Travis Touchdown is back, and he’s still fighting to keep Earth from being overrun by alien invaders. No More Heroes III, the 2021 action-adventure game from Grasshopper Manufacture, brings the series’ signature blend of absurd comedy, brutal swordplay and over-the-top spectacle to Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PC, PS5, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. It’s a fitting capstone for a franchise that has always been about style over substance, and it mostly delivers on both.
Eleven years after the events of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (2010), the story returns to Santa Destroy, California, where Travis Touchdown, now 39, comes back to a town that has changed significantly. The seedy small town that borders Mexico has been transformed by urban redevelopment, with high-rise apartment buildings and businesses spreading across it. An adjacent man-made archipelago called Utopiland has been constructed, ruled by the megacorporation Utopinia from its headquarters at Damon Tower.
Trailer, via Grasshopper Archives.
Travis and the Rankings
The titular hitman is still Travis, the otaku assassin who calls himself a passing assassin, living at the No More Heroes motel alongside his pet cat Jeane, who functions as his navigator. The main villain is FU, an alien prince whose royal title is Jess-Baptiste VI, recognized by his own people. FU travels with the strongest beings from the worlds he has conquered, and these companions fill out the Galactic Superhero Rankings.
At the heart of the game sits the rankings, and Travis must rise through them by earning enough money from missions to cover an entry fee for each ranked battle. These battles pit him against one of the top contenders in a distinct boss fight. The fights unfold as real-time hack-and-slash encounters, with Travis’ signature “Beam Katana,” a sword whose blade is made of energy, doing the heavy lifting.
Taking hits reduces the player’s “Tension Gauge,” while landing blows builds it back up instead. As the stakes grow higher, combos run longer and hit harder. Once an opponent’s health drops low enough, the game offers a prompt asking the player which direction to strike for a “Killer Slash,” an attack that cannot be avoided and hits nearby foes for serious damage. Landing that blow successfully then opens the “Slash Reel,” a slot machine that pays out either extra currency or a temporary power-up at random.
The Five Islands of Utopiland
The third entry in No More Heroes brings back the open world design that defined the first game. Players roam across an artificial archipelago made up of five distinct islands.
- Perfect World, a peaceful Americana-influenced suburb
- Thunderdome, a salt pan wasteland featuring a Japantown-styled red light district
- Call of Battle, a war-torn battlefield
- Neo Brazil, a futuristic cityscape
The “Demzamtiger.” is a modified motorcycle that lets Travis get around and move between the islands. Fast travel is another way to get from island to island quickly. When not playing through missions, players can take on side activities, such as part-time job minigames and defense missions where they face waves of enemies.
The Ranked Battles and Their Bosses
The ranked battles are the game’s highlight. Each boss is a parody of a different pop culture work, from Rocky III to Kamen Rider to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The battles are designed to test the player’s timing and reflexes, and they often require specific patterns to break through.
The bosses span a blend of returning characters and fresh faces, arranged from lowest to highest rank:
- Mr. Blackhole, a wormhole bandit
- Gold Joe, a space-ore dealer
- Black Night Direction, an alien kidnapper
- Vanishing Point, a memory thief
- Velvet Chair Girl, a “gastro cannon”
- Midori Midorikawa, a dark-world princess
- Sniping Lee, a galactic sniper champion
- Sonic Juice, a demon god
- Paradox Bandit, an explosions master
The Returning Cast
Several characters from previous games return. Sylvia Christel, Travis’ wife and secretary for Utopinia, helps set up the ranked battles for Travis. Shinobu Jacobs, Bad Girl and Dr. Naomi return as Travis’ allies, taking residence in the No More Heroes motel. Characters from Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes also appear, including Badman, a reluctant ally to Travis and father of Bad Girl, and Dr. Juvenile.
The Joy-Con Legacy
Grasshopper Manufacture spent years putting off a third mainline entry while working on other projects. The studio’s creator and director, Goichi Suda, was shown the Nintendo Switch and decided to come back to the series, believing the games would suit the console’s motion control combat’s audience and allowing for a return to the series’, which relies on the Joy-Con controllers.
The sword fighting in the game relies on fast motions and exact timing. A player can carry out many kinds of light and heavy combos, and the Tension Gauge system gives credit to players who land blows while taking away from those who take damage instead.
The Setting and Its Themes
The game sets its story in a modern day, yet distinctly askew world where Santa Destroy stands as a grimy little town and Utopiland is a strange chain of islands, each with its own distinct character. Its themes blend action, science fiction and comedy, with open world exploration thrown into the mix.
Throughout the game, pop culture references are woven into both homage and parody, taking cues from sources including Rocky III, Kamen Rider, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the work of John Woo. While the jokes frequently rely on crude humor, they succeed more often than they fall flat.
The Technical Performance
Several machines can play this game, among them Xbox Series X|S, PS4, PC (Microsoft Windows), PS5, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch. Each version performs somewhat differently, yet the central experience stays whole across every one of them.
The game’s presentation is cartoonish and colorful, with a cel-shaded art style that fits the series’ tone.
Our Verdict
The third installment in the No More Heroes series delivers on its promise as a fitting follow-up to the earlier games. It preserves the essence of the originals even as it broadens the scale, adding an open world and a larger pool of ranked matches. Strikes land with a sense of weight, jokes land with a sense of timing, and the game’s setting leaves a lasting impression.
Ranked battles can be frustratingly difficult, and the open world can feel empty outside of missions. There are some fun side activities, though they’re entirely optional. The game doesn’t lean on them heavily at all.
Travis Touchdown returns in No More Heroes III, and the game delivers a solid, funny experience that occasionally frustrates players.
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