If you look on any online gaming forum you’ll find people whining about how the Nintendo Wii has no “Hardcore” titles and that every good game on the system has an Italian Plumber stamped on the front of it. No More Heroes is quite simply what the Wii needs, en masse.

With the graphics of the game, you’ll notice that they bear large similarities to Rising Star games previous title for the GameCube's Killer7. The graphics are anime based and as such make good use of the Wii’s less than stellar graphics capability to great effect. This suits the game perfectly and is one of the key attributes that gives this game its amazing personality. The graphics and frame rate are also consistent within the game as well which is impressive seeing as each dismembered opponent seems to gush horrific amounts of blood when killed. The game also has a nice arcade style soundtrack and effects which really add to the retro atmosphere. Each line uttered by a character is also side splitting, with each moment perfectly timed and executed.

Turning to the story - No More Heroes is a simple yet compelling narrative. It features the events of main character and down and out loser Travis Touchdown, whom after buying a Lightsaber rip-off “Beam Katana” becomes an assassin and eventually finds himself ranked 11th in the United Assassin association ranking board. Travis, after finding this out, decides to shoot for the top with his reward being able to do UAA honey “Sylvia”. The story doesn’t progress too much after the start, though seeing each individual assassin and their brief but effective back story is inspiration enough to see you to the next fight.

Gameplay wise the controls are set like you would expect of a standard Wii game. The A and B buttons handle attacks and a swing of the Wii mote in line with an in game prompt, though don’t be fooled this game will have you swinging the Wii mote as much as Twilight Princess as finishing moves appear alot - this isn’t a bad thing though. The enemies are pretty dumb and will just try to swarm you as there main form of attack, the challenge comes from fighting ever greater waves of opponents coming at you, each one just skin swaps of the same basic enemy. The difficulty is ramped up though by an increase in health and attack power by the enemies so you remain on your toes in combat (though you yourself can buy new Katanas to help even the odds again) - it's still mass slaughter on the part of Travis, though.

The last major point about the game play which really makes the game is the ranked boss fights. Each one has a completely unique persona, array of attacks, and an awesome background track, which Im actually listening to as Im writing this. Each battle will make you laugh, sweat and horrified, and is what makes NMH so good.

Sadly one major letdown for the game is the short length, if you stick around to get all the upgrades the game takes around 8 hrs to complete and there’s only a harder difficultly to add to the games replay ability after completion. This is upsetting seeing as one of the best features of the story is seeing the next boss, taking the surprise out of the fight takes the edge of a little.

In conclusion No More Heroes is a must have for any hardcore gamer owning a Wii, the crude humour, the sea of gore and the Pop culture boss fights make this game quite possible one of the best on the console so far, though the game is quite small so try and get it on a rental if possible.

9/10

Tom

Labels: Anime, Review, Wii

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