No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle:
In many ways No More Heroes 2 is a huge middle finger to the first game but it's also pretty fun at times.
No More Heroes didn't really need a sequel, it was a story that ended well and didn't need to come back in any form but because of it's popularity a weird sequel came out in 2010 and it just throws one of the biggest parts to the first game's story to the garbage bin because if UAA doesn't come back technically NMH2 can't happen which is just dumb to start the game with in the first place. The overall story here is about revenge and while it has cool moments I wasn't as engaged with it as I was with NMH1. The characters and bosses in NMH2 were more over the top and wacky than the first game which surpsingly made them less memorable for me, NMH1's bosses felt real and more like a human which was important to the first game's story and their personalities and writing was excellent. NMH2's bosses are mostly cool when it comes to gameplay but the personality and writing is not as good as NMH1.
Since it wants to tell a story about how revenge is unnecessary and not worth what you're going through, the gameplay gets incredibly tedious and the level design is one of the worst I've seen. Most of the levels are litterally full of enemy spams, you think you killed them all and then they come back from a car, there aren't any interesting mechanics too. For example there is a stealth level and I actullay got caught very early on and it just became another level with full of enemy spam and it still was faster than the stealth section itself and don't even get me started on the Shinobu levels... Aside from the level design they also removed the ability of controlling the camera for some reason. NMH2 also removes the open world and I think I kind of liked NMH1's open world even though it took a lot of the game's time it was pretty cool, I would've liked it back tbh but I don't think NMH2 not having a open world is a huge issue.
The combat itself is mostly fun just like the first game, they added a new tiger ability and you now can attack by swinging your wiimote while running which is pretty useful and fun but they removed the time slowing dodge which I liked a lot. The combat itself is good but enemies are pretty annoying, they keep making you fall and it just gets incredibly tedious coupled up with the terrible level design overall. Even though I may sound like I didn't like the gameplay, I actually enoyed most of the bosses and there are 15 of them, most of them have their own unique abilities and they have pretty fun fights overall.
Other than boss fights, I found the soundtrack incredible. From the amazing Philistine to the killer Kill or Be Killed the soundtrack was hella memorable. I thought the interactions between Sylvia and Travis was better here and I am glad Travis is mostly the guy I know from No More Heroes 1, he is still one of the best protagonists in a videogame.
Overall it's an unnecessary sequel with a lot of flaws but I kind of recommend the game if you loved the first No More Heroes because it can geniunly get very fun and has some cool moments but sadly it rarely gets very fun and has cool moments, you can easily understand that this game wasn't really directed by Suda himself.
In many ways No More Heroes 2 is a huge middle finger to the first game but it's also pretty fun at times.
No More Heroes didn't really need a sequel, it was a story that ended well and didn't need to come back in any form but because of it's popularity a weird sequel came out in 2010 and it just throws one of the biggest parts to the first game's story to the garbage bin because if UAA doesn't come back technically NMH2 can't happen which is just dumb to start the game with in the first place. The overall story here is about revenge and while it has cool moments I wasn't as engaged with it as I was with NMH1. The characters and bosses in NMH2 were more over the top and wacky than the first game which surpsingly made them less memorable for me, NMH1's bosses felt real and more like a human which was important to the first game's story and their personalities and writing was excellent. NMH2's bosses are mostly cool when it comes to gameplay but the personality and writing is not as good as NMH1.
Since it wants to tell a story about how revenge is unnecessary and not worth what you're going through, the gameplay gets incredibly tedious and the level design is one of the worst I've seen. Most of the levels are litterally full of enemy spams, you think you killed them all and then they come back from a car, there aren't any interesting mechanics too. For example there is a stealth level and I actullay got caught very early on and it just became another level with full of enemy spam and it still was faster than the stealth section itself and don't even get me started on the Shinobu levels... Aside from the level design they also removed the ability of controlling the camera for some reason. NMH2 also removes the open world and I think I kind of liked NMH1's open world even though it took a lot of the game's time it was pretty cool, I would've liked it back tbh but I don't think NMH2 not having a open world is a huge issue.
The combat itself is mostly fun just like the first game, they added a new tiger ability and you now can attack by swinging your wiimote while running which is pretty useful and fun but they removed the time slowing dodge which I liked a lot. The combat itself is good but enemies are pretty annoying, they keep making you fall and it just gets incredibly tedious coupled up with the terrible level design overall. Even though I may sound like I didn't like the gameplay, I actually enoyed most of the bosses and there are 15 of them, most of them have their own unique abilities and they have pretty fun fights overall.
Other than boss fights, I found the soundtrack incredible. From the amazing Philistine to the killer Kill or Be Killed the soundtrack was hella memorable. I thought the interactions between Sylvia and Travis was better here and I am glad Travis is mostly the guy I know from No More Heroes 1, he is still one of the best protagonists in a videogame.
Overall it's an unnecessary sequel with a lot of flaws but I kind of recommend the game if you loved the first No More Heroes because it can geniunly get very fun and has some cool moments but sadly it rarely gets very fun and has cool moments, you can easily understand that this game wasn't really directed by Suda himself.