Revenge Can Be Violent AND Sexy.
The first No More Heroes' free-roam city was the cause of many of the game's problems: every time you failed a side mission you had to drive all the way back to where you were handed the assignment, then drive back to the objective, the collectibles were all but useless, and getting to and from anywhere was more of a hassle than it was worth. That, along with the repetitive nature of having to amass enough money to fight the next boss battle, made the first NMH a flawed gem.
The sequel, No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle, strips all of these failed mechanics and focuses more on what made the first game so great: gruesome-yet-stylish combat and outlandish boss battles. While Desperate Struggle certainly doesn't have the most nuanced combat you'll ever come across, it's not entirely button-mashing. You can mix up your sword swings, punches, kicks, and grapples quickly enough to make it seem like your skills won the day, even if most of the enemies aren't too smart. The camera has some issues when you're in confined spaces, but everything else works just fine.
The ranked assassins are still the main event, though, and most of these new adversaries are on par with the set you defeated in the first NMH. It's mostly a matter of preference, but I found that although the original batch of assassins were more iconic, the new ones are much more varied. You'll fight everything from a religious rapper to stylized anime character, and no two battles feel the same. The battles themselves will require a combination of pattern recognition and quick maneuvering, and although the difficulty is a bit erratic, you'll feel a decent amount of satisfaction every time you hear the ranking up jingle.
Ranking battles were the main attraction of the first No More Heroes, and in Desperate Struggle it's much easier to get to them. You no longer have to pay to fight each boss, so it's now entirely possible to skip the side missions altogether and just go from boss to boss. This should breathe a sigh of relief to the people who couldn't trudge their way through the tedious side aspects of the first game.
If you did that, however, you'd be missing out on a lot of Desperate Struggle's biggest improvements. The side jobs from NMH are now mostly single-screen 8-bit games, and while not all of them are great (or that lucrative, financially) they're all at least worth trying. The assassination side missions return in the form of Revenge Missions, which are simple fights where you'll either have to kill every enemy, or a certain tougher one. The Revenge Missions won't give you any money, but you only have to do them once and they're story-related, should you wish to pursue them.
You can use the money you earn from the side jobs to buy clothes, swords, and train, and with the city of Santa Destroy now reduced entirely to menus, it's now much faster to do so. Some of the items are prohibitively expensive, but again, you don't have to buy any of them if you don't want to. The training, also reduced to the 8-bit style, can be a bit trial-and-error, and it's a bit frustrating to know that the games with the most benefit are the hardest ones, but with enough effort (and resetting), you'll have a much stronger assassin at your disposal.
All of these revamped mechanics work well within the context of the setting and story. Travis Touchdown, for all of his perverted otaku tendencies, is a likable character. His journey from the 51st rank in the UAA (United Assassins Association) to the top isn't necessarily one you care about, but it's the details of his ascension that are worth seeing through. Each of the ranked assassins you fight have an interesting backstory, albeit poorly fleshed-out ones. There are some attempts at gravity that fall flat, and the ending is disappointing, but it doesn't spoil the game.
Some of the inherent cheesiness actually accounts for a lot some of Desperate Struggle's charm. It's unapologetically crude, demeaning, and offensive without relying too much on these things for its appeal; it satirizes the sort of sexualization and violence we see in games -- and the people who pine for it -- more often more than it promotes it. Far from the grays and browns of the standard M-rated fare, Desperate Struggle's subtly stylized art style augments its devil-may-care attitude.
Even with all its cultural satire, film homages, and pokes and jabs at the culture that created it, Desperate Struggle is proud to be game unlike any other. Its immature tone might not agree with everyone's taste, but the underlying mechanics and over-the-top combat are fun and the flaws ironed out enough that even when the occasional moment has you rolling your eyes or frustrated, the seemingly brief twelve hours of confusing, excited fun you'll spend with the game will have been worth the small gripes.
