Well, through the last three parts, Travis made his
way to Rank 3. He only has two opponents to defeat now, on this strange quest
of… revenge? After all, it’s strongly implied that during Travis’s first
encounter with Sylvia, she offered to help him deal with whatever he was hoping
to achieve... Okay, so we bring Thunder Ryu’s katana to Naomi, who’ll build a
new beam katana based on it. Then, we collect the money to pay the entrance fee
for the battle against Assassin #2. Finally we head out towards this fight, which takes place at Destroy Stadium.
"We are interrupting this rerun of a Canadians-Bruins hockey match to show a baseball match where something actually fucking happens!" |
Yes, that's a large cleavage. Yes, that's a bloody baseball bat. Don't aim for the former if you don't want to be bludgeoned to death by the latter. |
Just kidding. Even if you give no damn about her boobs, she'll still go and kill you. |
Incoming FastGimp Special! It's a Home Run! Bonsoir, elle est partie! |
"Shit, I almost died with a boner. ...If I cop a feel, does it count as necrophilia?" |
Travis collects the money for the final entrance fee.
Here it comes, the final battle. But this time, Travis receives no call, so he
dials Sylvia’s number. Someone else answers; an older woman. When Travis asks
about the United Assassins Association, the woman replies that Sylvia is a
professional con artist, and the UAA is a scam she put forth to steal a ton of
cash out of assassins, by pitting them against each other. Ah, the fucking
Sylvia bitch! I want to see her head roll by the end of this game! The woman,
who reveals herself to be Sylvia’s mother, still asks Travis how far he went
into Sylvia’s plans, and when he says he’s #2 in rank, she still convinces him
to go forward and kill the #1 assassin. It’s not like it makes any difference
now, does it?
Who the Hell puts crates on the highway? |
Hello, Thunder Ryubi-Wan-Sensei. Now that you're a ghost, I feel your teachings will be a lot more ethereal. |
I swear, the next time Travis sees this bitch, he’ll go Queen of Hearts on her. Off with her fucking head!
We get to the final battle, in front of a giant
castle. There he is, Dark Star, the obvious Vader rip-off. He even tries to
pretend that he’s Travis’s father, and tries to make him remember his parents.
All Travis can remember is that his parents were killed, and not by anybody,
either… by the girlfriend he had at the time. He still remembers Jeane. And
just as Dark Star tries some more mind tricks, a fist blasts through his crotch
from behind, instantly killing him. ……No, really.
Dark Star falls to the ground, revealing a girl around Travis’s age…. And it’s Jeane. For the record, Jeane was Travis's only girlfriend up to that point. Travis is ready to fight his parents’ murderer, but Jeane leaves a whole bunch of plot exposition that would raise the game’s rating beyond what’s acceptable on the Wii. And so her speech is fast-forwarded. No, really, look!
Dark Star falls to the ground, revealing a girl around Travis’s age…. And it’s Jeane. For the record, Jeane was Travis's only girlfriend up to that point. Travis is ready to fight his parents’ murderer, but Jeane leaves a whole bunch of plot exposition that would raise the game’s rating beyond what’s acceptable on the Wii. And so her speech is fast-forwarded. No, really, look!
In the afterlife? Will dark be bright, will cold be warm, Will the day have no night in the afterlife? Will the blind have sight? In the afterlife? |
Here's the sequence, slowed down so that you can understand what she says.
Travis is Jeane’s half-brother, and she only found out they had the same father sometime after they fucked. The same alcoholic, violent, wife-beating asshole of a father; so she killed him. And Travis's mom, too. And the reason Travis went up the ranks was to hopefully find the assassin who did this. I mean, holy shit. And Travis named his cat after that girl? Man, that’s just sad. This is the final battle, better get ready.
As an MMA fighter, Jeane is really quick and can
easily dodge your attacks. And she has enough hit points to be annoying, so
she’s really hard to defeat. She’ll respond to your attacks with punches and
kicks, and your best bet is to slash and roll out of the way, repeatedly. She
has three “phases”, and gets stronger with each. I found that this battle was a
lot easier if you used the second-to-last beam katana (the one with five beams)
instead of the last one (which lacks attack power). The battle is still pretty
difficult, but not as bad as it could be.
