Why do people hate this game so much?

[Ciaran Zagami]

I’ll be blunt. I think this is the best in the trilogy. I don’t get all the hate

[Roy]

but I'm people and I don't hate it

[Rey]

I agree. I think people who fell in love with the first game, did so for everything that was removed in this entry (Open world, Day jobs, etc.), and was brought back into the third for the most part, a bit more polished. I prefer the streamlined experience and faster combat of this title over all of them, and think this one has the best narrative, so it's my personal fave.

Also on-the-spot switching between four different types of katanas was awesome and I was sad to see it swapped out for Power Glove abilities in 3.

[Ciaran Zagami]

If I couldn’t swap between katanas I literally wouldn’t have beaten this game ngl Jasper is a lot easier with the Peony than the Rose Nasty

[Sixtyfivekills]

I'll say, Shinobu feels terrible to play and most of the fights are way too easy, I've also heard how getting knocked down on Wii was tedious while its barely noticeable here. It's fine, music is really good, visuals are nice


Still, if I had to rank the series its just a downwards spiral, I love the first game, like the second, don't care about TSA because I found it too boring to play and since I genuinely don't care about the whole Sudaverse thing, and I hate the 3rd game which doubles down on references and meta which resulted in bastardizing characters I liked.

[Ciaran Zagami]

Its really funny cause before we had the "Sudaverse" as you put it we had Kill The Past which was just Suda's fancy way of saying "reoccurring story themes and names"

You never needed to play Killer7 to understand No More Heroes, sure if you had then you'd be clued in on jokes like Mask De Uh being a reference to Mask De Smith or how the guy who comes to kill Travis before the true ending looks like Garcian Smith. But the games still stood on there own, so many people who never played Killer7 LOVE NMH.

Like I said it helps with in jokes but more than anything Suda's stories just reused a lot of material. Assassins, protagonists with selective amnesia, traumatic backstories, retro video game references, computer generated voices, talking severed heads. On and on the list goes.

But suddenly with NMH 3 if you didn't play The Silver Eyes, Killer7, Shadows of the Damned and the entire rest of the NMH series the plot of three is almost entirely incomprehensible cause so many core moments rely on your background knowledge of Suda51's work.

Its actually worse than that in 3 imo because you also need random Suda trivia knowledge, like Damon is named after the CEO of EA who Suda personally blames for the failure of Shadows of the Damned. The final boss is a reference to how Travis didn't get into Smash Bros and that Miike is a real person not just someone Suda made up and you better have seen ALL his films or those weird cutscenes with Travis and Bishop gooning out over them won't make ANY sense.

[vault2049]

I don't think it's the game that people hate, but the port.

[Maximillian Arikado]

Originally posted by vault2049:

I don't think it's the game that people hate, but the port.

Nah, port issues aside, NMH2 was for the longest time seen as the black sheep of the series and was pretty contentious among hardcore NMH fans.

I personally think it's fine enough and the combat is massively improved over NMH1, but it does have some odd story and design choices that make it pretty obvious that Suda wasn't nearly as involved in this game's production as he was in the rest of the series.

To name a few, there's the axing of the open world, the way it tries to tone down Sylvia's more manipulative elements and the ending officially pairing her up with Travis, the weird romantic obsession Shinobu has with Travis that doesn't really go anywhere or get mentioned again, and the way the bosses don't feel quite as fleshed out or built up when you encounter them.

But since the games are way more accessible now and we have TSA and 3 to continue the saga, people seem to be re-evaluating NMH2 as it's no longer the last game in the series.

[Ciaran Zagami]

people who think Suda didn't have anything to do with NMH 2 haven't played his other games imo his themes and style are all over NMH 2.

[peep]

Originally posted by Ciaran Zagami:

people who think Suda didn't have anything to do with NMH 2 haven't played his other games imo his themes and style are all over NMH 2.

Yeah I don't understand why people think this game feels different to 1 and 3 because of the lack of Suda51. Ichiki and Kamura did a fantastic job keeping Suda51's weird style and tone.

[Ciaran Zagami]

I personally remain convinced that Suda had plans for NMH 2 and had laid out some kind of story or design doc that they followed in his absence because there's just no way this game would slot in so neatly as a sequel if he just ditched the project to go make Shadows Of The Damned

[peep]

I was thinking the same thing honestly. I had to go look what else Grasshopper was doing at the time because it's obvious he was originally suppose to do NMH2 but decided to give Shadows his full attention. I'm guessing the success of the first game meant they couldn't let NMH2 wait any longer. I saw critiques say this game sucks because it doesn't match Suda's style but I completely disagree.