No More: On No More Heroes 2

No More Heroes 2 is about nothing. It has nothing to say, does nothing with its mechanics and does nothing to impress. There isn’t anything near the ingenuity of the first’s bosses to be found. It tries to “fix” problems only to break them further. If No More Heroes 2 does have something to say it is, “Hey, this made money for us, have another.”

“The last game’s success made assassination trendy,” quips Sylvia at the start of the game second game. Grasshopper is, nearly outright, acknowledging that the first’s success brought on the second. It is especially notable after the last game joked that there will be no sequel. No More Heroes 2 stops here though, it doesn’t explore anything of much note beyond what is covered in the opening. The bosses and other characters almost do not show or say anything to do with any meaningful larger story or even metafiction. Any exploration of themes or ideas is superficial.

This is hugely disappointing considering the quality of the last game's pre- and post-fight banter. Sylvia’s “garden of madness” phone calls before the fights; Death Metal’s musing on paradise, and Travis’s on “finding an exit”; Holly Summer’s questions about killing and death, and Travis’s responses to her—all of these kinds of things bought No More Heroes together. The script to the combat, the combat to the visual design—it was cohesive.

The second’s bosses lack in good visual and game design too. Visually, the bosses are mainly a hodgepodge of anime and science fiction influences. Even worse though, they are frequently broken: platforming that is inexplicably inconsistent in being able to simply jump onto a higher level, a motorcycle bumper car-esque section with terrible turning controls where one has to “ring-out” the opponent before a more standard fight starts, or a final boss fight with a poorly oriented camera.

The first’s visual design ranged from a comic book nerd mailman who cosplayed, to a shopping cart lady, to a stage show magician. They were all thematically consistent, while No More Heroes 2 gives a sense of trying too hard to be varied.

The side jobs of the first game received negative criticism but I rather liked them. They were the menial tasks one has to do in order to get to do what one wants to do. They were simple, low impact, and frequently required just one button to press—they were a mechanical representation of the involvement these jobs take.

In No More Heroes 2 however, they have been turned into NES-like games, so much so that Travis can be heard blowing dust off of the cartridge before it clicks into place. These mini-games all control terribly, mainly because of the imprecise movement of the 2D player sprite with an analog stick. The money from these sides jobs is largely unneeded this time though, with the main use being upgrades, as there are no more entry fees. Even the upgrades have been changed from just mashing on a button to work out to another too complicated for its own good mini-game.

No More Heroes 2 is completely drowning in unfocused design. The entire game feels as if Grasshopper is second guessing what they made with the original game. As a result, the game becomes a really unfortunate waste of time. It still has great music, and there are one or two clever moments but those things don’t count for much. No More Heroes 2 ends up having nothing redeemable to takeaway, except for maybe a greater appreciation for the original and a question of what Grasshopper was thinking.