Suda-51 have made some fantastic games in the past, hopefully some of you will remember Killer 7 which was one of my favourite games of 2005. No More Heroes is a game dripping with dark humour while maintaining the same high levels of art design, so it is sure to appeal to fans of the previous title. However, many of you who didn't like Killer 7 for the plodding and repetitive action should find No More Heroes a more appealing game experience as it features some marvellous fight scripting with an insanely high level of gore. No More Heroes is a game experience quite unlike any I have enjoyed before, especially considering the platform is the "family friendly" Wii.
You take control of Travis Touchdown, a guy who collects action figures and cards, as well as a unhealthy stash of porn. He lives in Santa Destroy, a metropolis of California and somehow you get caught up in a real life assassination leaderboard and armed with your "beam katana" (a total copy of a star wars lightsaber) you start a manhunt through the 12 killers in a quest to become the top guy. This brief game overview really doesn't do the game a justice however as the whole incredulous game premise is soaked into every facet of the game, in turn creating a truly original game.
The game characterisation is particularly strong, we have the sexy and rather slutty Sylvia who taunts and teases Travis throughout the game and you can just feel his frustration when she appears on screen. Without ruining too much of the story, the boss characters are hilarious.... when you see one of them singing horrific karaoke style music in a baseball field while attacking you with a prosthetic leg you know you are playing something incredibly warped and devoid of good taste on every level possible. Travis even earns a bit of money on the side by working in a local service station!
It is however the combat system that thankfully takes centre stage in No More Heroes, it is utterly over the top and is the foundation of why this game kicks ass. Armed with your aforementioned Katana, (which you can improve if you earn enough money) you enter the fray of battle and take on hordes of mercenaries within every mission. Those of you who have watched the video in this review might already be thinking that controlling the Katana will involve huge physical exertion with the Wii remote, however combat is extremely simple. Pressing the A button means you swing the weapon and you can perform hand to hand moves using the B button. The only time you swing the Wii remote is to perform the end moves, however as every person you fight will require such a move, you end up with a good variety of combat controls which don't prove taxing or hard to learn. The end moves deserve special mention and they are great fun to watch and perform, sometimes you might just flick the remote up or to the side and others you might use the remote and the nunchuk for one of the many wrestling style moves. They are all comical and surprisingly even after playing a considerable portion of the game they don't feel repetitive.
No More Heroes is not for young kids, it is brutal, gory and frequently looks like the back end of a butchers shop on screen. When you hack or slash an enemy, you are presented with fountains of blood, especially if you manage to dispose of more than one foe at a time. Every time you kill an enemy you earn coinage which in turn goes into your stockpile to earn better weapons. While the cell shading is cartoonish and very stylish, the violence is still very much evident, and this is why I love the game so much, yeah i'm a sick puppy. When you split an enemy in two the game goes into slow motion, a ring of stars hovers over the guys head (to the sound of birds chirping) and a small slot machine spins at the bottom of the screen once you perform the finishing move. If you manage to get a triple match you activate one of your darkside powers. These are varied and my particular favourite is when the screen goes gray and a single button press allows you to attack each foe individually with a very impressive and effective weapon thrust. These are temporary power ups and really are some of the most impressive fight scenes I have seen in a game.
Instead of the usual hack and slash, combat in No More Heroes is rather subtle, when you lock onto an enemy you can block their attacks (even bullet fire) and use the control pad to sidestep and dodge. You even take a low or high stance depending on how you hold the remote and frequently to even attack some enemies they will need to be stunned with a kick. To mix things up, the developers, obviously with a sense of humour have decided that some enemies will need to be killed by more creative means. An example? well without ruining too much of the game, baseball players pitch baseballs to attack and the way to defeat them involves you timing the return strike to bat through an entire row of them!
Your katana is not ever lasting however and you need to pay attention to its electric charge. You can find power ups which fully recharge the weapon although you can charge it up again by holding the 1 button and shaking the remote vehemently up and down, which while making you look extremely demented at home, makes Travis look like he is masturbating onscreen. Oh dear, am I allowed to say that? Apologies if I have offended any parents or grandmothers reading this review. There are also plenty of health chests scattered around to aid you on your way, however the game is really quite easy, so I only ever really availed of these during some of the harder boss battles.
