No More Heroes III (2021)

No More Heroes was fun. No More Heroes 2, then again, was pretty shit in my books. How the third one fares? Luckily, No More Heroes III is a lot more like it. It's once again an over-the-top action game about Travis Touchdown, a super powerful otaku assassin who seems to live to his fullest in epic life-or-death battles.

Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first. Whilst the first two games seemed to have reasonable production values for their time, No More Heroes III looks and feels like it was either made on a tight budget or pushed out too soon. There's big inaccessible parts in the map. The open world feels a bit of an afterthought again. There's audio bugs. There's the awesome old Unreal Engine jank of textures taking a second to load after the 3D models are already shown. The game is rough in many ways but luckily, it still is very playable and doesn't have anything that breaks the game or stops the fun. It's mostly a case of missed potential. No More Heroes III gets so close to being really good.

Also, while the writing and characters are heaps better than in NMH2, there's still tons of clumsy lines, weird cutscenes and plot points that never go anywhere. For a game that tries to create memorable cutscenes and unforgettable lines, this is unfortunate. Luckily, it's not too bad and there's good stuff in it as well. The biggest saving grace when comparing to NMH2 is that NMH3 succeeds in making likeable characters. Now even Travis' cat even has a bigger role (and a deep, smooth speaking voice to go with it)!

Then, for the good stuff. No More Heroes III is just an-all around fun game to play. The combat is fast, fun and fluid. It's also been tweaked a bit to include four skills with cooldowns and a better system for powering Travis up. The story is quite insane even for No More Heroes standards. The boss fights are once great and creative – as they should be. Many times the boss fights just make you laugh or impress you with some crazy twist of mechanics. Even the mini games aren't that bad this time around (even though they still aren't exactly good).

The game also just oozes style from gameplay to cutscenes, from graphics to music. The soundtrack is top notch again with a really varied selection of genres and styles that complement the really varied boss fights and their visuals. The main villains and the enemies in the game, some sort of planet conquering aliens, have really cool and colourful designs. Their art style is something I haven't really seen elsewhere. The UI either has a funky old PC UI inspired look or retro video game vibe pretty much everywhere and I really liked it. And you also got to love the extremely over the top KILL screen you get every time you finish the fight.

No More Heroes III has its shortcomings, but it's fun, it dares to be silly and it has soul. It's easy game to like. I hope No More Heroes III sold enough to greenlight a new entry in the series. Preferably with a slightly bigger budget to bring the whole experience up to strandards it deserves.

As for my journey with the NMH series, I still have Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes to try. I'll get to it once I can get a nice discount for it.

No More Heroes 3 is not the best looking or the most technically impressive game. It does not tell an incredible story or have the strongest gameplay. But it has way more heart, personality, style and charm than most games.

How do I even begin describing its style and vibe? No More Heroes 3 is a punk game. It’s anti mainstream and proudly does its own thing. It takes inspiration and shows love for a lot of pop culture things like anime, videogames, films, wrestling and music and at the same time it also parodies this stuff too. It is very self aware, fourth wall breaking and a bit cheeky and I love it. No More Heroes 3 has so many cool ideas in it like for example when it just stops to discuss Miike films. (Hopefully this gets more people into Miike films; I would recommend Gozu, 13 Assassins, Visitor Q, Ichi the Killer, Audition and the miniseries MPD Psycho). Of course there are problems with this approach the main ones being not all the ideas thrown in are excellent or work really well and you are also relying on your audience to just ‘get it’ and roll with it.

Visually No More Heroes 3 is a mixed bag. On one hand it’s really stylish and has some awesome character designs. On the other hand there are a lot quite simple and bland looking objects and locations. I am not a huge fan of the enemy designs and I think the bosses are a bit lacking too, especially when compared to the first two games. The game works well enough and loads quickly, I am definitely glad I waited and played the PS5 version. There was an issue at launch where the trophies were not working but they eventually fixed it. The game is not big budget and does lack some polish.

Gameplay is mostly pretty fun. The combat is solid and looks cool with a combination of sword, melee, dodge, wrestling, a combo counter, skills and slots activated specials. Travis, the main character, has a skill tree and things called Death Glove Chips that allow you to upgrade and personalise your play style as well. Exploration does start to drag and isn’t very rewarding and Travis’ bike isn’t as fun as it looks. There are things to collect and do in the world. There are seeds to plant, scorpions to catch, alien shells, T-shirts, doppelgangers, kittens, capsule toys and Deathman cards. It is a bit much and starts to feel like a chore. There are also defence missions and mini games. The defence missions are just fights and they get repetitive. The mini games are a laugh at first but quickly become repetitive too. This over the top action game can quickly grind to a halt if you do a lot of this at once. Luckily you are not forced to do too much of this but it’s there for the completionists or people that just want a little more. The main story parts and boss fights are great and the gimmicks mostly deliver.

