No More Heroes 2 is a confused mess of a sequel that completely misses the point of the original game. While in some aspects like the combat or the graphics it can be considered a “step up”, it misses the mark in so many other regards that it really doesn’t matter.

While the open world in the first game is nothing to write home about, it helped give the game personally and built the world of Santa Destroy. But instead of improving upon it in NMH2, they made the bold choice of getting rid of it entirely! What we have instead is an unimaginative level select screen with all needed locations within arms reach. No traveling, no interaction, nothing.

As for the side jobs you can take, at first I liked the more classic NES style games over the jobs in the first game, until I realized they all drag on and on. I swear, most of them take as long as an actual level to complete, and if you get bored and want to quit, congratulations! You just wasted your time! You earn absolutely no money and have to start all over. Even if a job seemed initially fun, the tedium set in quick. Oh but of course, the one job they brought back from the original game, just so happened to be the worst one.

As for the main levels, they’re not the worst but they still leave a lot to be desired. They lack the variety of level gimmicks the first game have to break up the monotony, wiliest in this game it barely attempts to have any more depth. One level in particular felt either unfinished, or just had plain bad pacing, where I was stuck fighting off wave after wave in a mall parking lot for what felt like 10 minutes before I could finally progress.

The bosses at the end of each level are all very forgettable compared to the original games lineup. None of the bosses in NMH1 got a whole lot of time to shine, and yet each cutscene they were given shows us lots of personality, fun interactions with Travis, and ultimately left a lasting impact on the player. In this game, on the other hand, they generally lack the same appeal. I can only remember a few particular bosses from this game, but even then I don’t really feel the impact they had on Travis or the player.

Speaking of Travis, he is horribly mishandled in this game. In the first game, Travis is a shitty guy, no question about it. He’s a complete dork who constantly fucks up, and doesn’t hesitate to kill hundreds of people just because some hot chick told him to. The game knows this, and Travis is constantly made a fool of himself, either in failed attempts to be cool, or simple consequences for his actions. This is yet another aspect that is massively fumbled in this game. This time around, they try to frame him actually cool? In fact, Travis is actually REWARDED at one point of the game. As to why, I don’t know, because he’s just as shitty as before, but now the only consequences he faces are occasional self imposed warrior codes. But even then, said warrior codes are dropped almost instantly going into the next level. Shinobu and Sylvia were pretty fucked up to, what were once a badass and a intriguing schemer are now reduced to the role of simping for Travis, despite him doing nothing to deserve it.

While this might not be the worst game ever, it’s still a game I absolutely despise. It took one of the most unique games the Wii had to offer and boggled it down to a boring and unimaginative mess of game.