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| Source // PlayStation |
What happens when you give Johnny Knoxville a battery-powered lightsaber and tell him he's the 11th highest ranked assassin in the world? You get No More Heroes, a bizarre, almost cartoony, action-adventure hack and slash that will see you doing a little waggling with your Wiimote as you carve through your opponents.
I picked up this game from a charity shop in Edinburgh, but the box is covered in Spanish, so I might be in for a rather European affair when I pop this into my Wii. I bet the batteries in this need charging, as well...
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| Source // Nintendo |
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| Source // Nintendo |
Fun Times
Luckily for me, No More Heroes is as English as I need it to be, in that nowhere does it use Spanish. It's all English, and I can hear everything that comes out of Travis Touchdown's mouth. He's an assassin whose favoured weapon is his beam katana, a laser sword that needs charging from time to time but is otherwise capable of swiftly dispatching enemies from any direction.
The tutorial is easy to follow. The A-button swings your katana, which almost doesn't make sense for a motion-controlled console, but when you then find out that special moves to deal the finishing blow to enemies require players to swing the Wiimote in the right direction, it makes a little more sense. You wail away at a target with the A button, holding your Wiimote up or down to change Travis' stance, and then swing to turn them into dust.
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| Source // Nintendo |
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| Source // Nintendo |
Holding down the A button will charge up a more powerful attack, and pressing the B button will create an opportunity to stun an opponent instead, or set them up for a grab and a throw, but I wasn't really comfortable switching between the two buttons.
In your left hand is the Nunchuk, which will move you around and the Z button will lock on to an enemy to help you circle around them for a better position to attack from, but my right hand was thumbing the A button to attack, pressing the B button to stun, pressing the D-pad to dodge and roll, and the 1 button to recharge my batteries.
As you grow used to a controller, you don't have to look down to see which buttons you're pressing, but with these controls, I was turning the Wiimote around to check where the B button was, I got so lost.
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| Source // Nintendo |
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| Source // Nintendo |
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| Source // PlayStation |
I was, however, quite liking the combat. The camera could be a pain in the arse at times, but the stances, the swings, and the button-mashing were a good combination of the Wii's features. Sound effects blare out of the Wiimote, which would have been alright if I could make out what they even were.
Some of them relate to arcade machine sound effects where, if the icons line up, you're rewarded with a limited ability like one-shot kills. It's absolutely bizarre, and you can see it in the style of the HUD elements, being all incredibly pixellated and whatnot.
Even the obviously sexual nature of recharging your batteries wasn't bad, and the clashing of weapons leading to a power-struggle where you try to move your Wiimote in the right way to overcome your opponent was nice - though incredibly clacky if you've got port protectors dangling from your Wiimote, as I have.
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| Source // Nintendo |
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| Source // PlayStation |
The plot has been hinted at so far. Travis has met a woman named Sylvia in a bar, I believe, and it's clearly no secret that he wants to get into her pants - the cutscenes are utterly pathetic in those regards. Blame Japan, I guess? Anyway, she convinces him to become an assassin and climb the ranks.
Our first target, the tenth greatest assassin, is chilling by the pool in his mansion. Getting through room after room of enemy guards was easy, even with a fiddly camera. You knew exactly where to go and what to do. But the boss fight...
I won, yes, but I'm still not sure how. I understand that a high stance is useful against some foes, a low stance useful against others, all depending on how they're standing, but this boss I just couldn't read. I spent most of the lengthy fight avoiding his attacks as best I could, stepping to the side, and spamming the A button until his health bar ran out.
It exposed the mechanics for what they were, whatever that means. I'm certainly not an expert in them, and they look a little daft when you have to run away in a fight to recharge your weapon.
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| Source // Nintendo |
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| Source // PlayStation |
But daft is what No More Heroes is. These are just a few of the assassins we'll be fighting. They're not your clichéd assassins or bad guys and girls. They're just as bonkers as Travis himself, who I read bought his beam katana from eBay on a whim, but has now run out of money to buy video games. A man who literally cannot hide is pervy nature and who saves the game by taking a dump.
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| Source // Nintendo |
Frustrations
After climbing into the top ten, Sylvia tells Travis that if you're going to be climbing the ranks at all, be aware that other assassins will be after you, too. Convincing himself that she'll let him sleep with her if he makes it to the top, Travis sets out to cross some names off the list, and No More Heroes goes open world, sort of, where you can roam the city on your radical motorbike.
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| Source // Nintendo |
I thought this would be a good thing. We'll bust into the next hideout, kill hundreds of guards, collect trading cards hidden in chests (why not), then have an epic showdown with the next assassin, who is no doubt another weird character that could only have been envisioned by a madman.
But no. If you want to take on an assassin for their rank, you must pay for the privilege. We're poor. Essentially broke. Your first stop is to the Job Center to look for work. I got there - after crashing my ridiculous bike a few times - to find out that the first job available was coconut collector. Bash trees, collect coconuts, reward per nut.
Nah. I came here to swing swords at bad guys, not trees. I'm out.
Final Word
From what I saw of No More Heroes, through all the standard definition blur and stark contrasting colour palette, it is a game like so few others. Puzzling for its plot and characters, cringe-inducing for its moments of juvenile humour.
It is different. At one point, my Wiimote rang, and I picked it up to the sounds of a woman on the other end, part screeching, part barking something quite indistinguishable at me. I don't know how much of it was her voice or the quality of the Wiimote speaker, but it was another good use of the Wiimote, like swinging it to chop down opponents.
But it wasn't enough to get me to stick around. No, no. I'm not in the mood for coconuts, and to be honest, I don't care what lies in store for Travis' future, either. He's portrayed as a sort of lovable doofus, but also a dick, an idiot... I mean, he's not your everyday action hero, but then No More Heroes isn't your everyday action title.
It is bizarre. It probably does deserve a bit of a play with, but I'm not sticking with this one past the coconuts, no way. What wacky nonsense will I miss? Who knows. How much of it will cause, or was designed to cause offence? I don't know. It may just look a bit pathetic these days. I wouldn't know. I've no real intention to find out. But the gameplay was alright. Yeah. Aight.
Useful to you, all that?
Fun Facts
The game was intended to be more violent than Manhunt 2 but ended up replacing huge spurts of blood with black dust clouds and pixely coins exploding from the deceased instead.
No More Heroes, developed by Grasshopper Manufacture, first released in 2007.
Version played: Nintendo Wii, 2008.