REVIEW : No More Heroes (PC)
No More Heroes is revolting. It’s a sleazy, nasty, ugly game with a morally bankrupt protagonist in leering otaku Travis Touchdown. And it’s utterly fantastic.
No More Heroes, a hack-and-slash title with some open-world aspects, rises above its frequently pedestrian gameplay with an overflowing reservoir of over-the-top action, great graphics, endlessly enjoyable storytelling, and, hell, just a whole lot of straight-up flair. Even when the gameplay is monotonous – which it frequently is – you will not be bored, which is a credit to the game’s absolute confidence in itself and joyous disrespect for convention. It’s the mark of the beast; they work so hard but make it look so simple.
In fact, one of the best aspects of No More Heroes is its unwavering dedication to its own themes. To begin with, the storey is pretty easy, and it scarcely matters, albeit the cutscenes and conversation are fun throughout. What really stands out is the hilarious treatment of the game’s more mundane scenes.
Travis, you see, is an assassin who aspires to the absolute top of the United Assassins’ Association by eliminating its members one by one in ranking combat organised by the mysterious femme fatale, Sylvia. The intriguing part is that setting up those battles takes money — a lot of money – and one of the most common methods to earn the cash is to work part-time. Now, these jobs are all very boring. They tend to be little more than obnoxious, monotonous repetition of uninteresting tasks in terms of gameplay. That is the whole point.
The contrast between the absolutely tedious lawnmowing game (which we fell asleep playing) and the hyperkinetic, personality-rich boss battles you earn for completing it is quite amusing. Is it a remark on the dullness of open-world games, which frequently require you to perform similarly arbitrary activities just to progress your level enough to accomplish the next “storey mission”? Who knows what the true goal was, but it resonates perfectly in 2020 – more than it ever could on the Wii, we dare to say.
So, in terms of narrative, No More Heroes has aged like a wonderful wine. It’s a game of opposites, and nowhere is this more evident than in fighting. Travis slices through swaths of cannon fodder adversaries with a fairly standard sequence of taps and holds, tilting the right analogue stick in the stated direction (or swiping your Joy-Con, ala the dearly gone Wiimote) to deliver a final, deadly blow. This results in a gruesome spray of gore as foes are easily dismembered — sometimes more than one at a time if the scenario calls for it. When the horrific consequences are made bare, the contrast between the standard, tropey bleep-bloop sound effects and other gaming iconography are amusing – well, cut to – when the traditional, tropey bleep-bloop sound effects and other game iconography is hilarious.
This leads us to another point: you’re receiving the complete, uncut original game on your Switch. In the Wii PAL release, defeated enemies would explode into pixelated showers of coins, and while this was a cool effect, it erased the game’s shocking – and very much intentional – violence, which had the unintended consequence of making the rest of the game’s decisions seem quirky for the sake of being quirky rather than thoughtful, nuanced, or satirical.
It’s a little-noticed side effect of game censorship: the loss of thematic consistency. It wasn’t the innocent aesthetic alteration of, say, placing a more conservative dress on an underage figure in this situation. But, happily, the Switch version of No More Heroes is not only the best version but the best version by a long shot. It’s essentially a locked 60fps (with minor, scarcely detectable dips in the open world every now and then), and it runs like a dream even in handheld mode. You’re getting the best experience possible here — the original Wii title with none of the game-breaking compromises that plagued the PS3’s Heroes’ Paradise tragedy.
We haven’t even touched on the bosses’ diversity and ingenuity. The Lucha moves that can be unlocked. The improvements that can be purchased. There’s so much to appreciate here that it’s nearly tough not to gush. But, let’s be honest, not everyone will enjoy No More Heroes. The driving passages are tedious and excessively long. As previously said, the employment minigames are similarly tedious. It’s all purposeful, and it all contributes to the tale and satire, but you’re forgiven if you don’t get it. Maybe.
Travis’ horndog love for Sylvia and the strangely young-looking anime characters he nearly drools “moe!” over is maybe a more logical cause for concern. Of course, this is all designed to be uncomfortable and confrontational in ways that most modern titles don’t bother to couch in any kind of commentary, but if the dirty attitude doesn’t work for you, you won’t enjoy this game. We, on the other hand, had a great time.
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