No More Heroes

Company: Nintendo
Publisher: Ubisoft
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Genre: Action-adventure
Platform: Wii
ERSB Rating: M for Mature
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Premise:
The premise of the game is to assume the character of Travis Touchdown. The goal is for Travis to fight his way up the ranks of the United Assassins Association finishing as the number one Assassin.

Characters:
The player only controls one character: Travis Touchdown, a young adult anime loving, wrestling fan, who lives day to day trying to become number one.

Play:
The game's pacing is very balanced; it’s an open world, but it can only be progressed by following a linear path. The player has to earn enough money doing odd jobs like collecting coconuts or filling up cars at the gas station. Once enough money has been made doing menial jobs, the player can enter a ranked assassin match. Then the games pacing changes to combat, and the player has to fight and win against multiple enemies, most especially the character (the boss) who holds a higher rank . Once the boss has been defeated, the whole process of collecting money and re-entering is repeated. The controls being on the wii system add a different control scheme: A button to attack, B button for strong attack, C button to lock on, Z button to block, swing controller in any direction triggers a death blow on an enemy.

Engagement:
This game has been a mixed bag with critical reviewers: either players love it or hate it, there seems to be no in between. However, there are many reasons why players liked the game. First off, the writing in the game is brilliantly done (sometimes it doesn't make sense, but its all in good fun), the combat is something that is completely new in how it utilizes the wii mote functions, and the cell-shaded graphics make it look awesome. The combat is extremely engaging because the player can choose how he wants to decapitate the enemies, or he can choose to kill them using wrestling moves. The variety and depth makes no two battles play out the same.

Story:
The story to this game is laugh out loud funny. Extreme gore is mixed with various types of humor ranging from potty humor, to black humor, historical humor, literature humor and so much more. To move on, the main character Travis Touchdown is a man with many obsessions: money, women, wrestling, violence. The stereotypical young man living in poverty (he lives in a motel called "No More Heroes"), he lives day to day. One day, he wins an online auction for a beam katana, and paying for this auction item ruins him financially. He can no longer buy his beloved wrestling videos and video games. He eventually meets a women named Sylvia Christel and she offers him a job to kill a man named Helter Skelter. Travis kills him and is dubbed rank 11 by the United Assassins Association (UAA). Once Travis regained financial footing he wants to go back to his normal life, but Sylvia convinces him that he can become number 1 assassin. Travis then sets out to kill the other 10 assassins in front of him..

Behaviors:
The behavior for the character has already been created by the game designers, this includes: walking, running, talking, melee attacks, climbing, driving, and swimming. Given the range of behaviors available, the progression of the game should be much less predictable in its outcome and game play. However, the combat and overall challenge of the game is so fun , that its linear progression can be forgiven.

Resources:
The player has to manage a three resources: health, money, and beam katana energy. In order to restore health, the player has to find health packs that are scattered through out the open world, or he can restore it by saving the game. The next resource, money, can be earned by doing menial jobs, or by killing high ranking assassins in a UAA rank match. The final resource, beam katana energy, can be restored in two ways. The first is by shaking the wii mote charging the katana until the energy meter is full. The second way is by finding batteries pick ups from killing enemies.


Challenge:
This game is very hard right from the start. The Enemy AI do a lot of damage, and they block (even on the easy setting). One downfall on the challenge in combat is that the enemies do not work together, they just appear in groups. The biggest challenge are the boss fights. Each of the 12 bosses (there are 11 UAA assassins, but there are other bosses besides them) has their own weakness and a specific strategy necessary to kill them. For example, Destroyman announces his attacks before the actual attack. Memorizing those patterns allows the player to pre-empt the attack. If the player does not do that, he will be quickly killed. The next challenge within this game is the menial jobs. While the task is menial, the actual playing of it is very hard because they are timed, and complex to master. Also, how well you do in the job determines how much money you get paid.