No More Heroes

"Almost crippled by its own ambitions, but still probably the best slasher for the Wii."

For those that don't know, Goichi Suda, AKA Suda51, has made a name for himself and his company, Grasshopper Studios, by producing some of the most outlandish, out-of-this-world titles that draw you in using sheer mind-bending visuals and concepts that make you say, 'What the hell is this? That's crazy!'

Once again, Mr. Suda has entered the videogame fray with No More Heroes, practically the conceptual opposite to Killer7, as it ditches the on-rails gameplay and goes for a sandbox title that can be best described as a mix between The Legend of Zelda and Grand Theft Auto among other loosely comparable titles such as Metal Gear Solid and Shadow of the Colossus.

You're now probably wondering how it's possible that No More Heroes can be compared to all of the aforementioned listed titles, especially since some of them have gotten tons of praise from the media and gaming community alike, whereas this installment has the tendency to raise more brows than scores. As the title states, these are ambitions, and even though that some of them are met, others were hardly a focus, and if I were less lenient, the game probably would've broken its very own foundations.

Story: 7/10

You play as Travis Touchdown, a perverted Otaku junkie who wins a lightsaber, AKA beam katana, in an online auction and uses it to kill someone who turns out to be a ranked assassin. Travis takes his place as #11 in rank and becomes obligated to kill off the rest of the ten ranked assassins in order to become number 1.

The story itself is incredibly basic and straightforward, and if it weren't for the crazy professionalism placed in the motion capture cutscenes that riddle the title, I probably would've given it more flack.

Fact of the matter is that No More Heroes has incredibly well done, well-choreographed cutscenes that nearly rival Metal Gear Solid in cinematics. Just for the record, I'm complimenting the choreography, not the story. Everything flows so naturally and the camera shots capture everything that it ought to.

To restate everything, the story itself is incredibly basic, and even though there are a few twists and turns here and there, the true benchmark of the game lies in the mind-crushingly well done cinematography that pulls you in and makes you want to keep playing through the game.

This is why I consider No More Heroes, to a certain extent, a small inspiration towards Shadow of the Colossus. Every time you find yourself before a boss, you are graced with a cutscene that is just so well choreographed, so well spoken, that by the time you gain control and dive headfirst into the fight, you are all sized up and ready for anything.

As soon as the battle ends, you are graced once more by yet another well choreographed cutscene that gives everything a fresh feeling of closure, and after all that, you're ready to find the next boss, which is exactly the same feeling that Shadow of the Colossus gave me, and that's a huge point that I have to give to No More Heroes.

Gameplay: 9/10

Despite what other things I'm going to say against No More Heroes, its combat system probably stands out as the biggest achievement the game has to offer.

Being a fellow Wii owner, I'm fully aware of the constant negativity that is directed towards the console, both believable and outlandish, the latter consisting of 'constantly swinging your arms around like an idiot.' Suda51 proves that you can deliver a combination of button mashing and motion controls to produce a fresh, original combat system that I hope more game developers try to implement.

Really, that's all there is to No More Heroes. The main premise to the hack 'n slash gameplay revolves around hitting the A button and B trigger, resulting in fast paced swording swinging and kicking and grabbing, respectively.

Upon delivering so much damage to a particular enemy, you're given the prompt to deliver a motion or series of motions in order to deliver a coup de grace on your opponent. Just the feeling of performing a simple motion and watching your opponent suffer a powerful finishing blow just feels good, and really, that's how controls on all Wii games should be done.

Outside of No More Heroes' hack 'n slash gameplay is a variety of different mechanics in order for you to play through the game, and they consist of hit and missed elements that will either make you love or hate the game.

On the one hand, you're given a large, Grand Theft Auto-esque world in order to get from one important location to the next. If I had to compare its size, it's about half as big as Vice City, so it will take you about five minutes to get from one end to the other.

However, unlike all Grand Theft Auto games, No More Heroes isn't that lively. There are very few cars and people, and they just don't function the way they ought to. Cars don't suffer damage, you can only ride your motorcycle that you can call via cell phone, people can't die, there are no police officers, paramedics, or firemen. Just about anything you do doesn't really create a scene.

Essentially, No More Heroes' world is a giant hub that allows you to get from one location to the next. Don't expect to be able to just kill time.

Also, anybody that has played Grand Theft Auto knows about the side games you can play to earn cash, such as being a vigilante, a paramedic, fireman, and the like. No More Heroes does something like this as well, but it's all mandatory this time. In order to unlock missions to earn cash, you have to do part time jobs that require you to spend at most three minutes of doing rather silly chores that range from mowing lawns to filling cars with gas to cleaning graffiti to purging a beach full of land mines. Seriously.

Again, part time jobs have to be done in order to unlock the assassination missions that let you earn more money. Depending on how well you do the part time job, you will either unlock a few to no missions that actually require dicing up enemies. If you were hoping for a straight up slasher game, you will either have to endure a few minutes of completely different games or just find a different game altogether.

Out of everything, the boss fights are the meat and potatoes to the game. They have everything from powerful, well-implemented cutscenes to bizarre, over-the-top fighting mechanics that will wrap up with you wanting to fight the next guy (or gal). Granted, you do fight them much like you do standard cronies, but their varied fighting styles will give you something else to look out for, in a matter of speaking.

