No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle

Question is, will New Destroyman count towards the 50 assassins standing between Travis and his coveted number one spot? Shinobu also gets to fight Million Gunman (his revolver has a rotating ring of 12 chambers), although footage of her talking to a decapitated head suggests he might not be long for this (game) world.

Suda also suggested that not all the ranked assassins will necessarily engage Travis – what if they were to begin infighting among themselves? Don’t forget the premature demise of Letz Shake in the first game, cut down by Travis’ twin brother, Henry.

With others encroaching into his spotlight, Travis has to up the stakes in his own fights. First up is Nathan Copeland, a Jamaican with a boombox rocket launcher. Nathan launches a surprise attack by lobbing his two lady friends at Travis. Said lady friends are, alas, caught between Travis’ beam katana and Nathan’s fists, and painfully ground into a red mist. Good to see Suda hasn’t discovered subtlety in the last two years.

A hectic battle follows. Keeping close to Copeland prevents him from firing rockets but puts you in range of his telescopic arms. Worse still, his boombox controls traps dotted around the room, bringing chandeliers crashing to the ground, blasting lasers from wall-mounted lion heads and turning the garish carpet into a mess of conveyor belts. All this for the lowest ranked opponent in the game? A bloody payoff makes it all worthwhile.

Suda also revealed that he’s been doing some slicing and dicing of his own. His target? Santa Destroy, the shoddy sandbox Travis calls home. First for a lopping are Travis’ part-time jobs, swapped for brilliant 8-bit minigames based on menial tasks. Coconut-collecting becomes a bleepy-bloopy 2D side-scroller, while working in a steakhouse has you estimating cook times for blocky fatties. That the entire game can be played with the Classic Controller hammers home the old-fashioned nods. It’s the best of the old and the new. We can’t wait.

Nov 5, 2009