No More Heroes is a spectacular game with very few shortcomings that bog it down.
The Bad: The City of Santa Destroy is a boring, GTA rip-off; The graphics and framerate are horrendous...
No More Heroes is an excellent combination of combat, humor, gore, and a somewhat disturbing story. You play as Travis Touchdown. He's a sociopath who enjoys to kill, and he uses that trait to fearlessly and remorselessly enter an assassin ranking competition. Travis must hunt down each assassin in the order of their rank, defeat them, and raise his rank even higher. In short, the story really just follows a linear pattern, and there isn't much here aside from sick humor. However, that doesn't stop it from being entertaining.
Putting the story aside, you are about to hear about one of the coolest combat systems in recent memory. You fight with a lightsaber-style weapon, but you barely swing the remote. You will use the A button for melee attacks, while the B button will serve as your wrestling/knockout moves. You'll press these buttons in conjunction with tilting the remote upward and downward, which will determine whether your attack is high or low. When you deplete an enemy's HP, an arrow will appear, and you'll swing the remote in the direction of the arrow for a satisfying finisher. Granted, this movement will lag or won't respond at times, but it's never frequent enough to matter. You won't die over it.
This may sound slightly repetitive, and to be honest, it is. However, the combat is just so satisfying that you won't care how often you repeat the same move. To mix things up, Suda 51 added a powerup-like feature that allows Travis to use special attacks via a slot machine. Realistically, this is more of an interesting diversion than a help, because most of the game's challenge comes from the excellent boss fights.
Don't take the bosses lightly - They know their skills, and I highly recommend easy-mode for beginners. Each boss is a fellow assassin like Travis, and they all have their own range of attacks and skills. You will honestly love each and every one of these fights, and they are really what makes this game so worth playing. From the Katana wielding anime-style chick, to the Cosplay boss that brings back memories of The Incredibles, there's just never a dull moment.
Of course, there's some very odd choices here, too. There's a particular boss that you won't even get to fight, and as you get farther into the game, the pacing gets a bit off. Rather than facing hordes of enemies in large environments, you'll play minigames and race on your bike. This is either a hit or a miss. If you enjoy those things, then great. If you'd rather fight the entire way, then you'll get most of your kicks from the game's beginning, and each boss.
Exploration is handled very poorly. You'll wander around the city of Santa Destroy, looking for a job that will earn you cash, and you'll immediately notice that it's a shameless Grand Theft Auto clone. Unfortunately, the streets of Santa Destroy are barren and boring, and you're unable to wreak any havoc unless you're in the frey. The most damage you can do is knock over streetlamps; you'll do this often, because Travis' motorbike controls like a piece of crap. Suda 51 obviously decided that this game wasn't based on GTA, but wouldn't it have been better to leave out the ugly city and settle for pure combat?
Speaking of ugly, these graphics have almost zero texture work. They took the cel shading from Wind Waker, and just slapped it with the ugly stick. The draw distance is terrible, and the amount of jaggies are just unacceptable. This doesn't make the game unplayable, but it's sad to know that the best eye candy this game has to offer is pools of blood.
The framerate is very erratic during encounters with multiple enemies, but non-boss fights are so easy that it's hard to notice. This will never be the death of you, but it makes you wonder what Suda 51 was thinking.
There's also the sound, and while some tunes might be great, they just repeat them far too often. You will always hear the same score during combat, as catchy as it may be, and it just comes off as half-assed. I'm not expecting a Zelda in terms of epic tunes, but looking at the great combat, you'd think that they'd try a bit more to get the blood pumping.
Despite the largely negative portions here, you'll find a lot to like from No More Heroes. It's a fairly lengthy game with great combat and an excellent sense of humor. The 3 difficulty modes and varied missions make for a good replay value, and everything falls into place despite the flaws. The game has hinted at a sequel, and I'll gladly accept it. I just hope Suda 51 cleans out the dirt this time around.