Summary
Wacky, Cool, Lightsabers and Flaws
The Good
This game is... Odd. It's a good Odd, but still... Odd. I definitely had fun playing it, and it's certainly made me want to play Suda51's other games. It's the kind of cult game that some will really take to heart, whilst others look at it and see a used game design, with some fantastic gestures, and some grade A computer actors.
First the story. It's not much of a story; starts small, and ends only slightly larger. But it does the trick. You are Travis Touchdown, and you want get into a cute Silvia's underpants. She'll demean you, taunt you, spout some generally crazy phrases, and you couldn't want her more... I mean Travis! Travis couldn't want her more!
Suffice to say, the story keeps the game nice and light, but there's also room for some pathos. You're killing fleshed out characters, with flaws, humanity. And as in Shadow of the Colossus, there's an element of sadness, being rid of these people, as monstrous as they may be.
Now to the meat of it. A third of this game is comprised of fighting. It's like God of War, but making use of the Wiimote and Nunchuck admirably. It really does shake (forgive the pun) some life into a somewhat tired hack and slash genre. Fighting is done with the A (sword slash), and B (punch and kicks) buttons, with the analogue stick adding some variety to the moves.
Whittling away at an enemy will eventually drain them of their life, it's at this point you can perform a death stroke - following the on-screen Wiimote prompts. If you manage to stun an opponent, you'll get the chance to grab them and pull them into a finishing wrestling move. These moves are decided on where you are in relation to your opponent (to their side, front, rear), with some randomness thrown in for good measure. Following the on-screen prompts with both Wiimote and Nunchuck, these are more complex than the death strokes, but far more rewarding.
These two elements adds so much satisfaction to something that should be the most boring part of the game: Fighting waves and waves of identical enemies to reach the last boss is fun again. That's right, I said Fun! I'll gladly play through this game again solely for the Assassination missions and fights leading up to them.
There are some flourishes, and some let downs with the main missions. After a death-stroke, you'll be entitled to enter the Dark-Side for a short time, if three symbols on wheels match. These modes add something fresh to the game, and just made me smile: you'll get to perform executions following the button prompts (letting you empty a room of enemies in no time), launch missiles, do extra damage, etc. Though on more than one occasion I was taken to the Dark-Side after eliminating the last enemy in the room, forcing me to wait the 30 seconds for it to end before proceeding to the next part of the level.
The Boss fights are what this game lives for. Like Shadow of the Colossus you need to figure out the weakness in each one. Once that's done it's a simple task (provided they don't kill you first). It's a shame you'll only meet these characters once; they're the highlight of the games creativity. Where else will you find a girl dressed in a loli-style dress hitting gimps, with a baseball bat towards you? Or a female explosives expert who likes to dig holes on the beach for you to fall in? A grandmother with a particle accelerator the size of a bus?
The other third of the game is comprised of side missions and part time jobs, to earn enough money for your next fight, and to spend on improving yourself, and your look. The jobs are really fun. They last 3 minutes exactly, just long enough to enjoy, but short enough that it doesn't get boring. You'll be mowing lawns, picking coconuts, finding lost (identical) cats, removing scorpions, filling cars with fuel, and a few other things. All with fantastic and different gestures.
You can even improve your stats by going to the Gym; performing squats, bench-presses, and dumbbell curls. Whilst this is great fun, it would have been nice to have more activities to improve your stats - there must be more than 3 activities you can do in a gym. And improving your wardrobe is quite cool for the first few times. I bought a new outfit after every assassination, and there was still a ton of stuff to buy, or find in dumpsters (just give them a kick).
I should note that I've been playing the bloodless version, and can say I still enjoyed it. It's still very much an adult game with the language, so I would not call what they did to it censorship. Whilst some parts may make less sense without the blood, there's a quite obvious plot-hole that doesn't make sense in the bloody version, involving limbs inexplicably reattaching. The fountains of cash from enemies feels right for the game, so I have no beef with their decision.
The Bad
The let downs of the fighting part, are mainly to do with the masses of enemies you'll fight, and the environments in which you'll be rumbling. There seems to be so much creative juice flowing into the main characters, than the NPCs you'll see the most, seem stale and even annoyingly bad. They'll pop up in groups identical to one another, with the same animation (but set slightly off). It puts me in mind of the streets of rage series. I can see the retro connections, but I still think it's lazy.
Likewise are the levels. Whilst they appear fresh for the first room, or first five minutes, they quickly grow tiring. Rows and rows of corridors, or warehouses, subway-cars, all alike. They differ so much from the locations where you'll find the assassins, which are vibrant; how could they not, after 10-15 minutes of monotony?
The last third of the game is spent driving around - the biggest disappointment. You're limited to running, or driving a huge hog of a bike around Santa Destroy. SD itself is a dull place, Collision detection is sketchy, taking simple corners is an exercise in futility, unless you've mastered the quick-turn gesture (and more often than not, I turned the wrong way).
