No More Heroes 2 - Review
(for the Wii)



Sequels are tricky. The only time I really enjoy or appreciate a sequel is when it does things significantly differently than its predecessors, or it makes enough improvements to the original and I don't mind playing the original again. This game would easily fall into the latter category as game developer Suda51 definitely did not make major changes to the game's feel or style. That's fine as far as I'm concerned, as long as they don't majorly mess things up.

If you've never played No More Heroes: it's a parody of action games in general. Despite this, it's very fun to play. You star as a ranked assassin who's challenged to climb through the ranks of an organization of assassins, trying to reach the coveted #1 spot. In the new game, they try to put a murder revenge twist on it. So how does NMH2 do in terms of putting out a worth-playing sequel?

Things it Does Well
The driving in between missions is removed. It lets you get where you want to go quicker, and I much prefer it this way. There's no more required money limit for missions, so you can just blast through and fight dudes if you want, or you can do the sidequests to level up your character's clothes, weapons, etc... but that's all optional (not that you'd want to miss out on getting the awesome new swords anyway). Speaking of new shit, there are many new beam swords available to buy with all your new money, as well as clothing and training sessions from the local gym (I pretty much never did this and beat the game easily, though).

Things it does Badly
Some 8-bit minigames. They're mostly fun and hard to figure out in that old school way but the gym ones are a problem - they cost a lot of money for each "attempt" and when they're not clearly explained it's a big waste and frustration, especially when you don't know what you're doing wrong or what you need to change to do it right. The story is still a non-event, as it dropped some of the absurdity of the first title that really kept me laughing.

So, in short...
The best part about No More Heroes 2 is that you don't have to play No More Heroes 1 in order to jump right in. In fact, I fully recommend it if you haven't played either game before. The sequel solves a lot of the annoying problems from the first game, and the style and story are similar enough that it doesn't really matter. For those who played the first game, you might not find much here you'll like, unless you don't mind mostly playing the first game again (and I sure didn't, so who's to argue).


Sorry for the infrequent updates! I graduated this month (yay) so I'm pretty busy with work and figuring my whole life out.

Also, I've been goaded into trying a new online social media jumble called Empire Avenue. I think this is awesome? It looks, from what I can tell, like a gigantic human stock market. I was told I have to verify my blog feed through some ass-backwards method, so here's a garbled mess of characters: EAVB_FSIXUSHPZF

And on that confusing note, bye for now!