What a bummer. No More Heroes 2: Desparate Struggle leaves a great first impression but putrid aftertase.

For its merit, the game is a lot better looking than the first game, features a cool soundtrack and has cool details here and there. Now there is a whole wholesome minigame for helping your cat lose weight. This, of course, inspires you to learn a new wrestling move. The action gameplay is also technically a lot more fluid and better than in the first game.

Elsewhere, the game is a mess. The game tries to streamline things that were tedious (by design) in the first game but absolutely falters in the execution. The semi-barren open world is gone and in its place is just a menu. The odd job minigames are made a lot less necessary for progression, which is good because while they look nicely retro, they are mostly atrocious to play. Characters are a lot less likeable and the team was obviously thinking with their dicks when they wrote the female characters. The story is stupider and devoid of any meaningful idea. And, as I said, the gameplay feels a lot more fluid and fun at first, but as the game goes on, it just starts to feel worse. The enemy and level design are bad and boss design is downright abysmal. Especially for someone who played the first one, that is a huge letdown. Seriously, this game had some of the worst boss fights I've encountered in a long time.

Such a disappointment. At least you get to turn into a tiger mid-battle.

No More Heroes 2 Desperate Struggle Review

Story

The story to this one is maybe a few months or years pass not really sure but Travis has been gone for a while and has become somewhat of a legend because he was the only one to take part in the assassination association and leave. Than theres some guy who looks like a cross between Cloud and Prompto. Hes waiting for someone to come up the elevator and shoots his gun at it, it opens no ones there but he turns around and Travis makes his return and the guy turns out to be one of the brothers Travis killed in the first game. I think it was the opening cutscene of the game. Travis fights him and cut his head off, than hes greeted by Slyvia the russian girl, who looks totally like EVA in Metal Gear Solid 3 now. She tells Travis theres brand new ranking and that hes gotta start all the way at rank 50. The guy Travis kills starts talking...his head to be exact and he gives Travis a warning that theres consequences of the people hes killed in the first game and that theres way to make him suffer without killing him.

Afterwards it goes to the video tape shop travis goes to and the shopkeeper is there but than like a gang comes and point there guns at him and kill him. Travis is than waking up in his motel when something crashes through his window which is a box, when Travis opens it hes sees the head of the video tape shopkeeper who apparently is his friend and hes devastated. Now a very angry Travis wants back into the rankings to get revenge on the people who killed his friend bishop who awaits him at the number 1 rank.

Gameplay

Its pretty much the same as the first one with slight improvements. You still have high and low attacks, you still have to use high attacks to hit enemies who block low and low attacks for enemies that block high. You still have charge low and high attacks but whats replaced his the stun attacks and charge stun attacks. Now you do punches and kicks and when the enemy is stunned Travis lunges automatically for a wrestling move. You are now also able to switch between different beam sabers you obtain in game.

The slot machine mechanic is back and its improved and you get stuff way more frequently. In this game a 7,7,7 kills all enemies in the area, 3 bars you turn into a tiger and kill enemies in one hit, i forget the other ones but ones an improved increased speed and ones an improved one that replaces that shooting one in the first one. The last thing added is a new ecstasy guage. Theres a tiger on the bottom right of the screen as you do well in combat it eventually becomes red and it'll start showing it roar, than you press a button and go into a mode where Travis is super fast in his movement and attacks with extreme speed.

Exploration

In this game there is none lol the world map is gone and its more of a point and click map. Before that Travis's motel inside you can do some new stuff you can play with his cat Jeane. His cat was in the first one and you could play with his cat but it didn't really add to much, but in this one his cat has grown fat so you play with his cat to make it lose weight. You can do a number of things, you can play with the cat and Travis uses a toy and the cat goes after it, you can do jump where Travis uses a a string and makes  his cat jump and the goal is to make the cat jump high. You can exercise his cat and Travis will lift the cat up and down, the last thing is the massage where Travis rubs the cat. Each of these mini games makes the his cat lose a bit of weight each time.

Other stuff in his room is a new mini game which is a bullet hell game featuring these anime girls travis likes. You can pick between a number of the characters but its only 1 level. You can read magazines which are pretty damn pointless ( more of that in the negatives)

Now outside the motel the exploration is gone so no more sandbox world, instead its a point and click type of thing you just choose a location and you go to it. On the map theres still the weapon place, the clothes place and the training place but the other stuff are gone, like the video store and this collectible store. Also theres no Assassination missions in the game, instead its replaced by Revenge Missions.

