So, you know that feeling where you get a huge meal and the food is amazing, but it's also way too much but since it's so good you can't stop yourself, so you keep going even when you feel bloated and miserable and are left with a sense of regret, feeling like you wasted something great by overindulging to the point of making it miserable for you? That's what playing this game is like.

I know this seems like a self control issue, but I don't get like this with most other games. It's a perfect 10/10 otherwise

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.

The regular platforming levels are really good. The level design is fun, and they tend to offer a lot of different themes, although it feels like there's less variety of themes in the later worlds. The big issue with this game though, is the non-platforming levels. They range from mediocre to abysmal and they just keep getting more and more common as the game progresses. Also, most of the upgrades feel kinda pointless. Really, this game has the blueprints for something spectacular, but fails to fully realize it. Hopefully the sequels are better.

Psychonauts 2:

Developing videogames takes much more effort, time and resources than it ever did; keeping up with modern graphics, sound design, established trends and alike is getting harder and harder for a lot of smaller scale studios. This is why we have a lot of indies nowadays, breaking those traditions AAA games are setting each year with their ultra realistic graphics, trying to be their own thing. Another thing is that we see much less AA games nowadays because back then AA games were pretty
much alternative games to AAA titles, having less budgets and less people working on them but with similar aim and mostly with more creative freedom. Psychonauts 2 was one of those AA games that spent whole lot time in the oven because of the rapid growing industry and after countless doublefine updates, varying release dates , the Microsoft acquisition; I can safely say the wait was worth it for this AAA game.

As a fan of the first Psychonauts, I have to say I both had a lot of hopes and worries for this game, the potential for a game about exploring people's minds is massive and if we're talking about the presentation just wow... This game is beautiful, from the animations to the surreal visuals to the UI everything is delightful. The world Psychonauts 2 takes place in is believable and highly immersive with a lot of details like the various interactions you can participate in with your abilities and just talking with people in general. It's easy to get lost in it's world and do a bunch of side activities in the packed hubworld and suffice to say I loved exploring, platforming all over the place in it's quirky and sometimes surreal hubworld and various minds thanks to incredible presentation and great level design.

The biggest thing I and other people were looking forward to were easily the minds / levels of the game. The various and distinct themes, gameplay mechanics and visuals they can pull of with a more modern Psychonauts game was straight up hype and I'd have loved to say I adore it but I think I kinda feel mixed on it, well not entirely. Okay let me preface it like this: The original Psychonauts had clunky platforming mechanics and so this led the team to change the gameplay a lot with each mind, you had your fully action based mind Lungfishopolis, puzzle based mind Milkman's Conspiracy, exploration based mind Waterloo, platforming based mind Milla's Party and even bosses were like this. In Psychonauts 2 however since we have a much better feeling gameplay on our hands most minds are just a mix of puzzle/platforming/action and some exploration rather than being their own thing gameplay wise and so this led to mind's proggression feeling samey and made them less distinct,(I won't refer to minds with their name to avoid spoilers so it's safe to read the whole review) in one mind you need to get 4 coins so you play 4 level gauntlets, in one mind you need to get 3 seeds so you play 3 level gauntlets, in one mind you need to get 2 books so you play 2 level gauntlets and so on. Of course it isn't all like this for example the seeds one has more exploration, each one offers new mechanics and they have their own visuals and presentation so that's why I have to say I still like them a lot but the minds in the original felt more distinct both in a good and in a bad way, it felt like they played it safe here to avoid pacing issues and I am not the biggest fan of that but it's a thing I can get behind since these minds still offered a lot of narrative/mechanical things not many 3D platformers or games of this scale offer these days.

If there was one thing Psychonauts 2 surprised me with, it would be the game's story. It's about the Psychic Six and the origin of Psychonauts so we learn about how they've formed the Psychonauts, what they've dealt with and such, it's also about Raz and him getting new friends, the story is engaging with a really fun cast of characters from Raz's family to his new Intern friends to Psychic Six. The story provides a lot of twists and turns that I mostly didn't expect and adored for what they were. This game felt personal in many ways with a lot of emotinal beats while maintaining it's quirky nature, I have to say though I might prefer the writing in the original, it's still great here however. It also has themes of memory implanting, killing the past and identity disorder just saying ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).

Although I wished levels felt more distinct gameplay wise Psychonauts 2 is still an amazing journey from creative level design, game mechanics to the incredible presentation and charm to the surprising and engaging narrative, I loved every bit of this journey and I don't think I'll forget this game anytime soon. I highly recommend checking out both Psychonauts games they're some of the most unique takes on 3D platformers that are inspiring and just very enjoyable in general.

One of my favorite platformers alongside Banjo-Kazooie & the Mario Galaxy games. However, I don't think it's as good as the aforementioned games. While the game still has its funny moments, some of the game's humor has not aged well and there are parts where the controls flat-out suck. That being said, it still is a solid platformer loaded with references to famous movies and a surprisingly good message at the end. Finding an original copy of this game can be hard to come by so if you're interested in playing it then I would either pick up the Rare Replay collection or emulate it.