This review contains spoilers
No More Heroes III feels final.
It's taking the story of Travis Touchdown to its absolute limit and pushing him against the most fantastical threats he's faced thus far. And in the face of those threats, he's still extremely Travis Touchdown about it. It's the only way he knows how to be.
I'm still kind of sinking my teeth into this one, it's doing a lot and most of it feels slight. Definitely irreverent, but maybe not irrelevant. Hours after finishing the game, I find myself thinking about the town of Santa Destroy and how, for all its technological advancement, it's arguably more of a shithole than where we started with the original No More Heroes. Such is the nature of city planning. It all sucks. The open world returning in this game in exactly the way it does is honestly such a godsend. I love it.
Travis as a character is sort of in a post-arc, where he's kind of developed all that he needs to in TSA and he just wants to live in his bitchin' 3 story apartment complete with laboratory and watch Takashi Miike movies with his best friend. He doesn't exactly have an arc in this game, but its important to reflect on where he is now vs where he was in the first game. 13 years ago, Travis was throwing himself at every chance to do combat, every chance to shed blood. Travis seems tired here, he just wants to get it over with. He wants to fight, he enjoys the fight, but he's not salivating for it. He's the apex predator, they walked into his den.
So here we have a Travis that has something to protect. Friends he awkwardly tries to take care of by giving anime recommendations and talking at length about pro wrestling. He's afraid of death deep down, as we find out through his outright rejection of death late in the game, and I'm going to safely assume that that's because of this very attachment he has to his friends and home. Like it or not, he became a hero.
The gameplay is much improved in this installment, making for one of the best, most outright fucking fun action games on the switch platform. I can't get enough of the battles in this one, which makes the fact that we're fucking up rich, privileged assholes from outer space and their CEO friend all the sweeter. The action fires on all cylinders, giving us a collection of memorable and diverse boss fights that honestly rivals the first game. And god, does it feel good to say that.
In the game's final moments we get what is probably Travis' most triumphant and righteous moment to date while also getting the confirmation that no, this shit never truly ends. Which as an ending for the series, feels appropriate. I said in my review for the first game that I hoped Travis would find the exit. I'm here to report that he hasn't, at least not literally. He probably knows some exits, but its not important anymore. This is kind of a shitty life, but it's HIS shitty life and NMH3 is, at least in part, a story about owning that shit. It may feel cynical or dark, and it kinda is, but it feels fuckin' real.
It's taking the story of Travis Touchdown to its absolute limit and pushing him against the most fantastical threats he's faced thus far. And in the face of those threats, he's still extremely Travis Touchdown about it. It's the only way he knows how to be.
I'm still kind of sinking my teeth into this one, it's doing a lot and most of it feels slight. Definitely irreverent, but maybe not irrelevant. Hours after finishing the game, I find myself thinking about the town of Santa Destroy and how, for all its technological advancement, it's arguably more of a shithole than where we started with the original No More Heroes. Such is the nature of city planning. It all sucks. The open world returning in this game in exactly the way it does is honestly such a godsend. I love it.
Travis as a character is sort of in a post-arc, where he's kind of developed all that he needs to in TSA and he just wants to live in his bitchin' 3 story apartment complete with laboratory and watch Takashi Miike movies with his best friend. He doesn't exactly have an arc in this game, but its important to reflect on where he is now vs where he was in the first game. 13 years ago, Travis was throwing himself at every chance to do combat, every chance to shed blood. Travis seems tired here, he just wants to get it over with. He wants to fight, he enjoys the fight, but he's not salivating for it. He's the apex predator, they walked into his den.
So here we have a Travis that has something to protect. Friends he awkwardly tries to take care of by giving anime recommendations and talking at length about pro wrestling. He's afraid of death deep down, as we find out through his outright rejection of death late in the game, and I'm going to safely assume that that's because of this very attachment he has to his friends and home. Like it or not, he became a hero.
The gameplay is much improved in this installment, making for one of the best, most outright fucking fun action games on the switch platform. I can't get enough of the battles in this one, which makes the fact that we're fucking up rich, privileged assholes from outer space and their CEO friend all the sweeter. The action fires on all cylinders, giving us a collection of memorable and diverse boss fights that honestly rivals the first game. And god, does it feel good to say that.
In the game's final moments we get what is probably Travis' most triumphant and righteous moment to date while also getting the confirmation that no, this shit never truly ends. Which as an ending for the series, feels appropriate. I said in my review for the first game that I hoped Travis would find the exit. I'm here to report that he hasn't, at least not literally. He probably knows some exits, but its not important anymore. This is kind of a shitty life, but it's HIS shitty life and NMH3 is, at least in part, a story about owning that shit. It may feel cynical or dark, and it kinda is, but it feels fuckin' real.