Grasshopper Needs to Learn New Tricks

Killer is Dead is probably the last first-day purchase I will get for the PS3, in fact I actually had the game on pre-order months before it shipped as I was worried Play-Asia might revised their pre-order price.

The US edition came pre-packed with a bunch of goodies that are supposed to be limited so you never how fast these things tend to run out if you are waiting for a price drop. The bonus items turned out to be a little lackluster, the soundtrack disc is missing the ending theme song and the artbook is more of a pin-up book to be honest.

At least the game turned out to be pretty fun but in the end, Suda games are starting to show a trend of being unpolished and lacking enough good ideas to make it a truly great game.

Dressed to Kill

Part of the appeal of the No More Heroes games is you get to play dress-up with the main hero, fashioning his clothing style to your delight. All this comes at a price from the local airport 51 store but when you see your new garments in all its glory during the cutscenes you will made the extra effort to afford these new clothings.

A glitch in the second game threatens to ruin the experience as some of your purchases tend to disappear from the wardrobe forcing you to buy them again. It isn't detrimental to the game however and appears to be unavoidable considering how much of the game consists of dressing up Travis touchdown. If you don't focus on what GHM didn't improve in the second game you will surely be impressed with what they did, the environments don't look as sparse as in the first and the wardrobe has a nice set of options. Travis is certainly dressed to kill in NMH2 it's just a shame there wasn't a worthy opponent to kill anymore.

Unworthy Sequel

It's ironic that Grasshopper Manufacture enjoy making toilet references in No More Heroes when it's starting to reflect the quality of their games, this sequel truly feels like a pile of crap! At first I wasn't really sure but now that I have finished the game I'm utterly convinced that the sequel is a poor follow-up to the first Heroes game.

The lame assemble of assassin is one thing, what happened to the cool introduction where their names splashed across the screen with a creepy silhouette of the assassin in the background? Also GHM clearly needs to watch more revenge movies because the vengeance plot in Desperate Struggle is about the lamest I have seen. This game took more than six months after its release to make its Japan release, perhaps GHM knew what they had in their hands with this game. Hopefully Suda 51 will be inspired by Nintendo forthcoming new hardware to come up with a better sequel as the first game was clearly inspired by the Nintendo Wii unique wii-mote.

Less Means More or Less?

No More Heroes was one of the early favourites on the Nintendo Wii platform but as time grows the "series" began to lose its charm with me. It's a real shame as the first No More Heroes still sits at the top of my longest playing time list on the Nintendo Channel, something I suspected will not change for a while until I find the time to pick up playing Monster Hunter Tri again.

It started when the game made an appearance on other consoles as a high -def port of the Nintendo Wii original. This was right around the time when Grasshopper Manufacture were about to release the sequel Desperate Struggle on the Nintendo Wii, a sequel which Suda 51 had earlier decided to step away from the directing duties and instead served as a executive director. Understandably, it caused quite a damper in my excitement for the game despite the glowing reviews early on.

Now that I have the game, I can finally see how much better this sequel supposedly is compared with the original. The most obvious difference when you first start playing is the world hub from the original is completely gone, every location in Santa Destroy is now a button click away with a loading screen in between. There are a lot of loading time maybe because the playing time on each mini-game is so brief especially if you fail, you spent very little time actually playing the "real" Travis Touchdown. A sequel is expected to have more content than the original but somehow I can't tell if that's the case for Desperate Struggle, a startling discovery considering how much content was in the first game.

The Rule of Four

Capcom's rule of four seems to suggest that by the time a franchise reaches the fourth installment. a major rehash is in order. Tecmo may have took this theory to heart when they were developing the fourth installment of the Fatal Frame series. Collaborating with Grasshoppers and Nintendo on a new platform, a change of things was definitely in order.

Visually the game looks and plays a lot like the Ashley chapter in Resident Evil 4, completed with all the lighting effects that made the Gamecube version incomparable during its time. The control takes a bit of getting used to with a combination of classic and motion controls blended together but i liked to think it adds tension to the game much like the archaic controls of the early Resident Evil games. Many series veterans have lamented that this new installment on the Nintendo Wii has been dumbed down to cater a new audience but i didn't really get that feeling. There were plenty of cheap scares early on and the game generally feels creepy, it's definitely been a while since i had the hair on the back of my neck standing.

Hubba Hubba

Playing No More Heroes got me looking forward to the sequel, will Desperate Struggle feature a new HUB? While it's entirely possible to Travis to get out of his small apartment in Santa Destroy, it would be a bit sad to see it go. I'm completely fine if GHM retains Santa Destroy while opening out new location and stores in the town ala the Shinjuku HUB in Yakuza 2. I'm beginning to grow fond of those sadistic one-hit kill missions too so hopefully they will scatter some more of those side mission in NMH2 hub.

Wii love Suda

and Suda51 loves Nintendo. Sure it's probably a business strategy for Grasshopper Manufacture to develop games for Nintendo given its relatively low development cost and large user base but over the years, Nintendo has played host to some of Suda's finest work.

killer7, Suda's US debut was originally meant to be a Gamecube exclusive before Capcom started with their multiplatform strategy but the Gamecube version remained as arguably the definitive version of Suda's debut. No More Heroes, a sort of spiritual sequel to killer7 is Nintendo Wii exclusive and still reigns as one of the finest third party action games on the platform. Fatal Frame VI, another love child of Suda and Nintendo collaboration was recently released in Japan to favourable reviews.

Now, the Nintendo DS is about to play host to another Suda game, Flower, Sun and Rain, a Playstation2 title originally available only in Japan, completely remade from the ground up for Nintendo's popular handheld.I have seen the demo of the game and frankly, the 3D engine for the DS version looks like an early PSOne game it certainly looks like the developers are taking a lot of constraints in shrinking this Playstion2 title to the Nintendo DS. It still looks mighty enticing and being a Nintendo fan, it looks like i'm going to have to get used to being compromised as the Wii developers at Capcom are apparently facing major hurdles too in bringing Dead Rising to Nintendo Wii.