No More Heroes, back when it was released in 2007, was Japanese gaming auteur Suda51 bringing his signature quirky Japanese charm to the Wii. His titles have always been for a niche audience - namely, those who enjoy a bizarre, decidedly Japanese-style of gaming. Such was the case of his more overlooked titles, Killer7 and Shadows of the Damned. But with NMH, Suda51 struck gold, hitting on the decidedly adult-oriented ultraviolence and gonzo, pop-culture laden humor that was sorely missing from the console's more 'family friendly' titles like Mario and Nights Into Dreams. The general consensus from the roughly 500K who had played it is this: NMH is his magnum opus, a crude, bizarre, ultraviolent masterpiece from the mind of someone with a genuine love for geek culture. Cut to 2011, and the game has seen a release on the Playstation 3. So, how does NMH's insanity hold up on the bigger console?
The story is as bizarre and nonsensical as you remember, but that's always been its main charm. In fact, it's never been about coherent storytelling so much as an unhealthy obsession with our own nerd interests, ranging from anime to pro-wrestling to gory samurai movies. The motel room that serves as your hub is filled with it to the point where it's borderline creepy, with wrestling masks and anime posters adorning the walls. The main character himself seems to be a stand-in for the kind of pop-culture laden geek who plays these types of games, which is further made obvious by the occasional fourth wall jabs and self-aware cracks (including a clever reference to Duke Nukem Forever, which didn't see the light of day until four years after this game's release). Truth be told, Travis is very much a love-him-or-hate him type of character - your love for him ultimately hinges on whether you choose to see him as an analogue for our violence-obsessed, sex-crazed twenty-something culture (apparently, he's modeled after Jackass star Johnny Knoxville) or just some pervy, amoral dick. Fortunately, there's plenty of other personalities to keep you involved. Each boss in the game begins with his/her own introduction before proceeding with the deathmatch, which helps to make each and every one of them distinct and memorable. These villains include foes such as a teenage samurai-wannabe, a postman known as Destroyman dressed in superhero garb, and an alcoholic, bat-wielding bitch dressed in an unfitting lolita-style dress.
And the insanity crosses over to the gameplay as well. The combat positively drips with style, with each kill bringing out an awesome, gory finishing move, accompanied by the victim screaming "MY SPLEEN!" which never gets old. And, of course, the wrestling moves. The beautiful wrestling finishers. You'll probably use the same one over and over against many of the lesser enemies, but each boss has one that's exclusive to that particular fight. On the Wii version, these finishing moves were performed through flicking the wiimote in a specific direction. The PS3 version emulates this through the Playstation Move motion controller. There is an option to play without one, but using the analog stick instead of the move just doesn't feel nearly as good, so I'd heartily recommend using the move if you had the choice. The only real problem, aside from the inevitable repetition, is the unwieldy camera, which sometimes gets caught behind objects and let offscreen thugs get cheap shots in.
And, of course, there are the bosses. In addition to their quirky and sometimes plain hilarious motifs, the fights they provide are all appropriately crazy and wonderfully designed, with a personal favorite of mine being Houdini-inspired magician Harvey Voldarskii, who comes equipped with death traps and control-inverting illusions to make the boss equal parts challenging and hilarious. As mentioned, they all have a specific wrestling move specific to each fight, some of which look pretty damn cool (the one against number six in particular gives off a distinct erotic vibe), and the final boss provides some genuine surprises. And like any good boss fight, they justify the monotony of taking out your hundredth generic thug in the stage.
Sadly, the monotony extends to far more than just typical repetition. The action stages are the game's main attraction, so the in-between open-world sections, where you take up jobs to earn money to pay the entry fee for the next stage, are nothing more than pointless filler. The city you drive through is fairly barren, with only a scant few collectibles and shops to keep you occupied. This wouldn't be so bad if it were fun to traverse, but controlling Travis' bike feels strangely choppy, and will sometimes get caught on a tree or a building's geometry. As for the what you do, well, you could either take up the assassination missions, which task you with killing the CEO of 'Pizza Batt,' (which is cleverly referenced in the wii-exclusive sequel) or take up the various odd jobs. The assassination missions are kept interesting through specific challenges, such as taking n damage or using wrestling moves, but there's sadly only a few available at a time. Instead, you'll likely spend more time taking up various odd jobs, ome of which are enjoyable in their weirdness (using the move controller to flag down ships is a highlight), but most of which are exciting tasks like collecting coconuts and picking up trash In a sense, these chores DO fit into the game's design - work to make money to buy games and sice some heads - but this IS a video game, and we save the menial labor for the real world; games are a time for having fun. These forced in-between segments, which take up far more of the game when they should, are simply not fun, and are what hold the title back more than anything.
So, in a new port on a more powerful system, you'd expect these segments to look great in hd, right? Well, scale back your expectations a bit. On the Wii, the low-res textures added to the game's old-school Indie feel, going back to an era where games relied more on pure, unfettered action instead of fancy visual effects. Hell, even the technical shortcomings of the game's free-roaming sections added to the game's rough charm; it was, in a sense, taking advantage of the Wii's limited graphical capabilities. The PS3 version has no such excuse. To be fair, some improvements have been made for the bigger hardware, such as giving certain textures a bump, and populating the city a bit more. On the other hand, the game not only maintains the technical issues that were present in the original, but even adds in a few of its own, such as framerate and screen tearing issues that are even more prominent than before. Not to mention, in many areas any improvement to textures is hardly noticeable. In the end, no one would mistake this for anything other than a port of an aging product. Fortunately, the sound has aged much better. The music consists of awesome J-pop electronica that manages to get you pumped for each boss fight, with special praise going to the final boss. The voice acting is also uniformly excellent and appropriately quirky, with Robin Atkin Downes infusing Travis' punk attitude with just the right amount of cheeky self-awareness.
Fortunately, there are enough additions in other areas to justify the re-release under the new subtitle. Not only is there a new option to replay bosses you've already beaten - I could fight Destroyman over and over - five bosses have been brought in from the sequel, Desperate Struggle (which, sadly, doesn't look like it's getting a re-release anytime soon), amusingly playable when Travis dozes off on the toilet. The other major addition is the new Very Sweet mode which, in addition to being really really easy, has its female characters dress in skimpier outfits (Bad Girl's new outfit is much more fitting). In a less welcome change, the dark side mode that activated at random via roulette is now stored to be activated manually. Personally, I would've preferred it if they kept the original usage, where the random nature added to the gameplay's insanity.
In short, if you missed out on the original wii version, if you're willing to invest in a playstation move, and if you have a taste for the quirky anime subculture, I'd wholeheartedly recommend playing through this gem at least once, if only to experience its insanity. That it doesn't do much to improve on the superlative original doesn't diminish its status as an awesome and hilarious tribute to otaku subculture.
Pros
- + A delightfully weird, twisted sense of humor
- + Ridiculous, gory combat with solid Move implementation
- + Crazy boss fights with loads of personality
- + "MY SPLEEN!!"
Cons
- - Camera can get wack
- - Side missions and open world traversal are lame, lame, lame
- - Visually unimpressive
7
Gameplay
6
Graphics
8
Sound
8
Replayability
7
out of 10
Overall
Though not for the squeamish, those with a taste for some Japanese-flavored ultraviolence and perverted humor would do well to check out Travis Touchdown's first killing.