My Wii was feeling a bit neglected, so next up is No More Heroes. It’s basically a fighting game, which aren’t really my forte (thus I’ll be playing this one on Easy), but its weirdness appeals to me and the word-of-mouth around it is pretty good.

The basic story is that this rather loserish guy (no apparent friends, obsessed with anime, lives in a motel) buys a lightsaberbeam katana off the internet, kills someone with it, and discovers that he’s now ranked on a list of the top 10 assassins. Of course, now he wants to fight his way to the top of the list by beating each one in turn.

The combat itself is actually pretty easy to grasp, even for a non-fighting-game guy like me. There are a handful of basic attacks (block, high/low beam swing, high/low guard break), some more advanced attacks (charged beam swing and guard break), finishing moves (swing the remote in the direction displayed for an extra-bloody finish, some extra cash, and a slot machine pull), and wrestling moves (big-damage moves you can only do while they’re stunned). The slot machine shows up when you pull off a finishing move, and if you match three symbols, you enter a special attack mode where time slows down and you get extra abilities like shooting fireballs for a few seconds.

Between boss battles, there’s a GTA-ish open world that you can travel around on by foot or by motorbike, where you can earn the cash needed to enter the next fight by doing side jobs, dumpster diving, and smaller assassination missions, and there are a few other places you can visit like a lab where you can get the beam katana upgraded. You can also stop back at the motel to save the game, change your clothes, view some collected stuff, or even pet your cat.

The graphics…aren’t really all that great. They’re appropriately stylish, with buckets and buckets of blood literally gushing everywhere, but the limitations of the Wii really become apparent as there are jaggies everywhere, things pop-in at a short distance, details are difficult to make out at a distance, etc. They’re sufficient, though, and the animations are at least decent.

So far, I’ve beaten the first boss (rank #10), mainly using the wrestling moves to knock off most of his health. I then ran around and collected all of the dumpster rewards (cash and T-shirts) since it’s usually best to get those out of the way all in one shot or I’d forget which I have and which I don’t.

The assassination mission centre wasn’t open yet, so I stopped by the regular job centre, which sent me to collect coconuts for a vendor. There are a bunch of other jobs you can also get, like mowing the lawn and cleaning graffiti, and they’re a quick way to earn some cash, and unlock more assassinations and street fights.

It didn’t take long to get enough cash, so I did the second boss fight as well (rank #9). You have to fight through a bunch of henchmen before you get to the boss, of course, and there was a twist here with a little minigame that fit in with the baseball theme of the stadium where the fight took place. In a couple spots along the way to the boss, the henchmen lined up, threw three baseballs at me, and if I hit them I could knock down a bunch of henchmen at once instead of fighting them hand-to-hand.

The boss himself was on the baseball field, and his weapon of choice was a pair of golden revolvers. After a cutscene to set the stage for the fight, I lost the first time largely because of a special attack shot of his that’s unblockable. The second time around, I figured out how to dodge that shot in time, and it was a much easier fight.

More stuff has opened up on the world map now, including that lab, but that’s where I left off for the day, so I’ll have to check them out later.

An unexpected find in an alley:

This is about as good as the view gets: