Review: “No More Heroes”

Exposition

“No More Heroes,” an action game by the Japanese master of the “weird game” Sudo 51, is like a methamphetamine fueled dive into 1980s cinema and anime nostalgia.  As an action game it’s fairly generic: attack combos, finishing moves, lock-on style 3D fighting in the vein of the 3D Zelda games.  Though this is not to say it’s not a satisfying experience.  There are certainly a variety of fighting styles, enough that one might not even use them all and complete the game with no issue.    Each of the game’s 10 or so stages and bosses utilize different gameplay elements to give them a sense of variety in the way they play and rewards players who master the various fighting styles while not being so one dimensional that they render the stage impossible to beat by other means.  This allows one to play the game essentially on their own terms and doing so in the way that’s most fun to the individual.  The 10 stages also present a game that takes approximately 15 hours to complete, not to long nor to short and with a pacing that allows it to be casual gamer friendly, but also hard-core gamer satisfying.

The main charm of the game certainly comes from its simplistic narrative that is as self aware of its (and video games in general) absurdity as any game.  The player takes the roll of Travis Touchdown, an assassin out for revenge by taking part in a league where one strives to become the best hit-man by killing the other hired guns in the order of their ability.  References come fast and furious from sources as diverse as Back to the Future to Gunbuster.  The game also ensures that the player is well aware of their roll as “player” and is not attempting to be an “immersive” game or one where a serious narrative drives the game player to continue with the game; the game is nearly Brechtian.  Without spoiling anything specific from the story it is suffice to say that the game will surprise even the most jaded gamer who has seen it all and considers most any standard game narrative element cliche.

The setting and presentation of the game uses a similar “simple but unique” philosophy.  That is perhaps the most useful way of describing the game’s aesthetics.  The game mixes modern 3D graphics and so-called “sandbox” environments with 1980s 2D sprite and vector based graphics in very clever ways.  Some of these environments bring comparisons to games such as “Grand Theft Auto;” however, this is a fairly surface level point of commonality between the two games.  There is a “home” similar to the house of the main character of “GTA: San Andreas” and you can dress your character in a variety of clothes (none of which have any gameplay significance so you can look how you want with no worry of it being detrimental to your character’s ability).  You can walk around the city of “Santa Destroy” (an amalgam of California beach towns such as Santa Cruz and Santa Monica) or drive around in your ridiculously tricked out motorcycle.  The town has a very minor level of interaction, especially if compared to the “GTA” series of games, and that is probably intentional as the game is much more focused on the “assassination” missions.  The music and audio is fairly unremarkable except in the parts where it uses seemingly “8bit” style sounds to help support the 1980s feel of some of the game’s sequences.  The game is voiced adequately, with a lot of cheesy lines and superfluous vulgar language; in any other game it might be seen as poor, but in this game the absurd nature of it makes it a perfect fit.

Critical

Sudo 51 takes on the genre of “Adventure” game as it has been initially defined by “The Legend of Zelda” and further expanded upon by the “Grand Theft Auto” games and applies his post modern/structuralist take on them by deconstructing the elements into their raw forms.  Through the plot/player motivation the “Adventure” game is interrogated and parodied.  For game players who have grown tired of the genre’s usual formulas and enjoy a quirky game it becomes a very satisfying experience.

The plot and player motivation is laid out to the player in an honest and elemental way.  Two main threads connect the narrative elements of the game as well as give players the motivational reward for moving through the game’s levels, and they are two of the most common in the “adventure” game.  First it’s the “save the princess” trope, in this game presented as “fuck the girl,” and the game argues they are basically the same thing.  What other reason is there for Link to save Zelda for example?  And what else is the joining of the triforces but a metaphor for intercourse?  Promising the presumably male game player sexual triumph over the damsel in distress in one of the most classic game tropes.  Like other elements of games that “No More Heroes” takes on, by presenting this dynamic in a plain and simple way, it calls out this otherwise not-so-hidden formal element of games in general and airs it out, dirty laundry and all.

The other thread that is interrogated is the “become the best” trope; most often used by games in the “Grand Theft Auto” and other recent so called “sandbox” games.  The game utilizes a variety of gameplay tasks to accomplish this (from completing training mini-games to purchasing new weapons).  It continually turns this idea against the player by presenting several insurmountable tasks that no amount of training or gear can overcome (the “unbeatable” boss cliche for example).  This brings the idea of what it really means to be “the best” to the front of a players mind, and it becomes clear that to be “good” at a game is merely to do what the developers tell you to do.  Ultimately revealing that to be “the best” is a lie, a reveal that serves as one of the primary plot twists in the game.

This is not to say that game is all so serious and wrist slapping in the way it exposes these elements of “adventure” games.  It does it through parody and absurd circumstances that allow the player to laugh their way through a deconstruction of the games they love.  It is in this way similar to other medium’s examples of parodies like “Chappelle’s Show” or “The Colbert Report.”  The question is does this method of criticizing these formal modes of the familiar combat them or aid and abet them.  Ultimately one reason Dave Chappelle ended his show was he felt the latter might be true, and the same might be said for Sudo’s game, but this clearly is up to the audience to decide.  For every person who understands Chappelle or Colbert’s parody as they are intended there is someone else who sees them as affirming their point of view.  Perhaps this is the limit of parody, or perhaps the ratio of those who “get it” versus those who do not “get it” is the benchmark for the success of the parody.

For me there was very little negative to be said about “No More Heroes;” I had a lot of fun playing the game the whole way through, it was challenging but not frustratingly so, it had appealing graphics and music, and it’s parody and deconstruction of the “adventure” genre was a breath of fresh air.  As a Wii game it stands above any other game of its type that I have played on the console and is certainly one no gamer should miss.

Refrence

“No More Heroes” Official Site
Wiki Page on “No More Heroes”