No More Heroes 3 – Zero Punctuation

That’s why I’ve been inventing swear words for the last fifteen years and making stupid pictures of obscene acts being committed by jars of Branston pickle on legs. No More Heroes 3 opens with a cartoon of a young boy befriending a baby alien and helping them escape back to their home planet with a Miyazaki does ET sort of vibe. Then the mood swivels on a fucking dime when twenty years later the alien comes back as a fratboy dickweed wanting to mooch off the planet Earth, along with a horde of alien allies that all look like their colour schemes were decided by randomly chucking crayons at a centrifuge. Nerd assassin with poor anger management Travis Touchdown is forced to leave his motel room and standard routine of gaming, anime and masturbating enough that his wrist action could power the Eastern seaboard, then puts on a flying robot suit to confront the alien aggressors in yet another countdown of ranking battles. So that’s like, nine genres touched upon and we’ve barely wanked the surface. Like Travis Touchdown himself No More Heroes has been in a sort of masturbator’s hermitage for a few years, popping up only for that Travis Strikes Again thing. Which I think had a really introspective vibe; felt like Suda51 trying to get back in touch with something, possibly his penis.

And Some More Heroes 3 feels like a return to confidence with perhaps the most elaborate instalment yet. I just wish it wasn’t exclusive to the fucking Switch. All my Switch pro controllers have the galloping stick drift so I had to use the standard Joycon housing where the positioning of the right stick makes it feel like trying to get to second base with someone who keeps one of their tits in their handbag. But I digress. No More Heroes 3 brings back the open world sandbox of the first game but unlike the first game remembers to put some fucking stuff in it. Unfortunately not including a jump button, so you do still occasionally have to go fifty yards out of your way to get past a knee high fence. I’m also confused as to why about half of the areas shown on the game’s map are permanently blocked off and inaccessible. If you had to make cuts, why not redraw the map? Or would that have cut into the recording time for the prolonged conversations about Takashi Miike films? You know what, the map is a metaphor for the whole game, because it’s a kaleidoscope of ideas, but at the same time, seems to be weighed down with a lot of unnecessary baggage. For its flaws, No More Heroes 1 was a fresh and breezy experience about an angry foulmouthed nerd who couldn’t avoid getting dunked on even in victory because he couldn’t grasp that he was fundamentally isolated from humanity.

But as he drifted in an author insert kind of direction he now alternates between angry foulmouthed nerd, angry foulmouthed warrior poet and angry foulmouthed self-aware video game protagonist. And if there’s a point where the game loads its shopping basket with a few too many slightly tiresome pastries it’s when it’s doing the nudge-wink self-aware video game bit. Like, fairly late in the game one of the bosses insists on fighting you as a turn based RPG battle. Which I admit was pretty funny in the two or three other subversive self-aware comedy games I can think of that did the same gag. Not here, here it falls completely flat by having characters bang on about it for ten minutes. “Oh I don’t want to do a turn based battle fuck fuck hey what’s going on why can’t I move what’s that menu doing there masturbate masturbate this isn’t what serious gamers want do they kids?” Oh boy. How self-aware and quirky don’t look away Travis I’m so close. Meanwhile, we defeat one of the other bosses in the game by beating them at musical chairs. Then we fight their cartoon octopus friend who can only say one word and can shoot an instant kill death laser from their mouth. See, this is the shit I wanted, Suda51, the constant barrage of weird ideas and hard left turns, not the smug in-jokes. Stream of consciousness, not stream of self-satisfied ejaculate.

There are many moments when the game feels like it’s waddling about with its overloaded trousers round its ankles. The series has picked up a few running gags. You know that gag in the first game where it spends ages establishing a new boss and building up to the fight and then psyche! Some other character jumps in and instakills them and you fight them instead? Yeah, No More Heroes 3 does that about five times. I kinda predicted as much when the game shows you all ten boss characters at the start, to paraphrase Murphy’s Law, no best laid plan survives contact with Suda51’s attention span. It’s disappointing because the one thing Suda51 games shouldn’t be is predictable. But don’t misunderstand me. No More Heroes isn’t just random bollocks from beginning to end. It’s actually tightly structured in the classic broomstick up the arse Japanese open world fashion. Can’t just whip out your glowing erection anywhere and menace the knee high fences, combat is strictly regimented and can only take place in closed off dedicated arenas that have registered with the city and gotten cleared by an officially licensed murderbox inspector. And you have to grind up a few generic fights before you can buy into the next ranking battle.

And I’ve never liked No More Heroes combat much, the flow keeps dying a hideous squealing death every time you get knocked on your arse and have to mash a button to stand up. Or when you have to mash a button to recharge your sword. Or when you’re mashing buttons to whittle down the constant damage sponge enemies or to walk across a room or breathe in and out because mashing buttons is your life now. And when we buy the upgrades that improve our health and attack power it doesn’t feel like we’re getting stronger, it feels like we have to do it just to keep up with the ever increasing levels of damage sponginess the enemies have. But a new feature of combat is special super attacks with longish cooldowns, including a super dropkick which stuns most enemies and knocks them out of basically any attack. I used that shit as much as I could because it’s essentially a special dedicated button for when you’re bored of the mashing and just want to kick something in the face very hard. Which both and I my dog were grateful for. In closing summary, No More Heroes 3 is exactly the big juicy new instalment us Suda51 fans were hoping for after Travis Strikes Again, and is like taking a bath in Suda51’s head. It’s self-indulgent, generally interesting to see what rubber ducks are going to float up for us next, but every now and again something inappropriate touches my leg.