No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Wii)

“We all have different ways of dealing with grief. Some people fuck at funerals, I just cut off people’s heads.” Words from the mouth of Travis Touchdown, a “hygiene-impaired slob,” as his domineering crush Sylvia would say.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle is another twisted child of Goichi Suda, aka “Suda 51” (because the Japanese for 5 is “Go” and 1 is “Ichi”). He is the games designer at the head of Grasshopper Manufacture, a development team who refer to themselves as a “videogame band.” He is responsible for the the disturbing Killer 7 and the original No More Heroes (which in my opinion weren’t “all-that”). The less said about on-rails shooter Killer 7, the better. I did enjoy the No More Heroes, on the other hand, but side-missions made the game drag more than Pyramid Head’s Great Knife. Having to unlock story missions was what made the game feel even longer, the curse also shared by Just Cause 2 and the Saints Row series.

Forcing me to do side-missions is bad; I should have a choice in the matter.

Rather than properly explain things, No More Heroes’ ending made forth-wall jokes that felt very out-of-place to the rest of the game (which took itself kind-of seriously). Obviously, my hopes were too high, as all Desperate Struggle does is ignore anything from the first game that gets in the way of the new story, and plays up the forth-wall jokes and the self-references.

Vs. Dr. Let’s Shake, a battle that fans of the first game have been waiting for.

The end of the last game saw Travis Touchdown and his half-brother Henry battling in the streets of Santa Destroy, just after Travis made the 1^st rank of the United Assassins Association. I’ve got a problem with that ending, as just before the final level, we had it revealed that the UAA was one big scam. However, Desperate Struggle implies that since the “first game,” assassination has become trendy, so maybe the UAA has been formed properly during the three or four years between the games. Still, I’d have wanted my revenge against Sylvia by now if I were Travis, because having to kill my sister and my potential love interest would have scarred me for life.

Sylvia was painted as the main villainess at the end of No More Heroes, but now, once again, Travis is trying to court her. Where in the world did Grasshopper get the idea to forget everything from the first game that doesn’t fit with the new story they wanted to write?

Matt Helms is one of the more unsettling bosses you will face.

This is great for people new to the series, because they don’t have to know much of the last game at all. In fact, playing it isn’t at all necessary.

Desperate Struggle takes us back to Santa Destroy. Travis is out for revenge because his best friend, Bishop, is killed. Sure, Bishop had a role in the last game—selling you wrestling videos. We didn’t even know Bishop by name. He couldn’t have been that much of a friend to Travis. Can we really just accept that a simple shop assistant is a main character in the sequel? I don’t think we have a choice, again.

Sometimes I think the story was just made up as the game went along. There’s no real chronology at times, with the only thing telling you the game has progressed is your ranking number. With a game like No More Heroes, you’d have to be stupid to be playing it just for the story, though. The battles, the levels, overused sexual jokes and the sheer stupidity is what the game is all about. We have to ignore the story at times in order to enjoy the other, better parts.

So in short: Like it or lump it, this game is more of the last. But…would I have given No More Heroes a score as high? No, not in a hundred, million years. So what has No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle done to earn the numeral given? Mostly by cutting out the offending areas, first and foremost!

The new stream-lined map system makes things so much easier.

The open-world navigation in No More Heroes needed work. Instead of working on it, it has been cut straight out, as travel is now done entirely from a small menu (like in the Ace Attorney games). This means that whenever you’re in Santa Destroy, you now have a list that goes directly to particular stores or locations you need, without having to bike around with those god-awful controls.

Having to pay to partake in missions has also been removed. I’m really glad about this, because coughing up the LB$500,000 final mission fee in No More Heroes was a real grind. HUD simplification was long overdue and a quick tidy up of gameplay features has clearly done a lot for the game. In every area where No More Heroes was loose, Desperate Struggle tightens it up and makes it all better. Extra battle moves and better specials have made the fights less of a chore.

Side jobs are actually fun this time. They’re no longer required to advance the story along and most importantly, you can avoid them altogether. But you might not want to. The side jobs now take the form of Nintendo Entertainment System styled games, with the 8-bit graphics and the chip-tune ditties. The usual mix of Pipeworks, Pac-Man, JetPac and Mach Rider. The side jobs mimic the older games that we know and love.

In “Bug-Out,” Travis catches pests like a mix of Luigi’s Mansion and Ghostbusters.

So for those who didn’t play the original game, here is the shared premise: Travis Touchdown is rising through the ranks of the UAA, which is done by killing other assassins. When you kill an assassin, you get their rank.

The USP (Unique Selling Point) of the original No More Heroes is that each assassin you have to kill has their own weird personality, fighting style and mannerisms. Desperate Struggle does exactly the same, so it becomes “Boss Battles: The Game,” with a couple of levels thrown in for good measure. A set of fifteen bosses with their own patterns to master.

 That’s about it, but there’s a little bit more than meets the eye. The levels themselves, though thoroughly repetitive, are what Onechanbara could have been, rather than hiding behind semi-naked ladies. Simple and mindless, yes, but that’s what I need in a game sometimes.

