after a pretty amazing sequel, my personal favourite in the series, and a long hiatus no more heroes eventually came back with a spinoff. Travis strikes again, a pretty killer game and one of my favourites of last year, it was such a unique and deeply personal project. this spinoff teased that the series would come back with a real major mainline game eventually and even included a little playable teaser of it showing off a few mechanics and the graphical style. it wasn't much but it was enough to prove to people that this wasn't just a one time gig, they were putting their all into giving the series what was presumably it's swan song, one last ride for the cast while they still could. that would indeed eventually happen, coming out a few years later for the switch and turning out pretty well all things considered. it's a very different game compared to the rest of the series, arguably even more-so than TSA was, but i think it's interesting and i liked what it was going for a lot.

the games structure might turn some people off, but I think it works. the game is pretty different from the other games in that it doesn't really have levels, not really. the game gives you a pretty medium sized open world to explore and has you going trough it to get money for the fights. this is the same as usual, but where before you would do a big level full of enemies at that fight zone before, you don't usually get that here beyond a lone exception. it's just the open world and the boss fights with a few room based encounters for you to engage with here and there and many of these are side content. Where i can see it turning some people off I think this works in the context of this being a portable game. You can jump in and play a few minigames, do a few encounters and level up. maybe then during the next commute you can do the big cutscene boss fights or just wander around and get some collectables, it's a perfect structure for a portable NMH game and I like it a lot. it does leave the game with less memorable moments as before and it makes the boss fights stand out a little less to me with how you don't have to go through that cool level beforehand to get to them. here it's just a single corridor you walk through with a save point and a ramen stall. that said there is at least one traditional level here. it's a really cool Japanese horror level that I think is a big homage to project zero 4 and twilight syndrome. you walk around an abandoned school in first person and explore the place, getting into a few fights along the way. it's not much but it's probably the games highlight for me and it gives it at least a little variety. the boss fights are solid too, i loved the puzzle gamey gold joe fight, the rhythm gamey velvet chair girl fight and the turn based sonic juice fights for sure, but Kimmy Howell, midori midorikawa, henry cooldown and FU are my favourite traditional fights in the game. those 3 are easily up there with some of the best the original duology had to offer.

then there is that open world it has. it's not that big but it's pretty varied and full of stuff to find. it's got a strange look to it owing from the fact it's a game of this scale trying to run on the switch of all things and it makes the open world a slightly spooky and uncanny place to explore. it gives the game a really interesting atmosphere and it made me excited to explore around every time i turned the game on. it reminded me of something like the 25th ward or silver case, how creepy and empty those games can be. it's like that but fully explorable and i love that energy, i have to imagine this is intentional since the "perfect world" area of the map is at least partially based on some of the stuff shown off in 25th ward. the other area's of the map are cool too. you have most of santa destroy, bar a small section that was destroyed at the games beginning. not all of it is explorable though, which is an issue most of the map has with large areas just blocked off with no way to know what would otherwise be there despite them being shown on the map. so much of it is blocked off for seemingly no reason, I'm sure there is a reason but it does still bug me a little. there's also a call of duty inspired warzone with some cool destroyed buildings and a really nice looking beach, a huge salt flats wasteland, a cute little Osaka inspired Japanese zone and a fairly empty futuristic island. all interesting areas to explore, though they do tend to get a little less cool as the game goes on. there are some neat minigames to do there though, tons of collectables to find too! the main minigames i liked were probably the bike stages that have you take down rival cars, the spelunker inspired mining levels and the famicom style sidegame "deathman" which is fully featured and so cool to see. there's other stuff too though, like defence missions which are where most of the games combat comes in, collecting garbage in top down segments, turret segments and a really fun lawnmower minigame. nothing quite as fun as some of the ones in 2 for me but it's still a very solid set of minigames.

the combat i do have to say is an overall sidestep from prior games. it's neither better nor worse than them with some great additions and some really unfortunate subtractions. it takes influence from both the 3D hack and slash entries but also from the top down combat in TSA to make mix that has strengths from both but that i don't think manages to quite hit their highs. credit where it is due even with the things about it i don't like it is the best the combat has felt in the moment to moment with it's extremely satisfying attack chains and faster pace. the issue is that i would say it's not as deep as those prior games, you're sacrificing depth for feel here. you have a beam katana, strong and light combos, upgrades, wrestling finishers and recharging your sword when its battery dies mid combat, but this time with a few extras. where alternate sword styles like the duel wield or claymore, as well as other swords and the entire unarmed combat system are gone you now have a set of TSA style cooldowns and some cool battle chip upgrades in their place. this is a downgrade for sure at least for variety but the cooldowns are fun and they mix well into the flow of things. you get a turret, a kick, a throw and a slow attack all included and they're all pretty useful and fun to use. one issue though is that unlike TSA you can't actually change them out for others which is pretty bad, you just don't get the variety that the combat system really needs.

