I am Stan! A confidant of Doug and a now a fellow reviewer of all things game. Quick and dirty intro: I live in Florida and am attending Full Sail University for my Masters in Game Design. That covers that.
So after a bit of playing Sin and Punishment: SS, I tried out what was supposed to be an instant cult classic, No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2 for the Wii. I just wanted to say, if you haven't played these games and you own a Wii, go play these games and support innovatively designed games.
You play this chap aptly named Travis Touchdown who happens upon a lightsaber during an EBay auction. He incidental kills a top ranked assassin and now wants to kill the top ranked assassins in the world to be the top dog.
So what makes the game innovative, besides being a swear heavy, hyper-violent action slasher? Not much really. It's like a violent, poorly written version of Kingdom Hearts, but the bosses are what make the game innovative. In both games, you fight 10 bosses who have different attributes and witty styles that make fighting them a real entertaining kick.One of the bosses is a pseudo-super hero with machine guns for nipples and a polite demeanor. Another boss example is a 60 year old lady with a shopping cart that converts into a 100 foot long laser cannon. Part 2 gets even more creative, one of the bosses being a football jock surrounded by cheerleaders. It sounds normal until they combine together to form some kinda giant, Japanese robot.
Heck, slicing the heads off anyone who gets in your way before you can face the bosses is fun in and of itself.
With this game, though, you have some downfalls. In the first game, you have to earn money to get the "right" to fight the next assassin. This means you have to do some sort of part-time job with menial skill involved or go on an assassination mission to earn cash. Which do you think I found more fun? Certainly not chasing down missing kittens. I would rather slice the money I need out of someone's face rather than remind myself that in this society we have to work hard for someone else to earn what we need. I have a damn lightsaber for craps sake! I am officially above stupid chores for money. No More Heroes 2 solves the whole chore thing by making it totally optional, and you can jump from boss to boss.
No More Heroes 1 also had an annoying feature, it tries to be all "open world" by making you drive your motorcycle to any location. This wouldn't bother so much of you didn't have to drive EVERYWHERE to do ANYTHING. If the Gummy Ship in Kingdom Hearts was annoying, then the bike sequences are the 3rd circle of hell. Nothing stops the action faster than having to drive everywhere, even from you part time job, to the location of the job, and then back to your home. If I wanted to play GTA, I would have, but I didn't and I don't. Since NMH 2 got rid of this feature altogether, I loved it all the more. As a matter of fact, enough gripes, let's get to the goods.
NMH 1 took a great combat idea and ran with it. Once the combat gets going, it gets going. Hack, slash, dodge, block, its all here and its beautiful. The only real terrible thing about the combat of killing hordes of people with a light saber is this one runs on batteries. If they die, you have to, umm, charge them in a peculiar way, but thats the fun of the game! A short game to say the least, 15 hours to beat 100%, it a solid run.
NMH 2 is essentially the same game, except halfway through you get a dual light saber combo, making your march through the assassin ranks flashy and sexy. Very sexy, actually, this game has improved breast jiggle physics and isn't afraid to use them. Oh, and a lot more random and needless cursing. This game worked hard on its M rating, that much is apparent. I actually had no complaints about NMH 2,until.....
So at the end of the game your fighting the final boss, and he is unnecessarily difficult to start with, what with his random teleport/knock you down/fu** your world trick he will do up to three times in a row. As a bonus, he can one shot kill you, no matter your health, almost randomly. It this kind of overbearing, unjust difficulty that seems tacked into what should be an enjoyable game, right at the end of the game, that made my hate FFXIII.
Gripes and praises aside, these are great games. If you have a bored weekend coming up, give em a rental or a Gamefly rent. I say rent because once you best them, there is nothing left to do with the games. But, still, these games prove that the Wii can be a hardcore system , too, if the right developers get behind it. Buy it, support innovation, then trade it in for a 360 or PS3 game once finished.
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