Strawberry On The Shortcake!
The cel shaded visuals add to the highly stylised presentation. Every character is ludicrously over the top, like Dr Peace, a stadium warbling, pistol packing boss. Or Bad Girl, a psychotic cheerleader with anger problems. Travis Touchdown, possibly the greatest name ever, is a memorable creation. He's arrogant and hot headed, but strangely likeable, and gets some classic lines. The fact he's fighting to become the #1 assassin for the sole purpose of sleeping with Sylvia (the event organiser) sums up this protagonist perfectly. Remarkably shallow, but thoroughly entertaining.
The open world appears largely unchanged from the 2008 Wii version. It's easy to navigate, and has some good landmarks to aid travel. 49 Lokikov balls are scattered around the map, and can be given to a drunken bum to learn new moves, such as a sprint ability. The Thunder Ryu building enables Travis to increase his strength, maximum health and katana combos. Beef Head video store allows him to learn new wrestling moves by purchasing tapes. The assistant also leaves numerous voice mails throughout. Such as "We're calling to let you know that the video you returned was a copy of one of our titles".
Audio is superb, with some madcap touches like the gurgling sound a toilet makes after saving. Enemy battle cries are random. Many of them shout "My spleen" on death, even if they've been decapitated. The retro sound effects are brilliant, especially the menu screen noises, or when climbing a rank on the list. The mini games from Desperate Struggle were 8 bit homage's to classics; sadly these do not make this version. The jobs are a varied collection of mini games, tasks like signaller, gas station attendant, and coconut collector are fun, if a little easy. Amusingly there's a side mission called "Meow Meow", although you are required to find lost kittens rather than sell drugs on the streets. 25 assassination missions exist, which unlock on completion of these jobs.
However, the open world itself is very placid. There are hardly any pedestrians, and random world events are non-existent. Characters wander around aimlessly, and traffic is severely lacking. Travis' ludicrous mode of transport is no less irritating. It has the unfortunate ability to get stuck on random pieces of scenery, rendering it useless. The free fight missions remain frustrating, and require the player to survive increasing waves of enemies without taking a single hit. Some of the fight animations are drawn out, and collision detection can be appalling during combat. The block button is erratic, which can lead to some infuriating failures. A charge attack soon becomes the only reliable option each and every time. Whilst Move is the favoured control scheme, No More Heroes is perfectly playable on a standard Dualshock, even if you have to click R3 before killing every standard enemy.
Heroes Paradise improves the core game, but it's still a flawed experience. The sheer originality and satirical sense of humour makes this worth a look. But it is a port of a three year old Wii game, and not a great deal has been done to change this.