Every No More Heroes sequel focuses on one of its elements rather than its whole, each of them to mixed success. TSA its hidden depths, NMH3 its characters and structure, and NMH2 its gameplay and style. Unfortunately, while probably the most commonly beloved of the three, I think it fails utterly to live up to its predecessor.
NMH1 had pacing. You had to earn every bit of fun, working through jobs or grindy side missions to get to fight the next assassin, so when you did, it was special. 2 doesn't even let you take your time. The only things you can do between bouts of combat are side missions, which are just more fighting but without the payoff of a cool boss at the end or admittedly improved but now completely pointless (both mechanically and thematically) minigames. The open world is gone, and with it the anticipation and mystique of every boss battle. Now they're just levels in a videogame.
I'm not going to pretend NMH1 was some masterpiece of action game combat. It was good, repetitive but satisfying mashy fun, and that's all it tried to be. NMH2 mostly succeeds at replicating that, and brings some improvements (being able to switch between weapons on the fly is appreciated, and just having multiple theoretically viable playstyles rather than every sword being an upgrade to the previous is nice), but it ultimately ends up being worse because of things around the combat itself. NMH1, again, was well-paced. Each stage was a bit of an event on its own, and each one had its gimmick to break up the repetition of the fighting. NMH2 enemies get spongey as hell, the stages get way too long by the end and have basically no variation through them. Shinobu and Henry are now playable, but while this should be cool, Shinobu is really unwieldy and ends up fighting the most boring boss in the game and then the absolute worst one, while Henry is playable for just one mediocre boss fight with no stage and then never again. It's the NMH equivalent of a turret section, it happens and then it ends, and you're not really sure what the point was.
Every NMH1 boss is worth remembering. A couple failed mechanically, but none thematically: most were great challenges, and all highlighted Travis' character in their own way. No More Heroes 2 was actually meant to focus more on boss battles and their characters, to the point that they were designed first and foremost, but this actually has a negative impact on them. No longer are they cool foils to our protagonist that help develop him and the world, they're just goofy over the top characters in a goofy over the top world. That's not to say there's no good ones, I love a couple of them, but the quality of both gameplay and writing has dropped, and with it Travis loses his opportunities to shine as the compelling, unique character he is, and ends up just feeling like a generic quirky action game protagonist. Equal parts Dante and Deadpool, with a sprinkle of some stoic anime badass of your choice. He gets the girl at the end, for fuck's sake. How do you miss the point that bad?
The story aspires to greatness, but ends up unknowingly (Somehow? Suda51 still worked on this, though not as much. Did he just not care?) just treading in the first game's footsteps. Why, thank you, Desperate Struggle, revenge is bad. We definitely didn't do "Travis gets obsessed with some made-up goal and actively makes his life worse as a result as he carves a path of blood through Santa Destroy" already. At the same time, unlike NMH1 it tries way too hard to make Travis "badass" and "likeable", which means its message ends up feeling half-assed.
Since I clearly haven't spent enough time babbling about this game, here's my thoughts on all the bosses.
- Skelter Helter - Decent tutorial boss, nothing to say. A cool intro.
- Nathan Copeland - Janky fight, I hate the scene where Travis kills a couple of innocents without any regard for them, that's very unlike him. Ok otherwise, Nathan does have charisma.
- Charlie MacDonald - The mech would have been great as some form of climax or late-game setpiece, but NMH2 uses it way too early and then never shows up again until an off-hand mention in NMH3. As a character Charlie barely exists.
- Kimmy Howell - I like the idea of Travis actively and accidentally encouraging a whole new generation to become murderers to follow him. Unfortunately the game barely touches on this, good on NMH3 for actually addressing it just a tiny bit.
- Matt Helms - Cool vibes but kinda nothing in the end.
- Cloe Walsh - Stupid easy, also kinda nothing.
- Dr. Letz Shake - Gimmicky but a bit fun.
- Million Gunman - May be the least interesting boss in the whole series, his entire character is that he likes money and has a slightly cool accent. This is like Metal Gear (not Solid) 1 level of boss gimmicks, where they had a guy called "Shotmaker" whose superpower was shooting you.
- New Destroyman - Awful. They reused the moveset from the first game whole-sale and still fucked it up, the "Red" Destroyman fights you straight up, you beat him, and then begins a 20-minute game of very slowly whittling down the "Blue" one's HP as it shamelessly camps you out.
- Ryuji - Pretty good fight, I like it thematically too.
- Mimmy - Weird. Very bizarre thing to put in the game. They really thought they were onto something huh?
- Margaret Moonlight - I'm not gonna sugarcoat it I fucking love Margaret. Her design is awesome, her being a sniper works in the fight without making it a complete slog pretty well and her theme goes fucking crazy.
- Captain Vladimir - A pretty odd addition, but in a good way this time. His fight is a bit surreal and a bit sad, and I'm always into that.
- Alice Twilight - She's pretty cool. Probably the only boss in the game that feels Kill The Past in any way.
