"without love, it cannot be seen." - beatrice, umineko no naku koro ni

no more no more heroes (for the foreseeable future, anyway).

it was not so much as a conclusive and satisfying farewell to travis and co. as much as it was just meeting up with a pal to do the thing we’ve always done, for one last time, for old time’s sake. i imagine that was the feeling suda was going for, as given in interviews regarding any potential continuation of nmh is unlikely due to ghm wanting to pursue new original ventures and marvelous being the holders of the ip.

nmh3 is an adequate synthesis of everything one would come to uniquely enjoy about its series, the whole shebang retreads its ground and is fully aware it’s doing so; why else would anyone play no more heroes anyway? however, it does so with a keen sense of retrospect and self-reflection that was formed in tsa. if there’s a succinct way to describe nmh3 as a whole, i think it’s love. it’s a love for its parts, a love for the sum of its parts, a love for all the things that inspired and continues to inspire suda and his work, a love for all the people who’ve come together to make it possible, and a love for everything suda and his players have built up his body of work to be where it is today.

love is something that nmh3 examines and extols, both in its development and in the game. the sheer breadth of collaborators who gave a part of themselves to make nmh3 the unique melting pot of styles, ideas, and mediums it is shows each creator’s undying love and devotion for their craft, and seeing it unify creator and fan under such a unique work is nothing short of a historic little diamond in video games as a medium. as for the game itself, it examines the relationships its characters have with each other, and i found that travis and fu have interesting contrasts with how they interact with their circle. travis shares his love for japanese media and pro wrestling in bishop’s podcast, in his consolations to shinobu, and in his way of helping bad girl work through her grief. fu however, sees his “friends” just as tools for his conquest and the aliens in his league are as keenly aware of his exploitation of them as he is. travis is a person who wouldn’t be where he is now without the love he’s built up between himself and his friends, and fu ends up getting used as much as he uses his champions. i would go as far as to say that it’s travis’ understanding and strength of his love that defines why he comes out on top in the end.

phrases like “love letter to the series”, “labor of love”, and whatever similar thing is what i think is the best way to encapsulate no more heroes’ final outing. like the lyrics in orca force, “i know how strong love is,” and suda has a lifelong lover of his work in me ever since i dived into the silver case at some point in 2020.

a decently adequate vn where in the moment i found it intriguing but after finishing it and putting it down it’s occurred to me that i probably won’t be pondering on this one very much compared to contemporaries of similar premise and tone. the game is very much beating you over the head with comfort food themes like found family and how we define it, and there’s nothing necessarily wrong with a game being feel-good comfort food, but i don’t think it was something i was looking for right now, nor was there much room to think on it for myself.

certain major plot beats were neat enough to put together but by the time the game actually gets around to explaining them it feels like it’s dragging its feet while throwing in the flashback i’ve already seen for the third or fourth time. on certain routes it does feel like it goes nowhere, which i suppose is the point of those as they’re intended to be more emotional resolutions (or lack thereof) and some bare hints at plot twists than its own narrative conclusions. i was curious to see how the game would attempt to tie up and reconcile said emotional resolutions from its other paths to its final one, only to get what felt like some meager throwaway lines rather than an effective synthesis of everything the game has built up to.

the dubbed voice acting runs the gamut from mediocre performances (hitomi and iris) to some up to par ones (date) but even the good voice acting has some hiccups in direction here and there.

the entire animation budget went into dance numbers and you can tell.