Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4
In Part 1, Travis killed Assassins #51, 50, 49 to 25 and an extra. In Part 2, he got Assassins #24, 23, then skipped all the way to 10 by killing Doctor Shake, then we used Shinobu to kill Ranks 9 and 8. In Part 3, our protagonist took down Rank 7, Henry destroyed an abomination made of his brother’s creepiest fetishes, then down went Ranks 4, 3 and 2. In other words, we’ve got only one opponent left: The final boss! I even made sure to discuss every other part of the game before, so all there really is left to do is to discuss the last parts.
In Part 1, Travis killed Assassins #51, 50, 49 to 25 and an extra. In Part 2, he got Assassins #24, 23, then skipped all the way to 10 by killing Doctor Shake, then we used Shinobu to kill Ranks 9 and 8. In Part 3, our protagonist took down Rank 7, Henry destroyed an abomination made of his brother’s creepiest fetishes, then down went Ranks 4, 3 and 2. In other words, we’ve got only one opponent left: The final boss! I even made sure to discuss every other part of the game before, so all there really is left to do is to discuss the last parts.
Yeah, no, I wouldn't ever hook up with a woman like that. But you spent 1.90 games trying to, Travis, and now you got her. Have your fun. |
I wouldn't expect a guy who's spent so long without having sex to be so brutal and powerful about it. |
Now laid and happy, Travis leaves Sylvia in his
bedroom while he heads out to face his destiny. We get another scene of Sylvia
retelling the events of the game, saying that she doesn’t remember much else of
what happened afterwards. She doesn’t even know who she’s talking to. These
sequences imply that Travis did dismantle the UAA with his final victory,
leaving Sylvia out of a “job”, with no option but to be a stripper in some rundown
place that’s closing soon. But of course, these sequences still focus more on
her body than on her words. Gee, I wonder who that client might be?
In literary terms, these interludes are part of the Narration's framing device. Meanwhile, the framing of these shots clearly has one, or rather, two things of interest. |
Tiger form: Destroys every enemy. Gotta wonder why Travis doesn't trade his beam katana for that. (This is actually from the previous level by the way) |
This is definitly too bright, cheery and colorful to be the final level. Come on now. Unless the staff blew all of their grim, grit points in the abandoned forest at the end of NMH1. |
I really should have skipped all of the others and gone directly for that little jackass head of his. |
That time when you have so many images you want to use in the review, both cutscenes and actual gameplay, so you end up putting some tohgether to avoid clogging the past with pics... |
From this, the fight begins. The petite villain is in
an equally petite flying car. He’s out of reach most of the time, but he uses lasers to attack, and one can be used to bring him down. You can
then slash at him all you want, but at some point, he won’t take damage any
more. You need to clash with him when he’s trying to ram into you with his car. Travis inevitably loses the clash…
…because that’s a cutscene trigger. As Travis is about
to lose. Henry jump in through the window and stops Jasper Batt Jr. As Henry wastes no time to explain, the heads shown to Travis were fakes. Just
another way to mess with him. Phew, thank God, that was creepy as fuck.
P.S. Henry, bro, I did bang your wife this time, or well, since she's now your ex, that makes it
A-OK, I hope. The fight resumes and Henry deals with Batt’s bat-themed weapons
in a corner while Travis takes Batt down – and the only way now is to clash
with his tiny car. After he’s defeated, we get a cutscene… where Batt injects
himself with weird shit and becomes a superhero-bodied
monstrosity with a tiny babyface head. Oh, just great… I don’t want to imagine the secondary effects.
The first battle was meant to depict Batt as a scrawny
loser, kind of like Travis, a petty guy who isn’t worth the effort put into
fighting him. Or, at least, that’s what they were originally going for, with
their message of “revenge only leads to more revenge” and stuff. Not so much
for Batt’s second form, which is tough as fuck. Almost every one of his attacks
can knock you down. He teleports anytime he wants… AND will chain punches while
teleporting, an attack that is extremely hard to avoid, so if he starts spamming
it every time you get up, you’re fucked. Oh, and if he punches you and you’re
tossed out the window… well, you’re a few dozen floors above ground, you can
figure out what happens. Also of note Batt’s weaker attacks that always results
into a cutscene where Travis gets spun on the guy’s finger like a friggin’
pizza and then head-slammed into the ground. Hey, isn’t Henry supposed to help?
Nah, he doesn’t help.
Some twin brother he turns out to be.
This went from silly to tough to just... what the fuck. |
Let's see... I could either climb that colossus, or just split its sternum in two. Hm, let's go for the sternum. |
I can imagine the people below going, "Did the last parade lose one of its Pizza Batt mascots? And why is it acting like it's freaking alive?" |
I bet he can't wait to rest with her by his side after all this heavy fighting and Jasper Batt Float-killing. |
Boy did that end on a silly note, but to be fair, No
More Heroes has always been silly. They just went all-out for this final one.
