No More Heroes

[AndrewTS 0]

Despite complete lack of faith at first, I'd heard a lot of positive things about it and picked it up when it finally was available in store today. Apparently it's been released in limited quantities. Very, very limited.

 

The reviews have been good:

http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/wii/nomoreheroes

 

After 6 1/2 hours of actually playing it--it's damn good. It has technical issues out the wazoo (the free roam mode? Loaded with pop-in, slowdown, and framerate issues, despite having few people or interactive aspects of the environment). Its art style works for the game but isn't terribly impressive. There are also some strange design decisions that betray the developers' lack of experience with this sort of title.

 

Despite that, the meat of the game, the combat and boss encounters, is a blast. Standard beam attacks are A, wrestling moves/grabs are B, and finishing strikes are either a quick swipe with the wii remote (for beam finishers) or a combination of wiimote/nunchuck motions for the wrestling moves. Depending on the position you hold the wii remote, you'll either attack with High strikes or Low strikes, which extend to your combos and your charged beam attack.

 

For example, in a typical encounter you might back up 3 guys against the wall, slashing at them until you've stunned them all. Your finishing strike window pops up, you slash from left to right, decapitating two of them (resulting in geysers of blood of Kill-Bill-style proportions), leaving one behind. You might get in close, hold B for a hold, and thrust the wiimote and nunchuck upward together, suplexing the remaining baddie. When you stand up, a tap of the B button will finish the job with a downward stabbing attack.

 

The action scene level designs, which vary from level to level, may repeat themselves a bit during that level, however. Enemy variety is good, although it seems like the weapons make basically all the difference (unsurprisingly, the biggest threats are projective-equipped baddies). Your typical action level is basically going to be combat-heavy, although there are some nice twists like a home-run derby set of encounters (where you can go to bat with the wiimote, and knock down a row of thugs in "Warrior" baseball uniforms--say, that's a confusing reference...), and a scene where you have to haul ass past some sprinklers that are shocking you due to your beam katana. The AI is pretty stupid; enemies with stand off in the distance down the hallway, waiting until you get close enough before they'll act. Using the scenery to exploit these weaknesses is fun though.

 

The humor and boss encounters bring to mind both Grasshopper Manufacture's Killer 7 as well as God Hand. You're got your idiotic pervert main character, bitchy tease of a female lead, bombastic and windbag bosses who seem to all gotta have a gimmick, and naturally, comedic levels of over-the-top ultraviolence. The most spectacular is the Dark Side modes (all named after...Travis' favorite desserts), like one where Travis fires energy from his sword, that cause enemies to be blasted in half, or another where the screen goes black and white, and you can single-strike kill on screen enemies in a flash.

 

The free roam city hub world, while it does the job, is probably the weakest part of the game. You can get from mission to mission fairly quickly thanks to your bike, but you ofter have to trek back to a job office to trigger a new one, and there does not appear to be any warp stations. You can collect cash and items to upgrade your abilities (training at a gym, learning new moves by buying wrestling tapes, etc), but strangely the "free fight" missions reset if you fail one, seemingly reappearing at random.

 

For the most part, you can bypass buying extra stuff and quickly earn the money you need to challenge the next boss. However, you can take your time and try to collect a lot of the other bonuses (which seems to be a joke in and of itself).

 

Overall, a strange, strange, somewhat wonderful game that I'd fully recommend to Killer 7 fans and God Hand fans, and cautiously recommend to anyone else. The game could have done with a little less quirk and a lot more polish, but the end result is a still a great trip. Well, if you can find it.

[MarvinisaLunatic 0]

I wasnt going to buy it but I couldnt find it anyway..

[devo 0]

Fascinating!

 

I ordered mine off of Amazon with free shipping, so it's going to be a while before I get my hands on the game. It's gonna be difficult to wait that long with all the good things I'm hearing.

[Sideburnious 0]

Stupid Europe having to wait another month. I'll just try and finish other games before I get around to it.

[dubq 0]

Anyone up north have this yet? I fucking can't find it anywhere in person or online.

[ChrisMWaters 0]

Though I know the majority of people here hate G4...

 

X-Play gave the game 5 out of 5.

[AndrewTS 0]

Anyone up north have this yet? I fucking can't find it anywhere in person or online.

 

EBstop says Feb. 1 for Canada, probably because of dual-language requirements.

[dubq 0]

Well, I lucked out and found a copy at a local shop here. Turns out they ordered a shipment from the States.

