The first No More Heroes successfuly created an antithesis of action games with a profound tale of an assassin falling deeper into a world of violence and coming to terms with his own identity. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is not only mediocre, but it also goes back on much of what made the first so unique and interesting. It barely warrants as much detail as my review for the first.

The gameplay is significantly worse, with less variety despite multiple weapons being equippable. There's simply no incentive to use anything besides the beam katana. The lack of fees for ranking missions makes the side-jobs absolutely unnecessary and thrown to the side. The game is insultingly easy, even in the highest difficulty with a few spikes that are barely a bother to deal with. Slashing up your enemies is as fun as it has ever been in No More Heroes, but the stages have such a lack of variety and so much repetition you can beat the game in one sitting, which is what I did.

The story is weak, with forgettable villains and bosses and a main antagonist that is quite literally an afterthought. The collection of tracks for the OST save this game from being bad, as it has the best music in the series so far. The themes and profoundness are gone, in exchange for a generic action game, which is ironic considering No More Heroes 1 was critcizing and parodying those games.

Reviewed on Aug 10, 2021


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