No More Heroes was my very first glimpse into the insane borderline-fucktard we all know and love as Suda51. Releasing as the very first--and as of the time of writing this--only game on the Wii, the player is introduced to one simple fact: Travis Touchdown, the objective, with impartiality, defacto definition of cool, literally just wants to rip people's heads off. That's pretty fucking sweet if you ask me.

It's really pleasing to see that Nintendo is abandoning publishing nothing but kiddie friendly dogshit after their last console(s). I'm pretty impartial to spoilers and will probably talk about everything in this review by the way, but I figure everyone on Earth has already played this game so who even gives a shit. Certainly not me.

FUCKHEAD.

Suda's ability to give you a story that opens with Travis blatantly telling you that the only motivation he has is that he enjoys killing, yet still leave you with the taste of acrimonious joy watching the story resolve itself, and acknowledge the things you and Travis have accomplished over the course of the game's runtime is something to behold, whether you love or hate this game.

This is an experience crafted by a known sociopath, who enjoys leaving the most asinine breadcrumbs in the most retarded of locations, where half the fun is deciphering how much of the inane bullshit you're meant to take completely literally and how much of it is meant to just make fun of you for even thinking about the story for more than a second. You see an important plot detail whir past your face, and by the time you turn your imperceptive head around, all you're able to make out is that Travis can save the game by taking a shit, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't ever wipe his ass afterward.

Travis' name contains the Japanese word for Tiger (see: 虎「とら」) and this isn't just some faggy reference I'm throwing in to flex my knowledge on weeaboo bullshit, No More Heroes has some pretty neat allusions to this fact; with Death Metal's stage hosts three allusions to this, two of which follow you for the rest of the game (assuming you aren't retarded.)

The elephant in the room that I know everybody is painstakingly waiting for me to acknowledge is yes: No More Heroes is a Wii game, which means it controls like shit by default no matter what, as all Wii games do. Now, the second elephant is: is this actually true, or did I just type that to make you angry? A little bit of both, honestly.

While it takes time to get used to, swinging your arms around at full force and putting your whole back into every slash feels shockingly fun, which is fantastic considering No More Heroes' incredibly fast paced combat. There's a strange amount of depth for a system that uses effectively two buttons and lots of classic Wiimote waggle, and I kept finding myself discovering new pleasures (and annoyances) the further I got into this stupid game. Most enemies are real pushovers, as is normally the case in power-fantasies like this, though ranged opponents can really fuck you over. That is, until you learn to hold the B button and your Beam Katana just block all the bullets, and then 3 swings later he's lucky to be one of those shadows left behind after a nuclear bomb drops.

do you think he was horny when she said this lol

Every villain serves as a peephole into the world Travis wishes to dominate, allowing him (and you, as the player, in case you forgot and are an idiot or something) to understand the connections these killers have tossed aside, and the humanity they've lost in the pursuit of total domination. You slowly realize that while the bosses begin as these grandiose symbols of wealth and power, the facade slowly erodes, and see that Travis is marching straight into his own downfall.

Some bosses do this whole symbolism thing better than others (whom feel more like filler to pad out the run-time more than anything) however, bosses like Destroyman, Holly Summers, and Bad Girl that finally allow you to slow the fuck down and try to pick apart what this game is trying to say, and digest the overarching plot, and realize that murdering people is actually kind of stupid (Their words, not mine) These bosses humanize Travis as much as they de-humanize themselves, paradoxically.

No More Heroes does everything in it's power to be as worthlessly immersive as it possibly can, from physically swinging the sword and jerking off to recharge the beam katana's battery, to filling the overworld with as much nothing as possible to ensure it's just as boring as walking outside and exploring in real life (thats why video games exist) You want to get stronger attacks? Travis has to hit the gym. You want to learn new finishers? Travis has to order Lucha Libre tapes and watch them so he knows what cool shit to mimick while slaughtering people.

Working shitty mundane jobs (in a game I paid full price for) is definitely something I swallowed first-try and didn't punch several holes in my one remaining wall over, it definitely felt like I truly was Travis. That entire last line reeks of unfunny sarcasm but the fact of the matter is: I'm completely serious and any dumb motherfucker who's played this game knew that the whole time.

i forgot to get a screenshot of Travis working odd-jobs so here's him taking a shit

In a previous chunk of text I joked about the overworld being empty, and while this is true, and my quip still stands, I should probably mention that this game was incredibly rushed, which should come as no surprise to any fans of Suda's work. This game is unfinished, underbaked, and it's glaringly obvious the entire way through; despite this, I still had a great deal of fun with No More Heroes, and would recommend everyone check it out. If you own a Wii, then you likely already do own it for reasons we went over earlier (keep up). By no means is this game perfect, but I enjoyed absolutely every moment I had with it, and every element the game hit me over the head with.

Every shitty bossfight that does nothing to service the plot is immediately overshadowed by one of the best fights I've ever experienced in a hack and slash. This is the only release I've ever played that manages to serve as a decent critique on the obsession with violence in video games, without making it really fucking stupid and making me play as a stupid dipshit that throws glitter on people or something. Sometimes you CAN have your cake, and eat it, too: something Suda has demonstrated very very far from flawlessly, but still impressively.

I give No More Heroes 8 beam katana jerkoffs out of 10.