- Game 4 - Evil West
- Game 5 - No More Heroes III
Evil West - PlayStation 5
Retired April 20th
This game is a strange mixture of a God of War type hack en slash with shooting elements. It is set in the old American west but mixes fantasy elements were you will find yourself battling vampires and other crazy enemies - an accurate retelling of the old American west, this is not.
During mission 6 of the game I thought I ran into a game ending glitch. To further progress in the game you have to defeat all the enemies in an area before you can go to the next part (even if all you have to do is climb a small box - the game will not let you progress until all the enemies are defeated in an area).
After I defeated all the enemies in the area the battle music was still playing and I searched around to see if any enemies were still around. I could not see any enemies and could not progress further so I reloaded the fight thinking I encountered a glitch. I repeated the fight and the same problem occurred, so I looked around the arena one last time and I saw an enemy below the floor I was standing on floating in the air! I dealt with the fiend and was finally able to progress in the game.
The game was somewhat fun - I would not say it was amazing, but it did feel satisfying. I would have liked to see the inclusion of more weapons like swords. You have an electrical glove as a weapon and you will be in for some crazy fist fights, but I do feel that using only a glove as a melee weapon does seem to become a bit repetitive.
I reached the half way point of the game rather quickly and ultimately I decided to retire the game. It was not offensively bad, but after a while I felt that the game was rather average (from the rather bland story and characters to the repetitive gameplay) and the gameplay needed more variety in the environments - it really just felt like going from battle to battle with only a little exploration. At first I enjoyed the battling combat, but after I while it just felt like the same thing over and over.
No More Heroes III - PlayStation 5
Completed April 24th
I played the spin off title Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes in the early months of 2024 and, having experienced the third title in the main line, I can see that elements of the spin off have been included in the newest entry of No More Heroes.
The game starts off with a cool looking fictional retro video game and then jumps into what seems to look like an unrelated anime movie, which you soon learn is actually very closely related to the plot of the game.
The No More Heroes series has been a very Japanese and extremely bonkers set of games, and No More Heroes III is no different, in fact it may be even more over the top than its predecessors.
As with the other No More Heroes titles you save the game by visiting the toilets that are available in the game's world. In this game when you get to a new area to you have to unlock a save point before you can use it, which involves a simple mini game. The mini game involves a plunger and you have to unclog the toilet (because of course you do!) before you can save.
Just like No More Heroes 1 and 2 there is a semi open world that you can explore where there are some side activities to complete. However, No More Heroes III works slightly differently as strangely it does not really have levels - it just seems to avoid a the idea of levels and just jumps straight to the boss fights. To unlock each boss fight you have to raise a certain amount of cash before reaching the next boss battle, which can be done by completing various side activities or participating in fight arenas in each map.
The fight arenas really seem to be replacements for levels as there are about five that you can complete in each area. The map is bigger than the first and second game as you can visit more locations and I would not say each location is massive, which I do not see as a bad thing.
I speculate that maybe the developer had a choice (whether that be because of budget or time) between creating new map areas to explore or creating new levels before each boss fight and the developer decided to choose new map areas.
In conclusion No More Heroes III is just truly and utterly bonkers and I kind of love it, although I was not the biggest fan of the episode involving rhythm button musical chairs part (although I did like it as a idea, just maybe not the execution) and the one hit and it is over boss fight. The game has parts that go into retro, rpg and fighter genres whilst also visiting different animation styles for some of the cutscenes.