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No More Heroes 3 - Goichi 'SUDA51' Suda Interview

With Travis back in town in Santa Destroy, we catch up with Grasshopper Manufacture's head to learn more about the change in NMH3 structure, the evolution from the first entries, combat and controls, or the talented GhM devs and artists behind the game. HENSHIN!

Audio transcription

"Hi, Gamereactor friends. As No More Heroes 3 is finally releasing on the Nintendo Switch, 11 years after its prequel, we got the chance to talk with Suda Goichi, which is always a pleasure and something that we've been doing for many years now."

"So thank you so much for joining us. Suda-san, how are you?
Hi, nice to meet you.
We're just about to release No More Heroes 3, so obviously it's been a super busy time.
Also, it's a really exciting time too, because we're all really looking forward to seeing how players throughout the world react to the game, seeing how the media reacts to it."

"It's a bit nerve-wracking, but at the same time, it's also just really, really exciting to finally be able to release it and let everyone play and just finally see how much everyone likes it.
So yeah, really excited for that.
Of course, as I just mentioned, it's been 11 years since No More Heroes 2 was released, and 14 years, if I'm correct, since the original game."

"So how would you say gaming has changed in all these years, and how would you say you approached the development of this game compared to what you did before?
Yeah, as you mentioned, it's been 11 years since No More Heroes 2 came out.
Originally, it was actually sort of planned to be a 10-year gap, exactly."

"But due to the corona pandemic and everything, things got sort of held up, and it got delayed by about a year.
And so yeah, as you said, it's been 11 years since the last one.
The time when we originally made No More Heroes 1 and almost directly after that, No More Heroes 2, things were indeed a lot different for me, myself, and for Grasshopper as a company."

"One of the main differences between then and now is that at the time, Grasshopper was putting out a relatively large number of titles.
So it was always pretty much, you never really walked from one project to another or from one meeting to another."

"Everyone was kind of running all over the place, really trying to rush through these titles and get them developed and get them out and everything.
Whereas these days, we're putting a lot more focus on each individual title that we're doing, spending more time on it."

"To be honest, none of us have really sat down and done a proper analysis on exactly how things are being done differently now than how they were 11, 14 years ago.
More so than how video games have changed, I feel that it's more about how we've changed as a company and how our ideas about games have changed."

"One thing that I can say that's definitely changed is not only our own, but the general world's ideas on things like the phrase open world, like what exactly does that entail, and things like AAA games.
Back in the day when we were doing No More Heroes 1 and 2, especially No More Heroes 1, we never really thought, okay, let's make an actual proper open world game."

"What we were doing was actually more sort of a parody or sort of like a satirization of open world games at the time.
And one major difference is this time with No More Heroes 3, we thought, okay, the whole concept of an open world game has changed so much over the last 10, 14 years."

"Instead of making a parody of an open world game or sort of laughing at it, it's gotten to the point where you could actually do a lot of really cool things with open world games.
And you see a lot of these really big AAA titles kind of holding up the whole open world game genre, if you will."

"And so this time, instead of sort of parodying it, we thought, okay, let's actually really put our minds to it and put together an actual proper open world game.
So we went back to the first and second game and looked at what we did with the open world free map type stuff on those games and thought about how we could improve it, thought about how we could make it a bit more relevant to more current games."

"And while it's not like a big full-on, you can traverse the entire world type open game, in a way, it might actually be closer to, I guess, what would be called a free map system instead of a full-on open world thing.
The world of No More Heroes 3 definitely is much bigger and much more diverse than the first two games."

"One of the first things that we had decided for No More Heroes 3 is that the town was sent to destroy.
This is something that has to be in a No More Heroes game.
And so when we went about figuring out how we were going to portray this world and how we were going to add to it and what we're going to do with it, we decided, okay, just having sent to destroy, it's not going to be enough."

