FreshHalibut

No More Heroes

Overview

 

This is where it all started. Originally released on the Wii, this entry leans into the motion control gimmick for the entire game. You play as Travis Touchdown, the world's most badass Otaku loser. I didn't mind his personality in this one, he comes off as a lot more of an aggressive idiot earlier in the series before mellowing out. You could say the events of this game cause him to mellow out a bit, but I don't think the writing is consistent enough between games. It's not a graphical powerhouse, but the re-releases look decent with the artstyle. NMH1 still has performance issues in the open world, but nothing that breaks gameplay. The open world in this entry only serves as a point A to point B transition. Santa Destroy is essentially empty, but you get a good sense of where Travis lives as you complete side jobs and explore the various boss lairs. The overall runtime is short, but in order to get the true ending, you have to buy all the upgrades from the shop which leads to some late game grinding. I didn't really mind the grinding though because it can go fairly quickly and the main grinding mission is a highscore killing spree.

 

Combat / Upgrades

 

You have three basic attacks in No More Heroes, high stance, low stance, and kicks. The way it generally works is that you can get through a guard by using the opposite stance or by using a kick. The kick can stun enemies which leads to a big suplex attack which is big damage. In the Wii and Switch version you change stances by holding the remote high or low but in the rereleases it's just a button press. The combat in this entry can be pretty brutal, there are few ways to replenish health and some of the lead ups to the boss can be tough. It's important to always grab the latest upgrades from the shop because the later beam katanas are always better than your starting one. It's pretty nice that each weapon gets its own moveset and they all play fairly differently. The second beam katana has kicks built into its basic attack string which lets you easily stun and suplex grunt enemies. The upgrade to this weapon is bascially a beam katana club, big damage, but big energy drain. You could bring the beam bat through the whole game if you wanted, but since you need to buy everything from the shop to get the true ending, you're better off buying the final beam katana. It doesn't do more damage, but it attacks way faster and has an upgrade for unlimited battery. There is also the roulette system, where killing enemies give you a random chance for a powerup. Powerups range from one shot kills to super speed, unfortunately you never seem to get powerups when you need them, and the later beam katanas seem to never roll on the roulette. When you get to the boss fights, they are all varied and unique, and most of them are fairly tough. There are a few joke fights, but most of the boss fights are really good. The camera is pulled in close and the pacing is slower than later games so you get more of a sense of dueling than in the later entries. Since it's hard to replenish your health, you will die a few times and have to take things carefully.

 

Side Jobs

 

The other side of the coin are the wacky side jobs. This entry has the widest variety of side jobs, and they were all built around the motion controller mechanic. Most of these are played for the joke, but you'll only have to do them once or twice to unlock the next assassination mission. Lawn mowing, cat catching, graffiti cleaning, and scorpion wrangling are a few of the jobs on offer. As mentioned before, these were all built to use the motion controls in novel ways, but the modern release makes that entirely optional.

 

Conclusions

 

Even though it's the first entry, I think this is honestly the best one. The levels each try to do their own thing, and the boss fights are mostly great. The wackiness is balanced and has a decent variety on offer, but there isn't a lot of fourth wall breaking like later entries would have, it still has some, but it's more reigned in. There's no doubt that this was designed as a one off title and in most ways it's self contained. I think that works to its benefit since it doesn't have to worry about having a consistent story outside of its own game as the later entries would have to. The tone is more consistent overall and it achieves what it set out to do, which is poke fun at action heroes while being one.

 

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Overview

 

The Sequel is also originally a Wii game! However, unlike the first game, motion controls are totally optional! Motion controls are far less prominent in this entry and are really only used in combat. I played through with motion controls and I think they benefited the combat by making it more visceral, but that's a personal preference thing. You can play the whole game on a gamepad and instead of having to waggle the Joycons or Wiimote, you just press the sticks in the direction on screen. Gone is the overworld of the first game replaced with purely menu based level selections. This is generally better because you don't have to waste time running around town in bad framerate. It does take away from the vibe a little bit because it just becomes a series of combats, but that's a good thing for most people. This game still features levels leading up to the boss fights, but the level gimmicks are mostly gone. The levels leading up to each boss fight are essentially a long regular combat section, sometimes up to thirty minutes of just fighting mooks. Breaking this up however are two new playable characters! They break up the action nicely, but you can only play them once per playthrough on their designated mission. They aren't as polished as Travis is, but they're a nice change of pace considering how much extra combat Travis goes through in this game. This entry is also where the story starts to get a lot less serious (and it wasn't that serious to start with). There's more fourth wall breaking compared to the first one and the plot of this game mostly ignores what happened in the first one. NMH2 addresses this by saying "The gamers don't want to hear about the details, they just want to kill stuff!". That turns out to be the design mantra for this entry. The combat is a lot more forgiving compared to the first one and they let you slice up much larger groups of enemies in larger levels. The bosses have less story behind them, but they're character design spectacles. They also pulled the camera back making it easier to see all the enemies you'll be fighting.

