Because the normal Hirukowashi-hen doesn’t have a page here, this review will have my thoughts on both.

Frankly…this story…is very degenerate. Despite that, I didn’t really find it painful to read. It was so ridiculous and idiotic, I just didn’t care and went along with the ride. And I think once you do that the sheer insanity of this side story becomes a little funny, which is the point. Towards the end the writer, whoever wrote this, tries to justify it all by making it about how good partners in relationships at least try to get themselves invested into what their partner likes but like…it’s so weak and meaningless it really doesn’t matter.

The alternative version is slightly better, Irie being a blatant pedophile would normally be extremely cringeworthy, but the lunacy of the events made it a bit funnier. Satoko and Shion also have more dialogue in this version as well, which makes it instantly better. Sadly, this version cuts out Hanyuu entirely but like…the less young looking characters around Irie, the better.

after 128 days…it is over…i have now finished evening cicada!! and with that, i now leave hinamizawa…like a bird leaving his tight cage, it is time i spread my wings and soar to greater worlds and VNs like euphoria, like maggot baits, like dustmania grotesque…🕊️❤️





NOT!!

HIGURASHI IS NEVER OVER. THE FIRST EIGHT CHAPTERS ARE ONLY THE FIRST STEP. I WILL SEE YOU ALL IN HIGURASHI NO NAKU KORO NI REI. HINAMIZAWA FOREVER!!!

Despite this game being arguably one of the most important ever made from a Western market perspective, I had never bothered to actually play through the game in its entirety until very recently. I always saw it as a neat iconic relic from the past and only ever played the first few levels. But, my interest in the early games of the Mario franchise did spark up a bit recently, which led to me playing through this fully.

The actual game is…ok! It’s the most fundamental Mario title, but also potentially the most basic. There’s nothing really super flawed or bad about this game; I think it’s actually probably as perfect as it could’ve been. It’s just nothing that crazy to begin with. And that’s fine for the first entry, but it makes this game all the worse in retrospect compared to its peers.

Regardless, the game is still enjoyable. If you have the will to actually try it, you’ll probably enjoy some kind of fun from its simplicity. You just need to actually get past the first few worlds for the game's addictive nature to set in.

Devil May Cry 2: Grasshopper Manufacture edition.

Though I do not particularly enjoy doing this, for this review I will primarily be comparing this game to other titles. I believe this game doesn’t really form its own distinct identity outside of “The Sequel of No Mo Heroes” and as a result it’s really difficult to talk about it as though it were an independent work that stands on its own.

No More Heroes, like many SUDA51 games, is an incredibly multi-faceted work with brilliant commentary on a wide range of topics relating to video games and human life, but No More Heroes 2 lacks any of this clever writing and game design that has made Grasshopper Manufacture such an endearing company up until this time. It makes sense since SUDA51 did not serve as director and his role of writer is somewhat ambiguous as well for this game, and it shows.

In my review of No More Heroes, I specifically focused on the game’s commentary on the repetitive nature of video games and how it uses an intentionally poorly structured game loop to highlight this repetitiveness among other things. This structure is completely changed in this game. Now, you are able to directly go into the rank battles one after another without having to pay the ranking fee. The side jobs are still present in the game, but are completely optional. The annoying unfun side jobs of the original which mirror jobs in real life have been replaced by much funner 8-bit style arcade games. What these changes do is make the game much better paced and better structured from a gameplay perspective, but ruins some of the artistic goals of the original.

This wouldn’t be a problem if the game made up for it with its own ideas and themes, but it does not. This is why I say that this game has no separate identity outside of simply being the sequel of No More Heroes. Its primary theme, revenge and the cycle of violence, is something already present in the original. It is just far less subtle in this game. All the humor, the characters, and the tone of the original is preserved and dumped directly into this one as well. In fact, in some ways this game is even a flanderization of No More Heroes. The sexuality has gone waaay up and so has the general ridiculousness. This game WILL make you look at Sylvia’s breasts and even if you avoid one cutscene with a zoom up on them it will eventually catch you slacking.

Even the core narrative of this game is, frankly, a rehash of the original that lacks any of the deliberate commentary of the original. No More Heroes 2 copies No More Heroes whenever it can and makes reckless changes without really thinking very hard for why the original is designed the way it is. This is why at the top of this critique, I compared this game to Devil May Cry 2. They are actually decently similar games in many ways. Both lack the director of the original game they’re a sequel to, both are far more ridiculous than the original in their events (DMC2 has demon tanks and helicopters and this game has mech battles and weird giant batman parody babies), both are pretty pointless sequels, and both completely misunderstand what made the original good in the first place.

Now of course, DMC2 and this game is not a 1 to 1 comparison. No More Heroes 2 is far better than DMC2 and succeeds in many of the aspects the latter fails, and I honestly might be stretching a lot with this comparison, however I feel like they fall into similar pitfalls.

Despite all of this, I still reasonably enjoyed my time with this game. Even if it does not quite have the wit of the original, it most certainly has its charm, and that may be enough for me. The gameplay is still extremely button mashy but so much fun, Travis is still a loveable jackass, and you’re still able to play with Jeane the cat though she’s gained a bit of weight. Most of the things I enjoyed about this game were already in the original, however. Still, 3 whole extra stars to this game for making playing with Jeane more interactive. Very excited to see what SUDA51 does with her in NMH3!