No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle
This game is a travesty, it's such a disservice to the first game. It's a fine action game sure, at least a 6/10, but god does it fail at everything the first game excels at. The story is needlessly edgy without any of the colorful story bits that the first game had. It's jarring. Makes sense Suda wasn't involved in this one. But even without good gameplay/story integration, they streamlined the game ripping away so much charm the first game had. All exploration of Santa Destroy is gone. Stages are much shorter and barely have anything to do in them. Even the gimmick stages feel too short or boring. The longer stages are uninteresting and barely feel like I'm exploring an area. The combat was also streamlined and it feels jankier now somehow. The first game was charming but this one just feels bad to play. The camera is so weird during combat. Would be fine on its own but compared to 1 it's lackluster. Even the boss fights felt weird, I only really had a lot of fun with Margaret, Vladimir and Alice and even then she got stuck in a corner.
All the part-time job side quests suck ass to play. They're not fun and are overly time consuming for the amount of money you get from them (very pitiful amount). The minigames you do to increase your stats are annoying as hell (I did all of them anyways) and they all cost money! Money which you barely get! Cause jobs pay shit and there's no assassination gigs like the first game. Not to mention the side missions for killing random guys also barely give any money (only enemy drops) + you can only do each once. There is no meaningful way to make money in this game, just grinding shitty minigames. At least they're not necessary to beat the game but I'm a person who loves side content.
On a positive note, playing as Shinobu and Henry was kinda neat. Music was quite good. Jeane minigame was awesome I love Jeane. Also the boss designs are really good. The minimap was a nice addition as well.
I'm sure this has been said a million times over but I HAD to get my thoughts out.