No More Heroes 3

During Travis Touchdown’s fight against the Number 10 alien in the Galactic Superhero Ranking he became enveloped in Gundam-style armor and took to space to continue the duel.

I barely had a clue what I was doing.

The tutorial for the armor made a little bit of sense as it implied I just needed to move the camera around to lock on Mr. Black Hole–the #10 guy–and his weakpoints. After a bit, a massive laser would charge and I could hit a button to activate it.

For a few minutes I hovered around, mildly directionless, moving the camera from left to right, watching Travis lock on to random spots on the boss and fire off a volley of missiles. Every few barrages, Travis would shout out the name of a berry. “STRAWBERRY!” “RASPBERRY!” “BOYSENBERRY!”

What the actual fuck?

First off, I feel that somewhere along the way, my brain forgot that there were so many berries. I think Travis yelled out chokeberry even. Thanks, No More Heroes 3, I guess?

Second, I knew that these fruity utterances indicated that I was landing more impressive combos but I was still getting hit and honestly, I did seem to be doing much damage to Mr. Black Hole’s final celestial form. I thought combos didn’t work like that in games? Or shouldn’t I see letters pop up instead?

And really, what? Why?

However, I suppose it’s crucial to say that I’ve never played No More Heroes. Until recently, I haven’t had a single new Nintendo console in my home since the Gamecube. So I missed the series on the Wii and never picked up the version that appeared on PlayStation. But because I’ve kept my nose on the gaming grindstone for a long time now I knew about the silly minigames–it was a Wii series, after all–and the masturbatory way to charge up Travis’ beam katana.

Did the previous No More Heroes games explain why a strawberry shortcake or whatever indicated successful strikes? Can it just be explained away as one of the many quirks of a SUDA51 game? I must confess I’ve played a lot of Goichi Suda’s work but have finished none to completion. Lollipop Chainsaw was particularly amazing, though.

Regardless, I just accepted it. It would have been stupid not to.

You see, dear reader, I love weird shit like No More Heroes 3. I’m highly aware that strong, unique voices have a hard time breaking into gaming’s mainstream. When I was fighting Mr. Black Hole in space feeling a bit confused and that I stumbled my way through the first phase of the fight–the one where you actually rip into foes with the beam katana and spill their digitized blood–I recognized that I was still having a great time. My mouth was stuck open in both shock and fascination.

A few minutes before the fight Travis had eaten some buff-rewarding sushi. A freaky animated cutscene with a weird fluffy alien had played. The game opened with an 8-bit beat ’em up boss fight. The logo for the game popped up several times. Travis and some random guy talked about Takashi Miike films with some of the letters asterisked out. Credits played after the chapter ended in a sequence ripped out of any anime.

“That’s a lot of stimuli,” my girlfriend commented from the couch. I was standing up, Joy-cons in hand, holding my dog because I didn’t want him to pee on the floor. I don’t think I was able to pause a cutscene and was far too enraptured to walk away. We’ve only had him for a month and are trying to potty train him. Here’s a picture of him being threatened by Travis’ beam katana:

No More Heroes 3 threw so many things at me during its first hour I was worried I would get whiplash. But, much like this review, there is a method to the madness.

While I truly wish I could speak about the game as a No More Heroes fan, I can honestly say that this third mainline entry makes me want to play what I’ve missed. For me, Travis Touchdown is a known quantity. He’s an otaku, an assassin, and saves on toilets. Other people he seems to be familiar with popped up during the story and didn’t need an introduction. Have you played the previous games? You’ll probably know who they are.

More importantly, in this third go-round, a group of aliens hell-bent on taking over Earth are met with resistance in the form of Travis. Travis, however, is met with resistance in the form of the United Assassins Association, who force Travis to pay a fee and complete fights before he can take on a ranked member of this league of aliens.

Turn off your brain, or don’t. Personally, I would recommend not to. The sheer madness of the various threads of No More Heroes 3 gleefully whips players from location to cutscene, to an exclamation point to a bigger question mark. The major story beats unfold right before and after boss fights, sometimes a bit in between. There’s a loving flair present in how SUDA51 and the team at Grasshopper Manufacture have thought of backstories for these random characters, accentuated the game with surprising drama, broken the fourth wall, and inserted comedy even when something shouldn’t be funny.

No More Heroes 3 is a weird game. And it wouldn’t do it much justice to reveal what happens. While the game is longer that what I’ve heard of previous entries (here it’s about 15-20 hours), there’s time to breathe in between the dramatic bursts of action and exposition. I watched in awe every time main alien villain FU appeared on screen with his weird crown-thing’s two eyes moving independently of each other and his actual two eyes. I scratched my head when an assumed long-running character dropped what I assumed was a plot bomb on Travis only to do some weird thing like fly off or disappear.

