No More Heroes: An interview with Goichi Suda

No More Heroes. By now, several of you are undoubtedly aware of my burning obsession with the game. The graphical style and concept of the game alone make me want to fly straight to Japan, abandon my heterosexuality, and embrace Suda 51 in a warm, loving, gay hug.

Alas, up until now, information about the game was scant. All we had was an early teaser trailer for the game, and a handful of screenshots, along with a few well chosen hints about the gameplay. Fortunately, IGN has come to our aid with an interesting interview with Goichi Suda; the genius behind No More Heroes, and the game it was inspired by: Killer 7.

Here’s all the juicy (and some not so juicy) details from the interview, summarized into bullet points for your viewing pleasure:

Travis Touchdown will be the only playable character in the game, and will stick to using different kinds of swords. In Suda’s words, “He’s a swordsmaster.” Travis can level up via experience points, but more details regarding this system have yet to be decided.

Additional swords can be purchased from Miss Naomi, who is a professional weaponsmith.

The Nunchuk will be used to move, while the Wiimote will be used for attacks. Attacks can be performed by pressing a button or swinging the remote. The game’s engine is completely different from that of Killer 7.

Suda: As you’ve seen in the trailer, the graphics are similar to Killer 7, but in the game the graphics will be a little different from the trailer. It’ll be more illustration-based, with 3D maps. I think you’ll be surprised when you see the game!

Wi-fi functionality might be enabled, but this is still being debated. The main map (presumably the city of Santa Destroy) will be divided up into ten levels. The player will be able to roam about the city freely, using whatever means of transport they wish to (cars, bikes etc).

No More Heroes might support widescreen and progressive scan. The game will probably be released sometime in 2008 in U.S. and Europe.

That’s pretty much all that was revealed. Sadly, Helter Skelter won’t be a playable character, it seems. Again, it’s not a lot of information, but it is interesting to see that they plan to add RPG elements to the game, combined with GTA-like free-roaming environments. At the very least, No More Heroes sounds more unique than ever. At best, it sounds like it could be among the most innovative and (hopfully) influential games in development for the Wii.