(Videogame) No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is the second instalment of the No More Heroes series. It stars 30-year-old Travis Touchdown, professional assassin and shameless otaku (anime nerd), and takes place three years after the first game.

Since the last instalment, Santa Destroy, the city where everything takes place, has seen Sylvia Christel's United Assassination Organization transform from an elaborate prank to the real deal. Travis, the former champion, disappeared some time ago, leaving with him his title as #1. Now, for unknown reasons, Travis is back, and he's rejoining the ranked battles. He has to start from the beginning, which is for the position of # 51.

Sounds promising, right? Probably the single best thing about the original No More Heroes was it's cast of colourful and diverse psychopaths, and 51 matches is 5.1 times more than the original!

Don't get excited.

In NMH1, the bosses had two scenes: an introduction and an exit. Now, the introductions have been cut into about half, and there is virtually no exit. That's one quarter of the characterization they got in the first game.

So to get in as much as the last game, there'd need to be four times as many assassins. Fortunately, 51 is 5.1 times as many. They more than made up for quality with quantity, right?

Don't get excited.

There are 15 boss fights.

The third person you fight, Charlie MacDonald, is a football player with a squad of 25 cheerleaders, each one a ranked assassin. Together, they operate a gigantic robot mech and, every time they place a kill, each member goes up a level in rank.

So right there, half the assassins are dead in one battle.

And later on, there's a 12-man battle royale, where a single assassin takes ten kills before he's matched off against Travis.

And later on, Henry, as a friendly gesture, steals 3 kills just to lend a hand. All are made off-screen.

Suda 51 said about the original No More Heroes that he generally has a tendency to focus too much on plot and not enough on characterization, so NMH1 was his little experiment to see how things would go if he focused everything on characterization and completely disregarded plot. Well, I hate to say it, but maybe Suda 51 is falling back on old habits a little in this title.

Now, if you just did a little math and think there should be a few less fights than 15, bear with me. I'll get around to that. I'm going to do a more in-depth analysis of each individual boss, but first I want to get a few things about the game in general off my chest.

“No More Heroes” isn't written above the toilets before boss battles anymore, Sylvia doesn't call you on your cell phone before boss battles anymore, they don't write out the boss's name in giant letters and say it in a funky voice before starting a stage anymore, and the boss's no longer have individualized cronies.

To compensate for the lack of cell phone calls, Sylvia has her own cutscene before every stage, with a menacing description of the boss that awaits you. While there isn't an introduction that spells out your opponent's name before the stage, there is a special scene after you kill your opponent where their name is shown, and “dead” is spelled out beneath it. Okay, there is one “KO” and one “disintegrated” (those are so disappointing when you get used to “dead”). And if the lackeys aren't individualized based on the boss, they are randomly selected based on a universal stock selection, which is kind of high-tech.

The lackeys fight more interestingly, and they can be finished in four separate ways (excluding wrestling), which is better than NMH1's grand total of one finisher. Still, if you start on sweet (easy) difficulty, don't expect too much of a challenge out of them. One scene, where they just keep pouring the enemies down on you for a ridiculous period of time, exploits the fact that you can fight them for an indefinite period of time and never have to worry about being in any real danger.

Moving through town is a thing of the past. Now you select your location from an overhead screen and just appear where you like. There are no ranking fees, either. You still need to pay for new weapons and upgrades at Naomi's lab, for strength and health upgrades at the gym, and for clothes. To do this, you earn money through part-time jobs like in the last game. Unlike last time, these take the form of 2D minigames.

I approve of all these decisions, even though it was a big technological step back from the last title. The only issue I have is with the quality with which these ideas were implemented.

Gaining strength and health upgrades is harder than the game itself (at least on sweet difficulty). And I was playing with only half the upgrades. The mid-level upgrade challenges are harder than the final bosses of the game when you only have half the upgrades.

And while everyone told me I'd love the 2D minigames, I just... didn't. I thought the controls were bad and the concepts weak. In the strength upgrade game, the gym trainer throws weights and kisses at you, which you have to dodge, kick or punch. They never tell you how many blows it takes to lose, and if you surpass the amount, they don't end the game. They just let you keep playing until the timer runs out. You can't quit, either. Some of the regular money-making minigames also have this problem. Also, the guy who asks you to do the jobs has changed, and this new guy is just boring and vaguely dickish.