- Jasper Batt Jr. - I hate this guy so much. His first and third phases are just unremarkably lame, but phase 2 is so fucking unfair and all (probably?) to drive home the most boring, worthless "point" to any game's story. I don't know if he sucks on purpose or on accident but I despise him.
NMH1 had pacing. You had to earn every bit of fun, working through jobs or grindy side missions to get to fight the next assassin, so when you did, it was special. 2 doesn't even let you take your time. The only things you can do between bouts of combat are side missions, which are just more fighting but without the payoff of a cool boss at the end or admittedly improved but now completely pointless (both mechanically and thematically) minigames. The open world is gone, and with it the anticipation and mystique of every boss battle. Now they're just levels in a videogame.
I'm not going to pretend NMH1 was some masterpiece of action game combat. It was good, repetitive but satisfying mashy fun, and that's all it tried to be. NMH2 mostly succeeds at replicating that, and brings some improvements (being able to switch between weapons on the fly is appreciated, and just having multiple theoretically viable playstyles rather than every sword being an upgrade to the previous is nice), but it ultimately ends up being worse because of things around the combat itself. NMH1, again, was well-paced. Each stage was a bit of an event on its own, and each one had its gimmick to break up the repetition of the fighting. NMH2 enemies get spongey as hell, the stages get way too long by the end and have basically no variation through them. Shinobu and Henry are now playable, but while this should be cool, Shinobu is really unwieldy and ends up fighting the most boring boss in the game and then the absolute worst one, while Henry is playable for just one mediocre boss fight with no stage and then never again. It's the NMH equivalent of a turret section, it happens and then it ends, and you're not really sure what the point was.
Every NMH1 boss is worth remembering. A couple failed mechanically, but none thematically: most were great challenges, and all highlighted Travis' character in their own way. No More Heroes 2 was actually meant to focus more on boss battles and their characters, to the point that they were designed first and foremost, but this actually has a negative impact on them. No longer are they cool foils to our protagonist that help develop him and the world, they're just goofy over the top characters in a goofy over the top world. That's not to say there's no good ones, I love a couple of them, but the quality of both gameplay and writing has dropped, and with it Travis loses his opportunities to shine as the compelling, unique character he is, and ends up just feeling like a generic quirky action game protagonist. Equal parts Dante and Deadpool, with a sprinkle of some stoic anime badass of your choice. He gets the girl at the end, for fuck's sake. How do you miss the point that bad?
The story aspires to greatness, but ends up unknowingly (Somehow? Suda51 still worked on this, though not as much. Did he just not care?) just treading in the first game's footsteps. Why, thank you, Desperate Struggle, revenge is bad. We definitely didn't do "Travis gets obsessed with some made-up goal and actively makes his life worse as a result as he carves a path of blood through Santa Destroy" already. At the same time, unlike NMH1 it tries way too hard to make Travis "badass" and "likeable", which means its message ends up feeling half-assed.
Since I clearly haven't spent enough time babbling about this game, here's my thoughts on all the bosses.
- Skelter Helter - Decent tutorial boss, nothing to say. A cool intro.
- Nathan Copeland - Janky fight, I hate the scene where Travis kills a couple of innocents without any regard for them, that's very unlike him. Ok otherwise, Nathan does have charisma.
- Charlie MacDonald - The mech would have been great as some form of climax or late-game setpiece, but NMH2 uses it way too early and then never shows up again until an off-hand mention in NMH3. As a character Charlie barely exists.
- Kimmy Howell - I like the idea of Travis actively and accidentally encouraging a whole new generation to become murderers to follow him. Unfortunately the game barely touches on this, good on NMH3 for actually addressing it just a tiny bit.
- Matt Helms - Cool vibes but kinda nothing in the end.
- Cloe Walsh - Stupid easy, also kinda nothing.
- Dr. Letz Shake - Gimmicky but a bit fun.
- Million Gunman - May be the least interesting boss in the whole series, his entire character is that he likes money and has a slightly cool accent. This is like Metal Gear (not Solid) 1 level of boss gimmicks, where they had a guy called "Shotmaker" whose superpower was shooting you.
- New Destroyman - Awful. They reused the moveset from the first game whole-sale and still fucked it up, the "Red" Destroyman fights you straight up, you beat him, and then begins a 20-minute game of very slowly whittling down the "Blue" one's HP as it shamelessly camps you out.
- Ryuji - Pretty good fight, I like it thematically too.
- Mimmy - Weird. Very bizarre thing to put in the game. They really thought they were onto something huh?
- Margaret Moonlight - I'm not gonna sugarcoat it I fucking love Margaret. Her design is awesome, her being a sniper works in the fight without making it a complete slog pretty well and her theme goes fucking crazy.
- Captain Vladimir - A pretty odd addition, but in a good way this time. His fight is a bit surreal and a bit sad, and I'm always into that.
- Alice Twilight - She's pretty cool. Probably the only boss in the game that feels Kill The Past in any way.
- Jasper Batt Jr. - I hate this guy so much. His first and third phases are just unremarkably lame, but phase 2 is so fucking unfair and all (probably?) to drive home the most boring, worthless "point" to any game's story. I don't know if he sucks on purpose or on accident but I despise him.