When it comes to the story and characters it is generally a pretty good time. There is a lot here for returning fans but it is still possible for newcomers to jump in and follow along. It is about Travis returning home to face a new threat and that’s all I’ll say to avoid spoilers. Travis and the returning cast are great and the new villain is cool too. Things move along at good pace. Scenes are well directed and the voice actors nail the larger than life characters. It’s not perfect but I enjoyed the journey. The music is good too. Most of the new bosses are pretty forgettable though and as I said not every idea lands. I love No More Heroes 3’s style and humour but I know a lot of people won’t like it.

The problem with playing and reviewing Suda 51 games is they are subversive. A lot of this game’s ‘flaws’ could be deliberate choices. Like the tedious collectables, the ‘chore like mini games,’ the empty open world and bland looking locations. Lots of it could be Suda’s commentary on modern gaming; he is a mischievous creator that likes to take the piss. Some things are obvious and some not so much. It is up to the player to interpret it all and then decide if you like it and think it’s worth it because deliberately bad is still bad but also fun if that makes sense.

I enjoyed No More Heroes 3 enough to play though it more than once and even considered going for the platinum trophy for a while. The biggest issue with No More Heroes 3 is that after waiting this long and when you compare it to the first two games it is a bit disappointing. It just doesn’t hit as hard and is not as memorable as the first two. For No More Heroes veterans and Suda 51 fans it is still a must play. For everyone else I would recommend you play the other games first but if you really want to jump in here then go for it. No More Heroes 3 is nowhere near a perfect game but who cares it’s still cool as f**k.

7.6/10

I'm not going to lie. I was quite disappointed in this... Mostly because I don't like the format for this game. There's ZERO level designs in this game compared to the other 2. I don't think there was really levels. You drive to certain spots do those assassin mission until you get enough money and go to fight boss. When you enter the stage, you fight the boss, there's no level that you go through and that sucks. Why did they add the motorcycle bits? Who asked for that to come back?

I love the combat in the game, but that's it... Everything else was missing that NMH flavor to me. That ending boss though creative, sucks...

Don't play it. Unless you're a fan. (But you might get disappointed.)

I'm on holiday! And No More Heroes III is my holiday game this time.

Only played a bit so far (between looking after a sick toddler, driving, and an insane heat wave here in the UK) but I'm already remembering why I loved No More Heroes 1 and, despite all it's flaws, No More Heroes 2.

It's just so unashamedly over the top!

No More Heroes has been known for crazy stories, twists, violent action and geeky nods. No More Heroes III continues this with great combat, better world design, and the same confident craziness we've come to expect from Grasshopper.

The game continues the same hack-and-slash formula of its predecessors, with the assassin Travis Touchdown taking on either waves of enemies or ten ranked bosses. Travis moves around a handful of tightly designed open worlds and can use his motorcycle to move quickly or fast travel. There are a variety of side quests, featuring minigames for cash, finding special cards/cats/doppelgangers/you name it, and getting enough money to enter the next ranked match.

Travis has a single beam katana in this game, though he has up to four special Death Glove moves that are essential to managing enemies, some upgradeable special moves (fast combos, charges, special dodge bonuses) and a slot reel that gives a random bonus that can REALLY turn the tide of battle. Professional wrestling makes a return, and a few giant robot transformations too!

The story and characters are the real meat of the game though. Featuring more kills and twists than you can shake a katana at, this story of aliens coming to throw down with Travis at his most confident is the best that this series has to offer. Grudge-filled rematches, surprise genre changes, ambiguous motivations, and the thrill of the kill. While the game subverts expectations at every turn, the last boss battles do not disappoint.

Given that this is No More Heroes, it's not designed to be the most graphically advanced or expansive but it doesn't need to be. It's fun, it's confident, and creatively twisted after all this time. If this is the last this series gets, it goes out on a very high note.

No More Heroes 3 Review

The last of the No More Heroes series for now, Is it better than the other two...not really.

Story

In this ones theres all crazy insanity going on in this one stuff that just changes what the other two done.