"So let's expand that.
So in order to give it more of an open world feel and also just make it a bigger game, much bigger scale, we've got the original city of sent to destroy, which has been sort of reborn with a bunch of new areas and new playable stuff added to it."

"So this time around, it's definitely much more of what could be called an open world game than either of the previous two installments were.
That actually takes me to what was going to be my next question.
Tell us a bit more about the structure of the game because, of course, as you just mentioned, you went back to the open world concept, but in an expanded way this time."

"Whereas with No More Heroes 2, you got rid of the open world and had all these arcade games and slashing up levels.
But then you got rid of those levels for this game and you have tons and tons of activities and enemy challenges this time."

"So why the change?
Was that something that you saw fans wanted more of?
The open world and these sort of activities?
Or what is the reason you got rid of the regular slashing up levels?
Is that for being different?
Or what can you tell us about that?
Yeah, there are actually a couple of reasons for the change, or I guess you could say for the reversion in a way."

"Yeah, as you mentioned a bit earlier, the main differences between, or some of the main differences between 1 and 2 were, you know, in part 1 you had the sort of semi-open world style, the free map thing where you'd go around and something destroy."

"And there wasn't really a whole lot to do.
A lot of the town was really just sort of, I guess you could even say empty, you know.
There was just a lot of kind of open space."

"And then in 2, we got rid of some of that stuff and went on to adding, you know, the different activities, the arcades and everything.
And after releasing 2, I just kind of felt that I missed some of the Santa Destroy parts of part 1, even the parts that didn't really have anything to do or anything in particular to see."

"I just sort of felt like a sort of nostalgia for Santa Destroy.
And ever since I've been thinking, you know, I'd really like to go back and sort of revisit Santa Destroy again, you know."

"And so this time around, you know, I've been thinking that for all these years.
And this time around, I thought, okay, this is a good opportunity to go back to that."

"Instead of making, you know, a proper, like a full-on open world game, since we're not exactly, you know, a full AAA studio, you know, we only have probably less than 50 people here working on this game.
We don't have hundreds of people working on, you know, these maps and everything."

"So again, it's, it's more of a free map style thing than like a proper 100% open world type thing.
But yeah, I just, I really did want to revisit the town of Santa Destroy and let the players revisit it and see what else we could add there to make it more interesting."

"Well, when we first started developing the game originally, it was, it was mainly focused around the area of Utopia land.
And as we were developing it, I just kept thinking more and more, you know, but Hey, what about Santa Destroy? Like, you know, there's not really much of Santa Destroy in here."

"I really want to see that. So yeah, it was partly a personal decision and also the opinion of the rest of the team that, you know, Santa Destroy would be nice to revisit.
It would be nice to go back to and add a bunch more stuff to, but when it all comes down to it, the biggest reason is the fans."

"Ever since No More Heroes 2 has come out, you know, there's for years, people have been saying, Hey, we want No More Heroes 3.
When are you going to make No More Heroes 3? And on top of that, one of the specific opinions and requests that we've heard more than anything was we want more Santa Destroy."

"We want to go back to Santa Destroy. And so, you know, I want to revisit Santa Destroy.
I've had so many fans over the years telling me they want to revisit Santa Destroy. Actually developing the game, we really felt, okay, we need more Santa Destroy."

"So it just kind of worked out perfectly. It's okay.
We're going back to Santa Destroy and we're going to add a bunch of stuff to it. So, yeah, well, it was partly a creative and personal decision.
Again, the biggest thing was just the fans. That's what they want."

"That's what we wanted. Hopefully now everybody's going to be happy.
You've got a bunch of Santa Destroy, you know?
I might be part of those saying again and again, where's No More Heroes 3 through the years."

"But, okay, you mentioned the rest of the team and that takes me to my next question. I'm playing the game. I'm enjoying it.
And I think one of the things that I think is really crazy is the way you guys combine art and music in pretty unique ways that I haven't seen on any other game at all. The way you use art, different types of art here and there and different types of music. For example, the Spanish guitar, I won't say when it plays. But what can you tell us about this, about the artists working with Grasshopper and the way you are combining all these types of music and art in a really, really, really unique way?
Yeah, actually, I'd love to talk about the other members of the team."