Santa Destroy could have been a beautiful place, instead you get a near ghost town of washed out colours. Objects and pedestrians exist to get in your way, and driving from mission to mission, is just that: Driving, with none of the fun. You'll find yourself getting know a few key routes about town, because that's all you'll need to know. Beyond the mission, collecting some glowing balls, digging up treasure (don't get excited, you just press A to stab the ground when your Wiimote vibrates enough), there's not much else to do except play out the missions.
To start the next assassination mission, you'll need money. This entry fee increases the higher your rank. This wouldn't be so bad were the side missions, and part time jobs more varied and enjoyable. I've talked about the Jobs in the Good, and they are just that, except where it's possible to die in a couple: You'll have to drive back to the job centre, apply for the job, drive to the jobs location, and start again. This can take a good 5-10 minutes depending on the job and the route chosen, and gets annoying if you get killed more than once.
The side missions are a bit of a con. San Andreas is a bold expressionist oil-painting compared to these tacked on scenarios. The only upside to these is that they pay more the part time jobs. They're no where near as fun, but at least you don't have to do them more than a few times (unless you've been buying every item of clothing available). It's at the start of the game that they're at their most frustrating. Because you'll unlock a few after every part time job (which in turn get unlocked after every Assassination), you'll quickly get bored of repeating these same few missions until you have enough cash.
Horrifyingly, it doesn't get much better after a few more have been unlocked. Whilst they pay more, the designers ran out of ideas almost immediately. You'll fight the same "CEO of a Pizzeria chain" and his cronies, in the same garage, over and over for more money. Bear in mind, there's nothing to suggest he's an actual CEO of a Pizzeria chain: He's dressed in a black suit and sunglasses with a gun or sword, just like his umpteen bodyguards, in a parking garage. Why they felt the need to add this backstory, or even use it more than once is beyond me. The jobs are simple: either kill the automaton with an arrow above his head, or kill everyone, and you'll win your bounty.
After a few other mission types, like the ability to kill only by wrestling moves (if nothing it's good practise), or the kill as many as you can variety, you'll crave the next assassination. These side missions really make a mockery of the main game. They're nowhere near as fun, repetitive, and if anything, degrade the rest of the experience. I found myself ending a kill with a wrestling move less and less after a few of the "wrestling only" side missions.
The lack of variety continues into the music and sound departments. Whilst the main theme and one or two other stand out, I have no idea what else is playing. The Official Soundtracks of the game are 4 disks long. I have no idea how they could fill more than 10 minutes of disk. Everything is just a variation of the main themes; I use the term variation, very, very loosely.
The sound is even poorer, with enemies chanting the same lines over and over when confronted. These aren't generic "Hey!"s and screams, either: the first sound you might hear from an enemy is how you'll die. After you hear this from half the enemies in the room before they start fighting, you really want them dead as soon as possible!
Some of the sounds I liked: the sound of a Death-blow swoosh, the unlocking of a new mission jingle (I'd like that as a Text Message tone), and the sound of the floating, collectable orbs. That's about it. Of the apparent multitude of sounds (and I'd need convincing of that), only 3 I can remember and enjoy.
The Bottom Line
This game has its flaws. I admit I didn't like a good 3rd of its content, and the rest suffers from a lack of variety, and polish. Throughout its playtime (and 14 hours is quite reasonable), I felt more and more that this game just wasn't ready. All it needed was a month more of development, and whilst my major gripes would not have been addressed, at least the parts I did like would be even better.
That's the tone of No More Heroes. It's a game for gamers. But it doesn't know which gamers it's aimed at. While this game shares more with Beyond Good & Evil than GTA (as most reviewers have used as the benchmark, despite NMHs terrible driving sections), it isn't as good as either. The combat is fantastic, and I'm replaying the game on an unlocked difficulty mode, solely for this; everything else is sub-par.
I can't explain it's high professional reviews. Perhaps they're using the odious 7-10 reviewing method. Perhaps it's the communities love for Suda51, and a hope for a new Killer7. Perhaps I didn't get it, the more I played, the more I felt those reviewers were playing some other game. I get that it's full of old school gaming clichés and tropes - it's meant to. But if you're looking for Post Modern Retro, games like Darwinia do it better.
It's hard to recommend this game beyond it's sword combat, style, and cute cutscenes. With any other game element, I could point you in the direction of a handful of other games that do it better. It's a game that could have certainly be a lot better had they unlocked everything from the start. At least most of the first crucial hours wouldn't be wasted on repetitiveness.
But judge for yourself. The Wii needs more 3rd party games in this vein. You'll get a lot enjoyment out of it, and you won't find a more twisted/creative world to play in.