Sometimes it felt like I was putting more time and effort into upgrading and making money than I was playing the actual game.

There's another game at your house, which, if you beat, will unlock the theme song to Travis's favourite anime: Pure White Lover Bizarre Jelly 5. It's... dumb. Like, I know it's a parody, and supposed to make fun of the genre it's ripping off, but it just feels dumb. Like, not good dumb. Bad dumb.

A good addition is that they've expanded the weapon roster. Now Travis can use the traditional Bloodberry, but he can also use a more standard Katana-like blade, a gigantic beam... pole, and dual blades. Each one has their benefits, too, so you get to pick your style.

Well, that comprises what I wanted to say about general gameplay. Now, since bosses are my favourite feature of NMH, I'm going to go through each individual one and say what I thought of them. Oh, I guess I'll also do major characters.

Travis: Let me start off by saying Travis's attitude about killing is all wrong. In the last game, there was a different feel to the ranked matches. Travis was out for revenge, sure, but he also loved killing, and would relate with his opponents before each match based on their shared thirst for blood. He didn't kill out of hatred, anger, or necessity. He killed out of affection, respect and intimacy. And then he'd go home, play with his cat Jean, try on some clothes, watch some anime, and have a good night's sleep with a clear conscience.

In this game, Travis is out to avenge his friend Bishop. He's angry, and no one will stand in his way. It's natural to be angry. There's nothing special or unique about anger. You can find that in any run-of-the-mill, dark and edgy style game. He tells Sylvia that killing is his way of dealing with grief, he tells Copeland that he's using the fight to work out his anger, and he tells Dr. Letz Shake (I know, he comes back! Isn't that soooooooo cool?!) that he's only going to kill him because his big metal ass is in his way.

Now, what were those statements examples of? Hatred, anger, and necessity. The most normal reasons to kill. The entire game feels tougher, but less psycho. Even when he cools down a bit about his agenda and can see his opponents clearly as individuals, how does he feel? Regret that they have to die, and a desire to become a hero, and to end the ranking matches and save the assassins from this terrible fate.

There's no schizophrenic sensation of being a 27-year-old virgin loser who loves anime, cats and fashion, horny and desperate, short on cash with overdo rental videos and doing part-time jobs to make ends meet, who then goes on a bloody kill-spree.

In fact, in this game, he loses his virginity, he's acknowledged as the “Crownless King”, and all the people ranked above him kowtow in respect as he shows up, acknowledging that they will likely die. Travis doesn't care about them, and he has a hard time remembering those he has killed. This makes it seriously more difficult to get intimidated by an opponent. Your own home is filled with intimidating music, creating a feel that there is no separation between his life at home and his life as an assassin.

He's become your typical badass, with a few token exceptions. Travis! I didn't pick up this game because I wanted to be thug, or a hero! I picked it up because I wanted to be a psychopath!

He also never has any guilt about how his career as an assassin was what led to Bishop's death, even when he's confronted with the concept.

Henry: The F***ING SNATCHER is back. This guy might be the only returning character I liked better this time around. Not because he's less of a dick, but because his dickishness is so extreme that it changes from obnoxious to hilarious.

He lies to, and doesn't hesitate to destroy a small girl. After being rescued by Travis, he steals three kills, phrases it like Travis should be grateful, takes pictures of their bodies with him doing the victory pose, stating that they “might seem like interesting characters, but the game's crammed full as it is, so take a good look, because there's no way you'll ever meet them in the flesh.” He says Travis is his little, baby brother, even after acknowledging there's no way to know which of them is older. He notes that the message he leaves on Travis's answering machine is obnoxiously long, and even when he comes to the rescue during the last battle, all he does is take on #1's minions, while cracking a window that enables an insta-kill for the boss. I never had a problem with the minions, but that insta-kill sure gave me trouble!

I'm glad Travis didn't react with anger at what happens to Henry when he first enters the game. After all, at that point in time, Travis didn't really have a relationship with him. He was just some guy that snatched his kills and snatched his chance at getting laid, and then tried to murder him for no reason.

