No More Heroes is the next game by Suda 51 after the critically acclaimed Killer 7. For this writer, ‘critically acclaimed’ doesn’t necessarily translate into ‘good game’. I had serious issues with Killer 7 with its awkward loading times (PS2 version played) and the fact that it was on-rails, so it was with some trepidation that I delved into No More Heroes.
I’m pleased to say that No More Heroes is a far superior game, but with my less than stellar opinion of Killer 7, that is not difficult to achieve. You play Travis Touchdown, who obtains a ‘beam katana’ (A lightsaber just different enough for no legal action) and become ranked as the 11th best assassin in the world. So naturally, you have to battle to become the best for seemingly the sole reason that you are on a promise with well endowed Sophia if you achieve this. Battling is achieved not by swing the Wii-mote, but by merely pressing A or B (with the Z button for lock on effects), the motion sensitivity coming into play with your stance and finishing the enemies off. The animations are varied enough to keep you entertained, changing whenever you upgrade your weapons, and some old-school pattern watching required for the actual bosses. It works very well, and the bosses are all varied and interesting, making you want to watch the cut-scenes as opposed to just skipping them.
Of course, just 10 battles wouldn’t make much of a game would it? Each battle requires an increasing entry fee, for which you need to complete casual jobs and assassination missions to earn the cash. This is where the game loses a lot of its steam. On their own, the jobs and missions are fine. And would be a distraction and complement the battles nicely, but you are forced to travel around a city GTA style to perform the tasks. And they are very rarely close together. You have to drive your motorbike, which looks cool, has a cool wheelie move, but handles badly and seems rather slow to a Job Centre, then to the Job, perform the task, get assassination mission etc etc. It feels tacked on, and it seems pretty pointless to give the illusion of sandbox gaming when there is NOTHING, other than essential to progression missions to do in the city. This could have been better implemented with a simple map/location selection screen. Like Shadow of the Colossus before it, this feels like an attempt to add a few hours to the games’ lifespan with pointless travelling. The jobs themselves are not taxing, and it is easy enough to get a gold ranking (for which there seems to be no real reward) on your first attempt, and it makes sense that the mini-games are rather dull, to differentiate between the usual 9-5, for the much more exciting role of being an assassin. The assassination missions are much more fun, offering more of what any person would have bought the game for.
Suda 51 has been over-hyped. There I said it. It is clear that he is a great fan of gaming, and that comes across well in his work, but his plots make no real coherent sense, and more to the point seem aware of this. As a recent graduate, I know that being aware of your inattention to detail and lack of structure is no excuse for not actually putting the effort in, hell I’ve done it. Pretending mistakes are ‘intentional’ rather than fixing them is just laziness, and that is what this game ultimately feels like. A mish-mash of terrific ideas implemented either competently or badly, with the over-riding sense that if you don’t like that you somehow ‘aren’t cool’. It is mad, looks cool at times, but overall, this game won’t change your life and will inevitably be overshadowed by games with much better presentation overall.
Overall 7/10. Worth playing, but be ready to trade in quickly.
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