I’VE BEEN on quite the roll of late and have been racking up my reviews of all the latest hack and slash games out there on the market, the latest to land on my console is the Xbox Series X version of No More Heroes 3, the latest in the series which started on the Wii console and has since been ported to PS3 and now the Xbox Series and PlayStation 5.
If you are not familiar with the game’s director Goichi Suda, the man has been directing and writing cult-favourite games since back in 1993, but it wasn’t until the mid-2000’s that he really started hitting his niche audience with the likes of killer7 (2005) and then later with the first in the series of the No More Heroes franchise.
This review is a difficult one, not because of the actual game, the game is an awesome hack and slash title, and while I do have some things to nitpick at (which you will eventually read) I have a confession to make. I have never played more than one episode of the No More Heroes franchise. There, I said it. I’m a huge fan of all things Suda, but with his most famous of games, I have not put more than 30 minutes into the series.
This is not because I didn’t like the games, it was the fact that they started on the Wii with the original game and once they were ported to the Nintendo Switch, they were just in the back catalogue.
Even as I was packing my day bag for Pax Australia, I looked over my Switch games to take with me and noticed that I already owned No More Heroes 3, after I had received the review code. So not only did I realise that the game had already been released and many people may have finished it already (it was released in 2021) But it’s now available on the Xbox and PlayStation – so for all of you who have yet to have the chance to play this game, let’s have a look, shall we?
No More Heroes 3 starts off in a weird, 80’s cartoon styled introduction where Travis Touchdown, the hero of the series, is talking about an old game called ‘Deathman’ and how he never really remembered the game or who the elusive Deathman was.
After this it cuts to the cartoon which shows a young child known as Damon who witnesses a crash landing from outer space and as he investigates the crash, finds a lovable furball of an alien whose name is Fu, a small montage later shows them fix his ship so he can get home, Fu professes that he loves Damon, and will return in 20 years.
After 20 years have passed, Fu makes his return to earth with Damon waiting where they last met, but he isn’t alone. He has brought with him, his nine former prison mates who he escaped with after destroying his neighbouring planet, professes that he is the Prince of his planet and he has come to take over earth, proclaiming himself a super hero seeing as they are ‘totally in’ right now. Fu then proceeds to blow up a part of the earth and in doing so, wakes up Travis who is living a quiet life in his hotel with friends.
From here, you will, of course, be handed off the tutorial, which again, is a standard controller affair, face buttons represent light and heavy attacks, paired with jump and dodge. While trigger buttons are focus/block and menu selection. All in all, the controls on this game are really well implemented and when you get a hold of them, it makes combat really fun to play with. Definitely no complaints over the control system here.
There is an RPG element to the game, but I think (or I missed) the game’s explanation of it because, by the time I had reached the 7th Galactic rank, I was still level one on all stats. It wasn’t until I explored Travis’s apartment that downstairs I found a Level Up Arcade machine where I could put all the stats I had accumulated over the last few hours I had been playing. Needless to say, once I packed in these stats, it made the game A LOT easier to play and didn’t end up getting the game over screen much more after this.
I will however say that there is not really much of a story in this game, I’m not saying that its a bad thing because of all the pop culture references, the 80’s nostalgia, hell, even Travis put in the fan service during the game and cut scenes of the game, ranging from Terminator to Gundam suits.
Even throwing in Transformers and Netflix for good measure as each ‘Chapter’ is treated like a Netflix (G-flix in game) episode, even going as far as to show the next episode countdown that we are all accustomed to these days.
All of these quirky little spots throughout the game serve as the game’s progression. Sure, you have to defeat all 10 aliens, but for those that have already finished the game and those who have yet to play it, there is really something for everyone in this game.
Each boss or ranked battle in this game is an absolute delight and will keep you guessing what it is you’ll actually be competing against. Not wanting to spoil this for the gamers who have yet to experience No More Heroes 3, let me just say that some things can get weird really fast and make you say ‘Huh’ In a good way mind you. Just keep in mind that not all of the boss battles will be a standard one on one fight and may jump off the deep end and have you end up playing musical chairs or switching the game’s genre to an FPS.
The worlds are split into six different cities, all of which you can travel to with your motorcycle via freeways and require you to search around these areas for designated matches, these are the main missions that are required to be completed to challenge the next ranked fighter, but also littered across the maps are toilets that need cleaning so that you can save in them as well as defence missions (optional but will give you money and level up points) This is where I have some issues.
Each area of the maps in No More Heroes 3 are just so repetitive, having to clean out the toilets in each area, all giving me instructions each time with no option to skip the instructions can be tiresome. As well as the defence and designated battles, they are all just the same with different variations of each enemy thrown into battle. I will admit that there are a few different side missions on each island, but ultimately they are a rinse and repeat affair that varies from mowing lawns to collecting cans from a sewer. I really just didn’t find much to do in these areas and was looking forward to the next main character battle.
Along with the rinse and repeat gameplay mechanics, there are some issues where the textures take a while to load up. With the game offering sharper visuals, quicker load times and faster framerates, I would like to say in this version 1.0 of the game, it’s probably only a small day one patch away from all three of those promises coming true.
Compared to the Nintendo Switch version of the game, I can definitely say that the images are better, along with the framerates being consistent and so they should be on the hardware they’re running on now. This is the definitive version of the game and I can understand why they released No More Heroes 3 this month as the impending release of Bayonetta 3 for the Switch coming at the end of the month, this game is a joy to play with small lingering game issues.
This is a great get for the current generation of consoles and I can only hope that the previous games in the series are made available soon.
Suda has proven that his style of games, while mostly being FPS games and hack and slashers, should be compared to Hideo Kojima and even considered as an alternative while waiting for the next of each others games.
