This review contains spoilers
No More Heroes 2 is completely and utterly confusing to me. It's a lavish upgrade to the first visually and suitably bases itself around indulging the player, promising an abundance of boss fights and less of the rougher edges from Travis' debut. Not a very Goichi Suda move (this was in fact not directed by Suda) but honestly fair as far as sequels go.
Instead of the (lovably) shitty odd jobs and overworld, you're given a menu and 8 bit minigames. I might be in the minority here for not thinking any of them are particularly good and outright preferring shit like the mowing minigame in the first one but that's fine. The steak minigame is hilarious though. The real problem with this streamlining lies with the omission of the overworld. Budget concession or not, cutting out an explorable Santa Destroy really does take away from the game as one of No More Heroes' more interesting themes was the bleeding out, gasping corpse of Americana that you're left to inhabit. A successor tracking the rapid urban growth of the city, transforming Home into something noisier would've been amazing. AND it would've tied nicely into the theming of The Silver Case as well. Losing that hands-on experience with the city this go around is just such a shame. I guess it does respond in kind to one of the more popular complaints of the original game from back when it first released, though. So I guess we asked for this.
NMH2 boasts more boss battles than the first and it does deliver (somewhat), but there's something missing. Outside of a couple bosses at the very end, No one in NMH2 even holds a candle to the cast of the first game. It's honestly kind of incredible. The combat feels spruced up, but also less tangible. In this playthrough I found much less use for wrestling moves and I don't think I darkstepped even once, opting for a simple hack and slash approach... Don't really like that. All in service of that indulgence though.
But wait, the game is also built around denying you satisfaction. The game's setup places Travis back into the rat race, at rank 51. You're led to go "50 boss fights? wow!" but then you only fight a fraction of that. Instead, you'll get fights where the ensuing battle actually counts for 20+ ranks, or moments where you're doing something else and suddenly a handful of ranks have been dealt with. In all honesty, this aspect of the game is one of my favorite parts. I kind of love it and I found every moment where you're faced with this situation hilarious. Travis even scores with Silvia, but it rings sort of hollow to the player because of the incredibly tense cutscene at the end of Rank 2 that just preceded it. Kind of an amazing moment! It clashes and makes me think about stuff, kinda like that first No More Heroes lol.
In one of the more interesting sequences of the game, where some of these boss skips happen, you get to play as Travis' now-apprentice Shinobu and then his twin brother Henry. If there's anything this game does right, it's in keeping these two around and expanding the cast to having mainstays. Shinobu may have a bad jump (it seriously deals psychic damage to me, as someone as terminally mario-pilled as myself) but her levels are fun enough and her encounter with Destroyman rules, and what this game does with Henry... I love it. I just really love it. I like a decent amount of the third act too. The Margaret, Vlad and Alice fights are fantastic but come too little too late and while I think Jasper Batt Jr is hilarious, the ending that plays afterward is pretty limp. There's good stuff when you look at the game as a reluctant sequel, but that read just flies right in the face of all the indulgent stuff, doesn't it?
The meat of the game is just not what a sequel to the first NMH needed to be, and contributes to a certain line of thought that I think has given people a seriously wrong impression of the series for a long time. I think NMH2 made people think these were character action games. Like sure, in the technical sense I suppose they are but there's a huge separation in design and intent from No More Heroes and Devil May Cry 3. Travis may be able to chill with Dante, but Dante wouldn't be able to understand Travis. That first game was just not going for the same stuff that your Platinums and Capcoms were going for. I believe this sort of thing is why people have seemed so confused in the leadup to Travis Strikes Again and No More Heroes III. I think this sequel caused them to look at the original, and the whole series, through a funhouse mirror.
Instead of the (lovably) shitty odd jobs and overworld, you're given a menu and 8 bit minigames. I might be in the minority here for not thinking any of them are particularly good and outright preferring shit like the mowing minigame in the first one but that's fine. The steak minigame is hilarious though. The real problem with this streamlining lies with the omission of the overworld. Budget concession or not, cutting out an explorable Santa Destroy really does take away from the game as one of No More Heroes' more interesting themes was the bleeding out, gasping corpse of Americana that you're left to inhabit. A successor tracking the rapid urban growth of the city, transforming Home into something noisier would've been amazing. AND it would've tied nicely into the theming of The Silver Case as well. Losing that hands-on experience with the city this go around is just such a shame. I guess it does respond in kind to one of the more popular complaints of the original game from back when it first released, though. So I guess we asked for this.
NMH2 boasts more boss battles than the first and it does deliver (somewhat), but there's something missing. Outside of a couple bosses at the very end, No one in NMH2 even holds a candle to the cast of the first game. It's honestly kind of incredible. The combat feels spruced up, but also less tangible. In this playthrough I found much less use for wrestling moves and I don't think I darkstepped even once, opting for a simple hack and slash approach... Don't really like that. All in service of that indulgence though.
But wait, the game is also built around denying you satisfaction. The game's setup places Travis back into the rat race, at rank 51. You're led to go "50 boss fights? wow!" but then you only fight a fraction of that. Instead, you'll get fights where the ensuing battle actually counts for 20+ ranks, or moments where you're doing something else and suddenly a handful of ranks have been dealt with. In all honesty, this aspect of the game is one of my favorite parts. I kind of love it and I found every moment where you're faced with this situation hilarious. Travis even scores with Silvia, but it rings sort of hollow to the player because of the incredibly tense cutscene at the end of Rank 2 that just preceded it. Kind of an amazing moment! It clashes and makes me think about stuff, kinda like that first No More Heroes lol.
In one of the more interesting sequences of the game, where some of these boss skips happen, you get to play as Travis' now-apprentice Shinobu and then his twin brother Henry. If there's anything this game does right, it's in keeping these two around and expanding the cast to having mainstays. Shinobu may have a bad jump (it seriously deals psychic damage to me, as someone as terminally mario-pilled as myself) but her levels are fun enough and her encounter with Destroyman rules, and what this game does with Henry... I love it. I just really love it. I like a decent amount of the third act too. The Margaret, Vlad and Alice fights are fantastic but come too little too late and while I think Jasper Batt Jr is hilarious, the ending that plays afterward is pretty limp. There's good stuff when you look at the game as a reluctant sequel, but that read just flies right in the face of all the indulgent stuff, doesn't it?
The meat of the game is just not what a sequel to the first NMH needed to be, and contributes to a certain line of thought that I think has given people a seriously wrong impression of the series for a long time. I think NMH2 made people think these were character action games. Like sure, in the technical sense I suppose they are but there's a huge separation in design and intent from No More Heroes and Devil May Cry 3. Travis may be able to chill with Dante, but Dante wouldn't be able to understand Travis. That first game was just not going for the same stuff that your Platinums and Capcoms were going for. I believe this sort of thing is why people have seemed so confused in the leadup to Travis Strikes Again and No More Heroes III. I think this sequel caused them to look at the original, and the whole series, through a funhouse mirror.