Suda51 ("Suda five-one") has built up a reputation as an almost auteur game director. At the very least his teams (Grasshopper Manufacturer) have a very distinct style and that style permeates every part of No More Heroes 3. It's Suda from top to bottom. The start Travis Touchdown, is an American Otaku turned into a psychopathic assassin after buying a lightsaber on Ebay (actual plot of the first game). That's really the level the series has maintained, things just happen because they are cool. Travis gets to compete for the galactic ranking because the alien demon king Fu (aka Jess Baptiste VI) has demanded it.
No More Heroes is, for all its style, a small team game that tries to go big. What it produces is a lot of jank. In the original this jank was the overworld which was devoid of anything fun and just took up space as you moved between the red meat boss battle ranking matches. They did away with this in No More Heroes 2 which improved the pacing but they brought it back for the third game. It's admittedly better but still rather barren, with a low frame-rate and some real questionable collision detection. It's tolerable but you won't want to be spending time there. The same is true for the minigames that occupy it. In the first game these were essential to earn the money to move on, the second game made them all 8-bit which improved the appeal, but this time they're more like the first except you can skip them entirely. There's also little things like collecting scorpions, T-shirts, plating trees and destroying statues. Aside from a bit of cash they don't really matter much either. What you're really doing is finding the location where you can get into the next designated match and fight some aliens. You need to beat a certain number of them before you can move to the boss. These fights are the core of the game. There are about 8 or so main enemy types and each time your are given a particular set to defeat. These get harder as things progress and I found it quite challenging.
Each battle is self-contained so you don't need to worry about health or supplies carrying over. They play out almost like a mini-puzzle as you figure out the best way to tackle them. Do you try to take out the ranged ones first so they don't distract you or can you lure away the melee fighters? Maybe you can get a good slot roll off a fodder enemy to take down the main one? The combat is also split up into 3 parts, beam katana, pro wrestling moves and the death glove which is sort of like magic attacks. Unfortunately there's no ability to change your weapon which is a real disappointment as that was one of the driving forces in the first 2 games. Still, the game really shines at combat as you need to not only use strategy but you also need to execute, dodging attacks to get a bullet-time effect, using wrestling moves for extra damage when you have opportunity and making sure your beam katana remains charged with the series staple shaking motion. To spice things up there's also some random components. After you deal enough damage you can do a swing that will roll a slot machine. From here you can get a number of effects from extra money, to a massive beam katana combo, to being able to throw without penalty to going full mecha mode and launching a blast that will kill most enemies instantly. If you are having trouble sometimes a good roll is all you need. There's no real penalty to dying other than having to try again. Each time you die you roll a wheel to get an extra bonus. This might be extra damage, or maybe even starting with no beam katana energy when you start if you are really unlucky, or full revival. This is how the game balances things, if you keep losing the wheel gets slower and slower and so it becomes easy to pick the revival option and keep going. It won't penalize you but you'll know you're a loser.
The boss battles too usually involve combat; memorizing patterns and applying your skill. I say "usually" because you don't always know what you are getting. The game loves to throw curve-balls where you think a fight might be one way but something else happens and gameplay changes. This is part of the fun. The boss battles are really excellent overall and everyone is interesting in their own way. Even with just a few short scenes at the start and middle of each chapter, Suda really makes you feel the characters. These brief moments usually add some humanization to what's otherwise completely over-the-top.
And finally we have that over-the-top style. Each chapter begins and ends with what could be a 90s anime intro or ending. Each chapter begins with Travis and Bishop talking about how awesome Takashi Miike's films are and these bits are not really connected to anything. It's really like nothing I've ever seen. Dialog too is a high point. It's completely unnatural, full of meaningless sentences that serve only to sound cool. There's a jank to this too with awkward timing and yet it's almost charming the way it plays out as characters almost talk through each other. It's hard to tell if it was intentional or not but it's effective.
To be honest there's just so much going on here it's hard to really nail down a focal point to form coherent thoughts but in the end I will say was a ride. It does its thing and it does it unapologetically and I love that. It's a game that's not for everyone and doesn't care, because it was made for someone. That sort of audience exclusion is often hard to find these days but I honestly think it results in better games. Not because polish doesn't matter but because it can go far and deep without feeling encumbered to please everyone. No More Heroes 3 tickled me in a way few games do, it's completely unexpected in the best ways even if sometimes the game just sucks.
Back to Home