Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Ambitious"

No More Heroes tells the story of Travis Touchdown, a stereotypical otaku (a person with an obsession with anime) and gaming nerd living in the fictional city of Santa Destroy, USA. After winning a beam katana off of the internet in online auction he goes on a series of assassinations at the command of the sexy and seductive Sylvia Cristel and the UAA, the United Assassins Association. This sets us up for one incredible and bizarre adventure.

Graphics:
The game uses the cel shaded art style and it uses it well. The shadows are just right, such as when he bends over you can't see some of his t shirt (if you even have him wearing one). The city of Santa Destroy is very colourful but there are some problems with the sandbox city. When speeding along on your motorbike, the Schpeltiger, there a a few framerate issues and the fluidity of the game slows down. This same problem occurs during combat. While the problem is small it is noticeable and occasionally annoying. Also some buildings don't show their features such as doors, windows and signs until your about two seconds away. One thing I would point out are the symbols on the map and in the world for certain destinations. These look like old game logos, such as Naomi's symbols is actually the sword from the old 2D Legend of Zelda games.

Also while the city is colourful it has its colour limits and it feels like your going through the same place again when your not, its just the colours being re used. Another few problems I encountered in the overworld is that cars seem to have an invisible force field around them which can be detrimental to your riding and if you go slow enough, the pedestrians will just go through your bike instead of falling over. One final problem I have is that when Travis rides the bus for certain missions, there is no driver! Now I know the game is not very realistic, but you need someone to be driving the freaking bus! Overall the cel shaded graphics are very nice for a change and the environments are nice, and although the few bugs and problems I mentioned can be annoying they wont affect your gameplay too much. It get an 8.5.

Sound:
The sound is just right for this game. The voice acting is okay, but theres only so many times you can hear Sylvia say "Trust your force and enter the garden... of madness!" The dialouge is very cheesy, but thats the angle that its going for and it feels like your watching an old japanese film, the kind thats got stupid dialouge but you cant help but watch because its awesome all the same. The enemies you face usually say something before they attack and scream once you kill then. The speaker in the wiimote is used very well for phonecalls before your boss battle and hearing you beam katana power up before a fight. Travis himself says things such as "sweet" whenever he finds a new t shirt, money or wrestling trading card. Even when cruising around the city and you hit a pedestrian ther will be a bit of a cry and a thud. The music in the game isnt annoying, but when your running around Santa Destroy there is no music unless your on your bike. Also when you go to Thunder Ryu's gym a generic version of Eye of the Tiger is playing, so that is very smart. There are a lot of old school game sounds in this game and they make you smile when you hear them. There are no real problems with sound at all. It gets a 9.0.

Gameplay:
Ahh, the big one. When The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess came out we were all excited at the thought of using motion sensing for sword slashing. However, waggling as it came to be known, made for annoying attacks. No More Heroes takes the waggle (for basic fighting) and shoves it up its own arse. And although it is a bit of a button masher, that doesnt mean there is no depth to it. To attack with the beam katana the A button is used and to use a melee attack such as a punch or a kick the B button is used. However that doesnt mean that motion sensing action has been taken out. When your opponent is dizzy or nearing their end a series of motion controls that the screen puts up for you is used. For the finishing blow you will have to swing your wiimote either up, down, left or right. Also Travis has a vareity of wrestling moves, and these usually have two stages. So you will have to put both nunchuck and wiimote left and then down when told to pull off a Tombstone Piledriver. While most of the ranking battles leading up to the boss are the same "cut down all the minions to get there", some have a twist, such as riding around a baseball field on your motorbike running down minions, or racing down a freeway dodging enemies on their own motorcycles and ramming them off the road.

When your not fighting assassins and their minions and you need extra cash for clothes, training, weapons or videos, you can take up part time jobs such as mowing the lawn, collecting cats or washing graffiti off the buildings and also get some small assassination gigs such as killing a certain amount of enemies in 3 minutes and you recieve $3000 for each kill. These are enjoyable the first time, but you will find that when you need more money you will need to do some more than once. Some you could not be bothered doing, but some you will find are enjoyable, such as jumping off a ramp on your bike.

A lot of people complained about the city of Santa Destroy, saying its empty and nothing to do. Well I believe it to be just right the way it is. You only need to get from point A to point B, and sometimes C when you need extra cash. The empty streets are good for when your rushing to get to you next ranking and there are enough pedestrians for those people who like to run them down. Another thing I will mention is that for those people who like to collect all the things in games, there are plenty of t shirts, lovikov balls and other goodies that you can spend time looking for all over the city. Overall the gameplay gets a 9.5.

Final Verdict:
The game is awesome. It is just the right difficulty on Mild/Medium and it is fun to play. You will fall in love with the art style. The controls will surprise you. The dialouge will make you laugh or make you angry. The ending will be bizarre. You will not be able to put it down. I know I couldnt. It should definately be in any Wii owners library of games. The game recieves a 9.0, but the real score is a 9.2.