REVIEW: No More Heroes III


Title	No More Heroes III
Developer	GRASSHOPPER MANUFACTURE INC.
Publisher	XSEED Games, Marvelous USA
Release Date	October 11th, 2022
Genre	Action
Platform	Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X\|S, Windows PC
Age Rating	Mature
Official Website

I have always been a big fan of the No More Heroes franchise. The over the top storytelling of Suda51 and the fast paced action always drew me into these games, right off the bat. I’ve had a chance to look at the PC port of the latest entry in the series, No More Heroes III, and now it’s time to share my thoughts. The ports of the first two titles in the series were pretty rough, so let’s see if the third time was the charm here.

The story begins as a young boy named Damon finds an injured alien named FU. He nurses him back to health and helps him rebuild his spaceship to get home. He promises that he will return in a number of years and Damon should wait for him. Using the knowledge FU left him, Damon becomes the CEO of the powerful Utopinia corporation and awaits his arrival. That day arrives, and all hell breaks loose as FU and his nine alien companions set out to take over the Earth. Only one thing stands in their way, our favorite hero, Travis Touchdown. The assassin will have his hands full this time taking down these alien baddies, as he works his way up the galactic rankings in order to save the planet!

As you might have expected, this story is simple, but things get way over the top quickly. Travis is his usual quirky self, and he has a great supporting cast this time around as well. I think the English voice acting team certainly needs a nod here. They did a fantastic job bringing this story and the characters to life. This is one of the few times I really preferred the English dub over the Japanese voices; they really bring out the humor in some of the things the game parodies.

Graphically, No More Heroes III looks great on PC. All of the character models and environments looks fantastic. The flashy effects during combat, and the wild cutscenes, give that game that crazy Suda51 feel you’ve come to expect. This PC release can run at much higher resolutions than the Switch version and at much improved framerates. I ran the game at 1440p at 120 FPS with no issues on my rig. The game supports resolutions up to 4k, and you can completely unlock the framerate if that’s how you want to run it. This is a huge improvement over the previous two releases since I had issues getting either of them to run at proper resolutions.

The gameplay here is pretty much what you would expect. You travel around the world, taking on alien baddies and doing odd jobs to earn entry into the next level of the galactic tournament. Even though the combat hasn’t changed much, this will seem more difficult than the previous titles. However, once you get the hang of dodging properly and unlock some of the new skills, things will become much easier. Stocking up on sushi before each battle gives you some buffs and healing during battle, which helps out tremendously as well. The boss battles are even more crazy this time around and have a bunch of different gimmicks. I won’t spoil these because I think going into them blind is much better, but I thought all of them were unique and a ton of fun.

Outside of the destined battles you will find lots of things to do in the world of No More Heroes III. There are a few things you can collect and trade to various characters that will earn you cash and items which you can use for power ups. There are also side jobs such as mowing lawns, blasting away huge creatures from the coast line, and you can even find toilets to unclog so you can have more save points! While I didn’t collect every item, it was a lot of fun to explore just to see all the crazy things they had crammed into this world.

In the end, No More Heroes III is a fantastic entry into the franchise. They decided to go all out for the game this game, and I think they certainly succeeded. There are many crazy moments from this game that I will be thinking about for a long time to come. The combat here is very solid, and I think the English voice cast and music are just fantastic. The PC port here is a quality port and I had zero issues getting it to work right off the bat. I would say this one is well worth the $59.99 asking price. You get a top quality game that is like nothing else out there. I do hope Suda51 and his crew revisit this world and the crazy assassin we love one day, but until then, they left us with one hell of a finale!