One of the more inventive boss battles of the game.

While Desperate Struggle struggles to keep our attention at times, there are moments when its desperate attempts at humor are genuinely brilliant. For example, the third boss you fight, Charlie MacDonald, refuses to fight Travis Touchdown on foot. Instead, Charlie chooses to pilot a Godzilla-sized mechanical robot called “Santa Destroy Parade,” along with his cheer-leading posse. Travis has no choice but to summon his giant robot “Glastonbury,” equipped with “London Missiles” and a special beam katana named “Strawberry Shortcake.”

You might have learned from my Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon review that I like big robots, particularly big robots fighting each other. As cool as it was, it was over too quick, feeling like a cop-out of what could have been a better battle. Being inventive is good, but at the expense of gameplay, I’d have just taken another on-foot boss (or some better, tighter controls).

No More Heroes and Travis Touchdown may go together like butter and toast or tea and crumpets, but Desperate Struggle isn’t all about him. You are also treated to two other playable characters. You don’t have a say in the matter, and just as you get used to them, they disappear. Like illnesses, or girlfriends.

Shinobu’s playable cameo is short but very, very sweet.

It was really nice to be given control of Shinobu Jacobs for two stages. She feels a bit faster than Travis, and she also has a jumping move, which feels very out of place. Desperate Struggle is a game where you are always hogging the ground. With barely a level to get used to this move, I was just plain rubbish at the second level’s rooftop jumping (bad controls notwithstanding). Enemies with assault rifles kept shooting me off of the rooftops, so I had to fall back to ground level then jump back up again. Very frustrating indeed. She was made even more unbearable by her constant screams of “Moe~!”. This really gets on my nerves. In the original No More Heroes, Travis said “Moe~!” once, as a punchline to an opening cutscene. In Desperate Struggle, it is widely overused by both Travis and Shinobu—especially Shinobu.

The other character you get to control is Henry Cooldown (at least that’s his name according to Creative Uncut). You only get to play as Henry for one boss battle. Unlike Shinobu, Henry’s controls are much closer to Travis’. Henry has two unique abilities: A projectile move that inflicts some good damage, and a dash move that allows him to get closer to his enemies. Henry’s projectile attacks could have been very useful if available during the rest of the game, although it could make the game too easy. Henry needed a much bigger role than simply one boss battle, though. It’s like Castlevania III—why have Robo-Belmont when you can have Grant? Henry is a much better character. His voice acting is easily the best, and his battle was a highlight of the game for me.

The effort of adding these characters to the game is quickly ruined by not having them playable for more than about forty minutes. The way we play those stages almost back-to-back is kind of like the game offering us recess between lessons. I don’t want to go back to school if it’s going to be Travis “slower than the average bear” Touchdown leading the class; I WANT HENRY.

What the hell is up with that guy’s facial expression!?

The only place Desperate Struggle truly fails is by having an oddball story almost entirely disconnected from the last game, which alienates someone such as myself who thoroughly enjoyed the story and plot twists that were offered. Also, having a story with little in the way of commonsensical development leads to an ending that just completely sucks. If you were to put the events of the game backwards, it would probably have been a much cooler ending. The way the game starts is with what could have been a brilliant final boss—with Santa Destroy in snowfall, on top of a giant skyscraper.

Oh, Goichi Suda; you have the vision and you have the know-how—now just hire decent writers!

I’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg—you fight a warrior from Asia, a russian astronaut and even an innocent yet deadly student assassin with the hots for Travis. There are pre-boss minigames, unlockable extras (such as the ability not to wear a jacket) as well as purchasable and unlockable weaponry. Relatively short but feature packed, without a doubt. The cutscenes are the humor, and are the best part of the game. The improvement in both voice acting and the quality of the acting itself is worth the wait.

Everything but a decent story and better controls is here. There is support for Classic Controller though, which has been translated from the Wii-mote controls pretty well.

Travis’ kitty has become fat, so helping her exercise is an optional sidequest.

Yes, you can click these screenshots to get them at 1456×819 resolution. I took them with an emulator running at less than a quarter of the game’s proper framerate. At times, it claimed to be running at 0 FPS, which is scientifically impossible, I think. The things we do for our favorite carbonated gaming website.

If only the Wii could output graphics at this high a resolution, because stylized games such as No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle and Super Mario Galaxy 2 would give the Xbox 360 a run for its money. If Nintendo’s next console doesn’t support at least 1080p, they have officially lost the console war.

Give them all that they can drink and it will never be enough.

Why must such a beautiful game be on such a limited console?  Why such awful jumping? Why is the best character only playable for one battle? Why does the ending just plain suck? These are the flaws in what could have been—no, maybe it still is—the best adult-oriented Wii title. Procure No More Heroes: Desperate Struggle right now, Wii owners. It isn’t afraid to pull punches and make statements. It has some of the best “fuck”-filled dialogue I’ve ever heard. It’s an experiment attempting to trigger a reaction in every human sense.

In one word? Desperate Struggle is Moe~ight!

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