Video: SUDA51 on No More Heroes and the Future of Travis Touchdown
The recent release of No More Heroes III completed the journey of series protagonist Travis Touchdown, culminating a trilogy of games (plus a spin-off) that began on the Wii. Fans of the iconic game director SUDA51 had waited a while for this one, and apparently this game will be his last outing with Travis.
With the entire Travis ‘saga’ now available on Switch, we recently sat down with the director to discuss the future of Mr Touchdown, saying goodbye to the series and the Nintendo IP that he would enjoy remaking if given the chance. We recommend that you watch the video of our interview with SUDA above, but if you prefer the written word, we can accommodate you there as well. We are that generous. Enjoy!
Nintendo Life: For anyone who has never played the No More Heroes series, could you describe the series in three words?
SUDA51: Is No More Heroes okay with three words?
Sure! Why not!
Actually, I’d say modern Jedi.
It’s been over a decade since No More Heroes I and II were released, and with the story of No More Heroes III taking place about 10 years after the second game, did you always have this plan in your head to revisit history? Travis 10 years? upon?
I’ve been doing a lot of interviews recently where people say “I read in an old interview that you said this or this” and to be honest I don’t remember a lot of these things, but apparently I did! One thing I actually remember is that even when the series compared the series to the Rocky series. Obviously, there are a lot of things in the games that I took from the Rocky movies as a kind of homage or based on them, but there are also some elements that just happened naturally.
We wanted to present the third game as a kind of third movie in the Rocky series as well, give it a little more flair and a little more pizzazz.
For example, when you look at the Rocky movies, there’s Rocky I and II where he starts out as a complete loser. He’s not very well known or anything like that and he has to work his way to the top, just bypassing it. Then when the third movie came out, he was pretty much a superstar within the movie world. The third movie was a lot more like Hollywood, if you understand what I mean.
So while it wasn’t entirely on purpose that we had this timeline of Travis’s early years, it suddenly jumped to ten years later and he’s older. I didn’t plan on doing that from the beginning, but once I realized that this is how the timeline works the moment we started making No More Heroes III, I realized that it made a lot of sense. We wanted to present the third game as a kind of third movie in the Rocky series as well, give it a little more flair and a little more pizzazz.
Was there ever a point where the story of No More Heroes III wasn’t going to follow the story of Damon, Fu, and the rest of the galactic superheroes?
When I decided to start working on No More Heroes III, before the actual work began, there were probably a lot of ideas running around in my head. One of the first things I thought of was that until now, when Travis fights in the United Assassins Association fights, they are mostly assumed to be based in the United States. So I decided that maybe we’ll raise the bar a bit and make it a world-ranked killer fight. I thought about that for a while and thought about what other directions it might take and this idea was long before we started working on No More Heroes III.
One of the first things that came to mind was like a scene from the movie Independence Day. Will Smith opens a door and sees aliens in front of him attacking the earth and says, “Okay, well, I guess this is what I’m doing now.”
One idea I had was to take the series in a completely different direction than the previous games, which basically turned out to be Travis Strikes Again. Travis walks into this world of video games and he has all these different kinds of experiences and he has to fight these completely different kinds of enemies. It was a way to take not only the story, but also the game in a different direction.
So when it was finally time to sit down and think “Okay, No More Heroes III. What are we going to do? “I thought, well, Travis has stepped into this world of video games and done all this crazy stuff, I really want to do something special for the next one! So instead of turning it into a world ranking battle of killers, how about I lift it even higher and we take it into space? One of the first things that came to mind was like a scene from the movie Independence Day. Will Smith opens a door and sees aliens in front of him attacking the earth and says, “Okay, well, I guess this is what I’m doing now.” I had this image that popped into my head like the first scene in a video game, Travis opening a door and looking at the aliens and the world being attacked and thinking “This is my battle now”.
The rest of the game grew out of there. Aside from the Travis Strikes Again stuff that I mentioned earlier, since I sat down and really started thinking, generally speaking, it’s always about Travis fighting not only these earthly killers but also these much larger scale killers from other planets the cosmos.
You recently said goodbye to Travis Touchdown on Twitter and said this would be his final battle. What does that mean for the show and for you basically as Travis’s dad?
The thing about the No More Heroes series and what I posted the other day is that the intellectual property is primarily owned by Marvelous, not actually owned by Grasshopper. We are partial owners of it, but we only own a very small percentage, so it is realistically Marvelous’ intellectual property. I always knew that one day the day would come when we would basically have to give this back to Marvelous. To be fair, I was able to do Travis Strikes Again and No More Heroes III with an incredible amount of freedom to do whatever I wanted. They really are games that I made, but one thing I really felt about making those games is that it really is time for Grasshopper to go ahead and create our own IP, our own stories, and games that no one owns except us that we are completely in control of.
