I’ve always wanted to play the original No More Heroes games since I played Travis Strikes Again. I enjoyed my time with TSA, but I felt like I was missing out on the real experience. So when NMH 1 & 2 dropped on the Switch I was ecstatic and boy did NMH1 not disappoint.
The story is... unconventional to say the least. It has a simple premise: You are Travis Touchdown and you have to kill the ten highest ranked assassins and your reward is nailing the woman who orchestrated these fights. There are several fourth wall breaking jokes and the story never takes itself seriously. I’ve been playing a lot of story focused games like Ghost of Tsushima, Last of Us Part II, and Yakuza 7. So to see a game that doesn’t take itself super seriously is weirdly refreshing. They even jokingly say that it won’t get a sequel, self awareness jokes are hit and miss for me personally, but Suda51 hits the mark on them.
The Hack and Slash gameplay was addicting and as a huge wrestling fan it made me smile to see Travis pull off a Brain Buster and a DDT. I thought the graphics/art style complimented the tone very well. Don’t get me wrong I love games like Ghost of Tsushima and God of War that are known for their gorgeous scenery, but in my opinion sometimes having your own artistic style helps a game stand out more (like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, I’m interested in it just for its aesthetics alone).
I know a lot of people weren’t fond of the jobs, but personally I did not mind them as much. Except for the Scorpion and Mine removal jobs, those were just tedious. I think they’re a great way to prevent the game from feeling repetitive. Plus they get you money so you can buy clothes and more Beam Katanas to unlock the true ending so there is an incentive. That was one of my gripes with NMH2. All of the jobs were optional and you didn’t need them to participate in the rankings and I only used the dual wielding Katanas when I unlocked them so I didn’t switch them out. That’s how I noticed the game can be repetitive, but I’ll talk about that when I do a separate post for NMH2. Although I will say traveling to the job location was pretty boring, something that was fixed in the sequel, but again that’s for another post.
Back to the Beam Katanas, my favorite would have to be the Tsubaki MK.II just because the design is so impractical, but I got so many multi kills in the “Kill 100 enemies in x amount of minutes” a classic “don’t judge a book by its cover” example.
The bosses are some of the most colorful characters I have fought in a game. I often found myself coming up with new strategies. Like when fighting Dr. Peace I dodged/deflected bullets and rolled up behind him to attack. When I fought Bad Girl I didn’t even try to swing the gimps back to her (which sounds so weird now that I type it) or attack her when she was crying, I couldn’t risk it so I was patient, took my time, and attacked her when I was sure I had the right opportunity. Even Jeane was a whole other animal. The Beam Katana was useless and had to rely on melee attacks. So as far as battles go NMH has a wonderful series of boss battles. We only get to spend less then five minutes with them in the cutscenes, but they all standout with their over the top and eccentric personalities. Hell I could see some of them staring in their own games. How cool would a Destroyman prequel game be where he is the stereotypical hero, but slowly loses his mind as you progress. Or maybe Shinobu in a stealth/action spin-off.
Lastly I want to talk about the performances. This in my opinion is Robin Atkin Downes best role. It’s thanks to him that I found Travis to be likable. Downes also shows the two sides of Travis: the nerdy otaku who just wants to be the best assassin in the world and the subtle honorable side of him who shows sympathy and respect to the people he killed (albeit he only shows this side when he kill woman). I also have to give a shout out to Josh Keaton as Destroyman. I think it’s funny that for a guy who’s well known for voicing iconic super heroes from Spider-Man to Green Lantern to recently Iron Man, he plays a parody of a hero in Destroyman who sounds like he is going to snap and go on a killing spree at any minute (although judging by how you meet him it looks like he already has).
My only gripes with the game are small nitpicks. The aforementioned driving segments of the game was lackluster, but again they fixed that in the next game. Perhaps it just wasn’t meant for an open world style. My other nitpick is the camera there were a few times when it would get to close to me and the enemy which resulted in some awkward angles, but they weren’t really frequent so it didn’t ruin the experience. My last gripe (and again this is a nitpick) is that literally every time I got the cool slot power ups I only obtained them when there was only two enemies. Every. Single. Time.