This one starts with you seeing a boy and this Alien creature called FU he has befriended and takes care of. At the end he fixes FU's ship or they find a ship and he makes a promise that they will see each other again in 30 years as the alien launches off in the ship. Current day the boy is now grown and is in a company, and sure enough the time to meet his alien friend is near and it happens as promised FU has grown into a prince and he has brought 12 aliens with him and wants to take over the place. Destruction occurs and Travis hears the commotions of whats going on and sees his city getting destroyed. He sees a big alien ship and decides to fight but has some allies with him one being Shinobu and one being Charlotte who was an enemy in the 2nd one.  Outside the motel gets attacked and Travis,Shinobu and Charlotte all fight them off.

Travis has some new stuff how he got it i have no idea. He has a new thing called Henshin which is this thing on his wrist that gives him a powered suit much like a Kamen rider i think. He flies up to the ship and battles the aliens. Than more weird stuff happens because his cat Jeane can now talk. In the ship Travis battles an alien and defeats it and than uses his henshin suit to fight something in space. After Travis kills the aliens you see Sylvia again older in a business suit and shes tells Travis has made the rankings and that he can't leave, Travis still reluctant wondering what he gets for winning and Slyvia saids something but its censored out but Travis agrees immediately.

FU than issues a game of conquest and challenges humans to Galatic Superhero Rankings. If a human can beat the aliens they will leave the city if they can't than the city gets destroyed. FU awaits at number 1 and Travis has to go though 8 others to get to FU.

Exploration

The sandbox type city is back and its split into a few areas like 6 areas. The side missions this time are question marks so there marked but you still have to look around and find them. The side missions are mainly mini game stuff, Cleaning toilets to get save points. Lawn mowing mini games, trash collecting avoiding alligators, fending off Kaiju like Alligators, mine disarming and other stuff. There are also more stuff to collect, so missing cats to find, seeds to plant, aliens who give you shirts and enemy wave missions.

Also new is an upgrade system which is a new area in the model. You can do a number of things in the new place. One being making travis stronger through this arcade machine, which is run my Naomi who made Travis weapons in the first two... For some reason she is a tree in this game. You use this new type of currency called Word End Super Nova to level up stuff like, Travis's health, Travis's damage, The beam katana battery, new moves, and the death gloves charge.

There is also these destroy chips you can make giving Travis some stat buffs and abilities. You make these by getting these items from the side missions.

Gameplay

Its still the same pretty much. Travis can do a jump attack but no air combos or anything. For what its worth its probably the most smoothest combat compared to the other two. A new thing though are the death glove skills. Travis has this glove that give him 4 special attacks, these attacks are slowing down time, being able to do a drop kick, pushing an enemy back and using like this ball that shoots enemies. The wrestling moves are used when enemies are dazed in this one. The slots have less stuff but its fine, it has stuff like Mustang Mode which make him attack fast, Throw Crazy Mode which is infinite throws, Invincible mode and two mech suit modes, the 2nd which you get later in the game. As for the camera and stuff i had no problems.

Bosses All the bosses were good they switch some stuff and add some twist cause some bosses get killed off. One boss was like a galactic musical chairs champion so this was pretty funny. A school girl you fought in the 2nd one returns in this one it was probably my favorite boss and her and Travis had a rap battle so that was hilarious. Gold Joe was also hilarious. FU himself was good to

Negatives

This games longer which is a negative, i beat this in 22 hours and when i got to the last part i was freaking bored and tired of the game. The main issue with No More Heroes its the same throughout especially the 3rd one. The main missions are as followed, you need to earn to enter the battle, you go to a part of the map and do these designated missions and they give you these crystals. You need 3 crystals than you go to the atm and go to the boss and thats it the entire game.

This game being longer you get tired of the enemies especially on hard mode. I wanted a harder mode to force me to try and adapt but the enemies took so long to kill and they can kill you quick obviously. Theres like 8 enemies and my favorite goddamm thing in the world enemy color swaps....theres regular, theres purple, theres gold and theres white...So same enemies throughout the game and since its longer you get tired of them. They don't even do new attacks they just take fucking ages to kill and can kill you quicker.