 

Anyway, LOVE IT! I've only done the first mission so far, but I love the presentation.. the 8-bit throwbacks in the menus.. the wrestling moves.. the anime references.. playing with your cat.. the fact that Travis has what looks like a Revenge of the Sith poster in his bedroom. Fucking awesome.

 

Agree about the free-roam city being the weakest part, but that's no big loss as the meat of the enjoyment for me is in the assassinations.

[AndrewTS 0]

Agree about the free-roam city being the weakest part, but that's no big loss as the meat of the enjoyment for me is in the assassinations.

 

Yeah, the art style and insane bosses are the bulk of the killer7 influence, while gameplay is entirely different.

 

Plus it's pretty quick to earn the cash if you just want to do the missions and move on. I've been racking up cash and doing upgrading, because I had a tough time getting to #7. However, I am getting way better at crowd control, too. I did it, though, and am currently ranked 7.

 

I took the Mild difficulty (sweet is Easy, Mild's normal, and I assume a hard mode is unlockable), FWIW, but even so it's never been nearly as tough as God Hand.

[dubq 0]

Hm, I keep getting this wierd death blow sequence.. it doesn't give me an arrow.. and it's not a dark side mode thing.. but every once in a while I'll end up dealing a death blow w/o the arrow motion except there'll be a ton of wierd little white triangles gathering around the enemy as I strike them. Have you gotten this? I can't find a reference to it anywhere online or in the manual.

 

EDIT: I think I figured it out. It may be because of the Tsubaki beam katana I just picked up...

[AndrewTS 0]

I've been using the Tsubaki since it was first available and switched to the Tsubaki II, and it doesn't ring a bell.

 

I'm currently ranked number 3, so I'm not too far from the end of the game. However, I've been doing some side missions although I have enough cash for the next fight, because a) I love hacking up these nameless thugs, and b) I am a consumer whore. I've bought like half the shirts available in Area 51.

 

The 100 man massacre is just pure chaos and fun, and it's worth a heck of a lot of cash, too.

 

Some of the more recent encounters were a lot different from the earlier ones. Except the game to throw a lot of weird surprises near the end at you.

 

Sequel, plz.

[AndrewTS 0]

Hm, I keep getting this wierd death blow sequence.. it doesn't give me an arrow.. and it's not a dark side mode thing.. but every once in a while I'll end up dealing a death blow w/o the arrow motion except there'll be a ton of wierd little white triangles gathering around the enemy as I strike them. Have you gotten this? I can't find a reference to it anywhere online or in the manual.

 

I GOT IT!!!

 

Here's the thing--when you activate the death blow, once it's "triggered," if you repeat the motion again before you strike (i.e. while "winding up"), you'll get a powered up deathblow strike (with those white triangles and electricity and stuff). You may have been flailing repeatedly and activated it by accident.

 

So for example, you get the "up" arrow. You move the wiimote "up." Then right as you're about to do the uppercut slice, motion "up" again before it goes out--there's your powered-up strike.

 

BTW, if you drive the motorcycle into the river you warp back to the hotel.

[dubq 0]

Ahhh, nice!

 

Also - I love that warp thing too. I'm glad there's no penalization for dying in the main world, like in GTA where you'd lose your weapons and shit.

 

I just got ranked #5, and I definitely would like to see a sequel to this. I'd actually like to see Suda do a full on wrestling game. Apparently he worked on a Firepro game way back when, which is why you see a lot of references to "Thunder Ryu", "Mask De Panther", two character names from the series. And GONGS on one guys shirt is the Firepro name for fighting network RINGS. Good shit!

[AndrewTS 0]

He worked on two Super Famicom Fire Pros, yeah. However, he's a huge wrestling fan, too. You *probably* noticed many parts of the town have wrestling-inspired names. There's also a "GHM" (Grasshopper Manufacture) shirt you can buy that is patterned after the classic ECW shirt.

 

The soundtrack for NMH was Masafumi Takada, (who also worked on Godhand and killer7) and it's out in an album now as well.

[AndrewTS 0]

Warning: don't attack #2 when she plays possum, until you hear swearing. Otherwise you're completely screwed.

 

With that learned, I won easily. Number 1 here I come...but I need to earn money, because buying the last saber cleaned me out.

[dubq 0]

Have you got a handle on the bike yet? Sometimes I can "brake" and do this crazy 360 cornering thing.. but sometimes not. I can't figure out what I'm doing different because I'm always using the nitros, plus gas, and then hit the brake/reverse plus a direction. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Wierd!

 

I just hit #4 last night. Gotta say I love the Tsubaki MKII, and I can't wait for the next version.