Sylvia: During the first battle, we are treated to our first scene of Sylvia striking sexy poses while talking on the phone to an unknown person about the dangers of the upcoming battle. I remember thinking that I hoped she wouldn't make this a habit, but I was in for a nasty surprise. These scenes are a lot darker than the comedic cellphone conversations of the last game, and, even more unsettling, the effort to tell things from her perspective and the uh... lack of maliciousness in the fanservice made it seem like the game was trying to make me genuinely like her as a character. NEVER!!!! I may appreciate what she offers to the story as a competent villainous, but I'll never like her as a character!

Unfortunately, I was right. The game was trying to make me like her as a character. It even attempts to make her seem sympathetic, and allows her a chance at redemption, and even a happy ending!!! And I'm talking a happy ending that the player should care about. I am opposed to it.

Shinobu: Other than Travis, Shinobu is the character that gets the most playable screentime. You get to play two stages and fight two bosses with her. She's become the top-ranked assassin in Asia and fancies Travis to be her Master. She comes to his aid under Sylvia's guidance.

Her new lingerie battle-uniform is certainly... more impressive than her schoolgirl one from the last game, and her constant worship of her Master is... uh... And she doesn't use the toilet to save. Instead she... showers....

Sooooo.... make of that what you will.

Fanservice aside, the game throws only chauvinistic males at Shinobu for her to prove herself against. Why's everyone surprised to be challenged by a female? In the last game, the final three ranked matches were all female. Dark Star held the #1 title, sure, but that doesn't change the fact that a female took out #1 and would have taken out Travis if not for the help of another female. Also, Asia, the most highly populated continent in the world's champion assassin is a woman. If these guys are climbing the ranks, they must have fought women before.

Quite frankly, Shinobu acts like she's got too much to prove. To be truly tough, you need to suffer failure and humiliation. Shinobu chumps traps that Travis fell for. That only creates a feeling of danger that her character would be sullied if she broke form. To be truly tough, you need to show that you can break form and keep your character intact.

Still a lot better than Sylvia. Even taking into consideration that she murdered a room full of students without provocation in the last game. I don't think we're supposed to remember that.

Skelter Helter: This guy is Helter Skelter, AKA #11's brother from the last game, and, following family tradition, the first person Travis fights. This time, though, you actually get to play the fight, instead of just watching it in a cutscene and wishing you had. It also exploits the details of the trick Travis pulled on Helter Skelter, which was unclear the first time around. All this is very satisfying to a person who played the first game and was left unfulfilled.

This fight is also the tutorial, and Skelter doesn't wait around for you to learn things. I remember the first time I walked up to him, totally lackluster and ready to mechanically do as the tutorial requested, and he knocked me flat on my ass, and my health went down!

This guy gets both an introduction and an exit, despite being immediately decapitated after the battle, and both are substantial. I have no complaints with this character. Looks like things are starting out good.

Nathon Copeland: A hip-hop, Irish cult leader that wields a boombox that can transform into a machine gun, missile launcher, and a set of robotic arms. This guy is all torso and sports an impressive 10-pack. Like Death Metal in the last game, he plays somewhat of an introductory role, despite Skelter having come before him. He's the first non-tutorial and plot-centric boss, and the first that you have to fight your way through a level to reach. Also like Death Metal, he's extremely wealthy, but it grants him no real happiness. The only thing that fulfils him is killing, and even that falls short. The only thing that will bring him true satisfaction is a worthy successor, and in both cases, that happens to be Travis. He gets a substantial introduction, but he's the first person to get ripped for an exit. He manages to shout “Deliverance!” before he gets bisected, but that's it.

I liked this guy. He brought a few interesting and worthwhile concepts to the table that hadn't been seen in a previous assassin. He's the first hip-hop fighter, and the first religious nut, too.

Charlie MacDonald: Ugh... this guy.... this guy introduces some problems that Desperate Struggle would pick up and run with. He's the football player that fights with his ranked cheerleader squad in a giant mech that I mentioned above. I just can't see him as a killer. A lot of the bosses in the last game seemed unassuming, but then there'd be some kind of climactic moment where their true nature as a killer would shine through. That didn't happen here. Charlie never demonstrates that he's anything more than a dumb jock, and his cheerleaders never prove to be more than a gaggle of fangirls.

