Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes Complete Edition (English) · Test

Travis Touchdown is back and now even on PS4 and PC!

Not everyone knows him but those who do will surely not forget No More Heroes protagonist Travis Touchdown. The first and so far last No More Heroes game was released on PS3 No More Heroes: Red Zone Edition.

But what makes it so different? Once you know who made it things become weirdly clear. It’s a Grasshopper Manufacture and Suda51 title. They are known for Killer 7, Let it Die, and many more interesting but bizarre games. No More Heroes is no different in that regard!

One would hope that No More Heroes 1 and 2 would get a remaster but as of right now you take what you can get. It’s also important to note that No More Heroes 3 was already announced for the Nintendo Switch.

So what is Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes? It’s a special offshoot that opts for completely different gameplay that is tailored towards the Switch that features local co-op. Now PS4 and PC players can also enjoy simple Arcade Gameplay and take a step into the bizarre world of No More Heroes, including all DLCs of the Switch version.

Story

In No More Heroes 1 Travis Touchdown had a showdown with Bad Girl, the second-ranked Assassin, to the death. In Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes her Father, Badman, makes his debut and is hired to find and kill Travis Touchdown. His down payment? A legendary Death Ball. Rumors say that once you collect all 6 it will fulfill a single wish. For Badman it’s certainly a no brainer, so he moves forward to target Travis to revive his daughter.

Incidentally, Travis is also searching for them but for a different reason. He’s an avid gamer and even managed to find the gaming console for the Death Balls: The Death Drive MK II. The ultimate immersive Gaming Console that sends you straight into the game. It’s his current form of escapism to get away from his life as an Assassin that forced him to be separated from his wife and two children.

Badman finds Travis’s Trailer in the middle of nowhere only to start a desperate struggle that activates the Death Ball due to the presence of the Death Drive MK II. Both of them are sent into the game to fight for their life. Against all odds both are mutually agreeing to cooperate. Travis gets to play the games while Badman gets to revive his daughter. What’s the real reason for the Death Drive MK II’s existence and the Death Balls? Will this adventure change Travis Touchdown? Is Badman getting his daughter back? That and more will be revealed further into the story.

The game is separated into two parts. One that is primarily gameplay and another that is about Travis and his journey finding the Death Balls. Since we’re talking about the story right now, we’ll be talking about the latter that is presented as a Visual Novel with retro graphics that comes after each gameplay segment.

On his search for the Death Balls, Travis meets characters of different Grasshopper x Suda51 games. In a sense, this is like a huge cameo fest. Outside of that it’s solely about the journey of finding the Death Balls and a few tidbits about the Death Drive MKII and it’s Inventors.

The presentation in VN style and cameos already foreshadow that this isn’t going to be a serious thing. There’s a lot of 4th wall breaking and even some talk about how they turn one of the episodes into a short digest to raise the Metacritic score.

Personally, I loved every bit of it. It’s fun, it has its serious moments and does enough you entertained with self-awareness.

You’ll notice that I have said nothing about Badman, that is because he plays no role in those VN segments. He gets his own prelude story instead, which was part of the DLC.

There are also some additional facts coming through the Fax at Travi’s trailer. They add more background to the Game Console from a different perspective. This is definitely something you don’t want to miss because there are some details that are crucial to understanding what’s actually happening at a later point.

Overall, the story is good and you could certainly see it as one of its strengths. While it doesn’t have the big-budget style of presentation, it compensates it with witty humor and fun interactions between all characters.

With all said and done on the VN part it’s time to talk about the gameplay segments of the story. In these segments, it’s more about Travis and how the different games and characters interact with him. At first you’ll meet it with much indifference but little do you know that the journey throughout the Death Balls takes influence on him at the end. There’s also a story about a different game that gave me a big surprise. Here’s one hint: Shadows of the Damned.

Gameplay & Controls

The controls are simple and to the point, most likely also due to the need to design around the Joycons. You have jumping, light attack, heavy attack, dodging and a Skill modifier that responds to the four face buttons.

Most of it is self-explanatory. The fighting itself is more of a deliberately planned style rather than reactionary. What do I mean by that? For one, jumping attacks are very vulnerable once they land and therefore have very limited usage.

Light attacks do only a little bit of damage and therefore are only effective against enemies that can get one-shotted with it. Heavy attacks are what you’ll be using most of the time but they come with a catch, you can’t dodge while attacking. Which means you have to plan ahead in patterns and how to use the skills in order to survive the onslaught of enemies.

I nearly forgot! There’s also the classic No More Heroes beam saber energy system. Every time you hit something you’ll lose batter and you will have to initiate the recharge which only takes very little time but can prove fatal when things get messy.

