Impressions: No More Heroes
With store credit in hand, I decided to pick up a couple games at everyone’s favorite whipping shop, GameStop. One of them was, according to the title of this blog post, No More Heroes for the Wii. Being a fan of senseless violence and mayhem from a stylistic viewpoint, I was initially interested in seeing how the contols and GTA style world would shape up. Now I must tell you, nothing can really prepare you for how this game is. Meaning, you can read reviews all you like, but trust me when I say you’re going in blind when you first boot this puppy up. Reason being, is that No More Heroes is completely insane. And so far, it’s a good kind of insane. And some of the insanity almost feels like an accident. Like when Doc Brown hits his head on the bathroom sink and invents the time machine. Yeah, just like that.
The general and refreshingly straightforward purpose of NMH is to kill your way to the top ranked assassin of Santa Destroy. To give you an idea of my progress though the game, I’m currently ranked #7, having just bested an absolutely hilarious and bizarre assassin who emits lasers out of his crotch.
The best part of the game thus far is the fighting mechanics and the boss battles. The controls are mix of button mashing and motion sensing with the Wii remote and Nunchuck. What initially seems simple and limited becomes much more as you progress. The fighting can be summed up with the usage of light saber-like attacks and Mexican wresting moves. The fighting in No More Heroes just feels great. You press buttons to attack and then when prompted, use motion controls to perform kill moves and wresting maneuvers. It’s quite satisfying to do this and see your opponents head pop off like a wine bottle cork or slice multiple enemies in half with the flick of your wrist. And then there’s the blood. The bucket loads of blood that gleefully spurts out of the enemies and gets all over the place. Its just good clean fun.
The bosses are a real treat as well. So far, they each have their own distinctive personality and fighting style. And the narration between them and your character is highly entertaining. I’m looking forward to getting through to the other ranked matches. And to do that you have to collect enough money to enter each fight. And that leads me to the overworld….
….which really could have used some serious polish before this game was released. It’s part sandbox style game play, but without a whole lot to do. There are plenty of things to collect and upgrades to be sought after, but very little in the way of interaction with your environment. You drive around from place to place in your big, clunky bike in the city of Santa Destroy but there’s no much to it other than just getting around. You can’t upgrade or switch vehicles, you can’t use any attacks in the overworld, you can’t even run into the others cars that are sprinkled throughout. But my real problem with it is the lack of polish. Pop up, getting slightly stuck in odd areas, some repetitive city areas…the overworld just could have used some more love.
Having said that, No More Heroes has been crazy, wacky, Japanese-style fun that works on just about every other level. The action and quirkiness of this world somehow work, like I said, almost by accident. But with nutty game creator Suda 51 at the helm, none of this insanity is probably by accident. I can only guess what I’m in for up ahead as I march towards the #1 ranking. I just don’t want to pick up any more coconuts to get there.