Special credit really needs to be given to Robin Atkin Downes and the rest of the voice cast who seem to gleefully be along for the ride, committed to every strange twist of logic. The interplay between deadpan delivery of jokes, extreme malice, and genuine emotion somehow feels natural in this world that doesn’t often make much sense.

Plus, Travis sports a t-shirt paying homage to Joy Division’s album Unknown Pleasures. How could I not love this?

This strange concoction bleeds into the gameplay, where players will learn several systems in a short amount of time in hopes of landing numerous blueberries and Frankenberries or Barry Manilows or whatever.

No More Heroes 3 plays like your typical third-person hack and slash. Travis beats the shit out of enemies with his lightsaber beam katana using normal and heavy attacks. After enough hits land, the katana will run out of juice and players must waggle the right Joy-Con (or the right stick depending on how you’re playing) while holding down a button to charge it. Dodging is essential to not only get away from danger but to execute a perfect dodge that slows down time temporarily. Travis can execute a directional killing blow that triggers an on-screen slot roulette to play, where three matching symbols grants an instant reward like money or invincibility. A set of special moves can be activated to give Travis an edge while players can also trigger the Gundam suit to deal massive and near-fatal damage to anything on screen.

Combat is rarely slow. Before I gained the ability to upgrade Travis’ damage, health, and beam charges, I felt pretty fragile and hated how fast the beam katana ran out of juice. Additionally, it took me a bit of time to feel comfortable with the controls. Part of this stemmed from the fact I simply have not spent a lot of time with the Nintendo Switch and partially because I wanted to use the motion controls over the comfort of a Pro Controller. Still, after a couple hours I managed to string attacks together remarkably well and combat grew into a wonderful dance of madness.

It helps that No More Heroes 3 has a massive roster of enemies. From grunts to the main bosses, combat encounters have a variety to them that makes you want to not only experiment but return to them to show off those improved skills. While the game is by no means a boss rush, the major fights in the game are all unique and do their best to either subvert expectations or throw in a random twist that makes them exciting to participate in.

Yet it’s the method of getting to these fights that will likely be the greatest sticking point for anyone thinking about purchasing No More Heroes 3. Like I hinted at earlier, Travis needs to pay his dues before climbing the Galactic Superhero Rankings. Players will need to scour the map for a handful of fights and earn enough money to pay for the entry fee.

Like its predecessors, No More Heroes 3 tosses a number of minigames at players to increase their stockpile of money and crafting materials that go towards creating chips that provide buffs and debuffs to Travis. Fancy cutting some digital grass? Want to pick up some trash? How about unclog a toilet or run down a crazy driver? These distractions are silly, sometimes funny, but will also feel a bit tedious by the game’s end if players are trying to do everything.

It also doesn’t help that the open world can be a bit clumsy to navigate and terribly empty. No More Heroes 3 certainly feels a bit retro in terms of graphical fidelity and sheer power. In handheld mode, the game takes a visual hit, losing details and making a colorful game muddier. Though I was surprised that the framerate rarely dropped during combat, it felt off that Travis could cruise around the world at ridiculous speeds and only see a handful of other NPCs. I understand SUDA51’s tongue-in-cheek approach to open world nonsense from the previous games, but here some flourish to the padding would have helped.

In spite of any flaws that may turn a player away, No More Heroes 3 manages to astound me. Going into the game I never felt burdened by its legacy. Never did I expect to play a hardware defining piece of software. Rather, I went in knowing my expectations would be challenged, that the game would shirk any kind of responsibility to be a specific product for a specific audience. Here we have a game that is weird, weird, Weird, WEIRD. But it’s not just a game that is edgy and goofy and strange just for the sake of being so.

No More Heroes 3 is the obvious product of an auteur’s vision and a team looking to bring a series back from the brink of vaporware. You may come in wanting a story that makes no sense while shattering the fourth wall. Plenty will flock to an action game that isn’t greedy with challenge and presents a bizarre kind of fun. Or maybe you just really want to cut some damn digital grass like the shovelware from the Wii era. Many parts of No More Heroes 3 are brilliant. Brilliant because their nonsensical parts create a joyous harmony that can only really be found in games. Sure, it might seem like SUDA51 is doing his damndest to not make a game. But I guess he failed because when you cut through it all, you’re left with a juicy good time.

Plus there’s a talking cat. And you can play ball with him. And an optional outfit that says “Fuck Racism”. What a weird, wonderful game that surely has something for everybody.