Light saber slashing in GTA style.
Travis Touchdown lives in Santa Destroy, California in a motel called No More Heroes. His room is decorated with pro wrestling and anime fan stuff and after winning a beam katana from an internet auction he is in desperate need for money. Of course he'll take a job as an assassin and takes the life of #10 in United Assassins Association. Travis is now himself #10 and #11 is after him. Only way out of this is to rank up all the way to #1 so Travis has no choice but to continue his killing spree all around Santa Destroy. Story is told through impressive and quite long cutscenes featuring real voice acting instead of just text. It's all done well and it's a very cinematic experience.
Bulk of the gameplay is third person combat and the Wii controls are done nicely, because the actual sword slashing and kicking is done via A and B buttons. Catch here is that all kinds of special and finishing moves are done by using Wii's motion controls. It's fun and it stays fresh all the time. Lock-on to a target happens by pressing Z-button and after a kill the target moves automatically to next location. This might be the first game after Zelda Twilight Princess that has a decent lock-on system on the Wii. Camera is not controlled by the player, but with a C button it can be centered behind Travis' back. It's a nice trade-off, since Wii doesn't have a second analog stick.
Graphics are cartoonish and simple, frame rate is not that great and there are way too many loading times to break up the action. Still that distinctive retro look of No More Heroes is not something we've seen a million times already. Environments are all static and lifeless except a few breakable objects containing items. Character animation is mostly good, but at times Travis' walking looks a little weird.
Sound design is well done and the best thing is, as I already said, the fact that there's real voice acting. Musical score is very guitar and rock oriented, but it starts to loop too often after 4 hours of gameplay. Sound effects are appropriate and they fit the action nicely, but I would have expected more different sounds when handling that beam katana.
Game has a similar structure to GTA or Saints Row. No More Heroes motel acts a save station and as your headquarters. You have a main mission, which is to kill everyone that has a higher rank than you do and between missions you need to do side missions and collect money to earn your way to that next ranked match. Navigating through the city happens with Travis' motorcycle, but all in all the town of Santa Destroy is just there to help you move from point A to point B. It's not an interesting living city like in GTA for example. Side missions range from collecting coconuts (really!) to doing some part-time assassinations. These locations can be found in a map that is a lot like in GTA.
No More Heroes contains RPG elements, since you can train Travis to learn new moves, buy better equipment and new clothes. This makes you want to do your best, but these upgrades don't seem to affect the gameplay that much. Save system uses checkpoints and also save points, which are men's toilets.
No More Heroes has a distinctive style and there are not that many violent and adult oriented games out there for the Wii. For serious Wii gamers this is worth checking out.