[These posts on No More Heroes 2 are purely speculation. I have no idea what the team at Grasshopper Manufacture intended for the game to mean; I can only speak to what I've taken away from it, so if you don't enjoy potentially bullsh*t interpretations of the meaning of a videogame, then stay away from this post. --Jonathan]
Here it is, the second and final post from me about the bosses of No More Heroes 2. Honestly, I'm worried that it's sort of stupid to put these posts out so quickly after the game's release, as I feel that I'm far from really figuring it all out. I've already had a few new ideas about the first nine bosses that I wish I'd written in the other NMH2 boss analysis post, and since I'm about to dive into writing this next post, I'm still trying to figure out what the last nine bosses mean to me.
These next nine are especially hard to describe, because they rely on atmosphere and context a lot more than dialogue or physicality to get their messages across. I better not starting thinking about that now, though, or I'll run the risk of getting a sudden case of writer's block and never finishing this thing.
I'm just going to jump into it, figure it out as I go along, and hope it makes sense to somebody. That's probably what Suda51 would do, and it seems to be working for him. So hit the jump and see what I poop out. Oh, and watch out for spoilers and stuff.
The Million Gunman: A shameless stereotype
From what I can tell, this guy is by far the least liked boss in No More Heroes 2. Unlike most of the other bosses in the game, he's just sort of... there. His motivations for being an assassin, his feelings toward anything, his overarching goals -- all remain unknown. That said, he's not particularly mysterious, either. He clearly likes money, comes off as a snob, and runs away from a fight. Also, he's British. Basically, he's Scrooge with a golden gun.
All that is pretty bland on its own, but it makes sense when you think about who he's fighting. Shinobu is a black woman, and at the point in the game where the Million Gunman shows up, she has taken the role of central protagonist away from Travis Touchdown. To my knowledge, this is a first in videogame history. The closest a black woman has come to this before was when Sheva sort-of co-starred in Resident Evil 5, though I personally have never played the game using her (always left her to be AI-controlled). Still, I was only certain that Sheva was black because she outright announces it in the game. She easily could have passed for Latina or a tan Italian. Shinobu's different. She may be rocking the white 'fro, but she's clearly black.
Okay, before I go on a rant about race and videogames, let me get back to the Million Gunman. What makes him interesting, at least to me, is how far he takes the "white guy" stereotype. If we lived in a society where people of Anglo-European descent suffered from a history of damaging discrimination, and were therefore more sensitive to being ridiculed or mocked for their cultural idiosyncrasies, the Million Gunman would definitely have spurred some protest from civil rights advocates. Everything about the guy -- his expensive stuff, his high-class accent, his cocky tone, his love of money, and the fact that you fight him in a bank -- all fits perfectly with the stereotype that individuals in minority groups sometimes hold against Caucasians.
I guess that's fair. Even to this day, most black characters in videogames (and movies, and TV shows, and music) have either a "gangsta" or other "ethnic" attachment glued onto them. The Million Gunman is the flip-side to that. He's the Black Baron from MadWorld, except in white-face. Whether that's supposed to be funny, offensive, ironic, or just some revenge for minorities that have put up with offensive depictions of their respective races since the dawn of modern entertainment, I can't say for sure. All I know is, it would have been even better if the Million Gunman's name was "Mr. White," like the villain in Petey Wheatstraw: The Devil's Son-in-Law.
White She-Devil wouldn't have been bad, either, if a little less accurate.
New Destroyman: Both sides of a bad man
If The Million Gunman is Grasshopper Manufacture's take on making a character who's "super-white," Destroyman is their take on the "super American male," and specifically, how men often make women feel. Almost any woman will tell you that when she meets a guy for the first time, no matter how nice he is to her face, she's guessing that in his mind, he's talking to her about something... less nice.
That's New Destroyman in a nutshell; he gives both the nice and not-so-nice sides of a man's mental process at the same time. In the first No More Heroes, he showed us the split between the pristine image of an American superhero and the ugliness that likely lies beneath that image. In No More Heroes 2, he works to show us the same thing, but specifically in relation to how men treat women. Travis split Destroyman in two at the end of their fight in the first game. Now he's back, with each organic half supported by a robotic prosthesis, and neither half lacking in mean-spirited horny-ness.
