Grasshopper Manufacture’s Suda 51 and nerdy assassin Travis Touchdown return in the first numbered No More Heroes in over a decade. Many of the show’s tell-tale features return, including stylish embellishments, beam katana fighting, and doing everyday gardening chores to make money. No More Heroes 3 is best when the action is heavy and the absurdity in the cutscenes is full, but the open world between the exciting melee arenas or assassin duels hinders the experience.
No More Heroes 3 bleeds in style, is full of funny references, and takes incredible pleasure in being weird and ostentatious. In the opening hour, the actors’ landscape changes in a dramatic and violent way. In addition, during this time I counted no fewer than four title cards, one of which lingered on the screen longer than any in memory. I still giggle at parts of that game’s presentation days later. Suda and his team at Grasshopper effortlessly glue sound effects and graphics over the user interface, menus and cutscenes that are reminiscent of countless retro games. Few, if any, of the references feel trite; they’re all part of the game’s DNA.
Our hero, Travis Touchdown, fought several times to become the top ranked assassin. After taking his position at the top of the global leaderboard, a group of aliens arrive on Earth to challenge the otaku warrior. This group is led by a colorful leader and galactic prince named Jess Baptiste VI, better known as FU. A much younger and fluffier FU and his human companion Damon are featured in a beautifully animated, Ghibli-inspired version of ET: The Extra-Terrestrial in the first moments of the game. FU was once an adorable bunch of fluff wanting to return home, but it has been 20 years since his last visit to Earth. Now he’s turned into a grumpy and violent kingpin ready to kill anytime.
Boss fights are once again the heart and soul of the No More Heroes experience, and large set pieces against the FU generals limit each episode. The players find themselves among the stars in the depths of space or in a deadly game with musical chairs. Some encounters offer moments of surprise and battles that I won’t spoil, but I found it helpful to have some prior knowledge of the series to get the most of it. Each climate battle is unique and worthwhile to fight your way through your mission tasks to complete. The last encounter was a blast, breaking through the fourth wall in a way that put a grin on my face in the credits.
No More Heroes 3 plays like TV episodes that have an opening credits introducing the characters and features a final credit animation that is reminiscent of the 80s anime. I felt like I saw the world through Travis’ otaku thoughts, and the developers did a wonderful job of doing that. The episodes begin with Travis hanging out with friends and discussing obscure topics such as the production styles used by director Takashi Miike during the career of director Takashi Miike. From there you play with your talking cat Jeanne, choose new clothes or go to the basement to buy new skill points to strengthen Travis.
A relic of previous No More Heroes, Travis must complete a series of Designated Matches before each ranked assassin match. These alternate between battle arenas against various aliens and mech conflicts in space against massive cosmic threats. The battles are fast and fun as you face different enemies that you must fight with awesome different alien designs, each of which requires a unique strategy. The arsenal at your disposal is limited but sufficient. Travis can strike with light or heavy attacks with his trusty jet katana, and he uses a bevy of wrestling suplexes and throws when stunned enemies. At the start of the game, he also acquires Death Powers, which allows him to slow down time, deal AOE damage, and throw aliens back, creating more room to breathe. I never felt overwhelmed or underhanded when I went into battle, but I kept hoping for more complexity and a stronger sense of getting stronger.
Once Travis has met the Designated Match requirements, he must pay the United Assassins Association registration fee to sanction the match. Our powerful assassin makes money all over the city doing volunteer missions, taking odd jobs mowing lawns or protecting the coast from invading kaiju alligators. These jobs are not as exciting as the combat missions, but they are also not entirely boring. Mowing the lawn is a surprisingly strategic activity that challenges you to continuously step up your engine without overloading it. It has its own silliness that allows you to be a show-off and drive it while you spin the machine to plan your next cutting path.
While I understand this battle and housework loop is deeply tied to the early episodes of the series, too much time is spent meandering between goals in the boring, barren open world. Each chapter sends you to areas around Travis’ home, Santa Destroy, and each is devoid of interesting sights or activities in the world. Call of Battle is a bombed out battlefield with a grainy sepia filter on the screen. It comes closest to the attractiveness of an environment, even though it’s still empty and full of frustrating invisible walls. Scattered collectibles beckon players to explore, but I felt minimally incited to look around a world’s eyesore. The performance is massively affected outdoors, which causes the frame rates to drop to almost single digits, which clashes with the more stable battle sequences.
While the journey to kill FU and his cohorts takes Travis Touchdown to some wild places, the narrative needle doesn’t move much in the end. There is no natural arc for Travis, and the story merely serves as a setup for future series plans. Most character formations focus on FU and how he treats individual members of his team of space conquerors for their final meal before sending them to Travis. Even these sequences are short and do not play a major role in the overall story. I wish something more meaningful had happened in the 15 hours I spent in Travis’ shoes.
My time with No More Heroes 3 jumped between the short heights of entertaining bosses and cutscenes to long, ugly parts of the world. Much of the design is dated and I wanted to drop it after a few bosses to avoid the mundane, but glad I saw it through to completion. There are lots of fun moments, and I love how fearless it is to be strange or referential. Those who are already invested in the story of Travis Touchdown should find the place for this new No More Heroes. Even so, I would insist that newbies check out previous entries before delving into this garden of madness.