Well-styled, cleverly designed, and pretty easy to play, but a weird storyline and not enough explanation get in the way
But I digress. No More Heroes is pretty cool. The style is very innovative, and works really well on the Wii. It's like a modern-style shooter combined with the pixelated graphics of old-school games. At first the graphics take some getting used to, the high-contrast, vivid colors, and retro-style fonts and sounds can be a little distracting at first look, but after a while (when you actually get to explore more of the world than the Not-Tony-Montana's mansion at the beginning) it grows on you. The world is well-designed, and the retro-stylized menus, maps, graphics and symbols fit in well within the world design, without being obtrusive.
The controls are simple. A button swings the Beam-Katana, which is kind of counter-intuitive for me, after so much time playing Zelda, I wanted to be able to swing the remote to swing the Katana. There are a few motion controls built into the basic fighting, the way you hold the remote affects your stance and you swing in a specific direction to deal the final blows, but I really wish more of the remote's motion capabilities had been used in the actual sword combat. (still, those final blow moves are pretty sweet)
You play as Travis Touchdown (which, I'm sorry, sound vaguely porn-starish), the world's #11 assassin, who upon discovering this fact via an attractive blonde french? woman, decides to accept her help? to become the #1 Assassin in the world. You earn money by taking various assassination jobs, as well as other random odd jobs, then use that money to enter the next ranked fight with the assassin ranked above you.
Those "?" that I threw in there? Yeah, the biggest complaint we had about No More Heroes is how confusing the story is to follow. A lot of backstory is explained in the very opening sequence (like, before you even start playing - the kind you don't always pay complete attention to) and by the time I realized it was important, I had missed the whole beginning and the introduction of the blonde french? lady.
The characters are strange, over-the top, and slightly irritating. They tend to talk a lot, quickly, all with very different accents, and it becomes really hard to follow. My favorite moment was when the remote started ringing like a cell phone, and my brother actually started to talk to it, like he was really talking to the french? chick. (I was laughing).
From what I've seen so far, No More Heroes is a pretty neat game - not nearly on the same quality level as some of the games in the same genre, and not just because of the graphics. It cannot be denied that this game would have undoubtedly been improved by being rendered for a higher-quality graphics system, like the X360 or PS3, but for what it is, they have done a good job of working with the graphics abilities that are available on the Wii. So far, the story is pretty dull and weak. Kill that guy, kill some more for money, Kill the next guy, etc. I have a feeling it probably gets a little more interesting with time, but we shall see. Unfortunately, I don't know if I've been drawn in enough to find out.
There is a lack of explanation not only in relation to storyline, but also just control and item wise, after the original tutorial of how to use the Katana you are sort of left on your own to figure out how to work everything from there. Those two elements - story and control - are why I would only rank the game at a 7.5/10 - with a little bit more explanation (in a less quick and jerky manner), this could easily be a 9/10 game in my book, but it is just too confusing.
However, I ranked it at an 8/10, and that extra half a point is solely because you can actually play with Travis's pet cat at the apartment, which provided us with several minutes of entertainment. We need lives, seriously.