The gameplay loop is as simple as the controls. You get into a room and fight. There’s probably only a single stage that does not work like this. There are some attempts to add small variations like negative statuses, change into 2D side-scrolling action, or distractions but ultimately the M.O. never gets broken.

It might sound worse than it really is because we still have to talk about the unique aspects.

Skills

You can equip up to four skills. All of them have infinite usage but have a variety of cool down depending on the Skill you are using. Some of them are hidden inside the stages and some you’ll get automatically after finishing the boss.

The more Skills you get the more options you have on which of them you’re going to equip for some good utility and synergy. E. g. you could use a stunning shot and follow up with a Skill that takes a long time to activate.

To make things easier, you even have the option to save those loadouts for quick changes if you decide to prepare for different situations.

All characters have their own exclusive EX Skills too to add some character unique options.

This becomes especially interesting when you have a partner to play with in co-op because you technically 8 Skills at your fingertips. Increasing the ability to mix and match them with your partner.

Small Trivia: All Skills are named after Gundams. A famous Bandai Anime with mech.

Pro-Tip #1: There are two Skills that can recover your health. Considering there are long stretches without any recovery options it’s recommended to have the one that creates a healing field in equipped.

Charge Attack

This is one feature that promotes not getting hit. There’s a special gauge that fills up and when it’s full you can unleash a devastating three-hit combo. It becomes stronger each time you use it up to a stack of three. Each character has a different final hit area.

If you get hit too much you’ll lose a stack and it gets weaker.

Pro-Tip #2: Charge Attacks are dealing massive damage. Make sure you aim for either annoying or strong enemies.

Level Up

Each defeated enemy gives you some EXP. You can level up your character at any time. It’s important to note that each character has their own Level and the EXP is pooled together.

Pro-Tip #3: Save your Level Ups for emergencies because aside from Skills, Toilets and Ramen Shops they are the only option for fully recovering your health.

Characters

Travis Touchdown and Badman are the only available characters in the game until you finish it and reach the DLCs. After that, you get two more. Though there’s the issue that the characters feel very alike except Skills, damage output, and health.

Keep in mind that you can switch out characters most of the time. Which means you have an extra health battery if you’re playing solo.

Pro-Tip #4: If one of your characters has a too high level for affordable Level Ups you still have at least three more you can upgrade from LVL 1 upwards.

Ramen Shops

These are sprinkled throughout the stages and act as collectibles and recovery points. They recover your health and buff up your Charge Gauge!

Each of them has their own specialty so make sure to collect them and read a pseudo blogpost in the trailer.

The Trailer

This is your main hub where you can access customizations for T-Shirts, read Faxes, read Magazine entries about the Death Ball games and decide whether to go for the next VN story or the next Death Ball stage.

Toilet

It gets a special mention because they are actually saving points. They are also strewn across the Stages and recover your health in full. Make sure to use them!

Share Play/Remote Play Together

This gets a special mention because while it has no online co-op, you can opt to use the OS Level solutions for online play by streaming the game. Share Play requires PS Plus for both parties and Remote Play Together is a new feature on Steam. The advantage? You only need one copy of the game. The catch? It requires good internet, especially upload when you’re hosting the game.

Grafik & Sound

On a technical view, it looks like something on the lower end, especially in terms of gameplay though there are some nice moments like when the screen is filled with enemies and effects.

Though that is not to say that the game is visually bad. In fact, it shows its strength in visual design by using things like the Retro VN, Cameos and some other things such as Stage intros. Those have a special PS1 CG feel to them which is a fun nod to the old times.

What about the sound? Well, the music serviceable but also nothing memorable. The sound effects are showing a little bit more strength by utilizing retro sounds for effects. Combining both the visuals and sound effects pulls off a nice cheap retro feeling.

If you’re hoping for voice acting you’re going to be disappointed because there is close to none. Most of it is just some beeping and booping.

Verdict

Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is a funky Arcade Style Action Game with slight RPG Elements and local Co-op functionality. It throws a lot of interesting an fun ideas at you but ultimately fails at executing a few of them. This leads to encroaching repetitiveness at certain Stages, where things just feels far too drawn out. The highs are great, but the lows are equally bad.

Considering it’s a budget release at 39,99 € I’m recommending it to No More Hero fans and those who like Arcade like co-op games. Others need to take a closer look at the gameplay because it can get quite repetitive and you need to make sure it hit the right buttons for you, if you expect to be entertained throughout the whole game.

Wertung

7.5 Gut

Kaufempfehlung

65% Kaufempfehlung

65%Angebot abwarten