So after spending a few minutes getting Travis' bike unstuck, I made my way to Destroy Stadium where the fight for the ninth rank awaits. I'm on the threshold of that fight now, and came across something curious along the way.
As is the case with most mission-based free-roaming world games, the lead up to the mission's target lies behind corridors filled with enemies. No More Heroes is definitely no exception. All of those you face even have the good manners to wait their turn, patiently holding back until they've seen their comrade cut down by Travis' beam sword. But that's not what I observed.
Instead, it's that the game's combat is very frantic. Now, of course that's right in the game's genre: "Action-Adventure." But Zelda games are similarly classified, yet their combat is much more pensive. You have the chance to avoid or visibly and obviously block incoming attacks as most enemies have a fairly wide swing or a definite tell that telegraphs their upcoming strike. Enemies don't necessarily queue up, either.
What I wonder, though, is whether or not this difference in combat goes beyond the two games' having very different developers and audiences, and comes down to graphical style. A cartoonish (or, in the case of Twilight Princess, clearly fantastical) enemy coming at you with a huge sword or a ready bow isn't likely to trigger any fight or flight responses in the brain - however mild. But a more realistically styled gang of baseball fury-types coming at you with bats and beam swords of their own makes for a more convincing virtual threat. It's this extra element of realism that makes No More Heroes' combat more explosive, I think.
That and, to now, the lack of any sort of puzzle element to them. I'm still early in the game, but I doubt that I'll need to blow up or set fire to any fallen corpses to make sure certain baddies don't come back.
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