 

Combat / Upgrades

 

The combat system remains largely unchanged from the first game, you have a high and low stance that you mix up to get through an enemy's guard. A big change however is that the grunt enemies are more varied and as such change up how you fight them. In general it's easier to get through an enemy's guard and suplex them. In addition this entry offers a larger variety of suplexes to activate on unsuspecting enemies and you unlock more of them as you go through the game. Suplexes remain extemely powerful and still allow you to oneshot grunts on the floor with a downward stab. Another change for this entry is that you can carry more than one weapon at a time, up to all four beam katanas available in the game. This is great because each beam katana is viable in this entry. You have the classic Bloodberry, the Katana from NMH1, and two new ones. One of them is a lightsaber that swings very slowly but gets longer the more damage you do, up to a full screen if you avoid taking damage. The other new weapon is a pair of dual beam katanas. These are unlocked later in the game, but they're super fun to use. They swing fast, they do good damage, and they don't require a lot of battery maintenance. The roulette system makes a return too and it activates far more frequently. Most of the old powerups return and there are a few new ones. A fun roulette powerup is where Travis turns into a tiger and can zoom around the level one-shotting everyone. Unfortunately the boss fights in this entry are very hit or miss. Overall they're a lot easier, which isn't a bad thing, but you can button mash your way through most of it and there isn't anything as tense as the first game. Overall I like the combat more in this game compared to the first one, even if it's more button mashy. They really focused on making the action and bosses a lot flashier in this entry.

 

Side Jobs

 

Money is less important in this entry because the fight fees are gone, but there are still a selection of odd jobs you can do. In the sequel these are stylized as old school videogames. There's an action game where you kill bugs, there's the classic pipe puzzles, and even a super hang on parody. These aren't all winners, but some of them are legitimately fun and are leagues better than the side jobs from the first game. The jobs in the first game are mostly there for the gag. The side jobs in this game also represent the start of NMH going down the retro game enthusiast route. Pixelart Travis starts here and keeps on going all the way through the next two games.

 

Conclusions

 

No More Heroes 2 is a better game in most ways, but overall it's a less focused package. They leaned into what people liked in the first game, which was chopping people up with a beam katana and having big boss fights, but everything feels a little more haphazard than before. Things just happen in the story and you just have to roll with it. The overall gameplay and side jobs are better than the first one, there's no sluggish overworld to worry about, but the boss fights aren't as thoughtfully designed. In the first game, you got the sense that these were the top assassins, in the sequel it's more like "here's a cool character design." I wouldn't fault anyone for preferring the sequel to the first game, because in many ways they're right. It plays better, you don't have to grind money, there's more bosses and more combat. They play a bit fast and loose with the story for the purposes of making a joke or gag. Something about the sum of its parts feels less to me though. If I had to replay one I'd probably pick this one since it gets right to the good parts, but it feels like less unique of a game overall.

 

No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Again

Overview

 

Travis is back after years without a game and on the Unreal Engine! This isn't a return to form however, but a weird spinoff game! However you can't really skip this one because it ties directly into NMH3. Travis must team up with Bad Man and defeat the bosses of the Death Ball games to grant his wish. Each of these death ball games takes on a parody of some or another genre of game. You have a top down action world, sidescroller, puzzle, and others. This isn't a third person beat-em-up like the last two games, it plays like an XBLA arcade game. You get death glove skills that can wipe out enemies for you that work on cooldowns and your basic light and heavy attacks but that's it. The base game includes two playable characters but four total if you buy the DLC. They each get their own dialog and personal skills, but being an arcade style game they still play similarly. Unfortunately this is a game where the "True" ending is locked behind DLC and also all the backstory about Bad Man. At least its easy to get on sale these days, but I understand why people were upset that this was Travis big return. Additionally, this is the entry that starts shattering the fourth wall as Travis starts referencing the game within the game as well as gamers and various other gags. As the previous entry, this game largely ignores the plot of NMH1 and 2. It expects you to have played NMH1, but many of the finer details have been ignored or retconned. It also features Visual Novel sections in the style of old computer games, they're pretty nice actually.

 

Combat / Upgrades

 

As mentioned, the combat in this game is like an XBLA beat-em-up. As Travis changes genres the level design changes, but the overall combat remains arcadey top down button masher. There are no combos to unlock, no alternate weapons, instead there are Death Glove skills you can find in the environment. Honestly the combat is not great, even taken as an arcade game. You have two attacks, light and heavy, and some actually useful attacks on cooldown and that's it. Most of the enemies are pretty annoying and it can get to be a slog. The boss fights are alright but nothing to write home about. There is a level-up system however where you can power-up your health and damage values over the course of the game making things a bit easier.