The Jobs in this one are still in but theres less and there little nes type games rather than in game graphic mini games like the first one. These are fun though....some of them. Theres a bug catching one where you have to suck up these bugs with a vacuum. There is a fixing pipe one which is a puzzle game where water runs through a pipe and you have to build stuff to connect to another pipe. Theres a meat cooking one, where you steam meat and the customers want there meat a certain way. There is a coconut game where you hit the trees and you have to catch the coconuts. Theres a scorpion catching game which isn't nes style its in game graphics. In this game you have to catch scorpions and theres different colored ones that give you different points. This was in the first game but its different in this one.

Negatives

Okay sadly this game is worst than the first one in my opinion. There are some improved stuff but certain stuff is just worst. The bosses in this game while the first one had an interesting cast of bosses,  the bosses in the 2nd one were just uninteresting but there are some okay ones like i think all the female bosses were all good the rest were not. There was this power ranger megazord like fight but it was awful! It felt unresponsive and just boring. The way the fights are with some of these bosses...there just not fun some are annoying where they got hard knock backs and you have to chase them always. Theres one annoying boss which was a returning boss from the first one and there was two of him, one is grounded the other flies off on a platform and shoots beams at you and its annoying, even more annoying is when you kill one of him he tries to revive the other, so you attack and he flies off to the platforms and if you chase him he just goes to try and revive his other half. All i did was just hide behind some boxes or whatever and waited for him to try and revive his  other half and rinse and repeat, so this fight was boring. some are just very easy and none of the bosses are challenging at all.

The main missions are more shorter in this one it felt like and since theres no Assassination missions its less stuff to do because the Revenge missions are also really short.

The camera in this one is also a problem the way it is in this one. Since bosses have hard knock backs you can get knocked back into a wall and are cornered and can't see anything. The final boss kept hitting me into a wall and i could't see anything and he just kept on doing it over and over so i was stuck in the corner.

Speaking of Final Bosses the final boss is terrible the first one had Jeane, Travis's sister and also a true end fight with Henry Travis's brother, but this one its just bad.

Some other stuff like the wrestling magazines in this one you get new wrestling moves but i had no damn clue how to use them ever. I never used these moves these moves never popped up or anything. Another negative was the new ecstasy mode this makes bosses and missions way freaking easy i barely died in this game. I only died once because of the cheap corner stuff the final boss did to me. The whole objective of the game Travis's friend getting killed lmao why the hell should i care when this character was just in the video store in the first one you didn't even interact with him. Last negative and it kills the purpose to do well in the game, was they took out the metals like the bronze ,gold and silver metals you get for doing stuff fast and even the mission ranking grades so this also sucked.

Final Thoughts

The story was more enjoyable in this one i thought. As Travis was killing people he started to question the Assassination Association and if certain people had to die. He fought an honorable warrior and wasnt gonna kill him but Sylvia guns him down and Travis was angry about it and started cursing her out how they shouldn't be used only as killers. They switch some stuff around in the game where you play as different characters for a level or two. A girl assassin Travis fought in the first one called Shinobu, whos this black girl with white hair he let her live and she comes back in the 2nd one to help him calling him master and stuff. Her gameplay was fun, it had some platforming cause she could jump, and she had some cool attacks. I liked her, i found her cool and interesting. You also play as Henry Travis's brother for one boss in this dream and that was cool. The new lightsabers were cool as well. You get this giant red lightsaber and you get these dual sabers which probably was the best weapon.

I just felt there was less stuff to do in this one and just nothing was really that enjoyable in this one. The first one had funny and interesting bosses but this one didn't even Sylvia herself wasn't as funny or interesting in this one. I also don't even understand the whole assassination association thing. Like why do they compete, why was it created? In the first you find the things all fake and it didn't exist and Slyvia just a con artist and a liar but this whole things completely forgotten and they continue to do the rankings fights.

One part Travis vows to destroy the Assasination Association and than just completely changes his mind after making love to Slyvia. Just a lot of questionable unanswered stuff.

My score for his one is a 4. Lets see how No More Heroes 3 fairs now... I hope this game has a hard mode to start with because normal difficulty is to easy and you have to beat the game once for hard mode.