Didn’t think I’ll be writing about this game this soon since I wasn’t planning on playing it, let alone finishing it, until after I’ve played through all of my much older games. But a couple of things bumped this game up to number 2 of the “Things I Will Play With” list. Just below “myself.”
The first thing was the two games I was currently playing, Trauma Center: New Blood and The Godfather: Blackhand Edition were proving to be too big for my puny gaming abilities. Which leads me to conclude that they suck.
The second was I saw Sylvia Christel in the No More Heroes trailer:
Yeah. There was no way I was putting off playing the game after seeing that. But as you’ll see (if you bother to continue reading this entry that is), the game is not just a thinly veiled excuse to give fan service to prepubescent (ok, it appeals to us old guys too) anime fanbois. The game, in a nutshell, is pure unadulterated fun.
Well actually there’s a third reason. But there’s no way in hell I’m admitting how the wife made me watch all Princess Hours episodes in the span of less than a week so I was in desperate need of some murders right after. Wait.
Plot
Your name is Travis Touchdown, and you killed the 11th ranked assassin in the country, which makes you the 11th. Now you have to kill the other assassins ranked higher than you so you can move to the top. For each ranking mission, you have to pay the steep entry fee, which requires to you to odd jobs all around town.
If you do good in said odd jobs, your bosses will give recommendations to the local assassination referral agency so you get to make more money by killing more people. Yay!
Needless to say, this game rightfully deserves its M ESRB rating.
Graphics / Sound
Ok so this game doesn’t boast the best graphics or sound, and it’s kind of aware of that. The mini map and the options screen are pixelated on purpose. And you get a healthy dose of old school 8-bit sound alerts for some menus. But that’s not to say that the audio and video of this game are completely worthless.
Background music is catchy despite the fact that there are only a couple of musical tracks featured in the game. And whitewashed colors and an exaggerated use of shadows adds to the nuttiness of the game’s design.
Game Design / Gameplay
This game has flaws. There’s no denying that. The biggest one at least for me is how there’s so little to do in this game apart form killing people and doing the occasional odd job.
The GTA-type free roaming aspect is painfully restricted. Which can either be a bad thing or a good thing depending on your preference. You have a whole city at your disposal; but you can only visit a handful of these locations. And of those locations, only about 5 of them are actually useful to you. So basically, the city of Santa Destroy is simply a glorified “Mission Menu” which you use to get from one mission to another.
Which is a good thing if you’re in a hurry because you don’t have to get sidetracked by police taking you down for accidentally running over the random pedestrian or for demolishing some trees.
But still, you did not sign on for this game to be chased by cops, you signed on for some mindless killings and you will not be disappointed.
On paper, there’s really not a lot of variety in the missions: Kill henchmen, do it a couple more times until you reach the boss, figure out the boss’s fighting patterns, exploit holes in fighting patterns to kill boss. But there’s a kind of buzz you get out of cutting through a roomful of baddies that’s actually kind of addictive.
Conclusion
So yeah, things could get repetitive, and the video and audio aren’t that great. However, because of the retardedness of the story and the outrageous characters; not to mention the addictive gameplay, this game just made it to my short list of “Favorite Wii Games to Feature T’NA Shots And Mindless Killings and whose title Rhymes with GLOW SOAR BEARDOS.”
Plus, it’s FUN:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkXIG1MixLw]
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