No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

No More Heroes 2 is a bit of milestone for Suda 51 as it is the first sequel to one of his titles. Suda seemed to flip flop in various interviews over his desire for a follow-up to No More Heroes, but clearly he decided to go full steam ahead to continue the adventures of Travis Touchdown. The fact that this is his first sequel was fairly apparent as I made my through NMH2 as it is a decent yet not very fulfilling following up. The game more or less follows the same gameplay pattern as the first game. Travis once again finds himself having to kill a bunch of ranked assassins to reach the #1 rank." Like before, you have to hack and slash your way through a bunch of henchmen using various beam katanas. There's some new power ups for getting kills, most noticeably (and most fun) is Travis turning into a tiger and mauling enemies in one hit.

Unfortunately, a lot of the combat that shined in the first outing has been dumbed down, removed, or made nearly useless. First of all, doing a Dark Step (a sort-of counterattack) has been made so difficult this time around that it's almost completely absent from the game. This ends up making combat less about intense close range fights and more about dodging projectiles and when most of the enemies in the game have guns and shoot from off-screen, it turns into one frustrating mess). Travis's speed also seems to have been a bit toned down this time around as it just never feels as fluid as the first game. The bosses also take a slight dip in quality. They lack the sense of distinction and creativity of the original bosses. Gone are the lengthy monologues from the bosses of the first game, who managed to leave such a big impression and show surprising character development despite their limited screen time. Almost all bosses this time around are fought in generic environments, and the strategy to beating them all is mostly the same. The bosses are lacking any sense of a personality and most fail to leave any sort of impression. The game, quite simply throws the bosses at you. You see them, they attack you, you beat them, go the next level, lather, rinse, repeat.

One of the few improvements of the original is that open world aspect of the game has been completely removed. You no longer travel through the city to reach your destinations between battles, now you simply select them on a map screen. Though you can still do side jobs for money, this time around you don't need money to progress through the game, as ranked battles stages are now free. Money can be used to buy clothes and beam katanas for Travis, and also can be used to upgrade his Strength and Vitality by working out at the gym. Some of the new jobs are a lot of fun. The side jobs are cleverly designed "retro mini-games" that you play every time you begin a job or work out. They range from cooking burgers for people to killing bugs. Some of these are pretty fun but most of them are pretty terrible and only serve to make me happen that 8-bit gaming is in the past.

The big problem with the game is that the developers removed a lot of the previous game's features and didn't replace them with anything new. They've dumbed down the combat and bosses and removed the open world aspects and the game ends up giving us only like 5 more bosses in return. You can still do bonus killing missions for hire, but you don't get any real money for it, so motivation for doing them is pretty nonexistent. There's two additional playable characters, but they do anything worthwhile and seem like wasted space. Despite all these complaints, The core experience is still intact and I still had fun with this game. The gameplay, while not as magical is still fun especially when you start duel-wielding. And it's also great to see everyone back together and the dynamic between some of these characters is pretty awesome. It's just sad that we've got such a dumbed down experience. Suda said that if this going to more No More Heroes, its going to be on Nintendo's next console and even though this game was slight disappointment, I'll still look forward to it.