The story is... unconventional to say the least. It has a simple premise: You are Travis Touchdown and you have to kill the ten highest ranked assassins and your reward is nailing the woman who orchestrated these fights. There are several fourth wall breaking jokes and the story never takes itself seriously. I’ve been playing a lot of story focused games like Ghost of Tsushima, Last of Us Part II, and Yakuza 7. So to see a game that doesn’t take itself super seriously is weirdly refreshing. They even jokingly say that it won’t get a sequel, self awareness jokes are hit and miss for me personally, but Suda51 hits the mark on them.
The Hack and Slash gameplay was addicting and as a huge wrestling fan it made me smile to see Travis pull off a Brain Buster and a DDT. I thought the graphics/art style complimented the tone very well. Don’t get me wrong I love games like Ghost of Tsushima and God of War that are known for their gorgeous scenery, but in my opinion sometimes having your own artistic style helps a game stand out more (like Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, I’m interested in it just for its aesthetics alone).
I know a lot of people weren’t fond of the jobs, but personally I did not mind them as much. Except for the Scorpion and Mine removal jobs, those were just tedious. I think they’re a great way to prevent the game from feeling repetitive. Plus they get you money so you can buy clothes and more Beam Katanas to unlock the true ending so there is an incentive. That was one of my gripes with NMH2. All of the jobs were optional and you didn’t need them to participate in the rankings and I only used the dual wielding Katanas when I unlocked them so I didn’t switch them out. That’s how I noticed the game can be repetitive, but I’ll talk about that when I do a separate post for NMH2. Although I will say traveling to the job location was pretty boring, something that was fixed in the sequel, but again that’s for another post.
Back to the Beam Katanas, my favorite would have to be the Tsubaki MK.II just because the design is so impractical, but I got so many multi kills in the “Kill 100 enemies in x amount of minutes” a classic “don’t judge a book by its cover” example.
The bosses are some of the most colorful characters I have fought in a game. I often found myself coming up with new strategies. Like when fighting Dr. Peace I dodged/deflected bullets and rolled up behind him to attack. When I fought Bad Girl I didn’t even try to swing the gimps back to her (which sounds so weird now that I type it) or attack her when she was crying, I couldn’t risk it so I was patient, took my time, and attacked her when I was sure I had the right opportunity. Even Jeane was a whole other animal. The Beam Katana was useless and had to rely on melee attacks. So as far as battles go NMH has a wonderful series of boss battles. We only get to spend less then five minutes with them in the cutscenes, but they all standout with their over the top and eccentric personalities. Hell I could see some of them staring in their own games. How cool would a Destroyman prequel game be where he is the stereotypical hero, but slowly loses his mind as you progress. Or maybe Shinobu in a stealth/action spin-off.
Lastly I want to talk about the performances. This in my opinion is Robin Atkin Downes best role. It’s thanks to him that I found Travis to be likable. Downes also shows the two sides of Travis: the nerdy otaku who just wants to be the best assassin in the world and the subtle honorable side of him who shows sympathy and respect to the people he killed (albeit he only shows this side when he kill woman). I also have to give a shout out to Josh Keaton as Destroyman. I think it’s funny that for a guy who’s well known for voicing iconic super heroes from Spider-Man to Green Lantern to recently Iron Man, he plays a parody of a hero in Destroyman who sounds like he is going to snap and go on a killing spree at any minute (although judging by how you meet him it looks like he already has).
My only gripes with the game are small nitpicks. The aforementioned driving segments of the game was lackluster, but again they fixed that in the next game. Perhaps it just wasn’t meant for an open world style. My other nitpick is the camera there were a few times when it would get to close to me and the enemy which resulted in some awkward angles, but they weren’t really frequent so it didn’t ruin the experience. My last gripe (and again this is a nitpick) is that literally every time I got the cool slot power ups I only obtained them when there was only two enemies. Every. Single. Time.