As you may or may not already know, No More Heroes is an action adventure game starring an Otaku (Japanese culture nerd) named Travis Touchdown, who lives in the fictional Californian city Santa Destroy. Travis is semi-voluntarily drawn into the world of professional assassination, and must now use his 'Beam Katana' (half lightsabre, half fluorescent light bulb) to defeat all the assassins ranked higher than him. The basic gameplay could be described as over the top melee combat with a Grand Theft Auto style free roaming city. The opening throws you right into a mission to defeat the tenth ranked assassin, and introduces the basic combat engine, which at its core a simple but well done version of the 'whack enemies a lot with a lock-on' deal, but there are a few neat touches mix it up. Regular A button attacks are complimented by motion based 'finishing moves' – when you've hit a bad guy a couple of times, a 'retro-pixelated' arrow appears on the screen, and swiping the Remote in that direction will perform a slo-mo death strike. You can also stun an enemy with a B button kick, and can then perform various wrestling grapples to finish them off. In the near-final build we played, the combat was tuned perfectly. Enemies didn't take too many hits - one decent combo finished off most bad guys we came across (as opposed to the 'enemy as damage sink' school of thought featured in games like God of War), and while there weren't a huge variety of enemy types and attacks, there were a decent number of them. We can't say for sure if the combat will get repetitive over the whole length of the game, but it remained fun for the whole first couple of hours we played.
The motion based 'finishing moves' make you feel part of the action
The similarities and differences between Killer 7 and No More Heroes are both immediately apparent and impossible to avoid. The same sense of style permeates both titles, and the character designs would be almost interchangeable. The game engine is still very anime/'American classic film' inspired (more Hollywood than noir this time), though with a bit more texture detail on some objects as opposed to Killer 7's almost completely flat-shaded look. The first immediate difference is the free-roaming movement. No More Heroes employs a far more traditional control scheme than Suda's last title, and while the plot and dialogue retain the fiercely 'indie' content and delivery, Heroes has a much lighter tone and more straightforward subject matter. Suda has quit channelling Hitchcock and Lynch for something akin to Warhol/Tarrantino. It's a welcome change after the dense, confusing text of the Smiths battle with Heaven Smiles, and the light but intelligent script fits the 'simple fun' gameplay while maintaining the Suda's indie cred. The extreme (although unrealistic) violence, swearing and and overt sexual references don't hurt either, and Travis and a few other characters' attitudes, animations and dialogue are often genuinely amusing.
One of the other ways No More Heroes maintains Suda's subversive ideals is in the way it takes on some of the smaller aspects of game design. Smaller 'money making' within missions involves mundane tasks such as collecting coconuts and mowing lawns. We could definitely see them getting annoying if they happened or were repeated too often, but as one-offs they could be seen as commenting on the 'player as slave' aspect of game design, similar to the infamous 'hamster wheel' section in Super Paper Mario, or indeed the lawn mowing in Rockstar's Bully. The whole 'game that knows it's a game' theme runs deep, with almost every section or presentational aspect featuring a retro element or reference to some cliché or other. Even the fighting gets mixed up by out-of-left-field gameplay additions, such as a scene where Travis is able to quickly defeat a dozen enemies at once in a Wii Baseball inspired mini-game.
The mini-games poke fun at their own triviality
What is also apparent however is that No More Heroes has been developed with a tight budget. While the game certainly looks good from a stylistic angle, and some parts do look good technically, other parts look like a budget GameCube or even PS2 game. There can be quite a bit of pop-up in certain sections of the city, and Travis' motorbike controls are a bit sloppy, particularly turning where the usually reasonable framerate dropped significantly. We were also underwhelmed with the GTA-style city, as it seemed fairly empty, but as it really only seemed to serve as a hub world for more specific levels and tasks, it seems like its relative dullness may be something easily lived with.
It was confirmed to us that the version Australia will be getting is the same 'censored' version as the Japanese and European release. From an early stage No More Heroes has been shown with some very over-the-top blood splatter effects, and Suda even boasted early on that the game would be 'more violent than Manhunt 2'. The American version will retain this blood effect, but in the Japanese and PAL releases it has been replaced with a significantly different 'kill' animation, where enemies explode into 'digital ash' particles and a stream of coins from the exploded body to Travis. The game remains extremely violent (although in a cartoonish, Bugs Bunny sort of way), and is packed with swearing, sexual references, and other overt 'adult' content, so the decision to remove (or re-remove, given the local Japanese version is the same) the blood splatter is pretty bizarre, as it's unlikely to be the part of the game most likely to offend either pundits or critics. What's probably most disappointing about it is that it in many of the areas we played it seems the overall colour palette of the environments was chosen specifically to highlight the explosions of claret.
That said, the ash-coin effect does have its charms. The 'digital disruption' effect fits in with many other presentational features, and looks great. And the 'coin stream' adds another comment about games – since in many games you get cash for defeating bad guys, here their bodies are literally filled with coins, a nice comment on the cliched game design utility.
Make your way around a GTA-like city with style.
Overall, we were quite impressed by our time with No More Heroes. The PAL version's 'censorship' is disappointing but ultimately much of a muchness, and the free-roaming city doesn't appear to add much. But the core gameplay, humour and intelligent, imaginative and stylish presentation mean the time we spent was an entirely enjoyable experience. We'll have to wait for the full release for a complete judgement, but it seems likely that No More Heroes will be Suda's best game yet.
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