Shinobu! I knew I had a good reason to keep you alive! Yes, Travis-Senpai will notice you. |
I hate to see brothers fighting. |
Even when you defeat him, the two keep fighting, and
Travis asks Henry to explain who he is. Get ready for a dump of exposition:
Henry is Travis’s twin brother, as well as Sylvia’s husband for a decade now. Deciding that this crazy game world is too crazy, Travis and Henry choose to end it
all, and jump to try and kill each other. Sylvia says she doubts there’ll be a
sequel to the game…
And she looks so happy about the whole thing, too. |
No More Heroes shines however through its battle
system. It is very simple on the surface, yet there are multiple little details
that have to be discovered by the player. Anyone can press A to have Travis hit
his opponents repeatedly with his beam katana, and pull the finishing move by
moving the Wii remote in a direction. Add to this all the evasion techniques
(and the Dark Step), the many Dark Side powers that you can use as you progress
through a level (those can be earned at random while killing enemies and change the gameplay to let Travis do some absolutely amazing stuff), the wrestling moves, and you get something unique and
enjoyable. What’s even better is that you are using this battle system against
creative opponents with cool designs and even cooler movesets. It is this
combination of knowing how to use your weapons to the best of your abilities,
and how to respond to their own attacks, that makes it worth trying.
The Ranked Battles are fun, there’s no doubt there.
They are the meat of the game. But to get there, you need to collect the money
in the wide open sand box of Santa Destroy… which, as I explained in Part 3, is
a pretty poor example of the genre. Although, that was kind of the point; as a
spoof of ultraviolent games (which, for some reason, many wide open sandbox
games tend to be), the actual wide open sandbox sections are actually kinda
boring. The K-Entertainment assassination gigs and other job mini-games aren’t
bad, although having to constantly drive back and forth between places gets
pretty tiring. Collecting money to participate in the Ranked Battles is one of
the longer tasks in the game, and it feels more like a chore by the end… and
only at the end do you find out that all this money you sent to the UAA was
spent by Sylvia in music shows, spa visits and other personal stuff. Just to
twist the knife in some more. Well, there's still the quest for all 49 Lovikov balls...
Also, I don’t know if I’m the only one with that
problem, but sometimes Travis’s bike is unresponsive. Considering the size of
Santa Destroy, you WILL want to use the bike to go anywhere, and you often need
to do sharp turns by pressing B before turning left or right, yet for some
incomprehensible reason, in my game, when I do that the bike always turns left.
Even if I wanted it to turn right. It’s a minor issue, but a very annoying one
nonetheless. Thankfully, if the bike gets stuck somewhere, you can call Bishop
and he’ll arrive with your bike, wherever you are.
Another problem I have is with the final beam katana. Is it awesome? Yes, it doesn't need a metallic support and the beam somehow stays the same length. It also has better range. It's the closest you'll get to a real lightsaber. The downside? It's expensive, its upgrades are expensive, on your first playthrough that weapon is available only for the last few bosses (and thus you can't practice much with that weapon). Plus, compared to the five-beam weapon that came before it, the Tsubami MK-III is actually pretty weak, and the main combo Travis does with it are just impractical. It's really hard to use against Jeane, and especially against Henry.
My favorite weapon. |
And my least favorite. |
The graphics are pretty great (the cel shading style
gives the game a pretty unique look, less cartoony than The Legend Of Zelda:
The Wind Waker, but more stylized than most CGI games out there). And the
game’s soundtrack is Fan. Tas. Tic. Many awesome pieces of music in there,
usually the boss fight themes.
In the end, No More Heroes is a game to try. Is it
good? Yes, it’s a good game, but it’s definitely not for everyone. Many parts
of it have to be experienced rather than watched. The battle system is great. I could complain
about the gratuitous foul language, although it’s justified by the story and
its characters, and I can’t complain about the blood since it’s a part of the
game’s commentary. However, I will gladly poit out the hypocrisy in the message, being a game that glorifies its own violence while trying to get into your head that so much violence is wrong. The morals are... muddled, to say the least. No More Heroes can get very challenging, as on Mild and Bitter difficulties you often
HAVE to know all of the techniques, but the result is definitely enjoyable. It's far from perfect, it has a number of issues, but I definitely suggest that you try it at least once.
And now, this closes “Rated M” Month, probably the
only time I’ll ever do such a themed month. I mean, what are the other M-rated
games that I own? No More Heroes 2? MadWorld? Resident Evil 4 for the Wii? The first two will probably find spots somewhere in my reviewing schedule next year, and the latter will probably be
reviewed one October. In the meantime, I’d sure take a break from M-rated games
now… let’s go back to something else…
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