No More Heroes Review

Big swords, hot girls. Get this game.

From the start of No More Heroes, and by that I mean the title, this game realizes what it is. It is a game that understands its identity. No More Heroes, through and through, does not try to be more than it is, it just tries to be itself. Which is something spectacular, especially since there are so many copycat games out there. A few things No More Heroes is not. It is not serious, it is not Grand Theft Auto, and it is definitely not for kids even though it bears resemblance to a comic book. It won’t take you long to realize these things because it’s not everyday you see a bathroom stall as a save point.
No More Heroes stars Travis Touchdown. His name says it all, he’s all about games. And his game involves trying to become the number one assassin in the world. When the game begins, you start off as number 11 and progress through the game by beating the next rank above you. In the opening scene, you hear Travis tell you what he’s all about, and says that if you are ready, press the A button. Immediately you feel a sense of, “Yess! Let’s go kick some butt!!”
From there you see that the graphics are more of a comic book style. The difference here is, when I think of comics, I think of lush colors, No More Heroes is very washed out and mute. This is not to say that the characters were not well done, they are well detailed for a game which doesn’t look like most of the ‘polished’ games we see today on the more powerful systems. I don’t know why No More Heroes decided to make their colors not as warm, but after a while I started not to care as much as I did when I first started playing it, because the game-play, and the game overall took my attention away from this aspect.
The controls are what really set this game apart from other Wii games. And other Wii games need to take note of this. Travis carries around a beam sword that fairly resembles something you might see in Star Wars. To the average Wii player, one would assume that if you want to slash right, you swing your Wii-mote to the right. This is not the case. Ubisoft makes it much easier. Just press A. The fun and most exhilarating part of the game comes into play when you do a finishing move. At the end of a combo, right when an enemy is about to be killed, an arrow shows up on the screen. It indicates whether the Wii-mote should be swung up, down, left , or right. So instead of swinging wildly until your opponent is dead, you get to finish them off with a satisfying kill, such as slicing the enemy in half, or decapitating them.
One of the faults of No More Heroes is how drawn out it can get. The game-play can get very dull since as an assassin, you have to make deposits to even get in ranked matches. To do this you must go do odd jobs as a “third-rater”, such as saving kittens, mowing lawns, sweeping for mines, garbage collecting, and filling up cars with gas, just to name a few. And in these “third-rater” jobs you use the motion controls effectively, but don’t overdo it. Upon completing these tasks, Travis is then able to go to K-Entertainment, that has other “shadier” jobs to do that pay quite a bit more than the “third-rater” jobs. These involve killing a CEO of a pizza company, killing so many enemies before you die, and, well, killing enemies. Completing these jobs will earn you large chunks of money to not only deposit in the ATM for the next ranked match, but to also buy upgrades for your beam sword, buy new beam swords, and get training from wrestling video tapes, a personal trainer who helps you with vitality, strength and beam sword combo, or buying new clothes.
Do not mistake this free-roaming ability to buy things for a Grand Theft Auto. It is not GTA by any means. Driving from place to place on your ridiculously huge motorcycle is boring, the music is always the same, and the people and cars don’t interact to anything you do. Yes I can run a person over, but it’s not nearly the same experience. The most fun thing to do was seeing how many palm trees in the median I could knock down in a row.

No More Heroes does have its strong points however. It’s the characters. First, Travis loves porn videos. Every time you win a ranked match you have two messages on your answering machine. The first is always from the video store reminding you to return a video, which is always a porn video, and the second is a person telling you what rank you have moved up to. The personality of the woman who is telling you to return the porn video is very amusing considering she is trying to be professional while saying something unprofessional such as, “Please return ‘Air Force One: The first lady rejoins the mile high club’.” Travis’ dialogue with the people he is about to fight, and with the woman that is employing him (who he is trying to get in bed if he becomes number one), is also hysterical. There were numerous times throughout the game where Travis seems to be a hard as nails assassin, but then will joke with the person he is about to fight. And they in turn will joke back. For example, one person that you must fight is a magician, and Travis actually goes to see the magician perform. The magician calls him up on stage to help him perform and Travis is dumbfounded that he, of all people would get chosen. His face resembled a child who realized they got an unlimited shopping spree at Toys R Us. The irony is that they are about to fight a gruesome battle with blood and guts, but Travis is just all too happy to be included in the magic show. By far my favorite line of the game is when a certain character named Sir Henry interferes with a match of Travis’ and Travis is pissed and says, “But Sir Henry Mother F***er ruined it!!” That’s just the kind of guy Travis is.
The supporting characters, specifically the ranked assassins you must kill, also have a distinct personality. The mood of the game is so easy going that until it is time to fight, you will forget that you are a murderer, and that you are fighting murderers, that’s how comedic it feels at times. But, at the same rate, some of these ranked matches are frustrating and really require that you be patient and study what the opponent is doing. You can’t just hack and slash in ranked matches and hope to be ok, you will die sooner than you think.
The sound of the game leaves more to be desired however. The script and performance of every major character was flawless in my eyes. But the sounds from other non-major characters, such as the enemies you have to kill, was far too repetitive. I can’t tell you how many times I heard, “Are you prepared?” before I was about to fight a goon, and after I killed them I heard, “My spleen!!” Which was funny the first couple of times because their spleen is the last thing they should worry about since I just chopped off their head. But after a while, it became so routine, I wondered why the same genius’ that came up with the script couldn’t do a better job of incorporating more variety into the speech of their minor characters. The speech of these enemies, coupled with the fact that before every cut-scene you hear the same sound from the guitar, gets old.
Don’t get the wrong idea here though, No More Heroes is a solid game. It is a fun game, and it is a game where you can easily connect with the characters since they come off as normal human beings. The characters are likeable, the story is funny and actually has twists that you wouldn’t expect, and most of all, No More Heroes does not try to be anything but No More Heroes. It doesn’t take itself too seriously by any means. Sure there are a couple Star Wars rip offs such as the beam sword and some of your enemies looking like they wear storm trooper helmets, but all in all this is a unique game, with just the right amount of motion controls that gives enough in cast, speech, game-play, and story to keep you wanting more.

Overall Score 8.7


Adridius