Combat can get pretty repetitive and tedious (that last level especially was just exhausting) but literally everything else about this game RULES and really reminded me of what made me fall in love with this series to begin with









i also wore the yiik shirt the whole game

There are some days where you question if it's worth going on. If it's worth starting anew after an abnormal period of absence, if it's worth continuing after a history of failure, or if there's anything left for you after you've reached the very top.

Travis Strikes Again is the epitome of those feelings. Where the No More Heroes series, its creators, and its revered protagonist Travis Touchdown come to terms with their past and rejuvenate their passion to move forward in life. It's fitting that this type of story is told through the premise of diving into the last remaining mementos of a game developer who vanished from the public eye: leaving nothing but a failed gaming console and its cancelled video games where you have hypothetical fights with the proposed heroes of those titles that never saw the light of day.

The atmosphere of this game is extensively cozy - nostalgic, nocturnal, and artistically robust at every given moment. Combat, while different from the combo-based swordplay of the numbered entries, is arguably at its most strategic and challenging, thanks to TSA's innovations of varied enemy varieties and customizable skill chip powers. Granted, some stages can overstay their welcome and the game as a whole is missing the trademark ultraviolence and gore that defines NMH. But the sheer arcade-y fun of the action, paired with some pretty fun setpiece variety and segmented by thoughtful dialogue, absolutely makes up for it.

It's a game that I always find enjoyment in experimenting the possibilities - whether its with the other playable characters, and co-op that makes for a perfect night session with friends. It's a game that opened my eyes to what made me love the No More Heroes games and why it deserved to remain in the light once more. And most importantly, it's a game that always inspires me to come back. Because even after you've felt like your best or worst years are behind you, you've still got shit to carry with you in the present. More than a game about games - or at worst, a game meant to be homework for a "real" game - Travis Strikes Again is a game about the resolve to create something new with oneself.

I'd love for TSA to be one of those games where I can look at all of its unquestionable flaws and shrug them off, toss them aside, then give it the perfect rating I know it deserves. Many of GHM's older games deserve that, and the same specter of a story that I know will stay with me for just as long inhabits Travis Strikes Again.

But... it doesn't quite deserve that level of praise. I'm not going to sugarcoat it, as a game, it's just not good. The gameplay's repetitive, unsatisfying and levels are long and tedious. Bosses are actually quite fun but they don't redeem the whole thing. To play Travis Strikes Again is to force yourself to endure mediocrity to experience its more clever moments. It hurts to see its overall mediocre reception from critics and consumers alike, but I get it. It's not just that this isn't a game for everyone, it's not for most people. It's not for me, honestly, I was getting pretty mad in the awful final level. (Although I think the DLC stage is overall pretty good)

Is it fanservice, then? Well, yeah, for sure. It literally admits that straight-up. They even reference the Kinect game where you throw baseballs at zombies for fuck's sake. Is it a soulless attempt to grab some cash before making NMH3? I don't think so. It's a very personal story, a story that only someone who's worked on videogames for as long as Suda has could tell, and that I'm glad he did. It's... maybe a bit of a vanity project, but a honest one. It's Suda51 putting himself on stage and just sharing every step of his journey, the good ones and the bad ones. There's discussions to be had, but I personally appreciate this melancholic look at the past a lot, especially in how it's embodied by Travis, who has grown up with all of us after the first two games (not me though I played NMH1 and 2 in 2021 lol), and is now a much sadder, more introspective man.

Even TSA's core message, though, I think has some holes in it. The pacing is awful, because the gameplay is still in the way. The visual novel segments while enjoyable are a bit hit and miss in terms of actually adding on to the actual themes of the story. Come to think of it, so are the levels themselves. A couple of them really don't feel as clever as the rest, despite still having heart put into them. So, I dunno, that's the core of Travis Strikes Again. It's a very flawed game that sometimes trips over nothing, stumbles and almost falls, but it ends up doing something special in the end. At least for me.

Oh god where to begin. Combat is a joke, hold the attack button for hordes of enemies, spam the heavy attack button for bosses (highest difficulty for the record). Story is almost interesting before dropping the premise immediately and not having the two main characters talk a single time except for one joke. Levels are too long and have nothing to fucking do except fight enemies. This game eroded all of the goodwill I had left for this series and has a genuine shot at being my least favorite game of all time

For better or worse, this is Suda's MGS4. Everything he's worked for, everything he's struggled with all leads up to this point. Every expectation you have for it is shattered, it's not a fun arcade game, the story isn't as meta as you'd think, its subtext isn't as deep as it would have you believe, all the cameos are flat, almost bastardizations of the original characters. Really the whole point is just that it's made by a guy for himself and only for himself, it's like vent art that breaks the fourth wall.
Its greatest strength is being artistically motivated above everything else, even pushing out what some would see as crucial mechanics in favor of a few more lines of good dialogue. You can't just come in and say "wow that was so weird, anyways time to play more Hotline Miami or whatever," you have to meet it on common ground, play by Suda's rules, listen to everything he's trying to say here. It's a sequel to every Suda game, you can't just pick it up and expect to like it without doing your homework first, especially if you've only ever seen Suda's recent work. Whether or not you like it, that's up to you, but in the end it's not really made for you is it? It's made for Suda, for all of his characters, for one push at artistic freedom above all else.
The art direction throughout the game is phenomenal and the music is uncharacteristically good for the context it's put into. Welcome to Hell is still probably my favorite track from any video game ever.

Un bon beat them all avec des niveaux complètements fous à l'image des personnages du jeu. l'histoire n'a à peu près aucun sens mais on s'en fou car l'important ici c'est le fun ! Le rythme du jeu est assez inégal en fonction des niveaux. Chaque niveau propose une petite histoire, un level design et des mécaniques qui lui sont propre, c'est fou de voir toutes ces idées de gameplay condensées dans ces mini univers. Le plus dommage est le manque de variété dans les ennemis alors même qu'on parcours des environnements eux très variés. Les mini-boss peuvent s'avérer très répétitifs, en revanche les boss qui concluent chacun un niveau sont tous différents dans la manière de les affronter. Plusieurs personnages jouables sont proposés ainsi que du multijoueur local, une option qui est toujours la bienvenue à une époque ou le local se fait de plus en plus rare. Un jeu à essayer pour les curieux qui cherchent une expérience vraiment originale ou un jeu rempli d'humour et qui ne se prend pas trop au sérieux.