No More Heroes III

I finished it

I loved it

Buskalilly wrote:

So anyway, I bought the trilogy set off Amazon. It's coming tomorrow.

What's the trilogy set...?

Think it's the first I've heard of a retail trilogy too. In before it's some Japan-only thing...

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

Balladeer wrote:

I didn't realise it was coming out this week somehow, hence the lack of suitable tagline!  I'll put one up over the weekend/on Monday.  Suggestions welcome.

No More Taglines.

Got to recognise the simple elegance of this.

Balladeer wrote:

Think it's the first I've heard of a retail trilogy too.  In before it's some Japan-only thing...

I'm guessing one of these editions, believe we have mentioned it before

Ah ok, looks cool! I did get the LRG special editions of NMH1 and NMH2 so I do at least have all of the games physical on Switch in some form.

Yep, Killion Dollar trilogy. Nice big boxset, stickers I'll never use and a metal tumbler which makes me feel like I'm at a beer festival in a muddy English field.

Ahhhhh.  I think I just zone out the moment a collector's edition is revealed, since I struggle with the collector mindset and most of them are full of non-gamey stuff.  Nice stuff sometimes, but still non-gamey stuff.  And not plushies...

I've got two plushies from collector's edition with both being from Atlus.

I made a start on this, just beat the third of the ranked bosses. My early impressions are quite positive, as I still like the combat and it's got loads of style to spare. I'm not enjoying the bombardment of cutscenes though (at least they're skippable), and nothing about it really and truly feels that much enhanced from the first No More Heroes game back on the Wii.

There was a cracking pair of references to The Style Council after one boss battle that 99.9999% of players woudn't have understood - I loved that, I've not popped for a game like that since the Chemical Plant Zone Act 2 boss battle in Sonic Mania.

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

nothing about it really and truly feels that much enhanced from the first No More Heroes game back on the Wii.

As someone currently replaying that first game and thoroughly enjoying it, I'm very okay with that.

The first game is still the best, I think, but this being very notably the third game in the series makes it a little hard to compare because it has all that history baked into it. Combat is certainly improved and at its best in 3 (even if I miss the hot swappable katanas from 2) but you are confined to trying it out in single-room challenge fights and the bosses whereas the first two games had traditional levels for at least parts of them. The enemy variety is great though in actually dealing with them all in different ways!

I found and beat the secret boss last night, as well as finishing up the challenge missions and collectibles. I've put 30 hours in so far!

That’s fair enough that you say that, but the open world sections that (I feel they sensibly) got rid of in No More Heroes 2 are back, but without any appreciable improvements from the first game, and without any points of interest. I don’t see how anybody would be okay with these open world bits to be honest. They’re not good, they’re really boring and empty, taking you away from the game’s genuinely entertaining stuff.

I’ve played more of this today and as great as the combat is, I’m already getting a bit scunnered with the game’s sameyish structure. I can see me putting this down for a while, coming back to it when gaming’s less busy.

I like the open world bits for all the reasons you don't like them! I think the big joke of No More Heroes is that Travis is a geeky loser in a boring town playing at being this superhero dude. Driving his ridiculous motrocycle around town just to lift coconuts feels so right, and it never takes too long so it just feels like a nice breather between killing dudes with swords.

Maybe the ideal would be to include it but also have an option of just travelling everywhere via fast travel if it gets too tedious.

The open world is in many respects garbage but that's also what makes it so good

There's a genuine pacing value to the open world, it's the ebb in the ebb-and-flow of challenge fights and ranking battles. I genuinely enjoy finding the collectibles across it as downtime between the hyper-focus of the combat. It's also a joke that I found never got old, satirising open worlds in other games. I'm convinced the performance issues the open world has in NMH3 are deliberate (there are no such issues in the combat), but even if they aren't, it's still funny!

The lack of an open world in NMH2 is one of my main criticisms of that game (along with the related shift in side jobs to the retro games).

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I’ve played more of this today and as great as the combat is, I’m already getting a bit scunnered with the game’s sameyish structure. I can see me putting this down for a while, coming back to it when gaming’s less busy.

What rank are you up to? The variety on show in the game is non-stop, although I think it becomes more clearly constantly different after the first two ranking fights (where you might assume the game is going to follow similarly from those). There is repetition in the general structure of do x designated fights then enter next ranking battle, but the enemy type variation in the fights and the complete variety in ranking fights more than balances that I think - as does getting distracted with the various collectibles and volunteer missions.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

There's a genuine pacing value to the open world, it's the ebb in the ebb-and-flow of challenge fights and ranking battles.

Honestly this. I don't get the 'joke' of an intentionally rubbish open world, but I did appreciate the pacing, in NMH1 anyway. I found NMH2 a bit too 'boss fights? Here's yer stinking boss fights' in its structure, or lack thereof.

OrangeRakoon wrote:

The Cappuccino Kid wrote:

I’ve played more of this today and as great as the combat is, I’m already getting a bit scunnered with the game’s sameyish structure. I can see me putting this down for a while, coming back to it when gaming’s less busy.

What rank are you up to? The variety on show in the game is non-stop, although I think it becomes more clearly constantly different after the first two ranking fights (where you might assume the game is going to follow similarly from those). There is repetition in the general structure of do x designated fights then enter next ranking battle, but the enemy type variation in the fights and the complete variety in ranking fights more than balances that I think - as does getting distracted with the various collectibles and volunteer missions.

I'm earning money to battle the fourth ranked alien. The repetition in the general structure that you mention, that's not a deal breaker for me. It's just that I feel that there was something much better in the past...namely the lack of an open world and shift to retro game side jobs in in No More Heroes 2 that you also mention.

Up to this point I've enjoyed it, but I like the first sequel more.

I think the open world is pitched deliberately badly so that, despite the game actually playing really well and refined where it matters (in the combat) and the open world also serving a pacing purpose, the game overall as an experience still has this pervasive feeling of being some fun project thrown together on a shoestring budget. Which is a fiction, but a fitting one for the game's aesthetic and part of its charm.

Buskalilly wrote:

I made a joke here but it wasn't very funny and felt mean-spirited so I got rid of it

I SAW YOUR JOKE

Honestly though I've just drifted into 'meh that's Buska' territory with that sort of thing (in before I'm deeply offended by the next one). The picture's still funnier though, in my possibly biased opinion.