No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Switch)

The first No More Heroes game seemed to enjoy deliberate subversions of typical storytelling approaches, its protagonist Travis Touchdown an amoral loser who gets into the assassination business simply because he’s low on cash and driven to fight his way to the top of the hitman ratings only because he wants to be number one and his female employer hinted she might sleep with him if he is. Its irreverent approach threw ideas about a search for deeper meaning in the game in your face and asked you to consider why you need them in such a bloody action-packed satirical adventure. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle seems to be a bit of a departure from this ethos though, more traditional ideas slipping into its narrative as the game in general streamlines many of the ideas from the first game. However, much of the streamlining also removed some of the weaker elements, improved parts of the hack and slash combat, and there’s still plenty of the original’s offbeat identity still present in the game’s events.

 

Following the events of the first game, Travis Touchdown has given up the assassin life and lost his position as the top dog on the United Assassins Association rankings board. In the time since that killing spree, assassination in general has received a surge in popularity, plenty of new faces joining in the organization for their shot at fame and even corporations like Pizza Batt leveraging the killing business to increase their influence. In fact, the restaurant Pizza Batt’s seen such a rise in popularity that it has begun to reshape the city of Santa Destroy, the place once representing apathy in the midst of urban decay now carrying an admonishment of rampant capitalism in its over top the satire. Travis Touchdown is called up by a vengeful sibling of someone he killed in the past and quickly dispenses with the assassin, putting him back into the new UAA ranking system as his old employer Sylvia reenters his life with the same promises as before. Making sure you don’t think No More Heroes has lost its way early on, Travis even demands answers to cliffhangers from the last game and explanations on what has happened since then only for Sylvia to shoot them down since she believes potential players won’t really care that much for lengthy exposition.

 

While things seem like they’ll utilize the same story structure soon, the same promises of being ranked number 1 and spending a night with Sylvia back up in the air, it actually takes a different instigating incident to spur Travis back into the assassin lifestyle and it’s an event that does lead to a shift in overall tone for this sequel. Travis’s friend at the video store ends up killed by hired goons, and incidentally the person who hired the thugs was the number 1 assassin in the association: the CEO of Pizza Batt. To get at a shot at such a powerful man Travis has to fight his way through the rankings again, and while there are plenty of ridiculous members, comedic moments, and deliberate subversions to be found in this game that mixes over the top combat with larger than life personalities, you do start to get more serious moments of self-reflection in the plot. Travis isn’t the kind of guy who can completely detach himself from the murder spree anymore and various members of the association opine on their place in this association and the general value of life. You can’t quite call Travis Touchdown an amoral hero anymore as these talks do resonate with him and the overall story is a revenge mission, and most of the main story fights are first introduced by an unusually serious framing device. This is still a game where you save by going to the toilet, fight a football player and his cheerleader groupies, and need to do menial labor like plumbing to shore up your cash, but the game balances out a more serious personal story for its lead with its more unusual ideas that allows them both to find purchase.

The unusual opponents you face in combat are the stars of the show in No Mores Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle though, the mystery of what eccentric personality awaits you in the next fight up the ranking ladder one of the game’s major draws. Travis’s time away from the UAA has meant he reenters the organization at the hilariously low rank 51, and while a game with 51 boss fights would definitely be impressive, it does employ a few tricks to thin the ranks a little faster like having you face more than one assassin at a time. On top of the football player mentioned earlier, the story will have players facing things like a hip hop cult leader in an office tricked out to mess with the fight, a creepy flamethrower wielding man in a burnt down and possibly haunted house, and a poison-breathing test subject Travis has to free from prison to even fight, and while a fair few of these characters are one and done battles thriving on their unusual circumstances and creative concepts, there are the more meaningful battles where a boss will still bring some unique weapon to the fight even though their personality taps into the more serious discussions of the assassination organization and circle of revenge it creates. Compared to the previous game battles play out at a much more even pace, but the big fights are still based around identifying a character’s attack patterns and when they leave themselves open for you to strike, this sequel simply better at not leaving empty periods and keeping things consistently active during the fight. You’ll need to stay on your toes and block appropriately to survive but blocking can be easily be pierced by certain attacks that will punish you for overrelying on it, especially with many of the assassins having special movement options to try and get the drop on you or complicate the act of approaching them for some sword swings.

 

Travis Touchdown’s Beam Saber is his only fighting option at the start of the game and it’s a fairly competent one with decent damage and swing speed, but over the course of the story you can buy or acquire other laser weapons that can actually be shifted to during a fight to provide different advantages. Rather than just straight increases in strength or speed, Travis’s new tools include a green light blade that is much faster than the Beam Saber, a large red beam blade that keeps growing in length as its used but has slow heavy swings to limit its powerful potential, and a pair of smaller laser swords that let you swing rapidly like a whirlwind of destructive potential. Depending on the boss or situation you find yourself in you might find the right windows for something like the slow-swinging red weapon but others definitely encourage the swifter options so you can deal enough damage in the time you have to strike, this emphasis on a weapon set adding a bit more depth to fights that already have an interesting set of tricks that expand as you lessen the boss’s health. You do need to keep your beam weapons topped off by sometimes retreating from battle to recharge them via controller shaking, but usually if you don’t attack a guarding opponent or block too much yourself this interruption won’t be much of a concern.