I don’t want to part with [Travis], but we have no choice as the time has come.
Like I said in the tweet, it’s time to say goodbye to Travis, this is his final battle, and I meant it, it’s time to say goodbye. I don’t want to part with him, but we have no choice as the time has come. It’s not that Marvelous forced us, it’s just that I felt like it’s really time for us to go ahead and do our thing. So what I plan to do is turn the next ten years into the Grasshopper decade. We are going to create our own IP and our own games and characters that we can own and be really proud of.
That is by no means to say that I will never deal with Travis or No More Heroes again. While I can’t say anything concrete at all, it’s definitely not impossible for Travis to return at some point in one of our future games. That is definitely not out of the question. But maybe, like you said, I am basically Travis’s father, and unfortunately I am a father who no longer has the right to continue living with him, so I had to give up my own son. It is a sad and lonely feeling to have to part with this character and this series that I have been working with for so long and what I have put so much into, but I am looking to the future seeing what we are going to do and hopefully. one day to be able to see Travis again.
It’s like Travis is going to college! Will visit from time to time!
Ahh, I think that’s a really good example actually! It’s like a summer vacation or something. The child leaves school, goes on vacation with his dad, has a lot of fun, and then has to come back. It’s like, “Yeah, it was a fantastic vacation! See you in other moment! “We had a lot of fun, but unfortunately it was time to part ways, so here we are.
At one point in No More Heroes III, as the cleaners take care of business after a battle, Sylvia breaks the fourth wall and says “The series will continue fine, we had to give the cleaners names!” Does this statement have any weight for the future of the series? Or was it a nod to fans remembering the ending credit scene from the original No More Heroes, where Sylvia talks about how too bad there isn’t a sequel? But then we have No More Heroes II anyway?
I remember those specific lines! It is a bit difficult to give a satisfactory answer on this. The thing is, you can’t really trust Sylvia because she’s that kind of character. For example, in the first game he said that there would be no sequel and that we did several sequels. So what I was hinting at in No More Heroes III about naming the cleaners is that even though this is the final battle, the numbered series will continue.
Again, that is not to say that that will definitely never happen, but one thing that is important to remember is that, basically, Sylvia is a liar. She’s like that, so you can’t put a lot of value on anything she says. I guess on the one hand you could say it didn’t have a special and deeper meaning, but on the other hand, at the same time, there may be, you never know with Sylvia.
In your opinion, could Travis Touchdown realistically come up with Smash or is he too punk? Are you worried that it will lose its “charm” in the process if it has to be potentially censored?
That is a very good question! Look, the guy who makes Super Smash Brothers, Masahiro Sakurai, is actually a friend of mine. I feel like this is a guy who really loves and understands video games. I feel like he understands the nuances of No More Heroes and Travis Touchdown as a character. He’s already made it through No More Heroes III and laughed at the last boss’s ass. I really feel like you get it.
It’s definitely not impossible for Travis to return again at some point in one of our future games. That is definitely not out of the question.
In a nutshell, I think it would be possible for Travis to appear in Smash Bros. If he does I guess it’s probably the next version, but it’s definitely a possibility as Sakurai really loves video games and the character. I’m not really too concerned with simplifying or censoring the character because I feel like he could fix that somehow without losing what makes Travis, well, Travis.
For example, maybe adding a beep when Travis swears or some way of playing with the words to make everything a little more familiar. So not only do I feel like it might be possible, I really feel like I wouldn’t take anything away from Travis for the kind of guy Sakurai is.
If you had the full reins to grab any Nintendo IP and make a game with your own twist, does something come to mind?
To be honest, I really want to say Zelda, but I know it’s not right. I know deep down inside of me it’s not okay to make a Zelda game, you know? That is not right.
In fact, there is a game that I have thought of before that if I could make any Nintendo IP the way I wanted, it is called Nazo no Murasame Jō (The mysterious castle of Murasame). This was a game from Human, the company I started with before Grasshopper. I’ve always had a soft spot for this game and always felt like I would love to come back and visit it again.
It would be great to see the return of this series!
Yeah, I really think I could do something cool with that game if I got the chance.
Our thanks to SUDA for taking the time to chat with us. No More Heroes III is available now on Switch (along with the first two games).
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