No More Heroes (View comments)
Posted by: Travis Brantner
When the Nintendo Revolution was first announced, a lot of people figured it’d be in the vain of the Nintendo 64 and GameCube. A system with a lot of kiddy and family games, a few really stellar games, and then a ton of games that either sucked or fell through the cracks. People laughed and said that only fan boys would buy it. As the launch grew near, Nintendo changed the name to ‘Wii,’ emphasizing their goal to bring people together to play games as a group and to bring families together, something not really thought of. Not too long after, a lot of jokes came about involving the name and people just laughed. It was then that Nintendo revealed its secret weapon. The Wii’s control scheme.
At first, a lot of people missed the bigger picture. They felt that the Wii was going to be filled with point and click games. Some even criticized the wireless controls, yet applauded the PS3 for the same thing. However, as time went on, people got the bigger picture and began dreaming of the possibilities. Though most of which went unnoticed because party games took over the Wii with various mini-game collections or games for other systems ported with half-arsed motion controls.
Enter No More Heroes. One of the most original game ideas in the past decade with an off the wall sense of humor to match from Suda51.
Long story short, you play as Travis Touchdown, an otaku who’s down on his luck, training in pro-wrestling, and addicted to weird porno movies. Before the game starts off, Travis wins a beam katana on an internet auction (what else would a nerdy guy bid on?) and takes a job to kill a guy called Helter Skelter so he can make some money. Except after he kills the guy, he finds out that he’s been pulled into the UAA (United Assassins Association) at the rank of 11, and if he doesn’t kill his way to number one, he’s probably going to get killed by some other wannabe. Things aren’t exactly clear cut though, as Travis faces a world of confusion, romance, and the completely insane.
One of the first things to notice about NMH is the graphics. They’re not realistic at all. Instead, they’re in the style of Suda51’s previous game Killer7 and seem to opt for a comic or anime feel with cell shading. At first this can be a little daunting, but once you play the game, it works out really nice. In fact, given the over the top nature of the game, I couldn’t see any other style working out. There were instances though that I felt the graphics suffered, which were in the form of jagged edges in the open world setting. Considering that Resident Evil 4 had more realistic graphics and had more detail with little to no readily apparent jaggedness, I’d expect the same for a game with anime/cartoony graphics on a more stylized world.
Despite the graphical flaws and oddness, the gameplay knocks this game out of the park. To quote a cliché, the controls are simple to learn, hard to master. And I mean that. You press Z to lock on to enemies, A to attack, B to initiate a grapple, left or right on the D-pad to roll, left or right when locked on to slide around your enemy, and various onscreen directions to execute other moves such as wrestling, finishing, or weapons clashing moves. It sounds really simple, except quite a few times the game will throw a lot of guys at you at once. And just when you master killing them all without getting yourself killed, the game ups the ante by giving the enemies more powerful weapons.
One such stage makes you go through a level against a ton of enemies with guns while avoiding landmines. While it might sound easy, blocking gunfire depletes your katana’s energy (requiring you to hit the 1 button and shake the Wii-mote, resulting in a dirty looking motion on screen to recharge it) and renders you motionless. Other stages include having to go through a baseball stadium (with a baseball styled minigame thrown in occasionally), dodging laser blasts, and fighting your way through train cars. And if that’s not enough, each boss battle requires a different strategy or attack plan. While wrestling moves might work on one boss, another might counter them easily into moves of their own.
Despite the amazing feel of the game, there were some drawbacks. The open ended world you roam around in between jobs was emptier than one would expect in a post-GTA world. The jobs you have to undertake to earn money to advance towards your next ranking fight got old after awhile too. And sometimes, it’s just too damn hard. I can understand wanting to challenge gamers a little bit, but when you die 20 times in a stage, things are a little overboard. Not too mention there were a few times I had problems getting the motion controls to register for the wrestling moves.
All that aside, No More Heroes is probably one of the best games on the Wii right now. It’s challenging, has a great story (with some of the most memorable quotes from a video game yet), and will keep you interested in it for a long time. It’s also got some great replayability that isn’t seen in a lot of games today. And let’s face it. There’s just something satisfying about busting out a powerbomb or hurricanrana in the middle of a fight to the death.
Sound: 5
Graphics: 4
Gameplay: 4
Controls: 4
Story: 5