"Regarding the programmers, basically, I've got two sort of main programmers on the team. One is a guy named Hiro Naka, and another one is named Takumi Yamada. And as for Hiro Naka, he's basically the leader of the development team."

"And also in a way, he's kind of one of the leaders of Grasshopper itself.
This guy is basically, I would say he's probably the top boss fight developer in the world. This guy is just amazing when it comes to boss fights.
He's been on the team since No More Heroes 1. He's done most, if not all of the boss fights ever since then."

"And the stuff this guy comes up with is amazing.
He's definitely like a world top class programmer.
The other guy, Yamada, he's been with Grasshopper from, I can't say with 100% certainty, I'm pretty sure since Killer7 or possibly since just slightly after Killer7."

"But he's been around for most, if not all of the No More Heroes series as well.
He works on most of the effects.
When it comes to special effects and stuff, this guy is also basically a genius.
He did a lot of great stuff for some of our previous games as well."

"For example, in Killer7, when you slash a guy up and the blood kind of splatters under the UI and you've got the kind of funky particle maps and stuff, that was all Yamada himself.
These two pretty much make up the core of the programming team and they're really just ridiculously great programmers."

"As for graphics, we've got a guy named Tanimaki.
He's responsible for putting together, I guess what you could call just the general world vibe.
You know, the sort of vibe that you get from the world of No More Heroes."

"Sort of the impression, the feelings that it kind of brings up inside you, whatever, when you look at the different screens, that's all thanks to this guy.
He's also been with us since around Killer7, for which I believe he was responsible for about 80% of the characters for that game."

"He actually left Grasshopper for a while, went off to do his own thing for years.
It was after maybe 10 or a dozen or so years that he ended up coming back to Grasshopper.
He came back to work on Travis Strikes Again and has been with us ever since."

"This guy also is just amazing when it comes to graphics.
He's another core member of the team.
Then when it comes to sound, for No More Heroes 3, there are two main guys that I've been working with in particular."

"One is a guy named Fukuda.
He's been working on the sounds and music.
He works as a composer.
He actually doesn't work for Grasshopper itself."

"He's an external guy.
And another guy named Nobuaki Kaneko.
Kaneko, he's a pretty famous well-known drummer in Japan.
He also acted as a composer for the game."

"He's also an actor.
He's a really well-respected, I guess you could say kind of a character actor.
He plays some really distinct roles, but this guy is really talented at pretty much everything he does."

"I haven't actually met with him directly yet, but he's been working with me.
He's been working alongside me for No More Heroes 3 the whole time on the sound and music and stuff.
And it's just kind of amazing how I can tell this guy, okay, this is the kind of music I want for this scene or for this part of the game."

"And he's basically like, okay, I got you.
He can just feel the sound that I want to hear.
I tell him this is what I want to hear.
He whips something up, and I'm like, that's what I was talking about."

"Yeah, again, he's an amazing composer and musician in general.
There's lots of other people on the team as well that are extremely, all of them are extremely crucial to the game and to Grasshopper in general.
But yeah, these would probably be the main core members of the team as far as graphics, art."

"Also, actually, there's one more guy that I can't forget to mention.
His name is Ren Yamazaki.
This guy, he's basically been acting pretty much as my right-hand man, if not maybe even like my equal as far as directing this game goes."

"He's been working externally for a while, but he's been right here by my side for Travis Strikes Again and No More Heroes 3, taking over a lot of the directorial duties and everything."

"And I've been working with him since way back in the day, ever since Flower Sun Rain, actually.
And this guy also, he's an amazing director.
He does some really cool stuff."

"And I'm really happy to report that from September 1st, he's going to be officially rejoining Grasshopper as a full-time Grasshopper member.
So we're really excited about that."

