Understanding Game Design Theory For My Beat Em Up: No More Heroes.

So I recently have gotten a Nintendo Switch along with several games for it, including No More Heroes III. I decided to do a bit of research and analyze the game's combat strengths and weaknesses.

NMH III is a very fun and exhilarating beat 'em up and is very different and engaging from its contemporaries. It still has really satisfying finishing moves like you would expect from a 3D beat em up that are sure to satisfy anyone playing, either casual or hardcore. Although the combat is very different from it's other 3D hack n' Slashing brethren. While titles like Bayonetta and DMC are about keeping a free form combo with hard execution, NMH III takes more from its 2D counterparts (Streets of Rage/Final Fight) and is all about crowd control and landing the best stunlock/back turn route in order to drain an opponent's health down to zero. The game throws strange enemy patterns at you to throw your rhythm off during a fight. 

The game rewards you for keeping up offense with a "Tension" meter, as Travis Touchdown, the protagonist, is able to easily dizzy his opponents quicker, leading to some brutal punishment. Get hit though, and that tension gets knocked down.  Weaker enemies don't get completely obliterated when you're fully maxed out on attack levels, making even the beginning enemy encounters a nuisance when paired up with certain heavier enemies that can shred a third of your life like it was nothing. There are also several key mechanics such as the Battery on your weapon running out to prevent infinites and reckless mismanagement of attacking.

Is it always perfect? Eh... no. For starters, leveling up your battery to be seemed pretty meaningless since you still blast through half of it trying to take one enemy out which can be super annoying. For some reason, the game also just... doesn't follow its own rules when it comes to stun/combo theory, especially in some boss fights where bosses can literally just tell you to piss off and break your combo with an invincible/guard crush attack. 

Which is a real shame, since the game definitely has a pretty interesting system that rewards good play, but has some counterintuitive mechanics that hamper the experience of the combat system. You could remedy this by buying certain items to replenish your battery/tension to keep momentum up, but it feels more like a crutch than makes you pay to play for playing well. 

I have heard the conversation around beat 'em up circles that No More Heroes in general feels like a game that limits your play for a balanced fight between the player and the enemies, even though enemies aren't really doing their part. 

I still enjoyed my time though, and I definitely like how certain enemy patterns pushed you around for playing haphazardly. Something I want to add in my own project as well. And hopefully a better system besides gravity scaling in SOR4 and battery consumption that would help remedy infinites in my title  as well.