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No More Heroes: Heroes' Paradise Review
Poor Travis Touchdown just can’t catch a break. First he is enrolled in a deadly tournament of assassins just to get a chance at sleeping with the girl of his dreams. Then he has to work dead-end jobs to pay the entry fees for these battles. To top it all off, the less impressive of his two games has debuted on HD systems, giving potential new fans an unfortunately flawed first impression.
Heroes’ Paradise is a near-direct port of the original Wii title No More Heroes, which means it comes burdened with all of the problems that game had. While the tongue-in-cheek plot provides a fun skewering of anime and otaku stereotypes, players spend an inordinate amount of game time grinding for cash to unlock the next boss encounter. A handful of new job types and assassin missions have been added, which eases the pain a little, but I still reached a point near the end where the effort to get enough money stopped matching the payoff.
New publisher Konami has upgraded Heroes’ Paradise from its original Japanese release by adding in Move controls. This was a wise decision, as the setup for the regular PS3 controller is bafflingly complicated and imprecise. No More Heroes’ simple beat-em-up gameplay doesn’t benefit from the improved precision that the Move controller offers over the Wii remote, but I highly recommend sticking to that option if you play the game.
A handful of new boss battles borrowed from No More Heroes 2 make up the only other major addition to Heroes’ Paradise. Despite taking place in a boring dream arena, these encounters are a lot of fun, but they only served to remind me how much more I liked the sequel. If you don’t own a Wii or want to start from the beginning, this HD upgrade of the original No More Heroes is a solid but flawed brawler that introduces you to the goofy plight of Travis Touchdown. For everyone else, don’t hesitate to skip right to the far superior Wii-exclusive sequel.
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