I Has An Lightsaber: No More Heroes, First Impressions

So the other week I picked up No More Heroes. I get the impression a lot of people haven't heard much about this game, and I vaguely understand why; it's not terribly 'big name' beyond its Suda51 (notably Killer7, among others) origin.

Long story short: You are a random otaku living in Santa Destroy (yes, that's what it's called) named Travis Touchdown (no, really). You win a "beam katana" - what most people not worrying about copyright infringement might call a "lightsaber" - on an online auction, and promptly use it to kill some assassin who looks curiously like Raiden from the Metal Gear Solid games. This causes a hot French chick, Sylvia, to inform him that with killing that guy, he is now the 11th ranked assassin in the International Assassin's League (or whatever it is). If he was interested, he could aim for #1. Being a nerdy otaku confronted by a stunningly hot blond whose shirt acts more like a highlight to her bra than a shirt, and moreover, being an otaku owning a lightsaber, he agrees.

You spend your time in game in two (well, three, but...more on the last later) distinct modes. One is combat missions; there's roughly three types of these. There are "free missions" - kill a ton of guys without being hit, and "assassination missions," which have somewhat more specific goals (ranging from "kill the CEO of Pizza Butt" to "kill as many guys as you can with wrestling moves" and more). The last is a "rank battle", where you go after the assassin currently ranked above you. This involves hacking your way through hordes of goons first. I'll not lie - the combat is quite good. The controls are responsive; the angle at which you hold the wiimote dictates your stance, and actually attacking is initiated by the A button (for slashing) or the B button (for melee). There's a cute little controller flick thing for finishing off enemies, usually cutting them in half with a tremendous gout of blood and coins. The controls are fairly standard Wii 3rd Person action-adventure otherwise, though I'll note there's no pointing involved (YAY).

After all the goons are dead, you face off against the boss. There is some *quality* dialogue before and after - think Kill Bill on a little acid - and then the boss fights, which are so far a decent challenge, a lot of dodge and weave and wait for openings. After you win, there's some more chatter, and then Sylvia shows up for cockteasery and plot. Then you get a bill for the money needed to start the next ranked match.

Now, you'll get money for killing people in the ranked match, but generally you'll have to do assassination missions, free melee missions, and...chores. Yeah. You go to the job center, and get one of many rather silly minigame-jobs - collect coconuts, cut grass, etc. They're not bad per se, but they're pretty random, and I imagine after collecting coconuts for the 100th time you'd hate it.

Meanwhile, to do most of this crap, you have to ride your super-motorcycle (seriously, it's bigger than a car - imagine the FF7 motorcycle on steroids) around all over the town. It's like GTA, but...there's nothing *there*. Oh, there's pedestrians, but nothing happens if you hit them. Wail into a wall? You fall off the bike. Soar off into the river? You show up back at your apartment. About all you can do is dig for treasure, hit dumpsters for shirts and money, and pick up Dragon I MEAN Lovikov Balls to trade in for special techniques. And go from point A to point B as you need.

So, I love the combat part. You hack the hell out of things, and sometimes you go into special modes - Dark Matter or somesuch, announced by *hilarious* names - and really wail on the enemies, nice and stylistically. It's quite a lot of fun, and very fluid motion-wise. The problem is that you have as much time roaming the city or doing dumb minigames, or more, as you do actually, you know, assassinating things. You have a lightsaber, for god's sake, why aren't you using it ALL THE TIME?

I'm really just starting to get into the "need lots of money to progress" stage so this may get more aggravating as I play, but so far I'm enjoying myself enough between the sporadic and awesome combat and the crazy plot/characters/style (seriously, Kill Bill on acid) to keep playing. Have to see how it goes, though.

The Bad:
-wtf coconut gathering
-city travel is boring
-motorcycle controls are clunky, lots of hit box issues

The Good
-Stylistically awesome
-interesting (at least initially) characters, good plot
-fluid, fun combat
-decent challenge

Bottom line: There are worse things you could do with your time, and if you like oddball stylistic stuff and rapid 3D action adventure, it's a solid choice. Just keep in mind, it's not all lightsaber, all the time.