No More Heroes III (NMH3) is one of the best action games I have ever played. An absolute treat for long-time fans of the series and newcomers alike.
It’s stylish, gratuitous, fun, and hilarious. If you haven’t played it yet, you bloody well should.
Set not long after the events of semi-sequel Travis Strikes Again, NMH3 asks the question, what if ET came back and he was a fucking psycho hell-bent on conquering Earth.
After showing players the heartwarming tale of Fu and Damon and a quick go on Travis’ favourite childhood game Deathman, NMH3 opens proper with everyone’s favourite deadbeat assassin waking up in his apartment ( which now spans three floors) in the middle of an Alien invasion.
In nothing more than a neckbrace and his skivvies, Travis grabs his trusty beam katana to see off the invading forces.
Diving right back into the fray, the combat instantly feels familiar yet has evolved in small but meaningful ways. Button-friendly fast and heavy attacks replace high and low attacks from previous games. While the batteries on Travis’s beam katana are recharged with a frantic flick of the right analogue stick rather than wanking a Wiimote.
The Death Skill attacks from Travis Strikes Again also make a welcome return, allowing you to drop kick, slow down, or telepathically chuck any fool that gets too close. They are a great way to mix up how you fight and feel incredibly satisfying to pull off.
Upping the stakes to a ridiculous degree, No More Heroes III sees Travis fighting against a new batch of intergalactic bastards like a god-damned superhero. Each thrilling battle is unique, fun, and delightfully batshit – there’s a camp robot playing with polarity, a vengeful pop princess, and even a game of deadly musical chairs.
The qualifying battles before each boss fight fix one of the problems with previous entries in the series by upping the variety of enemies to a ridiculous degree. There is a whole menagerie of alien freaks to fight; each needs a different strategy to best, and slaughtering the buggers is almost satisfying as the bosses are.
Weirdly though, it’s NMH3’s quieter moments that I loved the most. Each episode (presented like an anime) opens with Travis slumped on his sofa discussing Miike and Marvel movies with a mate. You can also jet around town on a new Akira-style bike, stopping off for some sushi (which grants health and buffs), rooting through bins for trading cards, grabbing t-shirts from fashion-conscious aliens and doing odd jobs to make some extra scratch. These include collecting garbage from a crocodile-infested swamp, cutting grass with a supercharged lawnmower, and unlocking new save points by unblocking portaloos with a plunger.
Though NMH 3 is a direct sequel to Travis Strikes Back, the game plays far more like the original than its sequels. The retro-styled mini-games to boost your stats, more powerful katanas, and dual wielding are gone, replaced with a simple skill tree and the ability to craft chips to boost your stats. It’s not a deal breaker, but scrimping together enough cash to unlock a new blade always felt rewarding. Finding junk and building a new chip doesn’t feel the same.
And now, the elephant in the room for anyone considering the double dip.
On the Switch, there was one problem with No More Heroes III; it’s an Unreal game, and the Unreal engine doesn’t like the Switch (apart from Travis Strikes Again for some odd reason). Although the game was unaffected when it mattered, with fight scenes remaining fast and kinetic, with streaks of viscera and explosions of colourful violence filling the screen, the game looks (especially after spending several hours slashing my way through the PS5 version) really blurry.
Also, the open-world areas, though sparsely populated (something the devs cleverly made a plot point), chugged at times. So, exploring the greatly expanded Santa Destroy, replete with collectables, bonus missions, and all sorts of little easter eggs and secrets, was a bit of a slog at times.
So here’s the good news, all of the technical issues with the Switch version do not exist in the PS5 version (I assume this is true for the Series X and PC as well).
It loads in seconds, not minutes; the gorgeous, stylised graphics are crisp and clear, the frame rate is high and stable, the lighting is better, and the grass even sways in the wind.
Not to knock a rock-solid port, but considering the vast power difference between a Switch and the likes of the Series console and the PS5, you wonder why they didn’t see how far they could push things. I’m not necessarily saying the game should have a 120hz mode, but I feel it could have got there. Or maybe the quality of the different materials in the game (which already look gorgeous) could have been bumped up even further with some ray tracing ( though I understand that could tank the frame rate). But these are more a wishlist than a complaint by any rate.
No More Heroes III is SUDA 51 at his bombastic, self-indulgent best. Yes, it may be a case of style over substance at times, but when it is this stylish, it doesn’t matter. The combat is tight, kinetic and fun, the narrative is batshit in the best possible way, and the presentation is top-notch.
If you have fond memories of the original on either the Wii or PS3, hell, even if you haven’t, No More Heroes III is one trip you need to take.