No More Heroes III from Grasshopper Manufacture and SUDA51 is ready to go on Nintendo Switch! Learn more about the highly-anticipated sequel in our No More Heroes III review!
The No More Heroes series started with the first game in the series on Nintendo Wii back in 2007. It’s an action game of the hack and slash variety in which you play as one Travis Touchdown, a would-be assassin. He’s a textbook Otaku who lives in the town of Santa Destroy. Since he’s out of money and wants to buy lots of extra stuff for his collection, he takes on a job from Sylvia Christel to kill someone. As it turns out, this was the start of his rise in the rankings, and he must continue finding and killing other assassins to reach the number one slot.
No More Heroes III from Grasshopper Manufacture and SUDA51 begins with an animated cutscene that pays homage to classics such as E.T. and Critters, in which we see how a young Damon Riccitiello finds an alien named FU. Damon ends up receiving wonderful powers from FU after meeting him, which allow him to build Utopinia, of which he’s CEO. These powers make it possible for him to develop powerful technology unlike anything else seen before. Before leaving for his home, FU promises that he’ll return 20 years later. It’s now 20 years later, and FU is back, as full-on Prince Jess Baptiste VI, and he’s ready to conquer Earth!
He was exiled for destroying a neighboring planet, but escaped from there while also bringing over other aliens who will want to destroy everything in their path. FU knows that superheroes are very popular on Earth, so he decides to call himself a superhero, even if his actions don’t reflect this. As expected, Travis Touchdown must do whatever he can to save the day, defeating the lowly henchmen of each of the assassins to increase his standing in the Galactic Superhero Rankings, in order to challenge FU.
Before you start this new adventure, you can select between three difficulty settings: Berry Sweet, Bitter, and Spicy. Berry Sweet is the easier of the bunch, making it a good option for beginners. It allows you take advantage of auto-guard and other useful support features. Next up is Bitter, which is the standard difficulty setting that will feel familiar to fans of the series. And then, there’s the Spicy difficulty, which is reserved for hungry assassins who are ready for a formidable challenge to add some spice to the monotony of their day to day. Choose wisely, because once you pick your difficulty, you won’t be able to change it!
You’ll move Travis with the left analog stick, moving the camera as needed with the right one. The A button will be for interacting with objects and characters when possible. Normal attacks are mapped to the Y button, while heavy attacks are set to the X button. You can jump with the B button, and can dodge with the A button. Time things just right, and you can then counterattack with all of your might to slice up enemies in half. You can lock onto an opponent with the ZL button, which can also be used to block an attack by pressing it at the right time.
Attacking with your Beam Katana and guarding will consume power, so you need to pay attention to the power gauge on the top-right part of the screen so that you don’t end up caught with a depleted Beam Katana! If you’re playing the game by using the Nintendo Switch Joy-Con, then you can relive your time with No More Heroes and No More Heroes II on the Nintendo Wii by pressing and holding down the R button and shaking the right Joy-Con as fast as possible. If you’re playing in Handheld or Portable Mode, on a Nintendo Switch Lite, or using the Nintendo Switch Pro Controller, then you should press and hold the R button and move the right analog stick back and forth as fast as possible.
Once you’ve dealt enough damage to regular enemies or to one of the big bad bosses, you need to pay attention to the screen so that you can deal the killing blow. This can be done either by moving the right Joy-Con in the direction of the arrow shown on the screen when playing with the Joy-Con on their own, or use the right analog stick and move it in the corresponding direction so that you can deal a ton of damage in one go and slice them up. After this, you’ll activate the Slash Reel, on which you can try to match the images to receive a special bonus. If you get a 777 on the Slash Reel, then you’ll unlock Full Armor Mode, which you can then activate by pressing the L and R buttons at the same time to unleash a multi-missile attack!
You also have access to Death Glove Skills. For example, you can press and hold down the L button and then press the B button to execute a Death Kick. While this is a very powerful attack, it has a cooldown period so that you don’t end up abusing it – although you can help to speed this up by eating some delicious sushi! Full Armor Mode will transform Travis, giving him a powerful mech/Power Rangers style armor that he’ll then use to unleash mighty missiles, which will be of great use, especially during boss fights!
If you’re new to the series, you should know that toilets are one of the most important elements in No More Heroes III. Why? Because by using toilets, you’ll be able to save your progress! Travis will let you know about this, and he’ll remind you how you should use every single toilet that you find during your journey so that you can save what you’ve done up until that point, especially right before a boss fight! If you are defeated, you’ll have one last chance to carry on and rise from your grave, right where you fell, as long as you are lucky in the random wheel that pops up when you hit continue.
Keeping a full belly is also important, which is why you should always keep some Uc handy to buy some DonMai Sushi. By enjoying some eating in sushi, you’ll receive a buff that will last until the end of your next battle. These buffs include getting a considerable boost to your health, attack power, and tension for the next battle, or making it easier to stun your enemies during battle. The takeout sushi options can be used while you’re out and about, and will help to recover some of your lost health, boost your tension, temporarily increase your attack power, and more!
As you destroy enemies and bosses and complete objectives in the different mini-games that No More Heroes III has to offer, Travis touchdown will get a chance to level up by collecting WESN – World’s End Super Nova – and spending it at the Power Up Machine. This will allow you to improve his health, attack, Beam Katana battery, and Death Glove skill level, as well as open the way to unlocking special moves that will greatly increase your odds of survival. You’ll also get to collect UtopiCoin (Uc).
Uc can also be used alongside the different materials you collect during your time with No More Heroes III to create chips for your Death Glove, so that you can obtain stat boost based on what you create. There’s a Great Chip that will require 500 Uc as well as some radios and tape decks. Once you craft it and equip it to your Death Glove, you’ll receive a boost of of 10% to your attack power, but you’ll also receive 5% extra damage when enemies land a hit! Or perhaps you’d like to build a Trigger Chip with some tape decks and satellite fragments, trading off some of the damage dealt by normal attacks while increasing the attack power of your heavy attacks. You can equip up to three chips, so find the right balance and get ready for battle!
If you go into the Records section of the pause menu, you can review a bunch of stuff. This includes your total playing time, the number of enemies you’ve defeated, the number of times you’ve died, how many times you’ve saved, the total Uc collected, how much WESN you’ve obtained, how much take out sushi you’ve eaten, how much eat-in sushi you’ve enjoyed, the number of T-shirts collected – out of a total of 100 –, the distance traveled by foot, the distance traveled by bike, how many times you’ve shaken the controller when charging, how many wrestling moves you’ve executed, the perfect dodges executed, and more!
It’s been a long wait for No More Heroes III since the last main entry in the series was released on the Nintendo Wii back in 2010 – with a port to the Nintendo Switch last year. Sure, we got Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, but that’s a different charming, bizarre, and fun type of monster. No More Heroes III has been worth the wait, offering the level of craziness you’d expect from the third main entry in a long-running series. The gameplay is fun, the mini-games are fun, the cut-scenes are fun, collecting T-Shirts and capsule toys is fun, balancing Death Glove chips and leveling up your stats is fun. Did I mention No More Heroes III is fun? Get ready, because you can get No More Heroes III tomorrow for its $59.99 asking price.
Disclaimer
This No More Heroes III review is based on a Nintendo Switch copy provided by Grasshopper Manufacture.