I actually thought this guy had promise. In a teaser video they released an image of Charlie's cheerleader's doing a ranking rolecall around Travis on the football field. It was an overhead shot, their shadows stretched out menacingly, and with Travis boxed in the centre like that, a shiver ran down your spine to think that each of those girls was a ranked assassin, and Travis had no way out. Their goofiness became a show of complete and utter fearlessness.

And they were hyped something fierce. “When you hear them synchronize their breath, it sends a chill down your spine.” Perfect teamwork. One assassin with the strength of an entire fleet. And you're in the centre of it's zone of terror.

But when the actual moment came, there was a goofy tune playing that cut the suspension entirely. Also, instead of eight cheerleaders, there was 25. There comes a point when the addition of new characters stops making a group look more menacing, and instead makes it look like a mindless mob.

In fact, the addition of the new cheerleaders since the trailer video is an indication to some that the game was rushed, having us skip 25 ranked battles instead of eight. There is a boss that isn't ranked, but has the number 42 on her shirt. If she were previously ranked assassin # 42, that would still leave 16 slots before #25, plenty of room for eight cheerleaders. In fact, they could have moved Charlie and his eight extras up another eight slots if they felt like it.

After the mech fight, Sylvia confiscates Travis's robot. Why? Charlie and co got to use theirs as much as they wanted! How? If Travis kills someone, he goes up a rank, whether or not he's cooperating with UAA. The only reason he'd cooperate is because the UAA pays high-ranking assassins to accept challenges from lower-ranking ones, so it takes away the need to hunt them down. Now what is more convenient, the UAA's funds and organization, or a giant robot mech?

Kimmy Howell: The one and only person to challenge Travis for his rank, both in this game and the last (well, the only person to successfully initiate a fight, at least). I've always wondered why Travis is always challenging people for their rank, but nobody ever challenges him for his, especially since everyone Travis challenges up until #1 is presumably climbing the ranking ladder, just like him. Kimmy being a challenger and not a ranked assassin is one of the reasons why there are a few more bosses than it seems like their should based on the info I stated above.

I have to wonder why I had to fight her hired goons to reach her, and why it's on her home turf! I mean, Sylvia's not paying me to accept her challenge, and if I defeat her, I don't go up a rank. Even when I'm the higher rank, I get the short end of the stick? Why?!

Anyway, Kimmy is a student and fangirl of Travis. Travis tries to seem surprised, but fails hard. She also play the flute *snicker*. Oh c'mon, Kim! That's not a flute! It's a recorder! Don't flatter yourself! At least it's a Darth Maul-style dual beam recorder.

The concept of a person who will kill you due to their fanatic worship of you is pretty good. It loses points in this context, though, because Travis's ego is already bloated too large with everyone's respect and admiration, and so it doesn't feel as shocking.

Kimmy accompanying the background music on her “flute” was pretty neat, as background music is something the player feels only they are privy to, and a character reaching out and acknowledging something like that, especially when it's still going over the game protagonist's head, gives an eery sensation that she actually... has some presence in your world as well, and is initiating communication with you, the player.

Her “love letter” was weak, though. It revealed her intentions so gradually there was no climactic moment of understanding, and she left absolutely no room for insinuation. She outright tells Travis “I'm way tougher than I look.” Don't TELL me that, SHOW me that! Don't make me understand it, make me feel it.

It would've been better if her letter said something like... because Travis probably has a lot of fans, and anyone can say they love him the most, she decided to do for him what only someone that really means it can do, become an assassin and climb the ranks just so she can meet him, then die by his hand. But along the way, she began to understand why Travis enjoys killing, and why she's always loved him. She learned to see the world through his vision. And now she realizes that while not just any girl would become a killer and sacrifice her life, there is only one thing that can be done to a person only once in life... be killed. Now she wants to behead him, so that she can be the one person to affect him this greatly, and that she'll preserve his severed head so that he can be with her forever. Then she should have attempted to slice off his head as soon as Travis finished.

She only gets KO'd, not killed. I guarantee she'll get into NMH3, if there is one. It seems Travis fancies the age of consent to kill is about the same as the age of consent for sex.

