So. Who/What is Richard?

Is he just the embodiment of the attitude of the original game? It seems he shows up when characters are basically behaving in ways that mimic the original game, with a warning saying "Hey, this ain't that game, you go down this path and shit will end up bad". He doesn't show up for Beard though except in the hard mode intro, where he basically says "Hey man, you didn't deserve this". I believe this might be because Beard's missions are the ones that play the most differently from the original games (i.e. weapons instead of masks, his perception of reality is never altered, his missions are in the jungle, etc etc.)

If he is actually supposed to be a person, then I don't really know...we know he can't be Jacket, because when Richter tries to apologize for killing Jacket's girlfriend, Richard says he appreciates the sentiment, but isn't the person Richter thinks he is. We know he isn't the leader of 50 blessings (Beard's commanding officer) because again in the hard mode intro, he claims to have never met Beard, despite both of them wishing they had in better circumstances.

Also what the hell is going on with this game anyway? Hard mode seems to imply these characters are reliving these events over and over and none of it makes a difference. Is the whole point of the game that after Jacket got the "Wrong Number" and killed the Mob Boss instead of heading to the 50 Blessings hide-out like Biker did in his alternate world, he set in motion the events leading the nuclear holocaust? Is that it? Is that all we are to take from the game? Seems like there should be more...

@jazzylament said:

I think hard mode is just being cheeky and breaking the 4th wall, and addressing how the player is playing the levels over and over. But yeah, I've seen other people say that the "Wrong Number" is in reference to Jacket's mixup where he keeps going up the chain of the Russian mob instead of going into that sewer with the two 50 Blessings dudes. Which I think is a shitty explanation, because whatever, that's not even an event from this game. That's like naming something "Star Wars Episode V: Remember When Luke Blew Up The Death Star", or "Die Hard 2: Nakatomi Plaza Was A Pretty Cool Setting".

As for Richard, yeah, he seems to appear to people when they're not that far away from death, and then how that character reacts to Richard is basically how they react to their impending mortality. I think Richter, with his mom in Hawaii, was the only one who kind of accepted it. I guess Beard never saw Richard because he was never completely nuts; he was just pretty good at what he did in the military, then he got out.

Whatever Richard is, he's actively trying to steer people away from certain doom. He tries to coax Evan the Writer into abandoning his book and being with his family, because the end is near. He tries to tell The Fans that attacking the Russian mob is going to get them killed. He tries to tell everyone to back away. To turn back. Whatever is behind the curtain isn't worth the cost of admission. Nobody listens to Richard.

The only character that doesn't interact with Richard is Beard. Beard is a vet who just wants to go home and live a quiet life. He's after survival. No big goal. No plans for world domination or to save the world. Beard just wants to go home and live, and whatever Richard is, I believe it respects that. Hence the "I'm sorry we met like this" intro from New Game+.

To be fair, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back does technically reference the IV film. The Empires Strikes back in retaliation to Luke blowing up the Death Star, similar to Hotline Miami 2 basically chronicling the fallout of Jacket's actions, or as the game would call it, "retribution over the spilled blood of the original game". But, you know. "Hotline Miami II: The Russians Strike Back" isn't exactly a very tonally consistent title ; )

@jazzylament said:

But the action of the Empire Striking Back is a thing that actually occurs in Episode V. The titular "Wrong Number", if people's theories are correct, didn't happen in the second game whatsoever.

A better analogy would be if it was called Star Wars Episode V: The Death Star. That's how not relevant HM2's title is to the events of HM2 the game.

@bisonhero:

Mmn. Fair point. What are your thoughts then on the title significance? That this wasn't the sequel many people were expecting? Therefore mimicking the 'surprise' of reaching a wrong number, when you were fully confident that you had a sure bet on your hands?

@jazzylament said:

Yeah, I think it's basically "Wrong Number" in the sense that "this ain't the game you're looking for." That explanation makes way more sense to me than "Wrong Number" trying to emphasize the significance of Jacket going to the "wrong number" in the previous game. It does really feel like they tried to subvert fan expectations, and not even in an MGS2 context where "Surprise! We're telling this story that is way weirder than MGS1", it's more like "We're barely going to continue the storyline at all, and instead just flesh out some side events and then end it with nuclear war."

@bisonhero: Well I'm with you up until the "barely going to continue the storyline at all" part. I feel like this game gives a lot of closure to the first game, and drives it to towards a firm end. The only part that does feel like a side-story to me is Manny Prado. Not sure where he fits in. Seems like Richard doesn't either.

Martin Brown also feels like a side story...

@jazzylament: The Fans and The Son feel like the only A-story of the game (also I liked their mechanics the most because you actually got to choose a playstyle). And then the Soldier/Beard section gives you a decent amount of backstory on 50 Blessings and Jacket and Beard. That's about it, for me.

• Manny Pardo is kinda just this complete side story about some other psycho in Miami who is cheesed off that the mask killers are getting the spotlight, and helps the Writer for reasons we're never really told.
• The Pig Butcher/Martin Brown has like no point at all except as this weird meta thing where it's a movie within a game.
• Jake has really no point that goes anywhere except he shows you that 50 Blessings wanted the people they called to remain in the dark about who was directing them. I feel like we kinda already knew that from the first game, and I guess he steals the disk for The Writer to find later, not that that amounts to anything whatsoever.
• The Henchmen only gets one level, and seems to exist solely to show you that The Fans just target whoever they can find, even kinda sympathetic characters who were getting out of the mob and just had their car and a bunch of money stolen.
• Richter kinda does his thing and it was mildly interesting seeing him do his missions while balancing his home life with his sick mother, but he's almost just a sub character of The Writer's story arc, and also that prison sequence had like no point whatsoever other than to show the two guys from 50 Blessings are fleeing the country and maybe tried to have Richter killed in jail. I guess we learned that he was actually coerced, whereas Jacket and Jake and others did it willingly.
• The Writer almost felt like he had some significance, and seeing him attend Jacket's trial was neat, but did we actually learn anything interesting from his story arc about anyone involved? His sections were a fun change of pace to how gun-heavy the rest of the game is, but I feel like his story arc went nowhere, and even if you unlock The Abyss, nothing really significant happens in that mission.

I kinda wish the game had just focused in more on The Fans and The Son and the Soldier/Beard backstory, and maybe kept some of the stuff with The Writer/Richter. I think it just spread itself thin with way too many characters and subplots that aren't even subplots because they connect with almost nothing else and nothing really happens.

The Richard persona was probably my least favorite aspect of the story because it seemed like almost everyone in the world of Hotline Miami hallucinated the same being. To me it sort of undermined Jacket's insanity. (I also was a bit annoyed that HM2 assumes that you didn't kill Richter in HM1, and that a Biker look-alike appears in the crowd outside the courthouse.)

I enjoyed probably enjoyed the sections where you play as Jake and Richter the most, you get some different perspectives on the events of the first game. If the game had been you playing as a bunch of masked people sent by 50 Blessings I would have loved that. I wanted to like The Fans section but they don't get many levels in the overall game, don't get very fleshed out personality-wise. Their story/The Henchman's and The Son's story is pretty isolated from the rest of the game.

The Soldier/Beard sections were also great, but I sort of wish it was left a little more ambiguous that he and Jacket were friends in the military. (I also thought Jake was the guy in the bandana in the Hawaii missions, but they seem to be unrelated.)