Side Jobs

 

The only side jobs in this entry are the requests to get to return to an older level to punch in a code or find a hidden character. It's mostly padding that you can use to get a few level ups.

Conclusions

 

I don't hate this game? I wouldn't call it good per se, it was clearly meant to be a co-op buddy romp so it gets grating going through the whole thing by yourself. If you had a buddy to play through it with, the jokes and gags will probably carry it through, but I can't see myself ever returning to this one by myself. The visual novel sections are really good actually, but the normal gameplay can get brutal and the enemies are both annoying and spongey, sometimes at the same time! I don't think it's a bad game, not overall anyway, but it was clearly a "we need to train our guys on unreal, so lets put this out in the meantime" type of thing. It doesn't help that on the Switch the whole game is kind of blurry, it would probably look better on PC.

 

No More Heroes 3

Overview

 

Travis' actual for real big return! Also running on the Unreal Engine! Motion controls are back, but are once again totally optional. I think that they're actually a detriment in this game because there aren't any varied inputs as in the previous game. There's one suplex command and the usual death blow swings, but there's not a lot of variety in the actual motions. The artstyle has been changed for this entry too! The entire thing is set up aesthetically as though you were watching an old anime from the 70s on Netflix, including intermissions with an old big screen TV overlay. The actual gameworld goes for a more realistic rendering but everything is all futuristic styled. I don't think the new Unreal Travis looks as good as the old one, but I was playing on Switch, maybe the PC/PS5 release in October will look better? Also the overworld is back! It's been populated with side jobs, combat missions, and a few visual novel adventures too! It's still kind of empty, but more like a ubisoft openworld instead of being literally empty. There's trees to plant, Statues to smash, and Scorpions to catch to distract you in the open world, also the bike actually drives well in this one! The story however did not survive contact with Travis Strikes Again, and in many ways the whole plot is one big joke. Not a mean spirited one, but don't go into the thrilling finale expecting answers to anything. The game makes jokes about itself, the genre, gamers, and the industry. It shatters the fourth wall constantly and has the same vibe as TSA but a much different vibe from NMH1/2. Also the overworld runs pretty poorly on the switch. It has the same issue that Astral Chain did where the non-combat sections chug badly, but the gameplay sections are all rock solid. Probably why they designed all the combat to be in little arenas.

 

Combat / Upgrades

 

We're down to one beam katana in this game, but travis brought a few skills from TSA on his death gauntlet. You get four combat skills on cooldown plus your light and heavy combo attacks. The combat in this game is redesigned compared to NMH2. You still combo enemies and can stun them for a suplex, but doing that now recharges your battery. So it's really fun to do a big combo and finish it off with a throw and full battery recharge. Failing that you can always recharge it the regular way too. Upgrades are more generic in this entry with you spending points to upgrade attack/health/battery/cooldowns and a few special attacks. These are the same type of upgrades as in the old games, but you just buy them now, NMH1/2 made you do a training minigame. There's also a new loot system where you use junk collected from defeated enemies to craft death chips that you can equip. These function as equippable buffs that can change your playstyle. There's a wide variety, but I ended up just using a combination that gave me 15% more attack the whole game. Bosses no longer have their own themed levels in this entry, you just do a series of designated battles on the overworld before signing up for the boss fight itself. The boss fights are mostly fine. There are a few with pretty neat gimmicks but they're pretty easy to blowthrough as long as you've been putting in upgrades. Oh also, this is the first time that you can bring consumable items into the fights, so you can bring five full heals with you if you need it. The side mission battles are really where the meat of the combat is, the boss fights are more for the spectacle in this one. I do want to complain about the enemies though, mostly they're good, but there's combinations of enemies that are just painful to fight. When the game puts you in a small room with a bunch of shield boys, it's a recipe for sunlock pain. The roulette returns in this game with a few new powerups and we've lost a couple old ones. There's a new full armor mode that can be activated on the roulette that replaces tiger mode, but the oneshot powerups are gone. The good news is that the roulette activates pretty frequently. Also there are new space battles in this game! The full armor mode has an alternative fuller armor mode that lets you fight big bosses in space reminiscent of a StarFox boss fight. These are really easy, but a nice spectacle and change of pace from the regular combat system.