Matt Helms: Whether this name belongs to the phantom of a child that died in a fire, or the guy he's possessing, is unknown. He's the first opponent Travis meets on an Akashic Point, and the first character who I have serious difficulty imagining making it as an assassin, not because of strength or attitude, but because of mobility. The other two are also on Akashic Points.

See, the problem is, he can't leave his house. Oh, of course he'd find assassins to kill, but only the ones who were hunting him down. People trying to take his rank. People with lower ranks. He'd never rise a single rank that way! I thought maybe he was like, the first assassin recorded under the new establishment of the UAA, so he started off as #1 and every time he was killed he'd go down a rank but not actually die, what with being immortal, but if that's the case, the other two characters with mobility issues also would have had to start in the top three at the beginning of the new establishment, and so they'd all three have to be in a row, right? I mean, two of them are, but one is way off.

Oh wait, with enough momentum, a bunch of assassins could've gotten by the first two, and then started fighting amongst themselves. Oh, but Helms is still the only immortal of the three (I think). So the other two can't take losses like he can. Still doesn't work.

Anyway, he's the first guy to get ripped off with both his intro and his exit. That's really too bad, because he was a huge experiment in the series. See, while NMH is intensely unrealistic, they never before confirmed the existence of the supernatural. Travis can deflect bullets with his sword because he's fast. He can survive three grenades exploding on him in a closed environment because he's tough. Destroyman can fly and shoot beams from his crotch because of technology. Get it?

He was also the character seen in the trailer that I wanted to fight the most. He seemed the most psychopathic and creepy. At that point, I didn't know he was a phantom.

But yeah... he only ever says one sentence, and while fear of the unknown and withholding certain information to play with viewer's imaginations is a staple in the horror genre, you still need to put out enough content to give direction to fear.

Cloe Walsh: The second Akashic Point member, and the second mobility-limited boss. See, she's in jail, all bound up Hannibal Lecter-style. She would've had to have been in there a while, too, at least until her cries driving the prisoners mad caused the place to become abandoned. But I guess she still could have fought her way up the rankings before then.

She exploits Travis's fall from lovable loserdom, as he refuses her seduction attempt casually, saying that she isn't “his type”. The old, desperate Travis would have found anything slightly female his type.

I think she gets like, three sentences. She spits poisonous mist and fights in a kind of zombie-like fashion. I guess I liked her well enough, but she wasn't my type.

Dr. Letz Shake: Yeah, yeah, yeah man. YEAH, YOU HEARD IT, RIGHT?! This is THE Dr. Letz Shake IN THE FLESH... er... steel shell, that was sniped by that F***ING SNATCHER in the last game! AND YOU GET TO FIGHT HIM!!!!
...
...
...AND IT'S FUN!!!!

In the last game, there were two characters present to face off against Travis for fifth rank: Letz Shake, the mad scientist, and his sentient weapon, Dr. Shake. Now this guy.... is Dr. Letz Shake. At first I thought that Letz Shake had just gained a doctor's degree, as he says that he needed to take on this “modified form” after taking his loss to Henry, there's really no reason for Dr. Shake to change his name (while becoming a doctor is... educational expansion), and Travis says that he “looks like he gained a few pounds” and, to my eyes, if anything this new Earthquake machine looks SMALLER than the last. But everyone's telling me this is Dr. Shake, so whatever. Doesn't matter to me, they were both F***ING SNATCHED!!!!

Dr. Letz Shake is the member of the twelve man battle royale I mentioned briefly above, who manages to kill ten guys before Travis gets a chance to. In other words he F***ING SNATCHES you! After he got so screwed in the last game, and after being left to dwell on it for three years until the next instalment was released, it is absolutely too awesome that he got that chance for you to be mad at him.

When I first heard he got in, I was hoping he would fight Henry, but it turns out he'd actually successfully gained his revenge previous to his bout with Travis, and had frozen Henry in carbonite and displayed as a trophy. WHO'S SNATCHING WHO NOW!!!!

Millian Gunman: In the last NMH, most of the villains had weird names: Helter Skelter, Death Metal, Dr. Peace etc. In this game, most bosses have normal names: Nathan Copeland, Charlie MacDonald, Matt Helms etc. In fact, the only boss that isn't a returning character or homage to an old one that has a truly bizarre name is Millian Gunman.