you do get the battle chips at least, a series of craftable stat modifiers to change your playstyle, but it's a super minor addition you won't make much use of on your first playthrough with how minor most of them are and how long it takes to unlock most of them but they're neat nonetheless. the game does at least try and replace a few of these things with its own versions though. the unarmed style used to be used for guard breaks and stuns but now this can happen just by spam rushing them with attacks so you can rush in with a grab to finish them. this can also be sped up with the cool bayonetta dodge which slows down time and seems to make it much easier to stun them. both of these i think do feel very good to do. same with the mecha mode which kind of replaces the tiger state from 2. this is a wholly separate combat system that the game uses for a few of its boss fights and as a thing you can gain during combat with the returning slot machine mechanic. travis can henshin into a mech rider form that plays a little more like something like armored core on rails as you take down bosses from ranged with missiles, though you can unlock a smaller form for fights that has its own combos and a cool screen clear finisher. it's fine, i like these boss fights a lot and they never get repetitive, though its version in regular combat doesn't add a ton of variety to the game and never lasts very long.

the story i do find to be a little bit disappointing though. this game just doesn't feel as personal or meaningful as TSA did on its surface and i think there's some other areas that it even takes a huge step down in terms of the things it sets up and never follows through with. sure you could see this disappointment as intentional in some ways, like a commentary on legacy sequels which i do think the game is to some degree very much that, but there's other ways that it just has me kind of wondering what the point of it was. Like dedicating a full game to badgirl only to have her with less than a minute of screentime and having shinobu lose her arms in the games first few minutes so she spends the rest of the game unplayable and in a coma. it calls back to suda's more sexist affairs and makes me wonder if the improvements he made in the prior game were more of a fluke than anything else. i don't think it's a bad story beyond that though. i like the new cast of characters, the alien stuff is fun and that first trailer was excellent with all its backstory, but it just doesn't come together as much as i wish it would. the alien faction has some really fun characters but none of them are as interesting as prior games casts, both in design and in writing. the alien aesthetic just doesn't do as much for me as the human designs the prior games had and even the human designs here generally feel like a big step down compared to 1 and 2. i like some though, midori looks rad, i like the new Kimmy and badgirl designs, fu and velvet chair girl both look great and i think the design the game uses for kamui is really nice looking. a lot of the alien designs are a miss for me though, i do respect what it's going for but they started to kind of blend together for me and beyond chair girl, fu and sonic juice i don't really remember any of them. i do like the faction as an idea though and fu has a really good presence as a villain, his VA nails that asshole prince energy.

you do see bits of the game shining in interesting ways, like the commentary on EA and travis in smash, but a lot of what the game is going for feels kind of muddled to me, it just doesn't feel like all of it was thought through as well as it could have been. especially stuff like the henry subplot which is just weirdly mean spirited seeming to me. maybe that's the point though, commentary on slightly disappointing legacy sequels like i said before. i do love the fun bishop sections. it's nice to see travis just talk candidly about what he's passionate about and you even get some fun interactions with the rest of the cast as they talk about the kinds of movies and shows they like. hell it's given me a ton of great movie recommendations to watch with the games chapters all being bookended with discussions on the movies of Takashi mike and i think the payoff there is well worth the games price of admission alone. even beyond that i like some other aspects, like the Kimmy scenes, kamui showing up and connecting the game more to the silver case games and the entire sonic juice segment being pretty fantastic. the sequelbait too i thought was a funny addition and the cameo from the daemon x machina mech, a game i really need to pick up sometime now that i remember about it. the whole ending fight too is great. it was probably the highlight of the game for me beyond the midori stuff. it feels like a solid sendoff but maybe not solid enough to make up for the rest of the stories shortcomings.

