Which brings us to indie developer Goichi Suda’s latest opus, a rare example of a game that merits discussion in all three debates. The follow up to his stylish and ambitious but complicated and obtuse Killer 7, the overt violence in No More Heroes can be directly compared to Quentin Tarantino’s use of it for cultural comment, be it parody, morality or simple impact. Does this mean works with direct comparisons in other media are what is needed to make the points that need to be made? Perhaps. It's an interesting, even important game, and while it has clear 'faults', most of them are either deliberate or a result of a it being a semi-indie production. Unfortunately, the PAL version has also been subjected to a particularly meaningless form of censorship.
Stylishly kill thousands of cloned thugs!
Unlike Killer 7 and most of Suda's previous work (which has primarily been in the adventure field), No More Heroes fits squarely in the action genre, and along with this comes a lighter tone and subject matter. It stars Travis Touchdown, a professional assassin and an Otaku (Japanese culture nerd) drawn into the world of ranked assassinations by the mysterious Sylvia, and he must defeat ten weird personalities in his quest to be number one. While most of the game is spent engaging in a bit of the old ultraviolence with Travis' lightsabre-like 'Beam Katana', you must also move around the city of Santa Destroy doing small jobs to earn enough cash to enter the ranked battles. While at first the game seems to be going for the GTA open city thing, in the end the city works more like a hub-world, simply a slightly cumbersome user interface for selecting the main sections, mostly melee combat action scenes.
On the surface, No More Heroes is a mixed bag at best. Compared to the seven figure budgets of many games this era, it has been made on a relative shoestring, with the technology to match. While some of the cut-scenes are quite impressive, most of the game in technically unimpressive, the overworld in particular looking like a middleware-driven budget PS2 game. The engine looks like it has been appropriated from the one used to drive Killer 7 on the GameCube, as the cut-scenes look very similar, just with more detail and textures, but in a free roaming action game it is pushed to its limits and manages to look pretty drab and run poorly. Luckily the effects in battle are quite good, and the game is packed with little touches that make it visually appealing in an entirely different way from basic graphics technology.
The menial tasks technically only have to be done once
On the other hand, despite their obviously limited resources, Grasshopper seem to have understood how to create an action game on the Wii better then almost any other third party developer. Essentially a button mashing slash-em-up, the Wii remote has been integrated in useful and creative ways to freshen the formula, and it remains entertaining from a gameplay perspective throughout the single player game and beyond. Regular attacks and grab moves are still assigned to buttons with the Wii Remote used only as something of an aiming device, allowing you to select high and low attacks by tilting. Motion controls come in with ‘finishing moves’ which allow you to slash or grapple by following on screen commands, creating a very satisfying system. It's Dynasty Warriors meets Wii Sports, and it works.
So it looks mediocre, and plays well. But ultimately neither graphics or gameplay really seem to be the point of No More Heroes. While it can't be said that no games have ever had something to say, stories and dialogues in games are usually just there to serve the core gameplay. No More Heroes appears to exist for its ideas, with everything else built to serve that. In many ways its a fiercely original game, in that all aspects of its design are utilised to challenge the player's perceptions, including gameplay.
Most of the social commentary deals with the videogame medium, both of the games themselves and those that play them. It constantly breaks any semblance of an in-game reality it might create, with ‘old school’ floating icons, a general retro-game aesthetic, and even mini-games designed specifically to remind you how menial gameplay can be at times. As an ultra-violent and rebellious killer, Travis is sort of what games nerds may wish they were, yet Suda has 'accidentally' left plenty of the raw nerd immaturity intact. While he’s a lighsabre wielding assassin, Travis won his weapon on eBay, and he collects game and anime related action figures which litter his in-game apartment. The main in-game collectibles are a series of trading cards, and when picked up Travis mutters ‘yessss!’ in his best manchild voice.
The commentary goes further though, and Suda even goes so far as to insult the player. Probably the most blatant example is the mastabatory motion required to re-charge the beam katana and the accompanying animation displayed. Travis’ drive to be number one is at least partially presented as him chasing a chance to ‘do it’ with Sylvia, and includes a couple of examples of attempted sexual assault. It goes so far that it may actually make certain players uncomfortable if any of the jokes hit too close to home, but Suda obviously hopes gamers savvy enough to buy his games are self-reflective enough to handle being the butt of the joke.
But while the whole thing is like one big joke, Suda manages to have his cake as well, and in many ways No More Heroes is also a celebration of videogames, and those that play them. Clichés are both laughed at and lovingly re-created, and somehow meaning is created amidst the deliberate meaninglessness.
A joke at the expense of male gamers and their joysticks?
A sad aside is that the PAL version has been modified from what was clearly the original vision, and it's a change that harms both the core concept of the game by removing some impact, ruins the framing of certain cutscenes, and even creates some confusion at a cople of points. It's also shockingly inconsistent as far as censorship goes. In our preview we didn't think the censorship was too big a deal, and for most of the game this is the case, as the colour regular enemies explode in is much of a muchness, but having played the full game we have turned 180 degrees on the issue.
In most cases the over the top blood sprays of the US version have been removed and replaced by an 'exploding black particle' effect. When fighting regular enemies this doesn't matter too much as they at least explode satisfyingly, although it seems clear the drab look of the game would be livened up in places were the claret intact. However, the often extended death sequences after ranked matches have been ruined, as what are supposed to be messy ends for the colourful ranked assasins end up as overly-clean anti-climaxes. One scene in particular doesn't even make sense with the blood removed. Bizarrely, there is still blood in the game at points as it has only been removed at the engine level, and all the rest of the violence, swearing and sex remain completely intact. It's not a complete deal breaker, and you can check out the real cutscenes on Youtube, but it was an extremely poor decision by the game's European distributor. [NOTE: the Australian version is a sub-distribution of the EU version, so the Aussie publisher Red Ant had nothing to do with the decision to censor the PAL build]. In the end, Suda's Tarantino-like aesthetic is compromised, like so many movies used to be when shown on TV with the swearing removed; it's just not the full experience, and the intended irony of the in-game ultra-violence has been blunted.
Still, censorship or not, if you want to believe in the ‘games can be art’ argument, No More Heroes is as good a potential example as has been seen in a while. It’s definitely not for everyone, but is an important game, and for that it should be celebrated. In many ways it's as dense a work as good modern art (of any form, painting, theatre, music), in that to those who don't understand the context and culture won't see the subtlety. If you think you're a knowledgeable gamer and wish to be challenged in a way that doesn't involve how fast you can move your thumbs (or wrists, this being a Wii game) or simple problem solving skills, give it a go. Forget about the ratings below.
The song 'Heavenly Star' is still in both versions anyway.
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