Let the bloodshed begin

To say that videogame developer Goichi Suda makes weird games would be an understatement. In a world of knockoff Grand Theft Auto and Halo clones, Suda 51 (go-ichi translates roughly to 5 and 1 in Japanese) games deliver offbeat, stylish and violent (oh-so-violent) experiences, where fighting headless Japanese businessmen and filming up-skirt shots of female news reporters for “erotic” points is common practice.

So it’s no real shock that No More Heroes, a game about an anime freak who becomes an assassin because he’s run out of money to buy new videogames, is another quirky and original testament to the designing prowess of Suda’s Tokyo-based company, Grasshopper Manufacture Inc. It’s stylish, over-the-top, ultra-violent and not really like anything else on the Wii.

In No More Heroes, gamers step into the shoes of Travis Touchdown, a cocky 20-something punk-turned-assassin living in the fictional town of Santa Destroy, Calif. Armed with his trusty beam katana (Travis also has a bit of a Star Wars fetish) he sets out to become the world’s premiere killer, cutting down anyone who gets in his way.

The game has a slick presentation, done up in cel-shaded style. Characters are heavily outlined and shadowed, making them pop against the more traditional polygonal backdrops. It’s all very stylish.

And then there’s the game’s violence, which more often than not reaches almost comically high levels. In fact, before its release, Suda likened the level of violence to Manhunt 2, which was banned in the U.K. because of its brutality. They weren’t kidding.

Enemies routinely explode in geysers and clouds of blood as Travis slices and dices everything around him. The blood definitely floweth in this one, kids–while its not the most violent game around, No More Heroes still doesn’t pull any punches.

But how the game sets itself apart is in its attitude. Unlike Manhunt 2, whose mature feel and graphic violence caused much controversy, No More Heroes is light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek and ridiculous. Travis’ sensei, a distinguished looking Asian man in a posh, traditional office, has a running gag about Travis taking his clothes off for proper training.

The humor is often understated and left unexplained, true to the director’s style. Suda’s last game, Killer 7, also had a flair for crude, bizarre humor, but its often psychotic tone was set against a much more serious backdrop. But unlike Killer 7’s uncomfortable brand of dark comedy, No More Heroes swaggers around like Travis himself, and is often laugh-out-loud funny.

All that wouldn’t mean a damn thing if the game wasn’t worth playing, though. No More Heroes’ design lies somewhere between the open world mission structure of GTA and an old-school hack-and-slasher. The game’s heart lies in its viscera-splattered combat, Travis also has to take on side jobs (mowing lawns, collecting garbage) in order to earn the necessary cash needed to succeed.

Here’s where the game runs into a few problems. Some of the side jobs that Travis can take just aren’t very interesting (pumping gas, I’m looking at you). Unfortunately, players will have to suffer through them in order to pay for additional stat-boosting training exercises, new clothes or weapons upgrades.

Similarly, the non-ranked assassin battles seem tacked on, since Travis generally fights the same group of suited henchmen over and over–only the target’s name changes. Since additional missions are also the only other way to make the cash necessary for ranked battles, they are sometimes a necessary evil. It would have been nice to see a little more effort and variety in these.

Which leads us to No More Heroes‘ most glaring problem: the open-world environment of Santa Destroy. The city is almost completely non-interactive, and feels so pathetically underdeveloped that it almost comes off as broken. Travis must ride his motorcycle to and from the handful of locations that can be visited throughout the city, but bump into a vehicle or pedestrian and nothing happens. No collisions, no damage taken, no vehicular homicides, no nothing.

It’s obvious that the bulk of the game’s design went into its combat though, which is (mostly) elegantly pulled off. Sword attacks performed from various high and low stance combinations with the Wii-mote, and Travis’ professional wrestling moves are pulled off by moving the Wii-mote and nunchuck in different directions, though the motion-sensing can be a little spotty. The combat is mostly smooth and fluid, and the game has a relatively gradual learning curve and isn’t noticeably hard. And, as Travis progresses, slashing enemies becomes a real blast.

No More Heroes positives far outweigh its negatives. Though the open world environment is serviceable, instead of being truly annoying, it just comes across as another joke. But the heart of the game–its combat–is solid, and the game’s story is just so ridiculous that you have to keep playing.