No More Heroes III is the first true sequel to the series since the second game on Wii in 2010. There was a spinoff, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, in 2019, but it wasn’t met with a lot of praise. That could have been it for the franchise but the director, Suda51, finally assembled a team to make the game a reality.
It seems exactly like the first two games only on an intergalactic scale, as Travis Touchdown is now fighting aliens. Those that liked the old games seem to like it as appraised by Metacritic reviews. It isn’t perfect though. The game could use some work and might be fixed via patches or DLC to make it a better experience. There will be some potential spoilers about No More Heroes III in here.
8 Add A Photo Mode
No More Heroes III would be perfect for a photo mode. In some games, it can feel out of place. Why would there be a camera in an ancient setting like Japan in Ghost of Tsushima?
The photo mode in that game is one of its best features. This game’s over-the-top nature would complement a photo mode though. Travis does do live-streams in the story after all.
7 Change Difficulty At Will
To this game’s credit, it has a very good accessible difficulty mode. The easiest difficulty negates all damage to the player which is great.
The bad thing is that players will be stuck on whatever mode they choose at the beginning of the game. This is unlike most other modern games that allow players to adjust difficulties on the fly. This seems like an easy fix, hopefully.
6 Better Fast Travel
There are six islands in No More Heroes III. Most of these remain locked until the story progresses. Once players reach these islands they can fast-travel to and from them quickly. The bad part is that there is only one warp location. Players cannot warp around the islands.
It’s nice that there is a fast-travel mechanic in the first place but it would be better if there were multiple travel points set up on these islands. Each location is not that big so it’s not a huge loss but the more options players have, the better.
5 More Flexibility In The Field
Along with the fast-travel issues, getting around with Travis, in general, could be better. Moving around the apartment has one speed which is strange. Players can jump over some things in the field but not others. There seem to be a lot of invisible walls set up in the game and it’s hard to tell where they are.
Getting around in the open-world, on foot or on the bike, is more complicated than it should be even though the plains and cities look barren. Increasing the running speed and upping the jump power would go a long way. Travis’ bike is iconic in the series now but shrinking it down could improve traversal too.
4 Sell Materials At Home
Players cannot buy typical equipment like in other action RPGs. Instead, they can equip Travis with up to three chips which he places on his glove. These chips can increase attack power, or make it easier to stun enemies as just two in dozens of examples.
These are made with materials gathering in the field. The strange thing about the crafting system is that they cost money even though Travis is assembling them himself. The cost should go away for one. Two, players should be able to sell materials from the lab instead of having to go visit Bishop’s shop.
3 Add An Arena
Throughout the series, Travis has been assisted by other playable characters. The two most prominent examples are Shinobu from the second game and Birkin from the spinoff, Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes. Both characters get taken out of commission at the beginning of No More Heroes III and don’t get replaced with any other playable character.
There’s a good opportunity to play as another character too when Travis dies but nothing happens. A great way to rectify this mistake would be to add in a fighting arena. A lot of RPGs add them in as side quests to fight hordes of enemies for prizes. Why not throw in other characters to play as in the game as well? This seems like a big ask for a patch so this could also work as DLC.
2 Add A Fighting Mode
If the developers don’t want to add in a fighting arena then a fighting game mode would be interesting as well. The very final boss in the game has Travis facing off against Damon in a Super Smash Bros. type of 2D battlefield.
Maybe this is a tease for Travis to be the final DLC character in that game or maybe this finale was a tease for a new game mode. Both of those things being true would be great but fans would probably settle on at least one thing being true. A fighting game within this game would showcase all of the unique characters in it.
1 Improve Load Times
This may be out of the developers' hands but the load times in No More Heroes III are not great. If they could somehow tweak them that would be a significant improvement. It’s not that they are long. It’s that they are too frequent.
Everything has a load time so going in and out of buildings or in and out of mini-games really racks up the time count. In that same vein, improving the stability of the game would be beneficial, as there is a lot of bad pop-in. Sometimes shirt graphics won’t even load but at least the game never crashes.