duller open world because I was having fun... until I wasn't.

As some point a flip switched and I realised that I really don't like this game. The actual levels seem to get shorter and shorter, while the open world stuff starts to drag. At first it's amusing having to suffer through the inanity of menial work between hyper-violent bloodbaths. It's a waste of time, but it's cute.

The admission prices to the levels get higher, so you'll spend more time bouncing between dumb mini-games and pointless combat encounters to raise the funds. And then you finally get to the level only to realise it just reuses a location you have already been, or takes place entirely on a bus, or is just a bad dumb schmup. But it's ok, because the bosses are still fun, right? But now the boss is just a cutscene, or one you just need to avoid its attacks before defeating them in another cutscene, and you realise that an hour for 10 minutes of fun that doesn't consistently occur is probably not a game that is worth your time. A boss rush mode would be worth your time, especially since the final two are pretty great, but it's not worth slogging through the rest.

Well, fuck. That's No More Heroes. Maybe they should have remastered MadWorld instead.

Note: The new one looks wild, so I'll still play through 2 and Travis Strikes Again. Maybe they'll be a good time now that my expectations are lower.

I played No More Heroes originally when it came out on the Wii, and remember it as a surprising and unique respite from the more kid-friendly offerings on that system. Suda51 took the technology that was available to him through this system, and pushed the Wii in ways that I don’t think any other developer did.

But despite how it attempts to be the mature answer to the Wii’s usual games, playing this about a decade and a half later, I can’t help but get caught up on his childish No More Heroes really is. I started to warm up to No More Heroes more once I realized the game was aware of how much of a loser Travis Touchdown is, yet at the same time, I can’t help but feel like the game wants us to think of him as “cool.” Even if the intention is to make the lead of this game this massive dork, the humor around the game is also extremely infantile, and doesn’t really work for me now as an adult. I get it, you’re jerking off the Wii remote. Very funny.

Also playing this game again now, I can see how this game’s innovations is more hinting at the possibilities of great evolution as opposed to actually pulling it off. Sure, you can play with a lightsaber, but instead of holding the Wii remote as an actual lightsaber, the player just hits the A button and hopes for the best. Yes, the open world is pretty rare for a Wii game, but the lack of things to do makes it more of a burden than a joy to explore. Suda51 clearly has some great ideas that he wants to experiment with, but he doesn’t have the technology or manpower to quite make them work effectively.

That being said, it’s still impressive what he is able to do with No More Heroes. I forgot how charming it is to receive a call in game, and have to listen to the conversation on the Wii remote’s speaker. And I really love the way he makes each individual boss fight into something new and interesting, even if too many of these fights rely on the same block-and-charge type of approach. Despite the limitations and the childish ambiance of the game, it’s clear Suda51 has great ideas that sort of push what the Wii console could’ve done, had there been more people like him trying to make games like this.

Even today, No More Heroes is still an impressive outlier to what we usually expect from this system. It’s bold and wild in ways that are unconventional, and I’m very curious to see what he does with the game’s several sequels. This is inventive in a way that I feel like I only see once every console generation, and I’m truly excited to see what else Suda51 has done with this franchise since.

I don't even know what to write about No More Heroes, but I'd like to say that I truly loved it. It might tread a thin line when it comes to its humor, but I can't deny that I had a smile on my face throughout the whole game.

I was bit apprehensive before playing this game. I knew it was a beloved game, but just I HATE gyro controls. Well, I'm happy to report that the controls work just fine. They might be clunky, at times, but they're fun as hell. The combat in this game is fast, aggressive, responsive, impactful and well done. I didn't mind hacking and slashing my way through thousands of repetitive enemies and somewhat bland environments simply due to how FUN it is to play No More Heroes.

The golden coin of the combat system goes for the bosses. I have a feeling that if this were a boss rush, it could've been an even better experience. Every boss is well designed, amazingly presented, unique, challenging and entertaining. It was a joy to figure out their patterns and quirks. Quite a special feeling.

The story can be very nonsensical, but, again, just pure FUN. It made me interested to see where it was going and how unpredictable it could get. Characters were colorful, eccentric and extremely creative. The writing is definitely shallow, but the visual spectacle and the comic book atmosphere you get makes up for it. I might be wrong, but the whole tale just had this Kill Bill vibe that sucked me into it. The humor was also a nice surprise.

My complaints with No More Heroes are all on the techinical side.

Framerate drops in games usually don't bother me, but they definitely did hurt me here. I know that they went for the Simpsons Hit & Run way of creating a semi-open world map, but I don't think it worked very well. Driving your motorcycle feels very clunky and the streets just aren't interesting enough. Most mini-games can be fun on the first time, but having to repeat them over and over in order to get money makes it tiresome. Were those things really necessary? Why not make it a more brief and concise game?

And why the hell are there only, like, 10 songs in this soundtrack??? And they're not even very good! As for the story and main battle mechanics: The combat is VERY fun, but not very polished and although I liked the story and appreciate it for not taking itself seriously, that real ending was awful.

Overall, No More Heroes might be the best experience I've had on the Wii, so far. Fun, fast, bloody and creative. I'm not sure how it plays on other platforms, but I can't recommend it enough, no matter where you taste it.