As many of us know, the original No More Heroes is making the jump to the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. When I first heard this, I was immediately giddy with joy at the thought of my favorite Nintendo Wii title with a fresh coat of pretty HD paint. After the initial excitement wore off though, I started thinking about some things.

After playing an HD version, will I want to go back to the Wii for No More Heroes 2 in SD? Should I even get the sequel upon release, or wait for an HD edition of that too? Will the HD even look that good? Some of the screens I’ve seen don’t seem to have kept that cel-shaded charm. The motion controls were actually kind of fun on the Wii; will the combat get too repetitive on a standard controller?

Let’s have a look at both sides of this.

Heads:

Bringing No More Heroes to other platforms gives a lot more people the chance to enjoy a great experience that I think shouldn’t be missed. I want people to enjoy this game just like I did. I want people to not be able to pull away from their TVs for three days until they have beaten it, and then love it so much that they immediately do it all over again. Suda51 and company will earn a little more money for their efforts and hopefully get some more recognition, rightfully deserved.

This also gives the developers a chance to fix and add some things. It’s pretty mutually agreed upon that the open world aspect isn’t NMH’s best feature, and while I’m sure they won’t overhaul the whole thing, there are some little things they could do to make it a bit more bearable. Better control of the motorcycle comes to mind, as well as better driving physics in general. I would be fairly happy if I didn’t come to a dead stop every time I hit the littlest thing, or even a wall. Give me a crash or something!

The one thing I always wanted is a boss select screen! This would make a great unlockable feature after you beat the game. For me, the best part of No More Heroes was its crazy bosses, from their quirky personalities to their unique fighting styles. I was always immensely satisfied after I figured out how to beat each one. I would love to replay my favorite battle, with Bad Girl, right now but I don’t want to have to play through the whole game again to do it.

Another little tweak that would really help this game out would be a “retry” option after those fights where you can’t get hit even once. Those things were brutal, I don’t think I ever beat even one. Came close, but no dice.

Trophies/Achievements are an obvious addition, and while I don’t consider myself a trophy whore by any means, I am a little excited for this because NMH is one of the few games I can see myself getting 100% on. Except I bet they’d make beating all those “no-hit fights” one of them, damn.

And of course the most prominent advantage of bringing No More Heroes to the PS3 and 360 is the upping of the graphics to HD quality. My main disappointment with the Wii version was that the graphics were nowhere near as good as those of the first trailer. If they made NMH look like that (while keeping some of the design changes) then I would be one happy hero.

Tails:

My only hold-up with the graphics upgrade is that what I’ve seen so far doesn’t look very cel-shady. I hope this is just my bad eyes or bad images, because I would hate to see this game go the way of regular polygons.

Obviously, bringing No More Heroes outside the realm of the Wii will change its control scheme dramatically. This is the one thing that got me thinking maybe this re-release won’t be quite as good as I initially thought it might be. Some have said maybe it will be compatible with Sony’s Motion Control or possibly even Microsoft Natal. Sony’s Motion Control I could see happening, but Natal? I don’t think so. I’m going with the assumption it will be redone with standard controls.

I know motion controls aren’t a lot of people’s jam, and are almost considered a sin in the gamer community to not mind waggle that much, but I do believe No More Heroes on the Wii got it right. Its use was subtle most of the time with choosing the position of the beam saber. Motion controls weren’t used solely a majority of the time, so it didn’t feel overdone. They picked the right times to implement them, and it was extremely satisfying when you used them because of that.

Mapping the combat to the buttons while using motion just for finishing blows and wresting moves was a stroke of genius. These were methods of finishing that particular enemy off, and changing up the control to do it made it feel that much more epic. There was nothing better than taking a swing to take some guy’s head or to slice him down the middle. I just don’t see how they can make these moments feel any different from the rest of the combat on a standard control. When you get down to it, No More Heroes is a hack and slash game, without those deviations from button mashing, it seems it would get very repetitive very fast.

On a standard controller, the job mini-games would be more a chore than they already are. I was already tired of doing them after the first time I tried. Some of them might be better than others, but can you really imagine pumping gas using only control sticks? Well, using sticks for the graffiti cleaning job would remind my slightly of Jet Set Radio (even though I’m cleaning OFF the graffiti), and that can only be a good thing.

And I'm sorry, using the Wii remote as a phone was one of the coolest and most clever things they could have done. I nearly flipped the first time it happened.

Oh, and charging up your beam saber wouldn’t be nearly as fun on a standard controller.


