DESTROYMAN is the coolest name for a boss, ever.
Goichi Suda, head of Grasshopper Manufacture and Director of No More Heroes, gave a keynote address at GDC last week. To kick things off, he showed a new trailer for the game which included details on exploration, boss fights, and how combat will be handled.
First off, we already knew that Travis Touchdown (the game's protagonist and wielder of the unquestionably cool Beam Sword) would own an anime-styled, souped-up motorcycle, but the new trailer was the first time we actually saw it in motion. It appears you can use the bike to traverse Santa Destroy, the city of the game's setting, to speed things up.
As aforementioned, two new bosses were revealed, the first being what looked to be a teenage girl trained in agility-based sword combat, and the second a masked assassin named DESTROYMAN whose attacks are all based on his name (Destroy Cannon, for example). Both fights took on a very cinematic style.
It's important to note that Suda used to work on a series of wrestling games, and it seems like that experience will be replicated in No More Heroes. Touchdown can be seen suplexing an opponent when the player jerks back the Wii remote and nunchuk.
For both bosses and common thugs, a hit counter will appear when you attack -- the more strikes you land, the more a power gauge on the left side of the screen increases. Travis is also shown increasing his power by tensing up. Unfortunately, it's still not clear how this power will be used.
As of GDC, the game is still planned to make a 2007 release date. Stay tuned to NWR as more details surface.