Ah the boss battles, the real meat of this game and some of the best I have ever experienced. It is quite apparent that the developers spent some considerable time in a drug or alcohol induced state when they scripted these because they really are so out of wack it is hard to even write about them without sounding like a raving madman. Holly Summers launches missiles at you from her fake prosthetic leg (ekk), and a stage magician attempts to lock you up in his disappearing act box. I think it would be fair to say that this game couldn't really get much weirder!
In the rare moments of fight downtime, you can drive around Santa Destroy on your pimped up motorcycle in a free roam Grand Theft Auto style. Clean the drool from your keyboard however, the similarities are very few as the city is just the means to get to the next place of combat. I can't help but feel this was added more as an afterthought rather than an integral part of the original design process. You can however drive around the city and buy clothes, although in doing so you are taking cash away from your weapon upgrades, so unless you really want a new pair of jeans or a black leather jacket it is a wasted adventure. There is also access to the gym from the city map, and your trainer Thunder Ryu will help you get a stronger body as well as giving you access to some mini games. Ryu seems to prefer you to train naked however, perhaps in some vague attempt to get you to be his bitch. You can purchase new katanas and upgrades from Doctor Naomi as well and videotapes that teach you new wrestling moves as well as others adding to your lucrative porn collection. When you are finished you can return to your home, stroke or kick your cat and save the game, which you do by graphically sitting on the toilet, in your underwear. Let's say no more on that.
The missions are mega fun and once you complete a single mission and defeat the boss, you unlock two more. You can revisit any mission you have completed as many times as you want although many of them are similar. This is the one failing of the game, the design structure. Many of the missions have the same enemies. The developers get around this somewhat by putting mission stipulations into play, meaning you may have to beat a specific mission without taking a single hit and others might require only wrestling moves to finish. If this wasn't enough, to access many missions you need to take a side job, and these, just like the rest of the game are utterly bizarre. Hunting a beach for hidden mines, cleaning walls and delivering coconuts are just some of the tasks you have at hand.
The graphics in No More Heroes are excellent, even with the Wii's 480p limitation, the colours are rich and well saturated and the manga cell shaded design gives a crisp feel to the overall experience. The textures are clean and the anime animations add a lot of weight to the feeling of being in an Akira style movie. Unfortunately it is not all peaches and cream as the Wii has some frame rate issues, most noticeable in the city scape or when the screen becomes cluttered with blood and decapitated bodies. This is disappointing as this game relies primarily on its graphics style rather than a ton of shader effects, I can only put the blame on the coding rather than the console, as I have seen more taxing games running well on the Wii. Rough edges also include the mini map which looks like it has been lifted directly from a Commodore 64 in full 8 bit glory.
The sound track is top drawer, the choice of music perfectly ties in with the surreal off-beat game design and this is complimented by the array of high quality combat sound effects. When you remove a guys limb it sounds realistic as he lets out a painful tortured scream while the blood splurts everywhere. The Wii remote makes use of the speaker with Star War's lightsaber hums galore as well as cell phone rings when Travis gets a call. Voice acting is also noteworthy with none of the embarrassing stuttering or pauses associated with lower grade actors, even Sylvia's delicious French accent is captured perfectly. No wonder Travis has the hots for her.
Value for money is acceptable, it took me around 14 hours to complete the game, although I wasn't rushing as I quite honestly didn't want the game to end. I passed the game onto my brother who has no patience whatsoever, and he completed it in around 10 hours summarising his experience with "yeah, not bad man" before handing me the remote. If you knew my hippy, lazy ass brother, then those four words are already praise enough, the fact he stayed awake for 10 hours is also monumental.
No More Heroes, is a gaming experience quite unlike any other I can remember, the combat is addictive, bloodthirsty and most importantly, incredibly fun. SUDA-51 have released a game which will go down in history as one of the most bizarre titles ever, however to simply dismiss the game as merely weird, is an injustice. If you have a Wii then you need to get out to the store now, and buy this.
