No More Heroes: Travis Strikes Back (2018)

How long has that strike been going on, anyway?

Quite a while now, ever since October of last year. Even has a Wikipedia entry which will explain better than I ever could.

edited 4th Sep '17 8:30:44 AM by UltraWanker

Took a quick glance at the page and this caught my eye:

M-m-meep...

edited 4th Sep '17 10:32:10 AM by TargetmasterJoe

...so I'm not the only one who could barely hear the voices in that trailer, right?

Did Bad Dad (Bad Man) deflect a lightsaber with a baseball bat?

Is he wearing a belt made of beer cans?

What is the "death drive?"

They're traveling through video game worlds? Travis is fighting literal video game bosses?

Will Dr. Naomi return?

edited 8th Sep '17 12:53:34 PM by Soble

Suda says it's not No More Heroes 3, and there's a reason it's actually Travis Strikes Back: No More Heroes. Sounds like a Genre Shift, which some sites are positing.

@54 To be fair, Bad Girl was just as capable of parrying a laser katana with a baseball bat. This is hardly a first for the series.

I heard about this game late (i.e. shortly after the trailer dropped), but I'm still hypee.

From what I've heard, the Death Drive is the video game console with two left hands for controllers. Travis and Bad Dad will be fighting the game and each other through seven game levels.

The Death Drive is the console from Grasshopper Manufacture's PS 4 game Let It Die.

In that game the console was the Death Drive 128. Here it is the Death Drive Mk. II which I guess is a predecessor of the Death Drive 128 from Let It Die.

Well, since exactly that is happening with Bayonetta, I'd say it's possible, especially when even the trailer itself acknowledges the Sequel Gap since the last game. I'm also curious if Travis has any chance at all of making an appearance in Smash for the same reason. I know Suda 51 has said he's at least up for it.

Anyway, pretty excited for this, as you can probably tell by the av. I used to be a huge fan of the first two games, to the point that I can still quote some of the scenes verbatim, so this should be a fun ride.

Something I don't think I noticed until recently, Travis has a scar over his left eye.

Does anyone know if he got that in NMH 2 or something?

EDIT: By the way, should we ask the mods to change the name of this thread to Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes since that's the actual title of the game?

edited 11th Mar '18 2:41:52 PM by TargetmasterJoe

I can barely make out a single word in that trailer, nevermind a scar over Travis's eye.

That wasn't there in either game.

As for this game, I'm honestly disappointed by what I saw. it still has its style but the gameplay looks so bland.

edited 11th Mar '18 2:48:30 PM by LordVatek

Say, didn't Suda 51 say No More Heroes 2 would be Travis' final appearance? Saying his story was wrapped up by that point?

He did. Not sure what, if anything, he plans to do with him now character-wise. Maybe he just found Travis too much fun to leave behind, which I can understand.

(3) This game isn't out yet. There's no gameplay for it. Did you mean No More Heroes 1 and 2?

I'm talking about the gameplay shown in the Direct.

This:

Looks pretty fun to me. Similar to the gameplay of the first two, but with co-op, which is always a plus. (Not that I have any friends to play it with.)

edited 11th Mar '18 4:44:58 PM by Berserker88

Oh my. -watches-

-watched-

Yeah... I'm concerned.

The camera's different, the combat looks the same but because of the camera it's not as intense-looking as Desperate Struggle or the first game. Co-op sounds fun, but it feels like God Of War Ascension where the gameplay and the control scheme was altered for the sake of multiplayer.

Half the fun of the original No More Heroes was finding out who the next assassin was, but here they just showed us all of their designs right out front. These games don't tend to have strong narratives and that gimmick redeemed the writing somewhat.

Like Saints Row IV the idea of being trapped in a digital world lends itself to all sorts of excuses for the game world not being visually interesting, having a half-assed Tron look and appearing more glitchy than anything.

Grasshopper's style of humor appealed to me as a teen, but I don't think it can make up for a contrived multiplayer mode and a lack of the series' stylish combat. The story probably won't be all that memorable. With only five actual bosses it sounds like we've down-sized from Desperate Struggle - I guess it could mean we fight them in longer phases, or fight them repeatedly, but I doubt it.

And this is apparently a mid-quel, so this is entirely filler.

Okay, can't really argue any of that. (Except that it's possibly a sequel, not a midquel, but sources seem inconsistent on that.) Nevertheless, it does look fun. Some boss footage is something I'd like to see since those are usually the highlights of these games. And the humor, of course. That at least doesn't seem to be lacking at all.

While I'm certainly looking forward to this, it very much seems like a side-story. I'm excited to get something NMH again, but this isn't No More Heroes 3, by Suda's own admission, and I'm not treating it as such.

Can't argue with that. Having new NMH-anything is a hoot.

And I do rather like the idea of getting sucked into a video game, at least conceptually. It's the sort of kookiness I've come to expect from this developer.

I guess I might have to temper myself on the gameplay. I'm just really curious what it's actually going to look like once it's finished, and if these top-down cameras are just minigames.

I'm thinking the top-down might just be what it looks like in co-op, since there's at least one shot of Travis running with the camera to his back like usual. It doesn't bother me too much either way though, since I'm used to that kind of gameplay. To be honest, the gameplay in general is kind of secondary to me. I've found the main draw of this series to be the dialogue, humor, and fun, memorable characters. My only complaint in that area so far is perhaps not having enough fun, memorable characters, so I hope they use the ones they've got well. Their designs look pretty badass at least.

My biggest complaint in general is the lop-sided title. It my OCD.

...I suppose the greatest thing about Suda 51 is his ability to subvert expectations.

Now what I want to know is why Bad Dad and Travis are fighting together. The second trailer made it seem like Teeth-Clenched Teamwork and perhaps that's what it is, but seeing them on the same screen like this makes it seem less like they're fighting for their lives and more like Gameplay and Story Segregation.

Which I guess is necessary given Travis's beam katana doesn't instantly gib his enemies in-game, but still.

I feel like Bad Dad could have been an excellent addition to a third main NMH game. Travis just finished his trivial quest of avenging Bishop, and now he's being targeted by Bad Dad for the murder of Bad Girl, who herself was a sadistic, mass-murdering assassin. Blue-and-Orange Morality all up in this series.

EDIT: Took me a minute to get the "GDC" joke.

edited 28th Mar '18 7:38:13 AM by Soble

... man. That gameplay just plain doesn't look fun. Really unhappy with the change.