YMMV / Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes

• Awesome Music: TSA joins the likes of the rest of the series in having a great soundtrack, but special mention goes to the fantastic rap songs Welcome to Hell for being both a really emotional and funny rap piece sung from the perspective of resident Ensemble Dark Horse Eight Hearts/Johnson and Silver Face, which is also sung from the perspective of the DLC boss, which has surprisingly emotional lyrics and is a killer remix of N.M.H.
• Continuity Lock-Out: Due to the franchise laying dormant for about eight years, along with the fact Bad Man is explicitly related to Bad Girl, an assassin from the original game, it's likely to confuse newcomers. Unsurprisingly, the first trailer features Travis briefly making fun of this.
  • As the game continues, it becomes increasingly clear that the game is more of an anniversary project for Suda51 and Grasshopper Manufacture as a whole, which means that people who haven't touched Suda's other games can get left in the dust. This includes his visual novel works as well.
• Complete Monster: Damon Ricotello. See here.
• Demonic Spider: The Lady Bugbug enemies which can nullify your special attacks for quite a while.
• Difficulty Spike: True to the distinction of being the final bout, Silver Face's level is the hardest of the entire game - you have to run through multiple gauntlets under a strict time limit which are littered with ruthless gimmicks, including one segment that forces you to tread calculatingly passed enemies and traps, punishing you for attacking or jumping. Silver Face himself is arguably the hardest boss in the entire game, as he hits like a truck, is fast, and tracks the opponent with combination projectiles.
• Ending Fatigue: The CIA level for its overly long maze levels and bland design.
  • Every single end part of the game, besides its boss fights, counts too, as most criticized for being dragging.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Mr. Doppelgänger left a pretty sizeable impression on fans, likely just by how cool and terrifying he is alone. Suda himself is also a fan and is considering having him return in some way, helped by the open-ended-ness of his real life counterpart still being at large.
  • Eight Hearts is also well liked for his fantastic design, and the twist that he's really Johnson, Garcia's skull/gun/motorcycle partner from Shadows of the Damned.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The knowledge that Damon Riccitiello violently assaulted Dr. Juvenile during the development of Serious Moonlight becomes a lot more unfortunate, if not scarily predictive, when you find out that former EA and current Unity CEO John Riccitiello—the person whom Damon is based off of—was accused of sexual harassment months after release of the game.
  • Badman’s quest to revive his daughter becomes this in No More Heroes III when he is Killed Off for Real by FU, leaving his daughter alone for good.
• Heartwarming Moments:
  • The very existence of Serious Moonlight is this in both a traditional and meta sense. Its backstory is that after Dr. Juvenile's attempt at an open-world action RPG was compromised, she decided to make a sequel to a future game she's enjoyed playing in her dreams: Shadows of the Damned, the one game Goichi Suda had the most problems with. Damned: Dark Knight faithfully recreates the atmosphere of said game and brings back Garcia Hotspur, who endows Johnson with enough power to become Eight Hearts after being wounded by Alfred. When Travis encounters Eight Hearts, he genuinely gushes over the original game, with his only criticism being that it could have needed a New Game Plus, and after he bests Eight Hearts (who receives spiritual encouragement from Garcia), he shows nothing less than respect to him and looks forward to he and Garcia's full next adventure. It goes to show how much Suda came to acknowledge Shadows of the Damned as a part of Grasshopper Manufacture's lineage, warts and all.
  • Shinobu and Travis' conversation in the credits shows that they are still on good terms, despite him turning her down in the second game. Also, Badman taking offense to Travis calling Bad Dog a "fuckin' mutt" and immediately chasing after him with his bat.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: At the Nintendo Switch Presentation where the game was originally teased, Suda51 stated that the title had yet to be determined. While discussing the game there, the image of Travis on display read "Travis strikes again", which was later revealed to be the game's title.
  • In regards to the Continuity Lockout incident noted above, ports for the first two games in the series were announced and released during October 28, 2020's Partner Showcase.
• Moral Event Horizon: Damon Riccitiello did this in the game's past, when he savagely beat up Dr. Juvenile during the development of Serious Moonlight. When Travis learns about this in the middle of the search for the Death Balls, he heads to Utopinia, cuts up Damon's bodyguard, and beats Damon to near-death with his bare hands.
• Nightmare Fuel: Life is Destroy introduces an Invincible Minor Minion with no name other than "????" which takes the form of a giant blue head that is constantly groaning, constantly chasing you, and capable of killing you with but a glancing touch.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The charging, which as Yahtzee describes "has the battery of a 6-year old iPhone", the inability to upgrade player abilities besides total HP and damage, and the fact that most enemies can cancel your special attack.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "HLM" (which plays in the Hotline Miami dialogue segments) to "Silver Lights" (from the actual Hotline Miami soundtrack).
  • Going further with references, house clear theme from Life is Destroy is a pastiche of "Horse Steppin'" (menu theme of Hotline Miami).
• Tear Jerker: Damned: Dark Knight's opening has quite a whammy: Garcia's apparent death at the hands of Fleming's son, Alfred. He has just enough time to evacuate Johnson through a portal before losing consciousness.
• That One Level: The second half of "Life is Destroy" has you being chased by a demon head that can instakill your character while figuring out the neighborhood road puzzles.
  • "Golden Dragon GP" where the titular racing event plays like a Need for Speed drag-racing game... except shifting is done by navigating a mini-maze that is randomized every time a race starts.
  • The CIA levels are dragging for longer than expected, filled to the brim with Goddamned Bats and Demonic Spiders.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Look in any comments section and you'll find people upset that this game is its own thing instead of No More Heroes 3.
• Unexpected Character:
  • None of the previous ranked assassins besides, series staple Shinobu and the fights with Dr. Letz Shake and New Destroyman in Desperate Struggle, reappeared until this game, which brought back fan favorite Bad Girl by way of her father Badman coming after Travis for revenge.
  • "Serious Moonlight" brings Garcia Hotspur and Johnson into the mix, in what is a canonical sequel to the previous game built into this one.
  • No one expected Dan Smith to show up, let alone in a fully-voiced, plot-critical cutscene in that game's style.
  • The Travis Strikes Back mode is a long line of these, especially for people who have played The 25th Ward, but also including characters from various other Grasshopper games as well.

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