Anyone else disappointed? (possible spoilers)

[boxythecat]

I won't say it's absolutely awful or anything like that, there were many parts I did enjoy, but compared to the first, it feels to me it got caught up too much in its own details to focus on the themes.

Guess I might just have to go through it again to get more of an understanding. I did go through the first 3 times(though once was the Japanese version before they announced the remake). Maybe I just got lost in all the arbitrary stuff myself.

That said, I've been a GHM fan for some time, since the first No More Heroes was announced. Not the most complex game, nor was the sequel but perhaps that's why it wasn't a letdown. I felt I only had to go through Killer7 and Flower, Sun, and Rain once in order to at least grasp their meaning, or at least what I thought they meant.

As I said, I did like some parts, or at least some ideas. I can kind of see where the idea for Emir came from. The notion of killing the past being expanded a bit into peoples' ideas continuing their existence. The background details of the 25th Ward were all pretty promising.

However, there were other not so great things. Perhaps most importantly, to me at least, was Tokio Morishima. A character I didn't really know much about until my third play through of SC as I neglected the "extra" chapter. As uneventful as it had been, I came to find it was far more touching on a personal level and he's become one of my favorite characters in the medium.

So I had anticipated this the most, saving it for last, and it wasn't a huge letdown, but honestly by the end it felt like it was a bit of a hollow shell of the previous Placebo. I almost would rather forget this part and leave his end on Lospass. Similarly there was Sumio, though his scenario was at least interesting from an artistic standpoint.

Criminal power is another thing that I feel this kind of missed the mark with. I suppose if this is how the original writers made it, I don't have much room to argue, but my interpretation of the first game had me thinking it was simply a term used by the government to differentiate their own hitmen - and the contradiction would come in the form of Sumio later becoming a criminal by his and Kusabi's own definitions. Or even the rest of the HC unit turning out to backstab each other. And essentially many, many people having the potential to be Kamui or Ayame, and their symbiotic relationship being analogous to the general nature of men and women in the real world.

Which is also part of where I feel this messes up; focusing far too much on explaining how people are literally related to one specific Kamui or Ayame, or the science fiction about the silver eye, etc. I just don't see the reason to get bogged down in it.

Maybe I will change my mind as I plan to play through most of these before Travis Strikes Again is released. I don't expect much of it, but Kamui appearing in the latest trailer intrigues somewhat.

So what does everyone else think?

[flurry!]

I was actually quite pleased with it and I only played Silver Case and FSR through once.

Also I was a huge fan of the themes the game had around digital man and electride personally, and though Tokio's closure was pretty satisfying since we see so much more about his background.

Might be me but this game made Sumio far more interesting as well and I really liked Shiroyabu as a character.

[mondo.]

haven't played that much
gon be back when i get to it

[accro au porno]

i'm not reading your post dude, but i just wanted to say that the reviews are from people who got the game before everyone else, let the people finish the game, let the people analyze what they found about the game, replay the game, you'll maybe find something worth to write or talk about. I've got many things to say about it and i just completed Correctness and i'm in the 4th chapter or Matchmaker !

[俄]

I'm not a big fan of how they handled the puzzles throughout the game but whatever.
Then Matchmaker was a bit silly, but I still loved it.
Correctness felt like an extremely referential infodump at times and I loved it, I'll have to replay it some more times to absorb exactly what's going on.

I felt more emotional towards TSC than this one, but it's not that dissapointing, specially since I was already expecting something like this from the 25W; a violent, tough remake of a phantom game.

[Steyr]

I'm not disappointed at all, the game more than lived up to my expectations. Granted, there are a lot of elements that are still completely incomprehensible to me, even by Suda standards, but i'm hoping things will come into focus with another playthrough or two. The game followed up on the story and themes from TSC and FSR nicely, and the cast was really memorable, too. I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone ends up posting any proper analysises decoding the more complex parts of the plot though, because this game is REALLY narratively and thematically dense.

Though i do think the puzzles weren't really as good as they could have been. They were either complete cakewalks where someone just straight up told you the answer, or a death march where you spend an hour knocking on doors and taking notes. There were very few puzzles that were just right in terms of difficulty.

[Arale//Zero]

I only observed these flaws existing in one particular part: the criminal power extraction machine in "05. That was a bit too silly for me. Other than that, I didn't think the game was any less theme-focused than the previous ones; though its themes are a lot harder to parse, I wouldn't call it particularly literal. It has infodumps, sure, but so did the previous games, and like before I don't think they are necessarily trustworthy.

[mondo.]

Originally posted by Arale//Zero:

I only observed these flaws existing in one particular part: the criminal power extraction machine in "05. That was a bit too silly for me. Other than that, I didn't think the game was any less theme-focused than the previous ones; though its themes are a lot harder to parse, I wouldn't call it particularly literal. It has infodumps, sure, but so did the previous games, and like before I don't think they are necessarily trustworthy.

same goes for nezu controlling the whole city in silver case
so f*cking stupid

[俄]

Matchmaker doesn't do very well with suspension of disbelief