[AndrewTS 0]

I have the Tsubaki Mk3...and I honestly prefer 2.

 

A cool detail is that your moves change, but I'm not digging 3's moves. However, your results may vary.

 

I'll keep it up, because I have to earn more cash for the final mission anyway, but I'm skeptical.

 

As for the 90 degree turn--I can do it consistently. Nitro isn't necessary. Just gas it, and when you want to quick turn, press b (break+reverse), and jerk the wiimote to the direction opposite of what you want to turn.

[dubq 0]

Ahh I figured it might be a motion thing! Cool!

[AndrewTS 0]

I "beat" the game (i.e. becoming number 1) last night, but I'm getting the last few upgrades to take on the optional boss after that (you need the Tsubaki MK3 for that. I'm not sure if you need to buy it before #1 or not, but I did).

 

Anyway, its flaws are many and varied: technical shortcomings, a fairly empty "sandbox" environment (where taking/completing missions should have been much more streamlined), enemies/bosses who have very simplistic pattern-based A.I.

 

Yet, those same shortcomings didn't stop Crackdown from being my favorite game of 2007. I'm not sure if NMH is going to be that game for 2008 (especially with Prototype due out), but it's an out-of-left-field, crazy-fun surprise that I felt was worth every penny, and has helped restore some of my faith in Nintendo's "lower development costs = attractive 3rd party support!" claptrap, although I feel it's taking way longer than DS did.

 

It's way more appealing as a package than killer7, but the "not for everybody" label would still apply here.

[NoCalMike 0]

How come everyone hates G4? Or is it just the way they rate games!?!

[devo 0]

Well, I can't hate G4 'cause they carry Ninja Warrior and Arrested Development, but everything else about the network is pretty loathsome. X-Play is a shell of what it once was and the rest of their original programming is beneath mention.

[dubq 0]

I'm not sure if NMH is going to be that game for 2008 (especially with Prototype due out), but it's an out-of-left-field, crazy-fun surprise that I felt was worth every penny, and has helped restore some of my faith in Nintendo's "lower development costs = attractive 3rd party support!" claptrap, although I feel it's taking way longer than DS did.

 

I'd be psyched for this too if it were getting a Wii release. I still have a lack of faith/interest in either of the "big" nextgen systems. Maybe one day, heh.

[AndrewTS 0]

Wii can't handle the huge worlds of draw distance something like Crackdown or Prototype would require, let alone a consistent high framerate while simultaneously controlling complicated AI on a horde of humans (some enemy, some civilian, etc). I'm a sucker for a sandbox game that lets me go crazy and cause utter mayhem.

 

I'm really glad I got the Wii, because it does indeed complement a lot of the weaknesses in the 360's lineup, even if they're mostly Nintendo titles.

 

People generally hate G4, BTW, because it murdered, buried, and pissed on the grave of TechTV.

 

There's still Xplay love because it's one of the few recognizable things left.

 

I have no opinion since my cable provider dropped the station shortly after TechTV became G4TT, and I haven't seen much of the show since except for occasional video reviews. However, the Xplay review really, really came off as overscripted and overrehearsed; even more than any of the amateur video game reviews for old games that fill the youtubes. Of course, I'm still trying to overcome the shock of this game getting such good reviews.

[AndrewTS 0]

For those of you who played the #1 rank mission and completed it, here's what you missed in that little exposition scene the game skipped over:

[AndrewTS 0]

So, I completed the game and got the real ending now too, and after either ending it gives you the chance to save (either to a new slot or overwrite your old slot).

 

I chose to save to a new slot.

 

After the credits and such, it automatically boots up a new game from the last save...

 

With all your acquired clothes, beam katanas, remaining money, holds, upgrades, and abilities!

 

New Game +!!!

[dubq 0]

There's a fake ending?

[AndrewTS 0]

Yup.

[dubq 0]

Innnteresting. Anything special you have to do to get it? Ignore that question if it's spoileriffic though.

[AndrewTS 0]

You'll get the "fake" ending by clearing the number 1 mission. To get the real ending, you buy the last sword available for purchase in the game,, then...you'll see. There's an item you'll get near the end of the game during a mission and you'll be directed to bring it to Naomi. She'll have the final sword ready by the time you're about to face #1. It's expensive, but well worth it. Also I recommend getting the upgrades before the #1 mission, but that'll be a lot of money-grinding, I'm afraid.

 

The energy saver upgrade for the final sword is great. It seems like you'll never have to recharge it again. Yes, you can even dish out charged attacks all you want.

[dubq 0]

Awesome!