You know why I think he has that name? Because he's the one-millionth gunman. As in, he's the millionth gunman crony to show up in the game. You fight him as Shinobu. He certainly doesn't seem very imposing, as, when you show up, he stammers “Wh-who's there?!”, then says the token “Is this a joke? They sent a young girl?” to give Shinobu a reason to prove herself, and then refers to her as “sir” after being beheaded, admitting that she succeeded at proving herself. In battle he says things like “Do you love money as much as I do?” and when you kill him he shouts “My money!” Totally just a tool used to poorly characterize Shinobu. Otherwise he's just a one-note pony, obsessed with money.

And he's weak. I just ran up to him and started slashing. When he was almost dead, I realized I mightbe missing out on my chance to get some merchandise, so I left, checked the stage out, came back and finished him off. I don't even think I got hit.

Him saying a last statement after beheading is kind of pushing the envelope in terms of accepable unrealism. I mean, with Skelter Helter, his head remained on his neck in perfect alignment with his body, so you can kind of see how, if everything's still connected, he could manage a few final moments. That's probably not how real life works, but it still seems a bit more probable. And while I do know that, after beheading, it's quite possible that the brain manages to continue perceiving for a bit... Millian Gunman's head was not connected to a voice box. He shouldn't have been able to talk!

New Destroyman: Well, this was poorly implemented. Destroyman received one of the most brutal slayings Travis ever dealt... Split right down the middle. New Destroyman proves there's no way of telling what counts as fatal in this series.

He shows up, in two halves. Each half has one robotic side and one organic. Each represent a separate part of his original personality. His right represents his gentlemanly side, and his left his vulgar. Unlike two characters of contrasting personalities, however, both seem to always agree with one another and support each other, ignoring how they contradict.

This is Shinobu's second and final match. Seriously, if they're going to bring back a totally random character like that, they should at least have him fight the person he has history with. New Destroyman and Shinobu don't even know each other.

Interesting thing to note is, Shinobu decides to “shake hands” with the vulgar side, ripping his hand off in the process, and she kills the vulgar side first.

Ryuji: I liked this guy. He looks almost exactly like Thunder Ryu, Travis's late mentor, his name contains the word “Ryu”, he fights like Travis, and he and Travis have an affinity. He seems to be a spiritual successor of Thunder Ryu in the same way that Skelter Helter was Helter Skelter's successor. He allows people to see Thunder Ryu on the battle field and develop his and Travis's relationship without actually being him. He also seems to be a bit of a successor to Dark Star, fighting using a giant dragon made of energy.

Yeah, Dark Star should have came back. It would've been a bit cheesy to bring back every interesting character we were denied in the last game, but when has that ever before stopped NMH?

Anyway, Sylvia says before the match begins that “His strength doesn't come from raw power, fancy weapons, technology, or gimmicks. It comes from something that all humans possess, but few have managed to harness.” It seems a comical statement when you get into a motorcycle ramming competition with him, then he whips out a beam glave, starts summoning dragons made of pure energy, and uses wrestling techniques on you. Sure seems like that includes strength, weapons, technology and gimmicks!

But I get that that's not the root of his strength. He never talks, except to shout the names of his moves, and he doesn't even have a stage leading up to him!

He invokes in Travis a desire, if not to kill, than at least to fight, for reasons other than hatred, anger and necessity. He would've been the first male Travis ever allowed to live, too, if Sylvia hadn't machinegunned him down.

Also, Travis is a tiger, and he's a dragon. Get it? Crouching tiger hidden what?

Mimmy: This is not just Henry's one and only fight, but also his one and only playable scene. Mimmy is an anime-inspired, child-seeming... thing, with some kind of robo-pack on her back that allows her to fly, shoot projectiles, and use a set of giant robotic arms. Mimmy, like Kimmy, is one of the two non-ranked matches in this game... They are also the two not to be proclaimed “dead” at the end of the match. She's also an underage girl that is obsessed with her opponent to homicidal extremes. Also, their names rhyme...

...I have no idea what I'm insinuating, but it sure feels like something. That's a lot of parallels.

