No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise is a strange dichotomy. On one hand, it boasts hilarious references to Otaku culture and dialogue, general Japanese quirkiness and slickly directed cut-scenes. The cell-shaded art style employed for the game’s colourful cast of characters is really distinctive, as are their manic personalities.

On the other hand, this port of the original Wii version has dated graphics, a collection of technical problems, and doesn’t make full use of the supported PlayStation Move motion controller - slicing and dicing a stream of enemies in a limited number of ways can feel repetitive, despite the flashy presentation that director Suda51 is famous for.

No More Heroes places you in the role of Travis Touchdown – a fashionable guy living in a motel who thrives on Otaku culture. Besides collecting anime figurines, he rents out porn movies and likes Moe-style drawings (child-like illustrations with anime elements). He also has a ‘beam-blade’ under his bed and rides around town in a lowrider motorcycle. One day you meet a sexy French woman who invites you to become the number one assassin in the world. To do this, you’ll need to defeat the ten ladies and gentlemen above you on the assassins rankings.

The narrative has a bit of a Scott Pilgrim vs. the World vibe about it which is pretty unique for a videogame. Director Suda51 also seems inspired by Quentin Tarantino and Hideo Kojima in terms of the characters who collectively advance the plot forward. Some of the boss fights are reminiscent of ones you’ll encounter in past Metal Gear Solid games, although they’re a lot more stylish, foul-mouthed and crazy than the ones that inhabit Kojima’s world. If you can imagine Metal Gear Solid’s bosses as the halfway point, then No More Heroes’ ones are the whole way.

The game has a very simple structure in terms of the flow of events. You’ll need to earn a specific amount of cash in order to buy a meeting with the next boss, and this can be done in a number of ways, from playing mini-games (such as picking up trash) to assassinating targets around town. Before confronting each boss you’ll need to get past his or her henchmen, which often takes up more time than the boss battle itself.

There’re also a few leisurely activities to enjoy such as shopping for new clothes or feeding your cat in the motel where you both live. These four tiers of gameplay (goofing off; earning money; cutting through the boss’ henchmen and fighting the boss) don’t represent much variety but at least your next objective is always clear and you’re constantly aware of how far along the game’s narrative you are.

The actual combat in No More Heroes is surprisingly methodical considering the whole game is built around it. You can lock onto a target by holding ‘L2’ and then strafe around them or roll out of the way if need be. Holding down on ‘L2’ will also block incoming attacks. Your beam-blade’s power gradually depletes as you fight so you’ll need to recharge it by giving it a good shake. You can grapple enemies once they’re stunned and perform a range of wrestling moves on them.

You can also attack them with your beam-blade directly – ‘Square’ for a normal slash and ‘Triangle’ for a flurry of attacks (which uses more power). Once their life bar is exhausted a prompt will display that shows you which direction you need to move the right analog stick or PlayStation Move to perform one last fatal slice. Every so often slot machine symbols will display after you kill someone, and if they appear in the correct order you gain a temporary special ability which can be activated by pressing ‘R2’ and ‘Circle.’

The boss fights are the real spectacle of No More Heroes, and they’re some of the most memorable in the action genre. The villains in this game are beyond disturbed and the venues where you do battle and each one’s weapon of choice are all great. Each boss has their own attack patterns and weaknesses so you’ll need to pay close attention to your opponent’s movements and reactions to best them. Thankfully you can restart the battle if you’re not up to scratch on the first few occasions.

I’ve tried No More Heroes with both the Move and DualShock 3, and definitely prefer using the standard controller. The Move doesn’t add anything unique to the gameplay and actually makes movement more awkward because you have no right analog stick to move the camera around with (although you can rotate the camera left or right with ‘X’ and ‘Circle’). You’d think the developers would track the movement of the beam-blade to the Move during combat using a 1:1 ratio but unfortunately this is not the case.

Apart from the stylish presentation and character design, the visuals of No More Hereos: Heroes’ Paradise look like an upscaled version of the Wii game, which results in the rendering of simplistic geometry and basic textures. This port is also beset with technical issues – from slowdowns to jaggies to screen-tear. It’s definitely the best-looking version of the game so far, but it’s just a shame the conversion from Wii to PlayStation 3 wasn’t handled with more care.

There are some great aural moments in No More Heroes, especially the 8-bit music and sound effects that play at certain points in the game. These ‘bits’ of homage to a bygone era of gaming are wonderfully nostalgic and reinforce Travis’ characterisation as an Otaku with a penchant for videogames.

No More Heroes: Heroes’ Paradise offers up plenty of memorable moments provided you can endure the repetitive combat which pervades gameplay. It’s a real pity that most of these memories will be of cut-scenes, characters or lines of dialogue because ultimately the pleasures of gaming should arise while playing one, not staring at your TV while some predetermined scene unfolds in front of you.

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