No More Heroes 3 Review

Richard Walker

No More Heroes III is wilfully, unabashedly bonkers. This should perhaps come as no surprise, springing as it does from the fertile mind of Goichi Suda (better known as Suda51), a creator seemingly incapable of making anything the least bit sedentary or straight-laced – for evidence, see Killer7, Lollipop Chainsaw, and Shadows of the Damned. Also see No More Heroes, a series in which the hero (and 'creepy-ass otaku'), Travis Touchdown, slices enemies asunder with his crackling beam katana, ready with a sneering wisecrack or an opinion on his favourite movie by Japanese director, Takeshi Miike. Cinephiles will no doubt lap up the innumerable nods to film, and, indeed, popular culture.


Welcome to the motel Travis calls home.

Superficially, No More Heroes III is about Travis working his way through the Galactic Superhero Rankings, in an effort to face Prince FU (aka Jess-Baptiste VI) and save the city of Santa Destroy from a terrible fate, but there's really a lot more to it than that. Developer Grasshopper Manufacture has crammed a lot in here, so, when you're not going toe-to-toe with outlandish alien bosses, then you're generating enough UtopiCoin to qualify for your next bout, by mowing lawns, unclogging toilets with a comically oversized plunger, picking litter from an alligator-infested swamp, ramming cars off the road with Travis's Akira-style bike (also used to explore the city's streets), mining crystals, or engaging in wave-based Defense Missions. Obligatory 'Designated Matches' are also required ahead of a boss showdown, enabling you to sharpen your skills before the real deal.

None of this is ever conventional in any way, shape, or form, and, in true Suda51 fashion, each boss encounter has a unique or unexpected wrinkle. One battle might see you whisked into space, encased in Travis's armoured mech suit, while another has you competing in a high stakes game of musical chairs. You'll go in expecting a fight with one boss, only to be confronted by another entirely, and No More Heroes III frequently deploys gentle rug pulls like these to keep you on your toes. Crucially, though, the combat mechanics in Grasshopper's game are wonderfully immediate and chewy, wielding the beam katana and stringing together spectacular combos never anything less than an unbridled joy.


Elaborate jets of arterial spray amid the fast-paced mania ensure the game's pulpy, comic-book sensibilities shine through, and boss names like 'Velvet Chair Girl', 'Black Knight Direction', 'Sonic Juice', and 'Gold Joe' only enhance the sense of intentionally overblown silliness. Throw the deep-voiced and rotund Jeane the cat to the formula, and you have something that's uniquely, deliriously funny and enormously enjoyable. With so many ingredients thrown into the mix, NMH3 could have collapsed under the weight of its own ideas, but it emerges as a singular, clear-eyed experience with the fingerprints of its auteur all over it.

Despite the wanton mayhem and the banquet of oddities No More Heroes III has to offer, there's no shortage of depth, with Travis' Death Glove granting formidable abilities in combat, and his laboratory playing host to a hub where you can upgrade your abilities, create Death Glove chips to augment your attributes, or hit the Time Machine to revisit previous battles. There's a wide range of activities to dabble in across Santa Destroy and its surrounding islands – one minute you'll be blasting rampaging giant alligators invading the coastline, the next you'll be planting trees, or tracking down lost kittens. Few games manage to juggle so much at once, and fewer still succeed in delivering it all with such unadulterated verve.


Swishy swishy!

And while No More Heroes III comes with its fair share of shonkiness, be it textures popping in, wonky bike controls, lengthy loading times, or invisible walls hampering the apparent freedom you have to explore, there's no denying that this is a game designed purely with fun in mind. Santa Destroy is a sparse, fairly unremarkable place, but, then, Grasshopper's game isn't all that concerned with exploration, instead providing a compelling enough way to connect its various combat encounters – and, really, the superlative combat is the main draw.

Nothing beats executing a perfect dodge, gliding around an enemy's back and suplexing them into the ground, before donning armour and drilling them to death with a volley of missiles. Few, if any games, muster the level of invention and energy present in NMH3 – it's brimming with personality and charisma: its protagonist endearingly arrogant, its boss characters wonderfully ludicrous, its mini-games and side-quests knowingly stupid. If you've never played a No More Heroes game before, you owe it to yourself to rectify that with No More Heroes III. It's the most fun you can have with your pants on. Probably.

No More Heroes 3

Games like No More Heroes III are remarkably rare. Brimming with ideas and genuinely humorous moments, this is something uniquely Grasshopper, uniquely Suda. Get on it as soon as humanly possible.

Form widget
80%
Audio
90%

The soundtrack is brilliantly breezy and catchy – even smaller cues are neat little earworms. As for the voice performances, they're wonderfully committed, contributing to the game's offbeat sense of humour.

Visuals
60%

Stylish but shoddy, No More Heroes III looks about as good as it needs to, and doesn't really push the boat out when it comes to technical prowess. However, it runs at a smooth 60fps, which makes for sublime combat.

Playability
85%

Whether you're zipping around Santa Destroy on Travis's Akira motorcycle or carving a bloody path through extra-terrestrial enemies, No More Heroes III is an absolute blast from beginning to end. An absolute joy.

Delivery
75%

Santa Destroy is quite sparse and uninspired, but the wealth of activities and diversity of unique ideas more than make up for it. Technical shortcomings like pop-in and long loading times are a minor annoyance, but never a dealbreaker.

Achievements
75%

Some of the tasks here are a bit of a grind, like having to beat every boss and Defense Mission with at least an SS rank, or complete the game at its hardest difficulty, but overall, this has a good spread and decent breadth of objectives.

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