Game Journal: No More Heroes

No spoiler warning. To spoil a plot, the game would have to have one. :P

Seriously, the game is supposedly about a crazy loser becoming the world's greatest assassin so he can get in some gal's pants. It doesn't improve from there. There are false identities, a ghost, completely unexplained amnesia, back story so boring the game actually fast forwards through it... None of it has anything to do with the game. And what is the game?

It's an action game where you have to do chores to get back to the action. Seriously. To fight the next highest assassin, you have to do menial jobs like mowing lawns, pumping gas, and picking up trash. You can also do combat jobs to get more cash. Those were less terrible. But either way, you'll waste large amounts of time driving around Santa Destroy on your motorcycle.

At first I was into it. It's trying to establish a mood and a setting. Travis (the protagonist) is into anime and luchadors and super awkward around women. He's a joke. I'd go waste some time buying clothes he didn't need and doing odd jobs to pay for them. That's Travis. Of course he'd blow all his winnings on new pants then have to mow lots of lawns to get to the next fight. But it was too boring.

It's funny how feelings pivot. The open world stuff went from being charming to being a pointless grind, just like that. I guess that's partly because it was so irrelevant. A feeling is all it can give.

The combat was fine. Fighting the standard cannon fodder wasn't very involved, but if you like quick time events, you're in for a treat. I say that tongue in cheek as I know lots of gamers hate QTEs, but I don't mind them if they're done well. My favorite in NMH was running towards an opponent who was running at me and attacking just as he attacked, causing a clash event where I had to spin the Wiimote like I was turning a crank to win and behead the guy. Regardless, every finishing move in the game requires a quick flick of the control, and the wrestling moves require moving both the Wiimote and nunchuck, to vaguely approximate what Travis is doing.

And the variety in bosses was impressive. And there was only one of them that wasn't any fun to fight. This puts No More Heroes well ahead of most action games.

Overall, it was a fun experience, but I would never grind through the chores a second time.

Three out of five.