This is the Conker's Bad Fur Day of action games
I will not elaborate any further
Actual thoughts:
"No More Heroes III is a game that's going to have to do more now than just be a celebration of Travis being back for real after this one."
-TheGamingBritShow, The Meaning of Travis Strikes Again | Suda 51, Legendary Again
No More Heroes III, to me, fails at creating nuance at any point in its far too long runtime. It represents the worst traits of all of the post-NMH1 Grasshopper Manufacture games where Suda 51 was only tangentially involved in, made worse by being a game Suda actually directed. I have no personal attachment to the Kill the Past anthology since I never played them outside of the No More Heroes series, but considering that 3 follows up Travis Strikes Again, a game with a lot to say in a mostly somber tone, it fails to build on anything from these games in a meaningful way. At no point did I feel this game's existence was justified, a complete lack of nuance from a director who gave his games that in spades. I genuinely cannot tell you what the main theme of this game is, since it's just shallow commentary after shallow commentary. I really tried to find even the tiniest thing to latch onto in terms of themes, but what I found was, at best, surface-level, and at worst, works against any theoretical themes I tried to make up. At the beginning of the game, Travis goes on about being a hero who just happens to be a passing assassin. In No More Heroes, it's made explicitly clear that Travis is an irredeemable bastard of a man acting for his own interests of bloodlust and regular lust. How he gets to this point in NHM3 feels more out of circumstance rather than a genuine want to improve himself and become the hero he wanted to be in the second game. Travis Strikes Again made him realize that this current path he's on isn't worth it for most of its runtime, but by the end, there's an air of acceptance of his bloodlust and the fact that he's a bastard. No More Heroes III walks back on a lot of what NMH1 and TSA sets up, and instead of building on their themes and Travis's character, it focuses on one-off moments that never add up to anything and a VERY weird-guy view on sexuality in Kimmy Love. I fail to see anything deeper in what this game is trying to do. It feels like there's concepts of themes that the game fails to build on in any meaningful way. Is it about Travis and his idea of what a hero is? Is is about media and how it affects us? Is it about the sterilization of video games as a whole? Man, I don't fucking know. Even No More Heroes 2 was more clear cut in its themes. It a confused mess of ideas that never coalesce at any point. This also extends to the gameplay. In NMH1, all of the gameplay stuff in that game is to show that Travis is just some other guy trying to get by on menial work, showing a more mundane side of Travis. TSA is a top-down hack n slash meant to emulate the style of video games of old, building on Travis's character and the themes of the game through the gameplay. What is NMH3 trying to say through its gameplay? I tried to look at its combat system and minigames from every angle and came out with nothing. Even compared to specific action games that released a couple years ago, it fails to even come close, mechanically or thematically. I play games like Kingdom Hearts III or Devil May Cry 5, and I can tell both games use their mechanics to build on the themes of legacy and the importance of carving your own path. There's more to their gameplay than that, but I'm saving that stuff for the KH3 video, but back on topic, NMH3 does not use its gameplay to push any themes or pose any interesting questions. If I told you about any of its themes, I'd feel like I'd be lying to you, and I should not feel that way for a game of this nature. It also has the most baffling finale of any game I have ever played, a perfect representation of a game with a massive identity crisis, with a Smash Bros clone that comes out of nowhere and offers nothing of nuance.
Maybe it's my fault for wanting something deeper than what we got, but when you follow up something as thematically dense as TSA, I can't help but feel disappointed. It lags behind action games like the aforementioned KH3 and DMC5, games that are dense both mechanically and thematically, and instead of pushing the series forward with its head held high like they did, it feels like the product of a bygone era, a facsimile of its series.
Oh yeah, and Orca Force/ Dead Orca Force blows, I'm sorry bro.
I will not elaborate any further
Actual thoughts:
"No More Heroes III is a game that's going to have to do more now than just be a celebration of Travis being back for real after this one."
-TheGamingBritShow, The Meaning of Travis Strikes Again | Suda 51, Legendary Again
No More Heroes III, to me, fails at creating nuance at any point in its far too long runtime. It represents the worst traits of all of the post-NMH1 Grasshopper Manufacture games where Suda 51 was only tangentially involved in, made worse by being a game Suda actually directed. I have no personal attachment to the Kill the Past anthology since I never played them outside of the No More Heroes series, but considering that 3 follows up Travis Strikes Again, a game with a lot to say in a mostly somber tone, it fails to build on anything from these games in a meaningful way. At no point did I feel this game's existence was justified, a complete lack of nuance from a director who gave his games that in spades. I genuinely cannot tell you what the main theme of this game is, since it's just shallow commentary after shallow commentary. I really tried to find even the tiniest thing to latch onto in terms of themes, but what I found was, at best, surface-level, and at worst, works against any theoretical themes I tried to make up. At the beginning of the game, Travis goes on about being a hero who just happens to be a passing assassin. In No More Heroes, it's made explicitly clear that Travis is an irredeemable bastard of a man acting for his own interests of bloodlust and regular lust. How he gets to this point in NHM3 feels more out of circumstance rather than a genuine want to improve himself and become the hero he wanted to be in the second game. Travis Strikes Again made him realize that this current path he's on isn't worth it for most of its runtime, but by the end, there's an air of acceptance of his bloodlust and the fact that he's a bastard. No More Heroes III walks back on a lot of what NMH1 and TSA sets up, and instead of building on their themes and Travis's character, it focuses on one-off moments that never add up to anything and a VERY weird-guy view on sexuality in Kimmy Love. I fail to see anything deeper in what this game is trying to do. It feels like there's concepts of themes that the game fails to build on in any meaningful way. Is it about Travis and his idea of what a hero is? Is is about media and how it affects us? Is it about the sterilization of video games as a whole? Man, I don't fucking know. Even No More Heroes 2 was more clear cut in its themes. It a confused mess of ideas that never coalesce at any point. This also extends to the gameplay. In NMH1, all of the gameplay stuff in that game is to show that Travis is just some other guy trying to get by on menial work, showing a more mundane side of Travis. TSA is a top-down hack n slash meant to emulate the style of video games of old, building on Travis's character and the themes of the game through the gameplay. What is NMH3 trying to say through its gameplay? I tried to look at its combat system and minigames from every angle and came out with nothing. Even compared to specific action games that released a couple years ago, it fails to even come close, mechanically or thematically. I play games like Kingdom Hearts III or Devil May Cry 5, and I can tell both games use their mechanics to build on the themes of legacy and the importance of carving your own path. There's more to their gameplay than that, but I'm saving that stuff for the KH3 video, but back on topic, NMH3 does not use its gameplay to push any themes or pose any interesting questions. If I told you about any of its themes, I'd feel like I'd be lying to you, and I should not feel that way for a game of this nature. It also has the most baffling finale of any game I have ever played, a perfect representation of a game with a massive identity crisis, with a Smash Bros clone that comes out of nowhere and offers nothing of nuance.
Maybe it's my fault for wanting something deeper than what we got, but when you follow up something as thematically dense as TSA, I can't help but feel disappointed. It lags behind action games like the aforementioned KH3 and DMC5, games that are dense both mechanically and thematically, and instead of pushing the series forward with its head held high like they did, it feels like the product of a bygone era, a facsimile of its series.
Oh yeah, and Orca Force/ Dead Orca Force blows, I'm sorry bro.