Her fate is being “disintegrated” by Henry. I know that sounds pretty hardcore, but if she died, they would have definitely said “dead”. Otherwise, there are some other pretty badass deaths where they would have left a descriptive. Saying “disintegrated” is like trying to make their cop-out sound cool, which is the most lame thing ever.

Mimmy is Henry's coma-nightmare. She claims that, because Henry wasn't satisfied with his life, he reached out to her, and now they can stay together forever. Henry says that he needs to go back, and, in a surprisingly non-dickish manner, offers to bring her with him, telling her that, “She'll like it there.” Of course, he can't keep it up, and, when Mimmy says she knows he's trying to trick her, Henry has no hesitance nor remorse as he casually disintegrates her. What makes this even more upsetting is that Mimmy can read Henry's mind, so if she says he was trying to trick her... Chances are.... he probably was.

Don't get me wrong. I know Mimmy's a nightmare-monster that was trying to imprison him in a lifelong coma, threatening to murder him if he didn't do as she said, but... not hesitating to kill a child that doesn't pose an immediate threat is still pretty dickish.

Hey! Kimmy got KO'd! Maybe she went into a coma, like Henry, and they met in their shared state!

Margaret Moonlight: High on presence, low on screentime. Margaret, AKA Goddess of Death, AKA, Reaper, is one of the few bosses in the game that makes you fear, not only for Travis, but also for yourself. One of the few bosses that makes even entering her stage an act of bravado. I must admit... I didn't just have Travis save the game before entering... I also, uh.... saved my own game. Don't get me wrong... I know it's just a game and other people have played it and lived to tell the tale, and game mechanics don't translate to real life.... but... you know.... just to be safe.

See, Sylvia says that everyone who has heard her voice has died, that she only ever heard it once... Over the telephone, one hundred yards away, and... it knocked her out for a week.

It makes you wonder if her voice can be potent through a television screen.

Well, it can't. And Travis didn't really have any trouble enduring it, either.

She's the only character in the game to have a lyrical theme. If memory serves, this was true for Bad Girl in the last. In both cases, they were the only themes I noticed automatically outside of the main one, and both characters dress in lolita fashion (although Bad Girl, and likely Margaret, are above the age of 20). Something about lolis and music, I guess?

The music sounds pretty nice, but the lyrics... aren't as beautiful. At the end of the fight, Travis impales her. “Did you... memorize it?” she whispers with her last breath, “100%” he assures. Having passed on her gift, she allows herself to succumb to her wounds and pass on.

But... the lyrics... They're not something... I would feel obligated to remember if I were Travis.

“You think the fire in your eyes makes you a tiger in disguise? Go on and dream, you goddamn pussy!”

MEMORIZE IT TRAVIS! PRESERVE HER GIFT! Most of the song is just trash-talking. Also, this:

“Thigh-high socks and my absolute territory.”

You know what that means? It means the area of skin between stockings and skirt that will draw attention to males. It's also known as the “golden thigh ratio.” I haven't really heard that term ever used outside of TVTropes. Is Suda51 a troper? Is Margaret a troper? They even link the TVTropes article on Margaret's page on Suda51 Wiki!

Captain Vladimir: You know what you need to do to reach this guy? Just drive there. You're put on a road, on your motorcycle... and you drive. There's no enemies and no way to lose. Captain Vladimir is the third and final person not to have a real stage, the others being Ryuji and Mimmy, but of the three, he's the only one that you still need to play to reach. He's also the third and final person that I have trouble seeing as an assassin due to mobility, the others being Matt Helms and Cloe Walsh. He's also the third person to appear on an Akashic Point, though not the final one.

He's the only character that has more of an exit than an introduction. He's an astronaut that got lost in space during the Cold War and never realized that he'd made it back to Earth, mistaking Travis for an enemy that had tracked him all this way, until Travis stabs him through the helmet, cracking his visor, allowing him to see the world and breathe oxygen once more.

He doesn't appear wounded, and he treats us to a significant speech about the beauties of Earth before the mood is totally broken with the words “Captain Vladimir Dead” crashing down angrily all over your screen.

Sure doesn't seem dead! We just finished talking! He looked fine!

