No more high school rumbles

Fighting your way to the eighth ranking's fight is pretty cool. Not because it's such a Tarantino-esque experience, but because the formulaic fight-through-the-hallway-'til-you-reach-the-boss process has already been toyed with. It's altered simply enough, too.

The fight for eighth takes place in Santa Destroy High School, and for whatever reason the boss' minions are all flannel-wearing, axe- and sledgehammer-wielding gents. There are also a few with torches. None of these weapons can stand against a beam sword, of course, but halfway through the halls, things change up. One of the minions with a torch raises it to the school's sprinkler, causing the whole system to go off. Travis' beam sword runs on electricity and so he winds up getting electrocuted.

Instead of being an instant death however (and in keeping with Suda51/Grasshopper Manufacture's sense of humour), your controls lock up except for the analog stick, with which you have to guide Travis past the myriad minions scattered throughout the hall. Since the sprinkler's main control box is at this particular hall's end, you have to turn around and make your way back after having disabled it. It might not sound like much of a play on the formula, but it's simple stuff like that that can really change how a game like this plays.

The rumble with the boss herself, Shinobu, is decent, but I must've chosen the "Sweet" difficulty setting in the file I'm finishing off. Though at first I was sure that I'd need a second shot at it, pulling off the newest wrestling move left her vulnerable for the coup de grâce, and the battle was won.

Now that it's back to the game's duller cash collecting mode, I do have one thing to say aside from gushing about how interesting the title fights can be. The game should allow you to replay missions.

Not necessarily to re-fight previous assassins, but because trading cards can be missed, and missions can be somewhat lucrative depending on how effective you are in a fight. Mowing lawns, collecting coconuts, and various assassination gigs get boring fast, especially when you're forced to repeat them a few times over to get from title bout to title bout.