 

A few extra little touches add to the combat as well, such as sections where you need to utilize motion controls to slice through an enemy to either carve them in half or deal heavy damage. Wrestling moves return from the first game but feel far less present, stunned enemies able to be grabbed and slammed into the ground but the combat is so fast-paced you can usually achieve more with rapid slashing during the stun. Certain gameplay segments will actually have you control different characters who play slightly differently, the samurai schoolgirl Shinobu from the first game adding in a battle style with more focus on jumping, area navigation, and projectiles for the brief period you play as her. The lead up to boss fights usually involve fighting your way through small groups of enemies who start off as simple fodder but eventually the game starts rolling in fat men with chainsaws, gunners, and muscly men with beam blades to make these battles more substantial and actually interesting battles rather than just something to do before the big assassin duel. Once it does start giving the regular enemies a bit more bite it also starts making the slot roulette more interesting to engage with, the player rolling a slot machine on each finisher performed on a goon to potentially get a brief power up. This can range from firing shots from your sword to turning into an actual tiger with one hit kills or even an immediate kill of all normal enemies in the area, but the random nature means it is more a treat when it emerges rather than something necessary or a boost you can plan around. What can be incorporated better is the Ecstasy mechanic where dealing a lot of damage without being hurt yourself can add up to a power-up where you can swing your blade at insanely high speeds and are immune to damage as you unload on your enemy. Usually this only has room for the regular enemy killing segments, but carrying it to a boss fight can be a good reward for skillful play.

At a few points in the story the game does pursue some gimmicky gameplay ideas that don’t suit it well, any moment you’re on your bike feeling underdesigned or outright rough to control, but that bike that used to explore the city in the first game is relegated to very few moments of actual gameplay this time around. The streamlining benefits No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle most when it comes to how it handles how you earn and spend money. Main story missions require no cash to participate in so it all goes towards engaging with extra content like training at a gym to raise your stats, buying the surprisingly few new blades at Dr. Naomi’s weapon shop, getting a new wardrobe you can actually afford to justify spending cash on this time around, or feeding your cat Jeanne in between bouts of assisting her in exercising her weight away.

 

Doing cat exercises is one of the odd but engaging areas of side content found in this adventure, because while there are Revenge Missions where you need to kill normal enemies under special conditions, a lot of the extra stuff on the side takes the form of minigames that completely break away from the usual design of the game. If you want to make cash you might end up playing a top-down 2D pest control minigame, assembling pipes to control the water flow for plumbing, or needing to time how long you grill a steak to please customers. The mundane chores that earn you money are actually turned into satisfying little challenges that can be puzzles or little action segments that could or already are the basis of entire games, the 8-bit retro aesthetic fitting since some like the pizza delivery minigame looks like the type of game you could play on an NES. The training at the gym actually uses this style of minigame as well and motion controls are much more restricted to things like the special slashes or determining if you aim high or low with your sword as high in this game produces swifter strikes and low goes for more power. The only minigame that uses the game’s usual 3D controls is almost a deliberate jab at how much people hated collecting scorpions in the first game, that already bad part-time job brought back and made worse but thankfully it’s optional and there are better options for collecting cash. At least that joke at the player’s expense continues to show the game hasn’t lost its attitude or style even when making things in general more convenient and enjoyable.

THE VERDICT: No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle may take itself more seriously than its predecessor, but it also learns from it without losing its irreverent identity. The blood-soaked beam sword action has extra layers built into it thanks to ideas like Ecstasy and being able to switch between weapons with different advantages, bosses pack in plenty of personality and their unusual concepts lead to interesting attacks for their fights, and the game’s deviations into other playable characters or bouts with regular enemies who can hold their own add to the appeal of this ever-changing experience where you can’t predict what will come next. The part-time job minigames are often enjoyable gameplay types in themselves on top of giving you cash and weaker ideas like driving your bike last very little time, so on the whole No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is able to focus on exciting and engaging action with a dose of parody and absurdity.

 

And so, I give No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle for Nintendo Switch…

A GREAT rating. Things do start off a little bumpy as it puts some less exciting gimmicks and simple enemy fights close to the beginning, but once the game finds its footing and starts balancing its excellent combat with its distinct personality, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle ends up a fitting sequel to its unique predecessor and one that improves on it without losing much of that game’s charm. The story can get serious but at other times it is delightfully silly or happy to pursue a new idea just to see where it takes it, and while that does lead to moments like a very weak segment where you try to bump an enemy off the cliff on your bike that controls poorly, the assassin fight after ends up an enjoyable test of skill. Fights that are appealing for both their gameplay substance and character concepts pull you in by offering both fun cutscene potential and unique battle styles, and with the side content breezy and usually free to complete at your leisure you are able to better enjoy the minigame style and reap the rewards for engaging with it. The brief stints with new characters are one of the better moments where the action deviating from the normal template in the story works and gives you a different flavor both in how the character fights and in how someone like Shinobu can engage with a level design, her stages involving more navigation of the space than Travis who often just needs to fight foes in areas that mostly have different layouts to give him more or less space to fight in.

 

The mix of attitude and the unexpected serves as a strong guiding force for the player to keep fighting, but the solid swordplay and the many strange circumstances that demand more interesting use of it ensures you can enjoy the action of No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle even when you’re only up against regular goons. A lot of the obvious areas needing improvement from the first game were taken to heart to lead to a cleaner and more engaging experience overall and it’s not too hard to push past the few indulgences that seem present for the sake of identity or making a statement. Because of its improvements to the play and many more substantial boss fights it does have a leg up over the first game despite that having a more pronounced tone and clearer focus on its satirical edge, but trending towards the more traditional doesn’t dampen this experience. No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle still revels in spectacular bloodshed and wacky boss concepts and both of those translate well to the fighting system, so instead of trying to pick between the first and second game, it’s probably wiser to abandon the comparison and just enjoy two great hack and slash action games that embrace the idea of being over the top and unusual.