No More Heroes is a huge story as far as the Wii's concerned. If No More Heroes makes it big, then fanboys and girls across the country can breathe a sigh of relief. It won't be all Endless Ocean and Mario Party 8 forever; the hardcore can swim in Nintendo's "blue ocean", too.
Of course, when I consider No More Heroes, a tiny, insidious part of my mind that keeps sneering. "You know, Killer 7 wasn't much fun." I can't argue. That was a great-looking game, slick and cool. Still, I can read about a dozen comics that look just as cool in far less time than it takes to slog through Killer 7's repetitive fights.
That, I think, is the challenge facing No More Heroes. The reality of the Wii is that a game cannot settle for being better than other games anymore. It must be exceptional as entertainment. Otherwise, Wii owners are very likely to just shut the console off and do something else.
This means No More Heroes has to be fun to play. We'll check in with critics across the net to see just how much fun it is, and just how much is riding on No More Heroes's financial success.
Now, if you think I'm exaggerating when it comes to the kind of anxiety fans are attaching to No More Heroes's commercial success, let me use a few links to assure you that, no, people are really on the verge of freaking out. Check out this thread at Go Nintendo, where the site owner implores his readers to let him know if they're going to support the game. Apparently he will go mad if he doesn't hear enough affirmative replies.
(Note that he doesn't ask who wants it-- that is something of a foregone conclusion. Instead, he specifically asks who is going to go out and support it with $$$, in the manner of a cause.)
The range of responses he gets is pretty interesting.
"Looks stupid."
"I am actually on the fence right now. But I may just buy it to give it support for future titles."
"I just dont see enough gamers supporting NMH."
"I have no plans on owning any rated M games. (If had plans to do such - I would have went with a Xbox360)."
"I was all over this game as soon as it was announced."
"I am, but probably not for a few weeks."
"Im not purchasing it. Why? Rarely do I have time to play video games here at college, and Ive already pre-ordered Brawl."
Note that this is just a small sample of a whopping 217 responses.
So, how good is No More Heroes? Judging from the reviews, pretty damn good-- with a few caveats. Nobody seems to compare it against Killer 7, though, which is the review I want to read.
Take the mothership at GamePro, for example. There No More Heroes merited Game of the Month status and the review got turned into a six page blowout feature by our own Dave Rudden. The first page is intro, the review occupies pages two and three, four and five are lovely screenshots, and page six is videos. Actually, this is a pretty neat approach to doing a review that's really saturated with evidence of what the game is like.
The actual text of the GamePro review is very positive and excited, but in a refreshingly savvy way. It takes a particularly interesting look at the way the game's controls work (while also leveling some pretty harsh criticism at other games that have tried to model swordplay). It's very consistent with what you'd expect from a 4.5/5 score.
Having disappointed legions of gamers with the wonky controls in Red Steel, Ubisoft must have realized that less is more when the company agreed to publish Killer7 director Suda 51's latest off-the-wall action title. Instead of making the gamer swing the Wii Remote and Nunchuk around like a hopped up idiot and failing to deliver true 1:1 movement onscreen like nearly every other sword-based Wii game--I'm talking about titles like Soulcalibur Legends, Dragon Blade, and yes, even Twilight Princess--No More Heroes boils down sword fighting to its basest elements. In doing that, they may have just perfected it.
During the course of the game, roughly 90 percent of your attacks will be performed by simply hitting the A or B button. While that sounds like a recipe for button-mashing mayhem, a few simple motion sensing tweaks make the fighting amazingly immersive. For starters, you switch between high and low attacks by tilting the Wii Remote up or down. A lot of strategy comes out of finding openings in enemy attacks, so evading attacks by using the directional pad and locking on/blocking with Z make the game a lot more than brainless slashing.
GameSpot's approach to No More Heroes focuses more on the game's absurd and frankly silly sense of humor, which is the aspect of the game that sounds appealing to me. It's ridiculous, gloriously B-movie self-aware schlock, what Tarantino and Rodriguez failed to successfully produce in Grindhouse. GameSpot also acquits the game well, with a 9/10 score.
If you need further proof of this game's nuttiness, consider the story. As Travis Touchdown--an action-figure owning, porn-collecting, card-collecting obsessive--you find yourself caught up in the melodrama of a real-life assassination leaderboard. Armed with your trusty beam katana (obviously meant to approximate a Star Wars lightsaber), you slice your way through a dozen killers in your quest to earn the number one rank. Narrowing things down to such a simple description doesn't really do the narrative justice, though, since the absurdity of the premise permeates every aspect of the game--its characters, its references, even its gameplay. The sexy, sophisticated Sylvia taunts Travis with her French accent and feminine curves over and over, only to leave him high and dry; boss characters sing lounge music in baseball fields and attack you with killer shopping carts and prosthetic legs; and you earn side money by mowing lawns and filling gas tanks at the local service station. It's pure insanity, but you won't be able to avert your eyes.
Gametrailers is less happy with No More Heroes (8.2), but also seems to be approaching it more as an open world title than a pure action or action-comedy title. On that count, No More Heroes seems to be found a little wanting... in fact, it seems to have some grinding and mini-game happy mechanics that are the exact things hardcore players complain about in Wii titles.
After your first kill, youll find you have to pay to play if you want to rank up as an assassin. So train up at your mentors gym, pay your entry fee, take out the next guy in line, then move up the list to the next psycho killer. Before you can make serious cash, you need to pay your dues with menial tasks like moving lawns or working a gas station pump, with a new jobs popping up after every hit. Theyre only mildly amusing, but youll get a small cash reward, youll get recommended for lucrative assassination missions that test your killing aptitude with timed challenges. If you manage to accumulate some extra dough, youll want to drop in on the foxy Dr. Naomi to shop for useful beam saber upgrades.
And as for IGN's coverage... ahh, IGN. You know, I really like their Wii coverage, and I admire them for outright championing games from time to time, though I think their efforts may be counter-productive. IGN as I recall championed No More Heroes back when its title was different, and so its relatively low score (7.8) seems to result in an apologetic tone to the text.
On a system now home to a ton of uber-casual experiences and lots of "me too" shovelware products, it can be pretty rare to find something made specifically for the more hardcore, mature gamer. Since the very beginning, Wii has had a wrap [sic] for being a family console, and while games like Godfather, Scarface, and Manhunt 2 beg to differ, the more serious products out there are still outshined by the wave of Wii Sports clones and Mairo [sic] Party look-alikes. Well, score one more for the hardcore. No More Heroes isn't the most polished game out there, and it certainly has its fair share of quirks all around, but it deserves to keep its place in the libraries of the more serious Wii gamers just the same. Suda 51 promised a violent, stylistic spectacle, and he delivered.
I like the implication that the Wii's reputation for entertaining large groups of diverse people, who may be related, is horrible and shameful. It's faulty reputation clearly must be repaired with games emphasizing that the Wii may safely be played by geeky young men, the demographic group that is, of course, the ultimate arbiter of taste in American society. I kid, actually, I feel what IGN is going for, but for better or ill, that's kind of how it sounds, you know? It really does the image of the traditional gamer no favors.
