Out of the original trilogy this is the only one I've never done a full playthrough of. I was fully aware of this game's legacy in regards to the original Team Silent games and it's reputation has often left me questioning what I'd even think of it by the time I got around to it.
I know this game was cobbled together in barely ten months after a bunch of false starts, I know that the original vision was something along the lines of Silent Hill 2's more personal narrative and I know how polarising many of it's creative decisions are.
SH3 is a tremendous closer to a trilogy that may not seem thematically consistent at first but only becomes more and more interesting the deeper you look into it's mechanics and creative choices, a swan song for the Silent Hill series that makes you wonder why they even bothered after this.
Taking SH1's batshit occult lore and imbuing it with SH2's more sorrowful and introspective tone you get here a game that might be Team Silent at the height of their powers. A technical powerhouse with the scariest art direction the series has ever reached. What Silent Hill 3 is doing is on another level and I'm just kind of in awe at how much I really dug this black sheep of the series.
I think the best place of summation for what this game is going for is when the game returns to Silent Hill proper. When you see that you're going to the same hospital that James Sunderland sexually repressed his way through you think that maybe Team Silent lost their edge, that maybe the tumultuous production pipeline had forced them to reuse a bunch of assets. Then Silent Hill 3 shifts you to it's version of the Hospital and you realise that you couldn't be in better hands. The level at which this game unnerves you can't be properly described, it is downright the scariest game I've ever played and I really do mean it.
I just can't stop thinking about this game, how it's protagonist feels like the perfect evolution of what came before. How it's cult narrative is imbued with a sense of genuine loneliness and parental longing and how it's music and sound design elicit something indecipherable. It's messy and it's clear that the game's vision was severely cut down due to meddling but it's rebellious nature still shines through despite all of it.
It's a game about being confronted by God and laughing in her face (and shooting them dead with a gun)

If you've ever felt like you can't play this game because you've been spoiled by the millions of video essays that divulge it's central narrative all I can do is strongly urge you to just play it.
It's plot has been rightfully celebrated but it's the way it consumes the entire play experience, how it strengthens the atmosphere as you walk through pitch black buildings and the nightmarish streets or how it contextualises the dog shit combat as a terribly unpleasant necessity that consumes James and the player. It's also just worth applauding the tremendous level design, which will let you become familiar to a place only to fuck with you and change it's layouts entirely (The Historical Society is one of the best Horror levels of all time in this respect and an experience I won't be quick to forget)
Knowing Silent Hill 2's narrative and twists is only one small fraction of the real greatness of Silent Hill 2, a story that could only be told through this beautiful medium.

I really wanted to like this more than I did.
The hope was that Suda had got his juice back with Travis Strikes Again and we'd have something here that was worthy of being a sequel to the original.
What we got here is a fun albiet very shallow sequel that seems to double down on this series's worst impulses. More "wow that's crazy" shit with millions of references to boot.
I kept waiting as well, everything about the game felt off and it made me feel we were approaching some thematic richness that just in the end didn't end up being there which is a real shame.
I didn't have a bad time with No More Heroes 3, but it's clear that what I want No More Heroes to explore and what Suda wants it to explore are very different and that's alright I guess.

Always put this one off, thought it was a lazy spin-off just to get interest back in the series but this feels just as interesting as Killer 7 or the original No More Heroes.
An odyssey through one man's head that tries to encompass a lifetime of regrets and choices. One feels like this Suda's attempt to get his mojo back and I can't deny it worked on me. I will always go to bat for works that feel indulgent, art that feels like an extended therapy session that we're allowed to look in on. Travis Strikes Again feels like a reckoning with what came before and if my analysis feels shallow it's only because so many talented folks have wrote about how this is a unique piece of the medium.
Suda Strikes Again

I'll be real I did spend the majority of my life just assuming Suda had directed this game, when in reality he wasn't as involved as I had thought.
I think the gang at Grasshopper did their best with this, but I do not envy having to make this one. How do you even make a sequel to No More Heroes? The original's narrative shits itself (on purpose) and completely breaks down to make a statement on narrative as a whole. How do you continue that?
I have very conflicting feelings on this, the writing is straight up just not as good and it feels like the meta-narrative of the original was glossed over. One thing that seems to always be in contention is the games whole "fifty assassins" promise which I always thought was kind of funny, like if anything feels distinctly Suda and Grasshopper it's the way the game plays with those expectations. The problem there is there are very few assassins that come close to matching the first games rogue gallery (maybe like four of them I could probably remember)
The gameplay has never really been the draw here but it's clear that something went very wrong during developments, new big bold ideas feel like they were pale imitations of what they were going to be (Great idea to play as Shinobu, no idea why you would introduce platforming and give her some of the worst bosses in the series)
This brings me back to my original question. How do you make a sequel to No More Heroes? Apart from some standout scenes and moments this game feels confused and lost with it's identity, trying to fabricate this zany crazy image that people seem to think the first game was and not including it's griminess and darkness at it's core.
Also the final boss was so bad I just straight up quit and looked at the ending on YouTube, sorry if this affects my gaming cred but what the hell where they thinking.