TSA’s Top 100 of 2011 – #22 No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise

Some games are a little ahead of their time. Others have a cool hook but never reach their intended audience until another opportunity presents itself. Goichi Suda’s No More Heroes on the Wii arguably fits into both of these categories. Intended to appeal to Nintendo’s more mature following, Grasshopper Manufacture’s tale of a gamer who becomes embroiled in an international assassination ring – with a beam katana – is renowned as something of a Marmite game. Some people adore it. Others loathe it with a passion.

No More Heroes was a weird and wonderful celebration of geek sub-culture. Its protagonist, Travis Touchdown, a hawkish otaku quite partial to wrestling videos and hipster apparel – his antics and devil-may-care attitude based to some degree on Jackass’ Johnny Knoxville – becoming something of a nerd icon. Playing the game you can see where some of the MTV show’s toilet humour has also rubbed off on the imitable Japanese auteur. In some places quite literally, the game’s saving mechanism, for instance, requiring Travis to plonk his arse down on a toilet. It was absurd, crass, immature and definitely surreal at times.

For these reasons, and numerous others, No More Heroes somewhat missed its mark both critically and commercially. Although, and contrary to popular belief, the game did do well both in terms of reviews (83% on Metacritic) and in the sales department. It didn’t set any records on fire, but shifting over 400,000 units worldwide isn’t to be sniffed at. Still, it’s hardly the numbers Grasshopper had hoped for – especially considering the Wii’s mammoth install base. For a console that has sold just a smidgen fewer than 80 million units, the reality of one of its better adult games only reaching just over a half of one percent of that number must be seen as a disappointment.

The arrival of the PlayStation Move controller proffered Suda-san another beam katana stab at resurrecting his vision for a new gathering. Already working on a sequel to No More Heroes – Desperate Struggle – for the Wii, it was almost a no-brainer. An impressive install base in its own right, with an arguably more mature demographic than that of the Wii’s, a waggle-tastic controller so that they needn’t deviate away from the intrinsic control mechanics too much, and the allure of HD, allowing the stylistic designer to represent Santa Destroy in a more attractive fidelity.

Gaining the sub-title “Heroes’ Paradise”, the Wii-port also acquires some of the boss characters from its Wii sequel while simultaneously losing some of the female characters’ clothing. Though released on the Xbox 360 in its native Japan, Heroes’ Paradise will not get a North American or European release on Microsoft’s console, making it a PS3 region-exclusive in the West.

No More Heroes has a tendency to polarise the gaming community. It straddles a strange divide, a mature game (with immature themes) on a console that isn’t renowned for its adult audience. That said, it required the Wiimote as a core game mechanic. For these reasons – and because we’re fans of Suda51’s work – we consider the arrival of Heroes’ Paradise in its HD remake guise on these shores as quite exciting. Whether it lives up to its potential remains to be seen, however.

No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise will launch on the PS3 in Europe sometime next year.

10 Comments

  1. “for theses reasons” 3rd paragraph down

    -Thanks [Kovacs]

  2. Cannot wait for this!! Loved it on wii back in the day, looking forward to seeing it with an HD shine, and hopefully a tougher mode, I finished the wii version 100%!

    • You appear to be on your own.
      *tumbleweed*

  3. Yeah, I feel honoured that they are re-releasing it on PS3 just for me…

  4. Can’t wait, this is the game i’m buying move for.

  5. Easily my favourite Wii game, I don’t think I’ve even turned my Wii on since I finished it. The true final battle is one of my favourite moments in gaming ever. Not sure if I’d by Move just to play it in HD tho, and I’m not sure how much fun it’d be without motion controls.

  6. Well I never got round to play as it came out as most of the good Wii games had finished coming out, and then I heard this was on it’s way at some point along with the Move, so I’d been holding out for it. It defiantly is a marmite game from what I’ve heard, but it sound like it has a lot ingenious scenarios in it. Cant wait.

  7. Hummm, looks good…

  8. I hope the Move-functionality is good (no triggering of prerendered sword animations) & not just upgraded from the Wii.

  9. I got NMH2’s soundtrack in the post the other day. I really can’t wait to play this again, hell I don’t even care if it’s not that big a shift from the Wii version, I just want to support Suda.

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