But then they show his spacesuit, mysteriously empty.

Yeah, I don't know what that's about.

Anyway, the reason I have trouble seeing this guy as an assassin is because... Why would he hunt down higher-ranked assassins? Maybe Sylvia was pretending to be a member of the Soviet Union? Did she supply him with a space station, and a fleet, too? He was always requesting assistance, and receiving it, after all.

Of all the bosses, he's the least assassin-ish, to the point that even Sylvia can't bring herself to finish him off.

Alice Twilight: So not long ago, you learned how to dual-wield beam katanas, and you thought “Wow! This is a lot of beam katanas!” Well, Alice has six. And she uses them as projectiles. And they respawn.

She's like a sexed-out fusion of Spiderman and Doc Oc, with Spiderman's spider motif and Octavius's metal arms... except there's six, and she also has an appendage to keep her in the air.

I hate this lady. She basically ruins the game for me, and maybe the series. She refers to Travis as the Crownless King and wants him to deliver her, just as Nathon Copeland did, but instead of being all cool and having a positive attitude about it, she goes a bit more in-depth, explaining this to be an almost universal perception throughout the whole world of assassins. She explains that killing is an addiction, and that everyone wants to escape it, but none are capable. The reason Travis is called the Crownless King is because he made it to the top, and then walked away.

This covers the concept of bloodlust in the last game, that Travis would relate to his enemies with, and then kill out of respect and affection, as they would try to do the same, the slain foe usually with some level of acceptance and satisfaction even as they died. Now, Alice is trying to flip that around and make it out to be a bad thing!

Well, Travis buys into her story and when Sylvia comes, he chastises her for not treating assassins like humans. He says they feel pain, they feel sorrow... yadda yadda yadda... IT DOESN'T MATTER IF IT'S A VIDEOGAME!!!!!

My heart drops into my stomach. Travis... breaking the fourth wall is supposed to be a comedy technique. You just made me feel horrible. Especially since I know that I'm still going to finish the game.

Then he says he wants to be a hero... The No More Hero, who will put an end to the ranked matches. Before, the title of the series was supposed to mean that Travis considers assassins his heroes, and you want to make it so he doesn't have any heroes left. Get it? 'Cause they're dead. Well, I think the definition for the series title just changed.

Alice is the fourth and final Akashic Point boss, and the only one without mobility issues. It is to note that the first and second Akashic Points come in a row, and so do the third and fourth.

When Travis appears, she's burning some photos, two of which hold images of Margaret, one of which shows the two together, implying that they knew each other and that their name similarity might not be coincidental. Also, Sylvia refers to her as Alice Moonlight before the stage begins.

Jasper Batt Jr.: President of Pizza Batt, financial supporter of the UAA, and assassin rank #1, guilty of having had Bishop killed.

Yes, unlike in the last game, you actually get to fight the guy you worked your way through the ranks to match off against. You get to fight him three times, in three different form, in fact.

When confronted, Travis demands why he killed Bishop. Jasper says that it's because Travis killed his father and two brothers in the last game. Well... good point.

“How dare you compare your SHITHEAD family with BISHOP!!!!”

Uh... Travis... your evil dick side is showing. In the last game, when Travis was confronted with the woman who killed his parents, after learning of his father's evil doings, he forgave his opponent, but they both agreed they must still duel to the death. It was quite civil. This spazz-fest leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

If Alice was Spiderman and Doc Oc, this guy, at least in his second form, is Batman and the Joker.

His third form is a giant mech, and this time, you don't get a giant mech to fight back with. Well, maybe Travis shouldn't have used one to fight Charlie, either, because it might have been holding him back. I just walked up and slashed it over and over until it died. It never even hit me once.

Victory doesn't feel too satisfying... It actually makes you feel kind of bad...

In conclusion: This game had a lot of good character concepts, but fell short on characterizing them individually. Most of the main characters took a major hit in their characterization, and there was too much focus on plot. A lot of the game's original spirit was lost.

It is, however, probably longer than the original, and the gameplay better. It's still a worthwhile game that I finished in two days over a span of 11 hours... My largest gaming binge to date. And, obviously, it gives you quite a bit to think about. I guess I'd still recommend it.