One of the things that angers me most in the world is when someone or something gets, in my opinion, undeserved praise. This extends to games as well. So, in our staff emails, when someone mentions a game or movie that I feel is overrated, I tend to voice my opinions very loudly. I may be a little harsh in my assessments at times, but I always try my best to give good reasons why I feel the way I do.

It’s actually become such a frequent event, that the other writers have suggested that I have a weekly “Evan Hates _” column. So I bring you “EVAN HATES YOUR FACE” (thank Shatton for the fantastic name). It’s not going to be weekly, and I am not going to force it. I think it would be better if I just posted what I wrote in the staff email, expanding to it and fixing up some grammar, but leaving it basically the same.

So without further ado, my thoughts on No More Heroes!

NMH2 got announced, so I’m just going to throw out what I said about it in the forums. This is very legitimate hate:

I’ve already said my piece about this game, multiple times. It’s a decent game at best. The gameplay is dull and bland, the graphics, which get more praise (what the hell?) than negativity, really are terrible except for the character design, and the whole structure is nonsense.

I understand that the overworld isn’t supposed to be an open world. It’s just supposed to be a level hub. What I don’t understand is why all the minigames suck. Instead of just being good ideas that were poorly executed, they were AWFUL ideas just for the sake of being awful. And Suda 51 somehow manages to get praise for that. He wanted to create a “contrast between the dull jobs and the exciting missions” or some nonsense like that. Apparently, as long as you claim your minigames are awful for a reason, it’ll warrant you good scores.

The rest of the game isn’t that great either. The interesting characters and dialogue made it possible for me to finish it, and I actually had much more fun watching the interactions between the characters than playing the game. The gameplay seemed alright at the start since it’s your basic 3D brawler fare, but it quickly dissolved into repetitive button-masher, whose only saving grace was the tasteful use of motion controls. I’ll admit that swinging the Wiimote for finishing moves, rather than everything, was a very good idea.

But one good idea and interesting characters don’t excuse the rest of the game from being (at best) a decent game that looked like a first generation PS2 title. But I think that the thing that upset me the most is how people went on that we were supposed to buy this game if we wanted hardcore games on the Wii. The thing is, I’d gladly take the likes of Dewy’s Adventure, Endless Ocean, and Wii Sports over No More Heroes anyday. So no, I don’t want more games like No More Heroes.

If you want a game that’s similar in ridiculousness and hilarity, but that’s actually fun, pick up Godhand. The controls take some time getting used to, but once you master them, it’s absolutely fantastic, and infinitely deeper than No More Heroes.

So, am I opposed to a sequel? Not necessarily, but it had better be a hell of a lot better than the first.