I remember liking this one nearly as much as the original back in the day but it actually kind of sucks? The combat is still fun enough and the music is still incredible but everything from the core mechanics to the art style to the writing feels like a huge step down from the first game. No More Heroes 2 gets so much wrong that I'm genuinely shocked it was made by the same company at all.
The story is nonsensical and completely incongruous with that of the original No More Heroes. The basic premise of Desperate Struggle simply doesn't work if you know what happened in part 1. Travis goes through almost the exact same arc as before except without depth, meanwhile every character is sucking him off by calling him a hero (which bafflingly seems to be how the writer thought of him as well) and the cutscene camera won't stop zooming in on Sylvia's tits and ass to the point where it comes across like the kind of wish-fulfillment action game NMH1 was parodying. Even the script itself is limp this time around, with most new characters being barely defined and many jokes either falling flat or drifting into cringe territory. Also, I know they're doing a samurai thing with Shinobu being Travis' apprentice (not that the subplot actually goes anywhere), but having a black woman refer to a white man as "master" every five seconds (not even an exaggeration) for the better part of an hour was certainly a choice. Charitably, I suppose you could argue that Grasshopper was trying to lampoon unnecessary direct-to-video sequels since so much of the first game was already making fun of movies like Star Wars, but that would have been a hard sell even if Suda51 had been at the helm again.
The gameplay is just all-around worse too. I hope you like getting knocked down because it happens several times per minute in this game. Every fucking attack knocks you down in No More Heroes 2. You will often get knocked down, stand up, and then immediately get knocked down again because you have no i-frames and the enemies continue attacking while you're on the ground. The final boss also consistently does this really cool thing where he knocks you down, waits for you to get back up, and then knocks you down again before you have a chance to block or dodge. The original No More Heroes featured very few gun-toting enemies because the developers knew ranged enemies aren't fun to fight in a melee-based game, so of course this one has at least three per room, and their shots knock you down from across the map, ignoring your blocks seemingly at random. I have more issues with the game design than just this, but most of them (like the lack of open world and unfinished everything) have already been extensively documented by other people.
All that being said, I still had a fair amount of fun with this game, as the motion-controlled brawling action entertains my monkey brain regardless of how well-designed it is. Some of the jokes made me laugh even though the script feels like it was written by and for teenagers, and I'll continue listening to the OST for many years to come. I doubt I'll ever revisit No More Heroes 2 again, but despite feeling utterly disappointed in comparison to my memories of it, I don't think the time I spent replaying it was wasted either.
The story is nonsensical and completely incongruous with that of the original No More Heroes. The basic premise of Desperate Struggle simply doesn't work if you know what happened in part 1. Travis goes through almost the exact same arc as before except without depth, meanwhile every character is sucking him off by calling him a hero (which bafflingly seems to be how the writer thought of him as well) and the cutscene camera won't stop zooming in on Sylvia's tits and ass to the point where it comes across like the kind of wish-fulfillment action game NMH1 was parodying. Even the script itself is limp this time around, with most new characters being barely defined and many jokes either falling flat or drifting into cringe territory. Also, I know they're doing a samurai thing with Shinobu being Travis' apprentice (not that the subplot actually goes anywhere), but having a black woman refer to a white man as "master" every five seconds (not even an exaggeration) for the better part of an hour was certainly a choice. Charitably, I suppose you could argue that Grasshopper was trying to lampoon unnecessary direct-to-video sequels since so much of the first game was already making fun of movies like Star Wars, but that would have been a hard sell even if Suda51 had been at the helm again.
The gameplay is just all-around worse too. I hope you like getting knocked down because it happens several times per minute in this game. Every fucking attack knocks you down in No More Heroes 2. You will often get knocked down, stand up, and then immediately get knocked down again because you have no i-frames and the enemies continue attacking while you're on the ground. The final boss also consistently does this really cool thing where he knocks you down, waits for you to get back up, and then knocks you down again before you have a chance to block or dodge. The original No More Heroes featured very few gun-toting enemies because the developers knew ranged enemies aren't fun to fight in a melee-based game, so of course this one has at least three per room, and their shots knock you down from across the map, ignoring your blocks seemingly at random. I have more issues with the game design than just this, but most of them (like the lack of open world and unfinished everything) have already been extensively documented by other people.
All that being said, I still had a fair amount of fun with this game, as the motion-controlled brawling action entertains my monkey brain regardless of how well-designed it is. Some of the jokes made me laugh even though the script feels like it was written by and for teenagers, and I'll continue listening to the OST for many years to come. I doubt I'll ever revisit No More Heroes 2 again, but despite feeling utterly disappointed in comparison to my memories of it, I don't think the time I spent replaying it was wasted either.