"But yeah, I definitely couldn't forget to mention that guy as well.
Okay, as I said, I've been playing the game and I've found it to be quite challenging, I have to say.
It is true that there is some RPG element to it that you can level up, you can use some buffs, you can buy some sushi, you can get ready for the battle."

"But anyway, they're going to be challenging both the main assassins and the challenge bosses that you meet.
So can you share a couple of tips to kill these fuckheads?
Actually, to be honest, we were kind of worried about the opposite as we were developing the game."

"We were thinking, is this maybe a bit too easy?
Are people going to get mad about this?
And there are multiple difficulty levels to the game.
Generally, when I'm debugging it, I play on bitter."

"That's pretty much just right for me.
Spicy is, yeah, it's definitely a bit more difficult.
Yeah, I actually do have some really good advice for taking out some of the harder bosses and stuff."

"As you mentioned, there's the sushi.
Whenever you get the chance, grab some sushi.
Also, don't forget to get the sets because the sushi sets are really what's going to help you carry on."

"For example, when you've got the defense missions and stuff like that or in between levels, if you've got some time and you can, go grab some sushi.
Another thing too, this is kind of important."

"I think a lot of people might overlook this, but when certain things happen, you'll get the slash reel where you try and match up triple sevens or the different little images."

"If you manage to get the full armor Travis upgrade, hold on to that. Don't use it right away.
Hold on to that and use it on one of the more hardcore bosses because that's definitely going to give you a really good leg up on some of the more difficult bosses."

"Another thing is there are various skills that you can use in the game and you can create and upgrade these different skill chips.
There's lots of stuff that you can do with that.
My personal recommendation would definitely be the death kick."

"Get the death kick and just upgrade the hell out of it as soon as you can.
Obviously, you can use other skills and you can upgrade those too, but the death kick is really great for a lot of reasons, and it's really great not just in general, but for a few specific bosses and a few specific fights as well."

"One of the reasons is you can use it to close up gaps between you and your opponent quickly without worrying about getting hit or whatever.
Also, once you upgrade it, it gets really powerful."

"Basically, if you keep these three things in mind, and also obviously you're going to need to get used to the gameplay itself, but once you get used to the gameplay and keep these three things in mind, use Sushi and the Sushi sets in particular whenever you can."

"If you get Full Armor Travis, hold on to that until you really need it and upgrade the hell out of death kick and use the hell out of death kick.
If you stick with those three tips, then you should be able to get through all right.
Yeah, the Full Armor Henshin form is totally overpowered, so you better save that for the end of the battle."

"One thing I also like is that you guys are back into motion controls.
As you know, I'm into motion controls as well for many years now, and you guys recommend we play No More Heroes 3 with motion controls.
Coincidentally, this release is right after Zelda Skyward Sword, which took many players back into motion control."

"So that's one aspect of the game on the Switch, and the other aspect is that this is the first No More Heroes, of course No More Heroes 1 and No More Heroes 2 released on the Switch as well, but this one is the first new game that you can take to the toilet and play as you are there."

"So how do you feel about these two aspects that more or less change the game on the Switch?
Yeah, I've spoken a lot about the Switch controls and stuff before, and basically when I was first introduced to the Switch and I saw the Joy-Cons and the controls, I was like, okay, this is what I'm bringing Travis back for."

"This is the system for Travis, you know?
And that's kind of where No More Heroes 3 started actually was at that point.
But I feel that we put a lot of work into optimizing the motion controls.
Optimizing the game for the system, but also making sure that these controls can be used in a way that makes the game as fun to play as possible."

"So personally, I recommend to those who can that they use the motion controls as much as possible.
Slash all over the place, charging the beam katana and slashing more and just charging as much as possible because that's kind of one of the big things about No More Heroes."

"But it's also really great that you can use it just as a single mobile console as well.
You can just stick them on the sides of the Switch and as you said, take it to the toilet and save whatever you want to do."