Overall, however, No More Heroes boasts some of the best controls I've seen on the Wii. Button actions and movements are very responsive, and not once have I cursed the motion controls for not picking up a movement, and I have tested the game to make sure that they pick up only the direction specified on the screen.

However, as much as I'd like to give its gameplay a perfect score, there are just some mechanics that need to be addressed, since I have to take everyone's opinion into account and understand that not everyone will enjoy the variety that is offered. Some things are best left out.

Graphics: 7/10

To get it out of the way, No More Heroes does have a ton of artistic merit. It's a mix between mature anime-styled graphics to comic book noir that is, at times, very appealing to the eye.

Unfortunately, that doesn't go very far.

For one thing, the frame rate is all over the place. You'll be fighting at one point in 60 frames per second, enter a more detailed area and fight in 30 frames per second, and then travel the hub world which is moderately less than that. Thankfully, the game never reaches levels where the game is unplayable; it's just that since it changes so often, you'll begin to wonder what could have been.

Also, certain objects are incredibly blocky. I've noticed this as I pass buildings in the hub world and they just simply look like building blocks tossed onto the map.

I should also mention that there is a severe case of draw in. For those that don't know, draw in is a developer mechanic that can be best described as 'Yeah, we know that there is pop-up here and there, so the least we can do is have it fade in,' and that's what happens. As you drive down city streets, trees will magically appear as you draw closer, and building textures will become clear once you get right next to them. Again, these things don't 'pop up,' so it's not as annoying, but still is by a small margin.

Once again, Suda51 proves that you can take cel-shading to create a title that is obviously a mature title the minute you look at it, which his company has done previously with Killer7, and even though the overall technical output is much greater compared to that game, there are still some problems.

For the one part, the cel-shading is noir-inspired. With that said, shadows are done in a hyper-realistic sense, making things that would normally just be shaded darker become pitch black. This works in some cases, mostly on characters, but again, not so much for the hub world. Remember in old games how you'd see that jagged line that turned out to be a break between two solid objects? Well, you'll often think that you've encountered one of those in No More Heroes, only to find out that its a shadow connected to the gray sidewalk. I believe this issue could've been resolved if some anti-aliasing was worked in.

Now for something different altogether... I have yet to actually figure what this is about, but every time, right before you enter a boss fight, Travis pulls out a cell phone. From here, you still have control over his body and can wander around a map, but... that's all that happens. He doesn't talk, you can't hear what's coming from the cell phone, nothing. After a couple minutes of nothing, he puts the phone away and you can finally enter the fight. I just have to say, that had better not be a loading time, because I really don't know why it would take so long to load one character model and a series of voice clips.

That sure is a ton of flack against the title, but I still do have some praise for it.

On the one hand, the game's loading times are really good. I think the longest loading time I've encountered was about seven seconds, and that's for the opening of the game, whereas you can take another three or so seconds to enter the hub world of No More Heroes and drive from one end of the map to the other with zero loading times. Entering buildings still takes about three to five seconds, though, which isn't that bad at all.

Also, the character models look surprisingly good for an open-world game compared to Grand Theft Auto. As we all know, the Grand Theft Auto characters were so low on polygon counts that there hands didn't even have opposing fingers and their faces barely flexed at all. You'll be surprised when you enter a cutscene to see characters giving moderately recognizable facial expressions and hand gestures.

Overall, No More Heroes is a bit of a mixed bag when it comes to graphics and technical muscle. However, I do know for a fact that Grasshopper Studios is a small company, so I wonder what Suda51 could've dished out had he had a bigger team to work with.

Sound: 8/10

The voice acting is top-notch. The dialogue itself is incredibly quirky and sometimes hilarious, but the voice actors for each and every character must have had some experience prior to this project.

Here's where I have to point out something for all of you Metal Gear lovers out there: Travis Touchdown has the same voice actor that does the sentries for the Metal Gear games, Death Metal was done by the same man that did The End in Metal Gear Solid 3, and Destroyman was done by the same guy that did young Ocelot. There are more Metal Gear Solid voice actors that have taken part in No More Heroes, but, unfortunately, my memory can't remember which has done who.

However, again, each person has done an incredible job at pushing the insane, over-the-top atmosphere of No More Heroes, and not once will you wish that they have recast a certain part.

(Note: for anyone whose only experience of No More Heroes is the original teaser, keep in mind that none of those voice actors are in the final game)

The game does offer a variety of music, ranging from calm, melodious menu-esque music to quiet metal. Each song matches the scenario perfectly, but I can't exactly say that the music is great.

However, the only good song I have to point out is the song played in Dr. Naomi's lab... I don't know why, but I love that music. Unfortunately, I'm not a knowledgeable music person, so I can't say what genre that one is in particular, but all I know is that it's really calm and serene, and I like listening to it. It's probably my favorite, but it's hard to say because I can't particularly remember any of the other songs since they consist of metronomic beats and rhythms.

Overall: 7.25/10

So let's get a few things straight:

No More Heroes is a collaboration of different gaming ideas. On the one hand, you have a straight up slasher that serves as the core gameplay and is quite well done, but then you also have the Grand Theft Auto open world/mission gameplay, which may or may not have any merit in it.

For everyone, this is a definite rental. I got it on day one and love it, but can truly understand the flaws in the game that might not make it enjoyable for everyone. At the very least, rent it, get a sense of what it's about, find out if you want it or not.

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 01/30/08

Game Release: No More Heroes (US, 01/22/08)