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NO MORE HEREOS; Down and Dirty (No Spoilers)
Topic Started: Feb 4 2008, 02:47 PM (383 Views)
eomund

Well, It's been a little over a week since NO MORE HEROES hit the market. I'm calling this game down and dirty due to both the subject matter and content of this game.

I also want to point out that this game is rated M for a good reason, so unless your at the very least 16, I don't recommend getting your parents to buy you this one.

Okay let's get started.

The story starts with Travis Touchdown striving to be the number 1 assassin in the assassins league. You do this by challenging the 10 above you with your Light Saber erm.. I mean Beam Katana. All the while you have this tart by the name of Sylvia Christel driving you forward. The plot line is thin but it serves as a good drive to get you moving in the story. I'm going to avoid spoilers so I'll just say you're going to be fighting against a variety of opponents, and characters which greatly enhance the game.

The graphics in this game are far from perfect, but still really well done. The game is done in a pretty wild cell shading giving the game a great artistic flair. It uses extreme lighting techniques to get this across too. Even though some of the cell shading was a bit on the rough side, it adds a flair to the game that I don't think could have been achieved with rendered graphics.
It's not without flaws though. The biggest beef I have with the graphics is the lighting. I understand why they used the extreme lighting, but sometimes it kind of hurts the game. Primarily in a couple of boss fights, you have situations where it's quite hard to see. There also seems to bee tidbits of frame rate slow down in this game, but it doesn't happen enough to be a serious issue.
I think the game creators know they aren't pushing the graphic envelope and point it out to you in little humerous ways. All the menues are sort of done in a retro 80's arcade fashion, and even your life gauge is made of a heart made of solid pixels.



Due to how the game is set up I'm going to talk about the gameplay in 3 parts.
First your thrown right into the first ranked fight. You have the option to either go through all the tutorials or to skip them. Take the tutorial, or you will be sorry. There are quite a few things that you won't be able to figure out otherwise.

The gameplay is pretty straight forward. A to attack, B to punch or kick Z for lock on and C to reset the camera. If you thought you were going to be flailing your arms like a monkey trying to be a windmill, you won't be, most of the time. But it goes deeper than that. The way you hold the controller will change the way you attack. Running up to your oppenent and attacking will give some neet looking combos, and you get a finishing move, which requires you to swing the controller in a specific direction to pull off, to get a bloody and wild finish. You can also bludgeon your enemy to death by kicking and punching them into a dase and then pulling off Pro Wrestling moves (again by waving the controller in specific directions.)

There really isn't much challenge to these levels save for finding special cards. Chances on dying are slim unless you just don't have the hang of it or aren't really paying attention. The AI isn't exactly supurb either. There is an obvious aggro range from where you see them and they run up and attack you. This means if you don't want to take on leagions at a time just get one to chase you and run the other way so his friends don't follow.


The games world mode is a GTAish layout but without the diversity and interactiveness. For transportation you get a motorcycle which you can do a couple of things with like pulling donuts, but mainly serves as nothing but transportation. The city may start boring, but it does serve as the loading ground for all the missions in the game. And as you complete the game more things become available to you such as gyms, stores ect.

You also get to do certain challenges randomly through out the city (more and more as the game progresses) that have funny little rules like you can't get hit once, or you can only kill them with wresteling moves. This, while un-nessesary to complete the game does liven it up a bit.

To continue to assend the ladder you also need to take on odd jobs to earm money. This can be any demeaning task from picking up coconuts to mowing grass. These seemingly pointless tasks open up new assassin missions as well as add some light humor to the game.
I do wish the city served a little more interaction, but it is fun to ride around and do missions.


I saved the Boss fights for last because these are easily the highlight of the game. Each one is extremely different than the last, and you have to find weeknesses while not getting yourself killed in the process. Some of the bosses attacks are devestating to borderline cheap, but it does keep you on your toes, or um, fingertips.

Each boss has there own unique personality too ranging from raving psycotic to melodramatic lounge singers. All this not only adds to the unique styling of the game, but adds quite a bit of humor as well. These unique characteristics transfer into their fighting style as well; Not only enhancing their personality, but also making for some really fun fights. The boss level layouts can be a bit frustrating when you are locked on and get stuck on something you cant see, but it's not that often.



The games voice acting is beyond terrific. The only knowlege I had of the game going into it was the original trailer which had me worried. But I'm glad to say, that seems to have been only for demo purpouses because each and every character that has a speaking role is done fantastically. In fact, the only thing that I didn't like is that every character in the game didn't have vocals.

The music is basic and somewhat unimportant, but it does get the job done. Pretty much it just consists of little bits of music that are there to souly drive you forward. Nothing epic, but nothing overly annoying either.

The sound effects are effective and actually can be entertaining. While swinging your sword, you get the humming and clashing sounds from the controllers speakers to the sounds of bullets whizzing by your head, it's all well done. In fact this is the best use of the controller speaker I've seen. Right before each boss fight, you actually use your controller like a cell phone.


Overall the game is a winner. It's one of the best yet at using the motion controlls and with a fun story and good gameplay, this game has succeeded at what it set out to do. I'll admit, I feel that some of the adult themes seem to have been done just because they could, but it does leave the door open for quite a bit of humor. While much of the game revolves around the boss fights, there are quite a few other things to do that are quite fun.

Ranking:
Graphics - B+ Not astounding, but artistic and wild. Enough to to redeem most of it's flaws.
Sound - A+ The Voice acting in this game is superb, with and excellent cast backing it. It's even good enough to make you want more.
Gameplay - A- The gameplay is extremely fun, and interactive. The only thing keeping this score down a touch is the world being slightly boring.
Controlls - A One of the few games on the Wii of recieving this high of a score. Not only is it intuitive, but it's really fun. Some of the best use of the motion control yet.
Lastability - B This is a great game, and has taken the Wii in a whole new direction. Like most games in the Action RPG catagory, replayability isn't superb.

Overall Score: A
This game is a SOLID A. It's one of the best games to come out on the Wii, and even beats out most of the games on it's rivals systems. This is a game that will be remembered.

(P.S. I didn't due pics due to lazyness, I might add some later if I decide to)
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<span style=AReallyBigRobot</span>
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Did you get the "Real Ending"?

Thats what I'm on right now...omg.
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eomund

Yes I did. It friggin rocked too. Best match in the game easy.
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eomund
Mar 5 2008, 03:44 PM
Yes I did. It friggin rocked too. Best match in the game easy.

Yeah its awesome, What mode did you play on?

I'm on Mild right now.
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Messina

Does the American version have blood? I heard the Japanese version didn't.
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eomund

@ Messina, Loads and loads of it. Imagine a fountain when you decapitate someone, and you might get close :happy:

@ Boss, I started on hard. I usually try to go hard core right off the bat. Makes the game more fun for me.
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Ziji

I just bought No More Heroes two days ago, and I have been having a lot of fun with it. The game play is amazing, the difficulty is perfect and the graphics aren't astounding but they are nice. I have been having trouble with the rank eight fight.
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Nintendo_Sal

"I gave that game a 7" :riight:
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