"Personally, when I first started playing the game in the debugging phase, I was using the motion controls so much that I'd debug the game for half a day and the next day I'd wake up and my shoulders are just dead.
I'd get all kinds of muscle pains and stuff because it was just so much action and it was just so much fun slashing and charging and all this stuff."

"But again, yeah, it's also really great and I'm also really happy the way it turned out in that not only are you able to play it just with the Joy-Con stuck to the Switch and playing as a single mobile console, but it doesn't really take that much away from the game."

"You can pretty much play just based on your own personal preferences without losing anything.
Also, the way that you can play the game, viewing it on the Switch screen itself or playing it with the Joy-Cons or playing it attached to the console, watching it on the TV, either way you play, it looks great and it feels great."

"And yeah, honestly, I'm really happy with the way it turned out, both for the controls and the way they feel and the way it physically makes you feel when you're playing it and also the way it feels and the way it plays without using the motion controls."

"So yeah, I can really confidently recommend anybody who's into motion controls to check this game out.
And even if you're not into motion controls, they're not necessary.
So still, it's definitely an easy recommend, No More Heroes 3."

"Yeah.
Okay, we're running out of time.
I wanted to ask you about your favorite alien design, but I'm going to switch that for this one."

"I've seen a lot of references, of course, of pop culture in the game, same as with the previous games.
I've seen references to The Matrix, to Mad Max, to X-Files, for example.
And you really are into movies yourself."

"So can you picture No More Heroes becoming a movie itself?
We've seen a lot of projects as of late in Netflix and other platforms or even at the theater of video games becoming movies.
So would you picture this becoming a movie?
Would it be real actors, real action, real-life action, or anime?
Do you dream of a No More Heroes movie at all?
Actually, we've actually had several serious offers and been in talks before about creating a movie version of No More Heroes."

"Without getting into too much detail, at one point, it went so far as to – basically, we already had an idea for who we wanted to play the main character.
It had gotten relatively far into the pre-production stage, but it just ended up really not working out."

"We've also considered creating an anime version of No More Heroes in the past.
As far as the anime goes, it went so far as to get a pilot show produced.
Unfortunately, it just wasn't really up to standard, I guess you could say, quality-wise, and we decided to scrap it after all in the end."

"Obviously, there's been lots of people saying, we'd like to see a No More Heroes movie or anime or something like that.
Obviously, I've thought about that a lot over the years as well.
To be honest, at this point, I feel like if we were going to make a movie out of it, we shouldn't just do it just because, okay, well, we should make a movie."

"Okay, well, somebody's going to do it, so let's just give it to somebody, have them make a movie.
If we're going to make it, I'd want to be able to make the movie with somebody who I personally want to have make a No More Heroes movie."

"I want to do it with a team that I want to have make the movie.
It might be a little bit of a spoiler, so I'm not sure if I can say this or not, but it actually gets touched on just a tiny bit in No More Heroes 3 itself, but it would be great if Takashi Miike, for example, could make a No More Heroes movie."

"Personally, I think it would be perfect.
It would be awesome if James Gunn could get on board and direct a No More Heroes movie.
But, yeah, it really comes down to who would be making the movie, what kind of vision they have and stuff."

"And, yeah, again, if possible, more than I want to do a live-action version or I want to do an anime version, my number one wish for any sort of No More Heroes movie would be that I could have it made by a team I actually want to work with and somebody whose work I want to see in the No More Heroes series, if that makes sense."

"All right, so that's it. Thank you so much for your time.
Good luck with release, which is just in a couple of days.
I'm enjoying the game. I'm sure fans will enjoy it, and I'm sure also newcomers to the series will enjoy it."

"And I certainly hope we meet again physically and not like this, like we used to, somewhere in the world next time.
Thank you so much. Arigato. Gracias.
Thanks so much. Thank you."

"Thank you. Gracias."

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