No more game

It seems that my sense of timing is off. Starting at around 11, I figured that I could get through the final stretch of No More Heroes in under three hours. What I didn't factor in was the extra time I'd need to fully upgrade the final beam sword. Oh well, doing so made the end of the game ridiculously easy (even if it's already on the lowest difficulty setting).

At full power, the Tsubaki Mk-III is practically unstoppable. It's fast enough to get through most defenses, powerful enough to take out multiple enemies at once, and the easiest to get unbroken attack chains/combos with. Though, even more to its credit, it punishes button mashing by having Travis swing it around in huge arcs, leaving him wide open in between each swing. However, if you're a good judge of distance and combat timing, then that's no problem.

That sword definitely made easy work of the final three bosses.

Of Bad Girl, Jeane, and Henry (the "secret" real final fight), the most difficult was definitely Bad Girl. Not because she was the most powerful, but because the bout with her puts you into a small space with a fighter that uses a variety of unblockable and blockable attacks. So it becomes a matter of waiting for the right time to step in and strike, or to block and dark step so that you can get a slash in edgewise. Not to mention, of all of the game's bosses Bad Girl has the most vigour - even the usually super effective wrestling moves only take out slivers of her health bar. Jeane and Henry on the other hand were practically pushovers.

The challenge to Jeane comes from her speed, but any landed hit, it seemed, was a hit felt. The same went for Henry. In fact, dark stepping around Henry's attacks was far more effective than it was against Jeane. They actually landed and had some effect.

After watching both of the game's endings, all I can say is that the bad one is bad and the good one is all right.

For a game that's relatively short (by no means did I get everything, but I finished all that counts and did so in 17 hours), it's fairly story-heavy in its start and its ending, but leaves the story to the player in the middle. It also gets very meta, with fast forwarding cutscenes, references to other games that at the time of No More Heroes' initial release had been long delayed, and open references to "the player." Having these patches of story and development at opposite ends of the game makes it pretty unbalanced though.

I mean, having been away from the game for at least a year, I can't say whether or not the game's opening would still be fresh in your mind after 16 hours. Even then I can't see too many people binging and beating this thing in one long session. Though, curiously, it is just long enough to fill an entire day, even with quick meal and bathroom breaks factored in. Along with a six hour sleep beforehand.

Nonetheless, for all of its imperfections, No More Heroes really grew on me as I played through it. The first five or so hours (before all the shops were unlocked, and grinding for cash between title bouts became easier/faster) were fairly dull, but after that it really picked up. So long as the game's sequel carries on with the original's late-game playability right away, I'm definitely interested in it. Even if it doesn't, I'd still be willing to give it a go. Wielding the Mk-III is kind of intoxicating, after all.