The long-awaited return of Travis Touchdown breaks away Nintendo exclusivity with all of its DLC in tow. Meant as more of a teaser for No More Heroes 3 (and possibly Shadows of the Damned 2) rather than the next main entry in the series, Travis Strikes Again features a more arcade style of gameplay with an emphasis on co-op and top-down hack 'n slash action. It's simplistic to a fault as all you're given are a light and heavy attack that can't be chained together in any way to create combos. Grasshopper Manufacture tried to add some depth via rechargable skill chip abilities and giving each stage its own unique mechanic (one might incorporate some platforming while another will have you rotating sections of the map to open up paths), but at the end of the day it all boils down to simply button mashing your way through wave after wave of bland enemy types and I grew tired of that before I even finished the first level.

What ultimately kept playing outside of my completionist attitude was an interest in seeing just what kind of weirdness director Suda51 came up with this time. The plot is disappointingly told through a sometimes tedious to click through visual novel, but the sense of humor and fourth wall breaking antics you would expect are still in place. I really enjoyed seeing Suda tie so many of his games together into one shared universe and the game-within-a-game premise allows for a lot of meta commentary on the industry. Writing and setting-wise this ranks among his strangest works, which should excite any member of his fanbase. I only wish it had been presented in a more enjoyable manner than just text on the screen.

Outside of sharing the same protagonist, the only time this actually looks like a No More Heroes game is during the boss fights. These creatively designed encounters are easily the highlight of the package, but given how limited you are in combat they are in no way able to elevate the experience above its faults in the same way they did for the previous two titles. While certainly packed with content the repetitive nature, lackluster storytelling method, and obvious budgetary constraints made this too much of a chore to play for me to even consider giving it another go on New Game + or grinding enough to fully level up each character. As a result, this is the first Grasshopper/Suda production I've blatantly disliked.

5/10

Travis Strikes Again Complete Edition:
I think a lot of your enjoyment hinges on one very important thing, how much you care about Suda51's work. There are so many things you just wouldn't know if you hadn't looked into him or already played his past games previously. There's a reference to his kinect game where you play as a baseball star who has to fend off evil carnival forces even if it was just for a single line. The way Suda weaves all of his games into this one is honestly a sight to behold. All of this would have slipped my mind if it wasn't for my friend who did know a ton about Suda, and there was still stuff that he missed that I got to find out after I played. As someone who hasn't played any Suda games before I was really brought in by the dialogue/story which is mostly done through visual novel format. They were absolutely my favorite parts of the game. They had pretty funny writing, a ton of entertaining scenes, and an interesting story to boot. Maybe it's just cause I've been playing Kingdom Hearts but the dialogue was such a breath of fresh air cause it felt like it was written by humans. This also carries over for the bosses, who are all interesting characters in their own rights and share interesting interactions with Travis. The bosses were by far the best part of the gameplay, with pretty interesting phases and actually got you thinking a little. Sadly not something I can really say about the regular gameplay, which definitely gets dragged out a bit longer then it should. You only have two attacks along with your super and they don't feel fantastic to use. Having your supers get stronger the more you use them without getting hit sounds like a pretty good idea on paper but a few enemies don't get flinched and you can't really act out of your attacks so a lot of the time you have to get hit if you wanna deal any damage. Or at the very least that's how it felt.
Not that it matters much since the game is pretty easy with 2 players, as dying doesn't really have a consequence. The only thing saving the combat are the chips (all gundam references cause why not) which are abilities that you can mix and match as you like. Definitely not a game that I could play in one sitting, though in multiple it's fine. The level settings were interesting enough until the last one where it's the same blocky location the entire way through. Even despite the middling gameplay the charm of the game absolutely won me over, as almost everything else is great. The music is really amazing, along with the sound effects, the presentation changes with each level representing different genres and styles, hell even the save spots are cool looking. The story seems really weird and only about Travis' journey through the past and how he confronts it but a little digging will show a lot more behind the scenes, like a massive government conspiracy to only name one. Similarly to how the game on the surface has a lot of random characters that appear for one textbox then disappear never to be seen again, but with a little digging you'll see how these characters have their own stories and games that they come from. This game is absolutely not for everyone, but like all of Suda's games they aren't exactly meant to be. If you have any interest in his work this game serves as a hub to explore a ton of his past properties, if you don't really care that much all you'll find is a mediocre hack and slash with some good writing here and there. For me personally the passion that the game has for past properties made me sure that I will absolutely by coming back for more Suda sooner rather than later.

7/10

I kinda like this game more than a 2.5 but also the things I liked were stuff outside of the actual game.
The writing is still that same SUDA51 game quality writing, I probably like it more than NMH1/2's writing. The "assassins" and zones have a lot of soul, and the game can be really funny at times. There's some fun aesthetic zones/characters designs, and the soundtrack rules.

The gameplay has issues. There's good ideas in there but it floats between repetitive or annoying. Your moveset is filled with a lot of really laggy moves so gameplay feels more like im switching between either low damage but actually safe to use rush attack or trying to atually do damage with moves where the enemy can just slap me mid hit. It's hard to explain, but it doesn't feel great.
The chips system has potential but I never found myself actually switching chips past the first two levels. You get skills that stun and a healing skill really early, and the ability to CC big enemies/bosses smooths over so many encounters that everythign else doesn't feel worth it.
I do like most of the bosses tho. I think the 7th stage boss is the only one I didnt like, but otherwise I did look forward to them.
Level design was a bit more ambitious than i found it'd be. But most of the levels overstayed their welcome, and some of them they clearly gave up putting effort into. God I was so disappointed when they put me into the racing game and it ended up just being drag races.

It's okay, but the good parts generally involved not playing it. There's surprisingly more content than you'd think, seeing how there's like 4 characters to play through, but the game's got me fucked up if it thinks I'm playing through this game 3 more times. The best parts of the game don't involve me actually playing it.

edit: i thought about it more and watched some youtube videos and i'm pushing it to the same level as all my NMH reviews to 3/5 but i like it more than a 3/5

its fine. a lot better than what i thought itd be, but still painfully mediocre. the writing is the sole reason its worth playing. made me wanna play killer7. also i played the entire game as travis except the last level i just played whoever had the most hp. last level is definitely the lowlight of the game, if thats a thing.



i was 100000% gonna wear the yiik shirt but then i saw a disco elysium shirt and since thats like my second or third favorite game of all time i used that instead, and gave yiik shirt to badman

A short and sweet, stylistically banging game. While the gameplay is actually pretty fun, especially with the skill cards which add quite a lot to the combat, it's incomprable to the character writing of the game. They're excellent even with the short amount of time they appear in, the protagonist, Travis Touchdown is easily the best one of these. The monologue scenes in particular are a real highlight of the game.

Other than the stages, there's a segment of short visual novels bits called Travis Strikes Again, they're very fun to read and provide supplemental info in an engaging way. One of em in particular adds a lot to a certain character.

The game looks superb with a very stylized look and great character designs, especially for the boss characters. The intro's for the stages are also a treat to watch, with them being in various different looks, highlights being the second stage's live action intro and the vector based graphics for the Golden Dragon GP stage

It's also excellent musically, with some themes being straight bangers like the DLC boss, Silver Face's theme song.

The flaws lie with some of the stages, for example, the second one has a nice gimmick to it, but it's a bit too long, while the third one has some bad platforming segments to it. Nothing is as bad as the final stage, as it feels way too long and feels like they multiplied the enemies by 10x compared to the rest of the game, which can be really frustrating with some of the enemy combinations you can encounter