Seems there was one more hero left.
Well, I guess I'll start with the visuals. Where it matters the most. namely the battles, the game targets 60 fps and it feels super smooth. On the other hand, the overworld is back and... it's not pretty. I think it runs even worse than it did on the original NMH 1 on Wii, which is frankly rather disappointing. The game has a few more Islands besides Santa Destroy, and some have some very ugly graphical glitches and bugs too, which is frankly shameful. And, look, they added more stuff to do, there are many side missions and collectibles to be found on this overworld, but overall, it's still barren, it's still dead and it still performs poorly. I'll say more, since NMH1's overworld had less to do, you didn't have to put up with its technical issues as much as you do with this one. Still, thankfully, the overworld is not the focus of the game, and I'll stress this again, where it matters the most, it runs beautifully.
Something that cut me off-guard a bit was that this game has lengthier cutscenes than previous games in the series, something that I heartily welcome. The main villain is introduced from the very first cutscene, and we get to see him interacting with the other 9 aliens Travis must defeat, so it paints a very interesting and complete picture of who Jean Baptiste VI(FU) is and makes getting to fight him even more satisfying. Travis gets as many epic one liners as he always did, and Robin Atkin Downes delivers yet another astounding performance. The new set of villains are no slouches, obviously, not every villain is a hit, but there's a lot of memorable new enemies for Travis to fight, and FU might be the best villain the series has had yet.
The game does nothing to catch new players up to speed and even expects you to have played the side-game, Travis Strikes Back, so quite clearly this game was made FOR the fans. There are a lot of references to No More Heroes 1 and 2, and I'd say that at some points it felt a bit too gratuitous. Grasshopper is not a big developer and these moments weren't featured in trailers, so it's not like Suda was trying to appeal to Nostalgia to sell more copies, but still.... And don't get me wrong, I loved the plot, it's definitely Suda at his finest, I just think he might've went a bit overboard with NMH 1 references. Suda's writing style is definitely not for everyone, but if you're into his stuff, this one delivers in spades. That said, I think the JRPG parody went on for too long.
Well, now onto the gameplay.... firstly, they cut back on customization a lot. In NMH 1 and 2 you could change Travis' jacket, shirt, pants, belt and gloves, here you can only change his jacket and shirt. At first, only two 'jackets' even let you change his shirt, the basic costume and the jacketless costume, then you get three different outfits, which... thanks, I guess? The next three jackets, two of them being RED, like the basic jacket, because they are the jackets from NMH 1 and 2 and the other one being Travis Strikes Back's purple jacket. Basically, customizing Travis' clothes sucks. It's so disappointing, because buying new clothes after every boss fight was always a treat.
But even worse, you don't get new beam katanas. Really? Really? It's not like you can't upgrade Travis, there is an upgrade system, but getting new beam katanas with their unique properties or animations was another great element of the previous games, but it's been axed completely. Lame.
Know what's even worse? There are no stages. The formula is thus: Fight up to five 'designated' battles against a few enemies, deposit the entry fee and then fight the boss. Once you beat him or her, fight on the next designated battles, rinse and repeat. I think I know why they did it, they probably couldn't get stages to run at a decent framerate since the Switch struggle so much with Unreal Engine 4. To make up for this, even the most basic of enemies can take quite a beating, and boss fights can be really lengthy which I actually liked.
High and low combat stances have been completely removed, now you have a single weak attack combo and a strong attack combo. Landing hits without getting hit will raise your tension level, and it can go up to level three, the higher your tension level, the lengthier, quicker and stronger your combos get. I think it's a fun mechanic. You can create chips and equip up to three of them on Travis in order to raise some of his stats, and this time around you get four chip powers: Slow Enemy, Projectile peltering, Telekinesis and, the best one, a super powerful drop kick. Each of these skills will help Travis lay the smackdown on his enemies, and they run on a timed cooldown. The darkside step returns, basically, dodging at the last possible moment will reward you with slowing down enemies for a short while, letting you go slash-happy. When an enemy is about to die, the game rewards you with a finisher slash, performed with motion controls or the right analog stick, and these are as satisfying as always. Of course, after every kill you get rewarded with slots, and if you are lucky you'll get special temporary boons.
Of course, landing attacks and blocking attacks depletes your Beam Katana's battery, so finding a window of opportunity to recharge it is part of every battle.... or, if you pummel an enemy enough, you might stun them, and performing a wrestling grab on a stunned enemy will completely recharge your battery because why not. Melee attacks are gone... but does it really matter? The new chips are a much more fun addition.
Since there are no stages, even basic enemies are stronger than you'd expect, so battles as a whole are a bit tougher than before. If you die, be it on a boss or on a side mission or designated battle, when you retry a roulette will spin and it will restart the battle with a bonus... most of the time. It could be 1.5X attack power, heck, you might even get revived on the spot... or, very rarely, you'll get nothing or you'll have to restart with a depleted battery gauge!
The game has two different currencies, one is used to purchase upgrades at the lab and the other one is used to buy support items, craft chips and pay fees before each boss battle. To be fair, I always had money to spare and never had to replay missions for money, but then again, I tackled every side mission I came across. Speaking of side-missions, the mini-map is useless, as there's no way to tell if you have already beaten a certain mission or not. Besides battling, there are a ton of mini-games, like unclogging toilets, mining for ore or cutting grass. They are 100% optional, and they weren't too awful.
While it's probably my least liked numbered No More Heroes game I still had a blast with the game. I mean, it would've been easier to go the NMH2 route and just give us more of the same, but they tried something quite different and they still managed to land on their feet. It's a shame customizations and beam katanas got axed completely, and while I'd still prefer to have proper stages I didn't dislike the new focus on making battles lengthier, and thus, more impactful. As with every other Grasshopper game, what it lacks in depth and finesse it makes up for in style. And I'll tell ya this, this game is way more memorable than most of the games that are being released lately.
8.5
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