The world itself while bigger and more to collect, things just feel thrown in there aint much thought to anything. The cats are just thrown around, the places you plant seeds are thrown around its just no thought to it at all. The death glove chips are pointless as well i felt like they didn't do anything when i crafted them

The cutscenes initially at start they were cool. You had this fight with Travis and FU and Shinobu and this was pretty awesome. You had some funny stuff with FU when he kills the president and than the cutscenes get freaking boring and feel the same. When your about to start the next rank fight, FU's in a throne and talks to the aliens about killing Travis, when you get the money for the atm, FU talks to the alien one final time before the Alien fights Travis. Than more repetitive scenes with like this Metal Gear Codex style one and Travis everytime a new main mission starts he talks about movies with Bishop....and thats it rinse and repeat whole game. Speaking of Bishop i thought he was dead in the 2nd one so that confused me.

Combat itself gets boring especially since this games 20+ hours longer. You get only two new attacks and thats it so combat is the same thing it does nothing to keep it fresh. They even removed the new weapons you get, so you got one weapon throughout the game.

You finally get like side characters Travis is with and they get wasted cause there gone for most of the game and are relegated to these really dumb dialogue things were travis talks to them about real life Japanese wrestling matches and anime, so another thing that sucks.

The locations in the world are boring as well i think the main place is the best the other locations are forgettable. Two being A deserted sandy wasteland place and another one being another place with sand but you can barely see cause the lighting in the place is awful.

Final Thoughts

After playing all 3 of these games, i have no idea why these games were popular. Its barebones theres nothing really good in the game except some comedy stuff from bosses. Travis is funny at times but a character who you really won't care about and his character don't make any sense half the time. He kills some of these assassins and then some he won't kill. Some kills you just wonder why if he sparred someone else.

The combat doesn't do anything to be fresh you get no new attacks or moves. The cutscenes and everything you do in the game is rinse and repeat over and over. This game might of benefitted if it was just story driven with none of this sandbox world and pointless side stuff. It should have been a linear game much like Suda's other games. No more Heroes is just a boring game.

Suda can make good stuff. He made Lollipop Chainsaw and that was a great game and the combat was fun, the story was fine and theres was a lot of stuff to do throughout the levels and even the hard modes added newer enemies. He also has Killer is Dead which i heard is good and i played a bit from someone.

For No More Heroes they need to do away with these ranking match stuff or find a way to make these better no more of those missions were you need money and doing pointless side stuff. I thought FU was good but the cutscenes with him were repetitive. So thats another thing they can improve on is the cutscenes.

There will be a 4th one eventually will i play it...most likely no unless its completely changed and is more like Suda's other linear games.

My score for No More Heroes 3 is a...since it was longer and i got tired of it quicker and its repetitions im gonna say a 3.

PROS

• Ridiculous plot keeps you anticipating the next chaotic story event
• Amusing script with numerous laugh-out-loud funny moments
• Incredibly stylish presentation
• Combat, for the most part, is responsive and satisfying
• Bitchin' tunes and sound design
• Ditches the awful levels of the previous entries for standalone enemy encounters

CONS

• Terrible graphics
• Garish and unappealing enemy designs
• Mechanically sloppy side missions are also flat out boring
• Incessant load screens ruin the pacing
• Some of the boss fights are pretty shit

To say that this game delivered would be an understatement. It's rare to see a developer go all out like Grasshopper did with this game. It's wild, hilarious, subversive, and really fun. At times, it feels like the best Adult Swim game ever made. Every piece of this game oozes with style, humor, and personality.

Combat has gotten much deeper this time. The combat system has carried over some elements from Travis strikes again giving Travis more attacks to combat a wider enemy variety than previous games. The original game was simple and satisfying. It never got old. This new system takes more thought and work to get good at it with enemies that are pushing you in different ways to keep the pressure down on me. The sound design is fantastic too. The crashing of the beam katana hitting an enemy and Travis doing a powerful dropkick feel so good. Also, the "KILL!" screen and music that plays when you defeat all enemies in a level is amazing.

The open world is technically nothing special based on modern standards. It also doesn't run well. There are clear framerate drops when travelling around. Luckily, none of the action happens in the open world, so it's not a big deal. What the open world has going for it is that I enjoy doing all the activities in it: returning minigames like lawnmowing, new minigames like the surprisingly fun takedown driving game where you smash into the cars of reckless drivers with your motorcycle to stop them, fun visual novel scenes similar to the ones in Travis Strikes Again, and silly collectibles. I spent a lot of time running around the world, and it didn't get old.

The music is all around fantastic. This is definitely the game to own the soundtrack to. There's a dope rap song that plays when you go to the sushi stand where you can buy health items and temporary buffs. When I first heard it, I had to stop and just groove to it.

There are so many things I don't want to even mention because it would ruin the surprise. This is a must play game, and my current game of the year.