Really surprised to feel the way I do about this one because I remember liking it better than the original on release. I really thought this was going to be a case of the backloggd community being contrarian but I have to admit you guys were right on the money.

To the game's credit, the combat is much improved, it's slicker and gives the player more options immediately, the level design of the combat missions is also a LOT more interesting and varied, but without the over-world (barren as it was) to break up the combat missions they still wear thin too quickly. If I don't care about buying cosmetics I can go from fight to fight to fight with no breaks which, when I was 15, must have seemed like an improvement.

There are a lot of clothes to buy but because I didn't need money to enter the ranking fights I didn't bother earning much after I bought the two weapons that were available for purchase. I think I understand the function of pay-walling the ranking fights in previous game better having played this one immediately after it. As for earning money, the side-job minigames are cute, some of them are even fun (Lay the Pipe, Bug Out) but they have about 4 levels each that do not change on subsequent plays, I could see myself coming back to some of these just for fun if there was more to them, but there isn't, and bafflingly despite the neat retro-pixel aesthetic of all the others, the last side-job is almost a straight lifting of one from the first game but somehow less functional. Very confusing. I'm not sure why they put this in here, it's out of place and makes the whole side-jobs package seem sloppy somehow.

The assassins you fight are not as memorable and a handful of the fights are more annoying than challenging, particularly the motorcycle-sumo match thing which I won by chance when my off camera opponent actually drove himself off the cliff while I was on the other side of the arena trying to turn around and ram him.

And I must of course mention Shinobu, love the idea of getting to play as her but because she can jump, the devs designed her levels with much more verticality, unfortunately, her jump is trash, leading to some of most frustrating platforming sections I've ever encountered in a game, you cannot die from them but getting her where you want her to be is a way bigger pain in the ass than it should be. In combat tho, she is pretty fun to use.

Anyway, revisiting the first NMH gave me much more appreciation for a game I always liked but this was disappointing to come back to. Hoping I like TSA and NMH3 better.