the music is one of the games biggest upgrades i find. the OST is better than TSA for me and has a ton more variety to it, it's one of the bigger track lists in the series with roughly 120 tracks total. the OST was worked on by a good few people with Nobuaki Kaneko being listed as the main composer, they've only worked on this game. you also have Jun Fukuda who is listed as a music supervisor, they worked on games like god hand, every other no more heroes game including heroes paradise, shadows of the damned, balan wonderworld, world end club, crimson dragon and resident evil umbrella chronicles: also credited is Kazuhiro Abo who worked on this and TSA and lastly you have Tomoaki Oga who worked on the pokemon sun and moon games as well as their ultra versions, Digimon time stranger as well as the retro mystery club games. it's a solid set of composers and they delivered here with both quality and variety. my personal favourite tracks include "Naomi's lab" which is one of the games catchier themes. "I L Y", "start the game", "beast test" and "henshin" are all solid. "defeated or dead" which i always kept on for little after every mission, very jammable. "ufo passage" is another standout track, so ethereal. "phantom skate" is one of the standout boss tracks, "hikuidori bite" is even better though. "results" is a top 3 track for me, for sure. "fork in the wall", "rank up", "board meeting", "gold joe-pre battle", "badman" and "headgozz" are all solid tracks. "rap battle" is the OST's funniest track. "awesome holyday in the sky", "fork in the wall", "sniping lee meeting" and "ohma-pre battle" are solid. the tracks during the games horror level with "travis and midori", "haunted school" (both investigation and encounter) and the three midori fight tracks are all great, "thrilled lady" especially, same goes for all of kamui's tracks that are used which remix some silver case music. these would be for sure some of my favourites on the OST, though they would rate low for me compared to other silver case remixes. "destroyman pre-battle" and "sonic juice-pre battle" stand out as two of the bet pre-battle themes, it helps that "finale fantastique" which follows up the latter of those is another of the games best tracks, a cute little final fantasy OST homage, "dead orca force" is killer too. "damon tower" is the best of the level themes, though not better than a lot of the open world themes.

those open world themes, as well as your home base tracks, are probably the games best overall set of tracks. "kyoten", "hurry home", "power-up machine" and "heartbeats" being the best songs from your little hub base. for the open world themes your standouts would be "santa destroy 2021" as well as it's on bike variant which is a lot faster and more upbeat. "perfect world (on foot)" which is one of the games best songs, could even be a shoe-in for my overall favourite, it's other varient is solid too but that piano track really hits for me. "neo osaka", "call of battle (on foot)" and "neo brazil(on foot)" round out the other bests from this section of the OST. "ordinary", "garbage collecting", "bike mission" in both of it's varients and "magical girl" make up all of the best side-mission tracks. some of the unused tracks are solid too like the aptly named "Unknown track 1" and "Unused track 1" , they're not in the game but i liked them enough to mention them here. last second shoutouts go to "octopus" which is my favourite of the games battle tracks, along with "brother of the dead" and "nighthawk" . as well as "b's theme" is another huge standout track, one of the best shop themes around. "プラハの夜"is also a killer track, this is the vocal theme that accompanies every chapter end. it's easily my second favourite on the OST, it fits that anime ED vibe perfectly, it's just the main song that comes to mind when i think of this game.

length-wise the game will run you a good 7-10 hours depending on how deep into the weeds you get with the open world and those side quests. it's a pretty perfect length i feel since it means the game never really overstays its welcome and it'll keep you going for a good few commutes with all the side stuff you can do if you really want that. if you do all of those you could easily get to a good 15-20 hours of runtime. same with the post-game stuff like the extra difficulty settings, though i never checked any of those out. it's also not a very difficult game i would say, it's for sure the easiest game in the series so far which i find is pretty welcome but series veterans might want to up the difficulty a little for your first run. as far as ports go you have a few options. the game was originally exclusive to the switch and this port is honestly the most striking looking one, at least to me, it doesn't look *good* in the traditional sense but i find myself having a real affinity for games like this that make the switch really struggle. this one, akin to something like deadly premonition 2, has a rough look to it and a really poor frame rate that really endear me to it, it's a look all its own. there's also a more modern gen port with the xbox and ps4/5 version, this one looks and runs better and the ps5 version has some haptic and trigger thingies but they're just more of the same. there isn't any exclusive content like heroes paradise or included DLC like TSA, just the game as it was, though these versions tend to be buggier i hear and might even be missing a few pieces of music. they're there if you want them and every port has a physical release that's super affordable and easy to find, so you'll have an easy time getting into the game no matter your platform. no DLC either so what you buy is what you get, no additional purchases needed!

that's been it for the series until now. grasshopper has been more focused on things like older ports and Romeo is a deadman since the game came out, a game i have heard fantastic things about. the game's two directors also still work at the company, with ren yamazaki writing and directing Romeo is a deadman and helping with the shadows of the damned remaster. he also worked on things like travis strikes again, black knight sword, shadows of the damned and Michigan report from hell. goichi suda also worked on this as a director, which at the time was pretty uncommon and i also don't really need to talk about his accomplishments. if you're reading about no more heroes you're probably readily familiar with the guy and his work. overall i did really like the game! it's overall my least favourite in the series, 1 and TSA feel more personal and 2 is more my specific thing but it's such a fun time with a lot of passion to it and a killer sense of style. it's really hard to not come away liking it a ton, flaws and all and if you like the works of grasshopper then i think you'll find a lot to like here too.