What the fuck happened here?
If no more heroes replaced its obscene amount of filler and bad ideas with the potential the things blatantly left on the cutting room floor had, It could be close to as good as the first game. Would probably still be a messy game that really didnt seem to get the original, but I think there's room in this world for such a gratuitous, cathartic game to exist.
A few individual components of NMH2 absolutely slap. The soundtrack is legitimately fantastic in a way that's different to the first game, and has some absolute belters, particularly "kill or be killed" and "philestine". The combat has been dramatically improved, and there's a handful of good boss fights. The new movesets are fun, The presentation is generally good and the budget has clearly massively increased this time round.
But boy is the connective tissue of this game terrible. The throughline of the plot alone relies on a severe stretching of a relationship from the first game and travis' personality, and it doesn't work. On top of that, the sequence of events is just all over the place, with things just happening one after the other. Travis has very little agency in a plot that is meant to be a personal revenge... thing.
NMH is really a shift. NMH1 is carried by theme and vibes, of which NMH2 has basically nothing. There's some gesturing towards... things but there's no time to dwell, most of the bosses barely say a word and the open world of santa destroy - a character in it's own that gives a grounding to the events of the game, is barely even a factor.
So the game's core strengths shifts to bombast and catharsis, in the improved combat and the bonkers set pieces. And about half of them are good. But again, they're completely all over the place, probably in the wrong order, and the pacing is bizzare.
For instance, late in the game, one of the best boss fights, with a great Vocal music track, and a good level before her - is proceeded by an outright bizzare 20-minute long fight against endless mooks in a car park without any music at all.
This car park fight is so remarkably, blatantly terrible and pointless that it almost makes me wonder if it's making a point, that the whole game is this deliberate kusoge mishmash about riding highs or something. I think that would be some serious Copium abuse though, frankly.
All said, NMH2 doesn't work. It's a very, very weak sequel to the original and is more interesting to disect than ponder. But for a short, wild ride, it's got enough bombast and absurdity to carry it for it's 5 hour runtime. And that's pretty much it.
If no more heroes replaced its obscene amount of filler and bad ideas with the potential the things blatantly left on the cutting room floor had, It could be close to as good as the first game. Would probably still be a messy game that really didnt seem to get the original, but I think there's room in this world for such a gratuitous, cathartic game to exist.
A few individual components of NMH2 absolutely slap. The soundtrack is legitimately fantastic in a way that's different to the first game, and has some absolute belters, particularly "kill or be killed" and "philestine". The combat has been dramatically improved, and there's a handful of good boss fights. The new movesets are fun, The presentation is generally good and the budget has clearly massively increased this time round.
But boy is the connective tissue of this game terrible. The throughline of the plot alone relies on a severe stretching of a relationship from the first game and travis' personality, and it doesn't work. On top of that, the sequence of events is just all over the place, with things just happening one after the other. Travis has very little agency in a plot that is meant to be a personal revenge... thing.
NMH is really a shift. NMH1 is carried by theme and vibes, of which NMH2 has basically nothing. There's some gesturing towards... things but there's no time to dwell, most of the bosses barely say a word and the open world of santa destroy - a character in it's own that gives a grounding to the events of the game, is barely even a factor.
So the game's core strengths shifts to bombast and catharsis, in the improved combat and the bonkers set pieces. And about half of them are good. But again, they're completely all over the place, probably in the wrong order, and the pacing is bizzare.
For instance, late in the game, one of the best boss fights, with a great Vocal music track, and a good level before her - is proceeded by an outright bizzare 20-minute long fight against endless mooks in a car park without any music at all.
This car park fight is so remarkably, blatantly terrible and pointless that it almost makes me wonder if it's making a point, that the whole game is this deliberate kusoge mishmash about riding highs or something. I think that would be some serious Copium abuse though, frankly.
All said, NMH2 doesn't work. It's a very, very weak sequel to the original and is more interesting to disect than ponder. But for a short, wild ride, it's got enough bombast and absurdity to carry it for it's 5 hour runtime. And that's pretty much it.