Hoo boy my first playthrough of this game pissed me off, but it was mostly because I couldn't break my old habits of No More Heroes 1 combat. Alot of things have improved and some neat features were added, my favorite being that you can now switch between 4 different unique Beam Katanas at any point during boss fights and stages, which I thought was something No More Heroes 1 could've used. The gameplay feels a bit better and more slash combo-oriented, and the change to beat attacks while I was opposed to it at first actually makes more sense, since you can use them between moves allowing you to more strategically use certain beat attacks to set up other moves like the running slash. The removal of the overworld as well was nice, and also to not pay to get into the rankings fights allows you to focus on things like upgrading your beam katana arsenal and upgrading Travis himself in the gym. Also in my opinion, the Revenge Missions are way better than the Side Missions in No More Heroes 1, they're a quick way to make some easy money and a good way to test out new beam katanas and practice parrying or double deathblows. The soundtrack of this game is also really really good, although it's disappointing one of the tracks was used for 2 different boss fights. Now, I hate to rag on this game as I absolutely love it, and since the Switch release I've beaten the game 3 times now, but this definitely is a flawed game. First problem I have is that this game has a fetish for knocking you on your ass every 2 seconds. Every other hit from an enemy will knock you on your ass, which takes you out of the action, somewhat frequently if you're bad. This is super frustrating and just kills the momentum and fast-pace the combat feels like it should have, and yes players should be punished for being hit but this feels like overkill sometimes especially for bosses like Million Gunman who can just stunlock you if you slip up once. Speaking of Million Gunman, holy shit are the Shinobu levels bad. The platforming is clunky as shit and feels really awful, half the time I find myself slipping off platforms back down, and using this in a fucking bossfight is the most annoying shit ever. Speaking of that, New Destroyman is the worst boss in the game, it's a 2v1 where one runs away like a pussy the minute you even step within 1 mile of him and the other is an annoying close range with unblockable attacks that either stun you or knock you on your ass. Half the time it feels like I wail on the melee Destroyman and then wait for the other one to come down to revive him so I can wail on him for like 2 points of damage. Also I wish we got to play as Henry more than just for 1 boss, like why couldn't we have played as Henry and taken out the other 3 bosses that he instead just kills off screen? Thats another thing, the game advertises 51 boss fights, but thats a big lie. Switch the nujmbers around, and thats the real count, 15 bosses. Still a good number and more than the original, but why advertise the 51 on the box if youre going to have a boss fight where you kill like 25 of them at once and then another where the boss kills 12 of them in a cutscene, and then another where Henry kills 3 offscreen? Last complaint about gameplay before I move onto story is the final boss of the game, Jasper Batt Jr. is horrible. The first phase is really boring, theres really nothing to it. The 2nd phase gets really annoying as he has this move where he just teleports and flies at you all over the place like 4 times in a row, and the final phase is a really lame "dodge a bunch of bigass attacks and then run up and hit him a couple of times". The rest of the boss fights besides those ones are really really fun though, although I will say that Chloe is way too easy. For writing, I kind of miss how in No More Heroes 1, Travis was kind of this loser trying way too hard to sound cool. He'd say corny one liners or random shit that made no sense like "If challenge had a taste, you'd be quite delicious." Feels like the writes kind of began to like Travis themselves, but storywise it kind of makes sense that he'd be cooler considering he was once the top assassin that was somehow able to just walk away. Dialogue is kinda lacking between bosses, where some you'll talk for a bit and others theres hardly and exchange between Travis and the boss, or in Ryuji's case, they don't say a word. Makes some characters not as fun or interesting as the assassins of the first game. The story of the game seems to take itself a little more seriously than the first game which is fine, the first game's plot felt like a parody of bad action movies that tried to throw as many twists as possible into the last 30 minutes of the game. Really overall a really fun game, but for some of the improvements it makes, it added some more flaws.