No More Heroes III – A Farewell to the Touchdown Legacy

By PATRICK CAVASOS

Staff Writer

No More Heroes hasn’t always been a big series to me, dang it hasn’t even been for a long time. As a super recent fan of No More Heroes the announcement of a third and probably final entry kind of scared me, I had just played the previous three games and the fact it was going to come to an end so soon was really weird to me. This whole situation brought this game up to a position so high in my mind that this was going to  be an amazing experience for me and other fans of the series, I was sorely wrong. Not just an amazing experience, but a masterful experience of a lifetime.

Of course as a story-focused game, I can’t go too into this game as it’s story isn’t something I can just explain. Nearly every chapter of our adventure has our protagonist Tarvis Touchdown being the victim of many twists and turns that not even he can understand in his chaotic reality. This story is something that must be saved for a player’s first time playing, as whether or not you’re a fan, the massive events that occur change the course of the story forever. However, the basic plot that the trailers and teasers gave us do remain quite easy to understand and don’t give much away. Like Travis’s other adventure he is tasked with climbing another ladder of ranking antagonist, however, these aren’t simple assassins anymore like Travis has previously dealt with. Starting at Rank 11 Travis is tasked with fighting and winning against every single Galactic Superhero brought down by an Alien ruler by the name of Jess Baptiste VI or just FU, who’s backstory is a massive parody of the popular film E.T.

Climbing the ranks is gonna take a lot of effort from our hero Travis who must gain enough money before every ranked battle to afford the entrance fee, to gain this money Travis performs several mundane task of our reality with a fun twist on each, mowing a lawn with a super powered lawn mower, mining an alien currency from a cave, cleaning up a lake’s trash while being targeted by alligators and even some dramatic activities such as street races on your motorcycle or launching tank missiles at monstrous alligators coming from the shore. While some remain quite simple these tasks are about a fourth of the game but are filled with so much of the director SUDA51’s style and flair that it perfectly displays the absurdity of the No More Heroes world. 

These jobs are all spread across the map which consist of about 5 areas with a secret one being a great surprise at the end. Santa Destroy remains the same as the other games but with a futuristic style to its architecture, Call of Battle acts as a sort of parody as war movies in which every area is heavily fogged with barriers everywhere, Neo Brazil while not often visited during your journey is a calming garden designed island, ThunderDome is a sort of miniature Neo Tokyo in which everything dramaticized in style while the local land lay almost barren of life and finally you have the city of Perfect World which is a perfect parody of the common ‘perfect american home’ displayed in much media with nearly every cul de sac being filled with many replicas of the same house and citizens. These worlds all come together to show just how drastically the culture of different islands differ mentally and visually making the world seem very developed and stylistic.

As mentioned earlier there are 10 Aliens, titled Galactic Superheroes in the context of the ranked matches. These 10 characters are all very filled with personality and their own style, each being designed by a popular Japanese designer clothes artist, they bring an absurd style into a physical being while all seeming somewhat human in design and mentality, proving that simplicity is not always the way to design a visually appealing character. The fights against each are even better with dozens of unique attacks and heavily stylized scenery surrounding each and every alien’s battlefield. Many even bring new mechanics or completely change the genre of the gameplay just for fun, one second it can be an action hack and slash before becoming a game of musical chairs then its a first person horror game or a final fantasy rpg, it’s so chaotic but constantly keeps things interesting as although the fights remain similar in gameplay they all change the story and characters in some major way.

With all these different ingredients of gameplay, story, style, absurdity and design coming together you make thai delicious sundae that while not very large is just enough perfection and sweetness coming to your taste buds. No More Heroes 3 is the greatest game I have played in a long, long, long time and was a perfect treat that I believe many others need to experience. I’ll have to discuss the other games in the series sometime as I believe that they deserve just as much, if not more, praise in some areas of design as this game.