This cooperative review is brought to you by the letters Dmitri Salcedo, the numbers Anthony Swinnich and is made possible by gamers like you.
No More Heroes is a third-person action title with heavy emphasis on swordplay and backhanded industry commentary. Set in the fictional city of Santa Destroy, players are given the task of leading the game’s main character, Travis Touchdown, around town to seek out and kill those ranked on the United Assasin’s Association top 10 list. The ultimate goal is to reach the top. Travis must pay to access the matches, however, so he performs various side jobs to raise the necessary funds. These two styles of gameplay have created something of a rift in the title -- everyone seems to enjoy the clever writing and insane characters, especially the ranked killers, but most dread the side-job grind inbetween. The question is whether the side-jobs are irritating due to lazy development or if there is a method to the monotony.
Dmitri: The opening studio credit for Suda51’s most recent creation on the Wii, No More Heroes, flashes on screen for no more than a scant five seconds. The tiny text imprinted below the silly Grasshopper Manufacture logo sticks out like a sore thumb -- so much so that it’s weirdly obvious to anyone who sees the game start up: "PUNK IS NOT DEAD." It’s delivered in such a deadpan fashion that you can’t tell if it’s either meant to be assertive or sarcastic, like the Black Knight protesting that he’s not defeated yet. Since making the avant-garde Killer7, a quirky game far better than it had any right to be, Suda51 has been christened "gaming’s Tarentino" by many game critics. What exactly is the point he’s trying to make here and with NMH in general?
Anthony: Well, one of the main themes in a "punk" mindset is breaking the mold -- defying popular belief and overturning convention to create something unique and original. Killer7 attempted this but ended up collapsing under its own distorted gameplay elements and convoluted story. No More Heroes is certainly full of moments where traditional gaming elements are handled with the delicacy of Bruce Banner on a bad day, but it’s difficult to tell whether the elements of the game that falter are because of terrible game design or are intentional commentary on the industry. In some ways this is a credit to Grasshopper, actually, as good satire can be hard to spot. But the gamer should never be the butt of the joke, and this game makes gamers the ass-end of the stick all too often, with tedious side jobs and a pretty half-assed overworld map.
"The boss fights are the real meat of the game."
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Dmitri: That’s exactly what I felt as I played. I couldn’t tell if that tedium was intentional or not, but it didn’t matter because tedium was still tedium. The side jobs and overworld, while amusing at times, were by-and-large boring and felt like a rushed production. Crashing a motorcycle into a car just makes both vehicles stop in their tracks? If that’s a joke or a commentary or whatever, at least make it obvious to soothe the discomfort. Don’t get all Andy Kaufman on us. I really could have done without all the busywork and fluff. Wouldn’t the game have been much better as a Shadow of the Colossus style boss fight and story-only kind of thing?
Anthony: Shadow of the Colossus took so much flack when it was revealed there wouldn’t be any "grunt" enemies, but desolation did more to add to the atmosphere than damage it. Like Shadow, No More Heroes is about taking down bosses of mythic proportions; it’s just that Heroes feels like it contains enough bloat for both titles. Would Heroes have been about half the length without the side-jobs? No doubt. It also might have been more enjoyable. Mowing lawns, cleaning graffiti (wasn’t Super Mario Sunshine enough?) and mine-sweeping isn’t my idea of a good time, not when I could be exchanging blows with the insane enemies found on the United Assassins Association Top 10 list. However, it was getting to the ranked matches that kept me plugging my way through the swamp of part-time labor.
Dmitri: The boss fights are the real meat of the game. Their difficulty varies wildly, and the way to beat most of them boils down to "stick and move," but it still ends up exciting and engaging despite all the repetition. Maybe this has to do with how the lightsaber beam katana controls are tied to the Wiimote. Much of combat is simple button mashing with the motion controller just acting as a QTE finishing move device, but the physicality of it keeps you tied into the feel of the game. There’s kind of a Dynasty Warriors feel going on here. Sure it’s the same thing over and over, but if that’s such a bad thing then why do you still find yourself playing it hours later?
"... there is something special about the combat engine that compels you to continue."
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Anthony: The faceless enemies do feel like an army of clones at times, but there is something special about the combat engine that compels you to continue. Sure, you could jam the button repeatedly to defeat all the enemies, blocking all the while, or you could use each enemy as practice for the next big fight. Dodge that sword swipe... roll under that punch... all the tactics you don’t have to use are readily available when you need them (i.e. incredibly punishing boss battles) if you practice on the weak. The finishing move is one of the game’s shining contributions, in my opinion. We’re still waiting for 1-to-1 functionality in sword combat on the Wii, but slicing an enemy’s head off and watching a geyser of blood erupt from his neck is all the more satisfying when I make the slice with my own arm instead of the push of a button. This mentality isn’t limited to the finishing blow, though. You’re given the option to perform wrestling maneuvers if you can stun an enemy. Various suplexes and DDTs can be activated by lifting the remote and nunchuck as though you were throwing your opponent. Would the rest of the game have done better to add more Wii-centric control methods like these, or were traditional controls a better fit?
Dmitri: The rest of the game’s controls during stuff like walking and driving don’t really use the motion tracking much at all, but maybe the controller fidelity wasn’t there to do much more. It wouldn’t be the first time a Wii game had to scale things back due to the controller. On the other hand, I will say this is the first game that I have ever seen that fast-forwarded through itself. There’s all this funky, self-aware postmodern meta-humor, along with a collage of references to pop culture, movies and other games. The overblown boss dialog seems to be a hybrid Kojima homage/parody, and the main character Travis is an easy dig at the otaku loser-club culture. Sprinkle in parodies of the absurdity of grunt work and video games themselves, and you’re left with a shorter list of what this game isn’t making fun of.
Anthony: Even the game’s loading screens are a parody of other games. Most titles have sleek looking pictures or effects, but here comes No More Heroes like the punk kid in high-school with a giant blue mohawk and flannel patches on a striped jacket, only here it’s polka-dotted or wood-grain filters with jarring shades of purple, orange or blue. But that’s what this game is all about, in the end. The pieces of other games this one chews up and spits out stick together in a sometimes frustrating but overall incredibly compelling package that effectively lampoons video gaming as a whole. As a game, No More Heroes is flawed yet enjoyable, but as avant-garde commentary it’s divine.
