A game that goes to show a lightsaber can solve practically any problem
What came first? Scott Pilgrim or No More Heroes? The two go hand in hand so well it’s a wonder a crossover hasn’t occurred. It seems that between each issue of the adolescent admiring comic series, some satirical moles wormed their way from the author’s cellar to the video game shores and got to work on an even wackier hybrid. Slight cracks of plagiarismm aside, the pixelated incarnations of life’s losers are incredibly entertaining, and the uncut version of one of the Wii’s best third party titles proves that. Welcome to the weird world of beam katanas, fast paced combat, and every word enforced by multiple exclamation marks. Welcome to No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise.
No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise tells the tale of Travis Touchdown, a jobless, loveless, motel dwelling, video game and anime junkie who isn’t exactly losing at life…but ain’t much of a high scorer either. His best friends have been the guy who owns the video rental store down the street and his right hand (left if he’s feeling exotic), until his social life takes a sudden and bizarre turn for the apparently better. When a woman by the name of Sylvia challenges him to slay his way to the top of the ‘United Assassin’s Association’ Travis jumps at the chance for recognition, and with a lightsaber-esque weapon won off of eBay and the promise of some form of foreplay on hand, the hyper uber-nerd launches into a frenzied battle with the world’s greatest killers.
From the get go, No More Heroes doesn’t hold-up, and launches straight into your very first assassination mission with full gusto. It gets exceptionally carried away with itself very quickly, and leads to a plethora of parody, satire and gawks at the nerdiest of entertainment these days. The narrative parodies the most sugar/steroid induced anime series’ so well, that it can be a bit much to stomach for some at times, but others will find hilarious digs at pop-culture and those who worship it. Bundled with a strange story that takes a while to settle into comes a combat system which throws together sword slashes, finishing moves and Mexican wrestling throws requires the same amount of patience to turn WTF into FTW.
Once the game settles down, Travis’ constant lusting for females lessens and the time spent with your beam katana begins to pay off. A majority of the enemies you encounter are complete cowards, and attempt to defend near enough every slice you try and make. Simply battering attacks often stuns you and leaves you wide open for attack, and so a keen eye is needed during battle, with you having to correspond high and low attacks to batter unprotected flesh. Once you’ve diminished all the health of your attacker, a quick finishing move or wrestling suplex turns them into blood fountains. It’s certainly not a conventional hack ‘n’ slash system, yet when you’re in the thick of battles it makes for a very fluent and enjoyable fighter.
From the get go, No More Heroes doesn’t hold-up
It’s not all assassination missions and copious amounts of gore, however. Money is needed to enter each ranked battle with assassins, and coating yourself in the gore like-minded sadists is more of a charity benefit in the city of ‘Santa Destroy’. Because of this, you’ll find yourself making trips down the road to the job centre. In between main missions, you’re pigeon holed into mini-games in order to earn enough cash to progress through the main story. They really don’t stand out as majorly enjoyable sections, especially when compared to the combat of the main game, yet each have their charm in their own rights of bizarreness. From directing ships to avoid being nuked to collecting kittens around town, these minor tasks thankfully rescue assassination missions balancing on the edge of repetition.
Unfortunately you’re travels in and about the city aren’t exactly smooth ones. Santa Destroy is so bland it looks like it’s been built out of genetically modified crackers, yet it’s large enough to make travels on foot exceptionally slow and dull. Travis does have some form of nuclear bike to speed up travel, but don’t expect a smooth ride. The controls are awkwardly mapped out, and there are glitches galore in-between you and your destination. Numerous times have I magically jittered left to right 100 times with no control, just because I travelled in in-between a car and a lampost. Numerous times have I been able to fall off my bike because it has tripped over the pavement. Numerous times have I had to weigh up whether getting anywhere on foot would be quicker than this Ronnie Corbett of a motorbike, then call up for my bike to be recovered and sit through the same bloody unskippable animation as it just parks by me. It’s a fleeting flaw that doesn’t take up a lot of the game, but is an incredible pain should you wish to explore the city to gain collectables and upgrade Travis’s abilities.
Although playing with the standard Dualshock set-up makes the blitz and bang of proceedings a lot less complicated and pupil swallowing, you’re really missing out if you don’t equip a Playstation Move controller. You’re not required to thrash around the motion controller all the time, but simply hold the controller high or low to replicate your stance, swinging the controller to pull off finishing moves. Either way, combat is just as fluid and fun with either control scheme, but with its origins on the Wii, it’s obvious through play that No More Heroes loses its edge when you ditch the motion controls, and feels more rewarding to use than the option of sitting around relentlessly bashing a controller into submission.
If you have played the Wii original and are a die hard fan of the franchise, don’t expect much from this ‘Uncut’ remake. This really isn’t a loss if you’re completely new to the world of No More Heroes, but fans led in by such promises will be disappointed with the lack of features. There’s a bonus mode where you can re-fight boss characters, more blood than its Wii counterpart and an extra difficulty which shows the female characters in more provocative clothing. Nevertheless, to the PS3 owners who have never played the original game, these are extras that haven’t exactly done any harm.
Those who have played Killer7 will be familiar with the art style of No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise. Everything has a subdued cel-shaded effect to it, which subtly stands out amongst the neon textures and especially in contrast to the spewing of blood and the 16-bit HUD features and commands. To add to the copious amounts of artistic merits, the voice actors all give suitably camp performances to cater for the tongue in cheek plot, and will add to the enjoyment (or the annoyance) to those who play it.
No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise isn’t a blu-ray disc. It’s a circular slab of Marmite
which conveniently works in a PS3, a title which is so eccentric and original that it’s sure to divide opinion. Some people will love the brash humour, the quirky narrative and the unusual juggling of murder and litter collection. Other people will see it as a pretentious parody of itself. Therefore it comes down to a bloody amateur way of deducing whether the game is worth your attention;
DON’T GET THIS IF…you can’t relate to any pop culture addict these days/you can’t get over minor glitches screwing up exploration/you played the Wii original and hope this uncut version actually comes with vaguely decent extras.
GET THIS IF…you’re looking for something fresh, fun and entertaining/you need a decent game for your Playstation Move/you enjoyed Suda51’s other pet project Killer7.
SEEK HELP IF…you use this game to progress your actual love life.
The Bad: …which could be too much for some, Terrible free roam controls and glitches, Not many great features differ this from the Wii version
Bronze Y Award