Why don’t I say “Suda51 went all out”? Well, Suda51 had little input in this
sequel to his game. As a result, Desperate Struggle is more contested in
quality than its previous title. I dunno, I personally really loved this one.
As much as the original? Hm… about equal. Not sure which one is the better one.
Let’s compare the two, shall we? In the first game,
Travis started off without a motivation outside of “Reach the top”, and it was
later revealed that he was in it to kill the murderer of his parents. Here,
Travis starts off wanting revenge and just goes along with the UAA rankings
because it’s less of a hassle, and later changes goal to dismantling the UAA
for all the lives it has ruined. Both games are stories of revenge, even if
it’s only revealed halfway through for the first one and a major plot point in
the second. Sylvia was just a scam without any interest in Travis at first, and
here… well, while she changes near the end, she started off just as
disinterested in her “clients”, even if she had at least fifty-one assassins
working under her organization!
Ultimately, the moral of “revenge is bad and only
brings more violence” is there, but muddled. I mean, the villain killed Bishop
out of revenge, so Travis killed more people… out of revenge. And by the end,
he doesn’t seem too bothered by any of this. His quest did change in the end,
and he had actual heroic goals after he encountered the Rank 2 assassin. The
comparisons with famous revenge action films is there, and we can go
through ten revenge missions before the final level. However, in the end, the
revenge quest is turned on its head as the reality of the UAA sneaks up on
Travis, and the final battle starts off ridiculous, then difficult, then
ridiculous again… as a way to show that… revenge isn’t worth it?!? Even I’m not
sure! I mean, after I defeated Batt’s second form, I sure as Hell was happy!
You can see what I mean: The moral stays a major element, but the game in the
end seems unsure whether to do it justice or go balls-to-the-wall crazy and who
cares if the message gets lost.
Most pieces of story are there to forward Travis’s
rise in the ranking. The second game at least properly builds on the foundation
laid by the first, bringing back favorites like Shinobu and Henry, as playable
character no less! Granted, it’s for three battles in total, but that still
makes it one fifth of all the boss battles! It also ends the transformation of
Travis from nominal hero to Anti-hero. Pretty sure he’d be good drinking
buddies with Wade Wilson.
The gameplay is generally the same as it was before;
Travis uses his beam katanas, can change between them at will, can apply
wrestling moves to hurt opponents. Henry is more speed-centered, while Shinobu
focuses more on agility and platforming. That’s interesting, adding new
dimensions to the original gameplay. I wish it had been done better for
Shinobu, as the platforming sections were troublesome with the annoying camera,
and also because the developers had the bizarre idea to make her taunt the
opponent anytime she made a combo.
The disappearance of the open-world element of the
original? In my opinion, not that big of a problem, honestly. The open-world
Santa Destroy was actually rather boring, it had very little to offer, and
there were various things that could have been improved – namely, that you had
to go accept a job at the job center before heading to the location of the job
or assassination, which then requires to just drive around the very calm,
boring town. Also, the first game demanded that Travis collect a great amount
of money that he then had to pay to access the next ranked battle, and that got
really tedious in the end. Santa Destroy lacked things to do.
This game thus does away with the open-world,
featuring easily-accessible jobs, revenge missions and places of importance…
and featuring very little incentive to actually do most of it. Since you’re not
forced to collect money, you can just skip the jobs outright. The money you
earn will be spent on Ryan’s training, Naomi’s beam katana upgrades (all 2 of
them, when the first game had many more), or on new clothes for Travis (cosmetic changes, the only thing of interest is that Travis keeps whatever clothes you gave him even during cutscenes). The best reason to play the job mini-games
is to try to beat them and get high scores, and the retro NES style of the
games make them a fun nostalgic throwback. Probably longer and better than the
mini-games of the original, and as a bonus, we don’t have the hassle of driving
back and forth between the job center and the job itself. Now, whether or not
the lack of an open world makes the game lazier than it could have been, or if
it’s better that way… that’s up to you. I personally prefer the game without
it.
Even without the open world, we have fifteen bosses,
most of which are preceded by awesome (and often very long) levels. One again,
many bosses are memorable, whether it’s for their great concept, their style,
or the fight against them. The names aren’t as great, but the personalities of these
characters get to shine – continuing the theme of the original, that Travis
isn’t just killing off obstacles, but people with aspirations and quirks.
Desperate Struggle sees our protagonist definitively going from heel to face.
…Wow, it feels weird to me to use wrestling terms…
In the end, I consider No More Heroes 2: Desperate
Struggle to be about as good as the first No More Heroes; that is, very good. I’d
say, play both games. In the correct order, of course. So, look it up, and be
sure to wait for the next Suda51 game to feature Travis Touchdown!
On this, I will now start working on my five or six
Steam game reviews. And I’ll post them, starting this Friday!
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