Side Jobs

 

Side Jobs are back in this one and they aren't retro games anymore. They're back to the style of NMH1 where Travis is cutting lawns again. The variety is close to what NMH1 had, but the jobs are designed as full on minigames now. There are new bike missions where you have to take down traffic in a high speed chase, there's a turret defense game, and underground mining which acts as a time-limited obstacle course. Lawn mowing and trash pick up both return as well. I found mining to be a little too unforgiving, but the other side jobs were all pretty fun. Maybe not lawn mowing, but trash pick up lets you suplex aligators which is rad.

 

Conclusion

 

No More Heroes 3 is kind of a different beast compared to the previous entries. It tries to be quirky like the first game while ironing out the gameplay and somewhere along the road they decided to take the writing and go full on "I understood that reference" with the game. Travis stops his bike with the Akira slide, there's Godzilla references, they talk about bleeped out movies and anime in between each chapter, plus other things I won't spoil. While the first two games could be serious at times while still making fun of the genre, NMH3 spends its entire runtime referencing and joking about things. On its own NMH3 is a perfectly competent B-game that revels in the idea of videogame and anime tropes. Taken as the thrilling conclusion to a franchise it does nothing to address the story from either of the first two games. They bring Killer 7 into the No More Heroes canon and do nothing with it. They refuse to explain anything that happened between the games and it probably wouldn't matter anyway because they don't really care about a consistent canon. NMH3 follows the rule of cool and never puts the brakes on. I found myself having fun with the combat and laughing at how absurd the story was getting, but I'd be pretty mad if I was invested into the setting at all since they actively retcon things between games. I think this entry ironically plays the best, but it's the weakest package over all. A lot of the game is held up by its ridiculousness, but once you've seen it you're just left with the gameplay. And the gameplay is good! But it feels very disconnected from everything else going on. They put in quality of life features like being able to refight ranked fights, the death chips, 51 combat challenges, but it feels kind of disjointed from everything else. I think it would be a more pleasant experience with better framerate on the overworld since you do spend so much time there. Maybe it will get a new lease on life with the PC/PS releases this October.

If I had to pick a favorite console based on games, features, nostalgia, it would have to be the Xbox360.

It was the first steps into HD gaming with more of everything. There were a lot of breakout hits that spawned new franchises, companies were more willing to put out risky games and we got a lot of super cool super weird stuff out of it.

There's a lot of bad to be sure, but the 360 gave us the likes of Dead Rising, Crackdown, Saint's Row, and it was backwards compatible with a bunch of titles too.

 

The 360 is probably my G.O.A.T. if it were in a time capsule.

I strongly feel that the XOne and XSX are just Gigacharged 360s though.

The XOne got a pretty robust 360 backwards compatibility list eventually and all of that transferred over to the XSX.

 

So if you were going to put me on a Desert island, I'd grab one of the Five Series X in existence because I'd get most of the Fantastic 360 library, and the entire XOne library, and the like, three games out for Next Gen.

So while Next Gen is kind of a mess right now, I really appreciate how Microsoft has been making an invested effort to sell old games on everything.

 

Honorable mentions go to the Switch and the 3DS.

The 3DS is the best portable device, because most of its games were designed with portability in mind, plus you have the entire fantastic DS library.

I really love the switch, but like, you can't just pick up Breath of the Wild for ten minutes on the bus that easily like you could a ton of 3DS games.

In a desert island situation, Switch over the 3DS any day, but in terms of on the go, I can fit a 3DS in various pockets and flip it open for a quick game or flip it shut to pause in an instant.

I really think the switch loses out on that on-the-bus convenience for being a mix of a home console and portable one.

So once again I'm going to go with 7th generation.

Between the Wii, 360, and PS3 there were a lot of super great, super interesting, and super terrible games.

Even with a lot of shovelware there weren't market analysts shoving crafting and lootcrates and Exp bars into everything yet.

 

Seventh gen was still cheap enough to develop for that moderate hits were getting sequels and we got a lot of interesting gimmick games.

I appreciate mario, and final fantasy, and the SNES and everything, but 7th gen is where I'd say a lot of games started looking like "modern" games.

I've been kind of an old game kick and buying old PS3 games before they go extinct. A lot of them aren't super great or anything, but they resemble a modern videogame.

I'd argue a lot of them have some serious flaws, but they're still trying to do their own thing.

Going purely based on consoles because PC might as well be GOAT

 

Probably the Switch and 3DS tied for first, because I actually bought games for them.

If I had an unlimited library, the XOne for variety, or maybe the PS3 for all the PS2 games I have loaded onto it.

 

So my list is like

1/2 : Switch or 3DS

3: XOne

4: PS3 (for B/C mostly)

PC is cheating, but I think there's a really specific period around the PS2 leading to 360 era where we got a lot of radical PC games.

Thinking things like Half Life 2, Deus Ex, Jedi Knight. Idk what console generation that counts as, but the era where everything still had a leg back in the Quake engine.