No More Heroes

Suda 51 is well known for delivering unique game experiences. His previous work, "Killer 7" is usually noted as either one of the best or memorable games on the Gamecube. Its successor "No More Heroes" is pretty much noted for the same thing on the Wii, becoming one of those go to recommendations for people looking for great third party titles for the system. The story follows American oktau Travis Touchdown, an assassin trying to become the #1 assassin in the UUA organization. Travis is aided by the beautiful woman, Silvia Cristel. Silvia is willing to help Travis become #1 by setting up each ranked fight for him. Travis makes a deal with Silvia that if he becomes number 1, her and Travis will have sex. That's pretty much the bulk of the story for the entire game. As per usual with Suda 51 games, things get stranger and more interesting as the game goes on. Also just as usual for Suda 51 games and perhaps the best thing about the game is sense of style and personality...saving the game involves Travis taking a dump for instance. The cel-shaded graphics combined with a punk style make this game stand out from anything else on the market. The game is filled with references to anime, Star Wars, and pop culture in general. Suda's character designs are all very original and nice to look at and every character from Travis to the ranked assassins has his/her own peculiar and engaging personality.

The gameplay in of itself isn't as unique as the game's presentation as it's basically just a hack n slash mixed with some weak open world elements. The main stages have you slicing and dicing your way through a bunch of generic enemies to reach the boss at the end...that pretty much it for all the main levels, but they're a real treat despite the repetition. To defeat enemies, Travis combines his sword swinging skills with some good ol' wrestling moves. Surprisingly for a Wii game, generic attacking is not done by swinging the wii-remote instead the A button is for your sword and the B button is for punching/kicking. Get the enemies health low enough with sword attacks and an arrow will appear on the screen directing you to swing the wii-mote in a certain direction. Complete this action to slice your foes in half or decapitate them. These kinds of finishing moves cause the enemies blood to spray everywhere just to reminder you that this is an M-rated Wii game. After each one of these kills there will be a slot machine that spins at the bottom of the screen. If all three symbols match up Travis will enter Dark Side Mode and gain special powers (Each attack is named after a dessert for some reason) for quick kills. The bosses are another thing that make this game great, in fact they're pretty much the game's bread and butter. At the end of each stage you will fight a ranked assassin in order to move up in the assassin ranks. Each boss fight is different and a lot of fun and some of them can pose quite a challenge.

As for the open world aspect, its easily the biggest weak point to the game. Santa Destroy is presented as a large Grand Theft Auto-ish world to explore, but in reality all you can do is travel from location to location, kick dumpsters to find money and clothes, dig for money, and collect balls that you trade in for abilities. To enter each assassin battle level, you have pay a large sum of money and do so you get jobs. One job is unlocked after each assassin you defeat. These are typical jobs such as mowing lawns and wiping spray paint off buildings. The majority of these jobs are completed by using simple wii-mote gestures and they range from pretty enjoyable to outright terrible. It doesn't help they don't pay that much and the mini games get old quick. Luckily after you complete certain jobs you'll unlock assassin assignments to earn a bit more cash. These missions just involve killing standard enemies in a time limit and despite being not that different from the main part of the game, these also seem to get a little tiring. All the open world portion of the game does is make you beg to get on to one of main stages. Overall though, No More Heroes is a great game with style and personality that manages to mask some of its minor flaws. The sequel has just been released and I hope it'll be just as addicting as this little gem.