While I’m skeptical of a change in control scheme, I’m still extremely excited about this. I can’t wait to see what they do with it. Day one purchase for me, definitely.

[BTW, I started writing this before the news of Ubisoft saying they wouldn’t publish it. Hopefully another publisher picks it up, and some of the potential awesomeness I’ve mentioned can be realized.]

Hello there. Gah! I'm so bad at introducing myself, but since you asked; my name is Alex and I am 21 years old. I’ve been lurking around Destructoid for almost a year now. My first taste of this place came from watching Hey Ash, Whatcha Playin’ on GameTrailers. There was just something so quirky and awesome about it that I had to have more. When I had watched every HAWP video on GT, I decided to check out the site that it came from, and here I am. Since then I’ve made Destructoid my primary place for videogame news, am a regular listener of the podcasts, and have become one of those pretentious types looking for deeper meanings in videogames (Thanks a lot Reverend Anthony, ya jerk).

Anyways, I’ve decided to come out of the bushes just watching you guys, and hop over the fence to join the party. So let me tell you a little bit about myself (in the form of those “Ten Things About Me” lists I saw everyone doing a while back).

1. I’ve been playing videogames since I can remember. My earliest memories include going to my cousin’s house and playing Super Mario Bros. on the NES together. Good times, seriously. Then for my sixth birthday, my grandmother bought me my own NES with Super Mario Bros. 3. Isn’t she sweet! Since then I’ve owned a Sega Genesis, Super Nintendo, Gameboy Color, Nintendo 64, PlayStation 2, Gameboy Advance, DS, PSP, Nintendo Wii, and PlayStation 3.

2. I was very much the videogame nerd as a child. But around my high school days, I fell out of the habit, moving my nerdy attention towards anime. It wasn’t until I got into college that my love for videogames reawakened in a big way. Only this time around I started thinking of them in a more serious way, which was only propelled further when I got here :)

3. Speaking of anime, I'm into that stuff too. I started off with Trigun years ago and it remains one of my favorites to this day. I also love Cowboy Bebop, Fullmetal Alchemist, Full Metal Panic, Neon Genesis Evangelion, FLCL and Oh My Goddess.

4. I guess you could say I only recently joined the hardcore. Up until my purchase of the PlayStation 3 slim, all I had this generation was a Wii. Oh man, have I been missing out! But don’t get me wrong, I’m still a huge Nintendo fanboy.

5. (j)RPGs are my favorite genre of games to play. No, I haven’t been very happy this generation. My favorite game is Final Fantasy IX, btw.

6. Destructoid IS the reason I’m addicted to podcasts. It all started with a simple desire to relive the games of yesteryear with an iTunes subscription to RetroforceGO. Much enjoyment came from that, so sheer curiosity got me to listen to an episode of Podtoid. Then I was hooked! I’m subscribed to 6 gaming podcasts now because I can’t go to sleep without people talking about videogames in the background. Is this a problem? I think not.

7. I'm currently in school pursuing my Bachelor of Arts in Writing. Since this degree won't make me any money, I will probably hit up grad school (for Mass Communication) after this. Like I bet a lot of you, I hope to get into a career that has something to do with videogames some day. Hopefully something in videogame JOURNALISM.

8. My other passion, besides videogames and anime, is music. The listening part, that is. My absolute favorite band is The Used. Some other favorites include Something Corporate, Ben Folds, (old) Linkin Park, and much more-- mostly hard rock stuff. I'm not really into classic rock which I know makes me a bad person. As for the playing music part, I'm teaching myself to play piano with slow but sure progress.

9. I usually don't have too much time to watch TV, but when I do I love watching shows that make me laugh. My favorite show ever just may be Futurama (a lot of people say I remind them of Fry, don't know if that's a good or bad thing, hmm...) I also love Scrubs, Spin City, That 70's Show, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, and CSI:NY. Firefly will always hold a special place in my heart.

10. Favorite movies are the hardest thing for me to pinpoint. Again, I love stuff that makes me laugh, low-brow or high-class comedy, and some of the deeper stuff that makes me think. Some that I consistently love are Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Billy Madison, Knocked Up, Garden State, Repo! The Genetic Opera, and A Clockwork Orange. Oh yeah, and Serenity blows my fucking mind every time I see it.

So there you have it, a (not so) brief introduction of ME. Only problem now is I don’t know many of you, but I hope to fix that soon :)

*Cheers!*