No More Heroes isn't a fighting game by any means. But, were it not for the odd mission that requires you to only use wrestling moves, I would have never remembered that they were in the game to begin with. I'd found a manual that reminded Travis of an old move he used to know, but figured that it probably just unlocked some cutscene or other down the line. After all when combat starts, Travis doesn't prime his chair-handling fists or stretch his rope-jumping muscles - he fires up the beam sword!
Curiously, though, hitting "B" during fights causes Travis to kick high or low. Stunning an enemy with either kick, or indeed the beam katana, allows him to then grab the enemy (another "B" button press) and perform a wrestling move (with the help of moving the wiimote and nunchuck as instructed). These are usually one-hit KOs.
Getting back to the point, when an assassination mission had opened up that required that only wrestling moves be used I was a bit mystified. Surely, before I went on my year or more hiatus from the game, there was a tutorial showing these moves. But I had since completely forgotten them - completely.
In fact, No More Heroes' controls are so different from those in games I often play (RPGs, platformers, adventures), that I don't have them carved into my muscle memory. I hadn't played for a week, and the controls for the Schpeltiger (Travis' motorbike) had pretty much vanished from my memory. "A" for accelerate and "B" brake took me a while to recall.
Because the game's controls aren't necessarily the most intuitive (and my used copy didn't come with an instruction manual) the game would be much more quick to pick up if the menu screen included a control configuration option. Not only would this make it possible to customize the controls to some extent, it would also give players an in-game chance to refresh their memories. Fighting games have such menus, and what's a beat 'em up if not a free-roaming fighting game?
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