One half of the man seems to want to keep up a facade of genuine respect, while the other is constantly degrading Shinobu and openly planning some sort of gang bang. Out of all the potentially disturbing scenes in No More Heroes 2, these cut scenes with New Destroyman and Shinobu were the only ones that troubled me a little bit. Something about the way that New Destroyman (or more accurately, the New Destroymen) related to Shinobu rang true to me. I felt intensely protective of her, and all the more gratified when she overcame his/their advances and dirty tricks. I imagine that as Travis heard her story, he felt the same way. That's what made it so satisfying to kill Destroyman. Having him dead signaled Shinobu's victory, and her safety as well.
I'd love to hear what an actual African-American woman thinks of the Million Gunman and New Destroyman. That's not to say that my assessment is any less valid, but it would be interesting to hear how these two villains, whom I feel were tailor-made to stand in opposition of gaming's first black female action hero, appear to a black female. Too bad all the black girls I know who play videogames think the Wii is totally lame.
Ryuji: Travis's mysterious brother in combat
Ryuji isn't all that complicated. He's sort of the Boba Fett of the game, intentionally lacking in characterization so that we can project any personality onto him that we want. Low on personality as he may be, he still serves a pivotal role in the development of Travis Touchdown.
On the surface, Ryuji is like Travis. He rides a motorcycle, he fights with a beam katana, and he has a set of unique, stylish moves. He's also very different from Travis. He's not from this continent, and doesn't seem to buy into the Santa Destroy way of competition. He fights like a sumo, on equal ground, and without dirty tricks. Like Ryu from the Street Fighter series, Ryuji fights for enlightenment. He's not a common thug or a killer. He's achieved the status of a "true warrior" -- not through "gimmicks" or "technology," but through the strength of his will.
Ryuji's advanced status as a human fighter is something that Travis finds in himself during their fight. It's not likely that Travis would have killed Ryuji at the end of their battle. We'll never know for sure, though, because right after Travis defeats Ryuji, Sylvia guns him down in cold blood.
I'll get more into this on a separate post on Travis and Sylvia's relationship, but I'll say now that I think Sylvia represents both the best and the worst sides of the way videogames are made today. In this instance, she shows how little she respects the life of the gamer. Ryuji is just another player in her UAA game, and when he loses to Travis, his existence is no longer necessary. She doesn't value him as Travis does. Worse, she chastises Travis for seeing Ryuji's life as something of worth. She doesn't want Travis to play the game for any other reason than to kill. Death is the only thing she values.
It takes Travis a little while to build up to doing something about Sylvia and her disrespect for the participants in her contest, but in time, the death of Ryuji culminates in something that changes both of their lives for good.
Henry: Travis's better half
Henry is Travis's twin brother, and in the first game, he represents everything that Travis could be if he were just a little bit better. He's the "mysterious, slightly more powerful rival character" that has made its way into so many power fantasies. Henry is to Travis as Zero is to Mega Man X, or Racer X is to Speed Racer. He's there to make Travis feel bad about himself, and to give him something to aspire to be.
That hasn't really changed in No More Heroes 2. The only thing that's different is that now, Travis makes peace with Henry. He's okay with the fact that Henry is probably better than him. He's still competitive with his twin, but he's not so threatened by him that he feels the need to kill him. Before, Travis's only method of dealing with a threat like Henry was to make it die, but in No More Heroes 2, he finds a better way. He joins him.
Part of that "joining" happens when Travis allows Henry to stay in Travis's motel room; specifically, in his bed. Henry needs to thaw out after being frozen in carbonite by Dr. Letz Shake, and during his thaw time, he's totally defenseless. Travis could kill him right there, but instead, he not only lets him live, but passively helps him come back to life.
Cut off from the physical world, Henry still isn't totally safe. He ends up in a battle that takes place in the world of his unconscious mind. That's where he meets Mimmy.
Mimmy: The gatekeeper to the Garden of Madness
If Travis is Suda51's brazenly immature, enthusiastic gamer side, Henry is his calmer, cooler, more adult side. Apparently, he's also the side of Suda51 that's able to tap into his subconscious and make something of his dreams. While Henry's unconscious, we find that he has an intimate bond with the embodiment of all subconsciously derived ideas for videogames: Mimmy.
Mimmy is more than just a prepubescent girl with robotic battle-arms and a head like a radish. She is the representative of an imaginary world, born of all the things that Suda51 has taken into his mind and uses later in videogames. We see this on the wide-screen TV that Henry and Mimmy watch together, as it plays cut scenes from earlier in No More Heroes 2. I bet that's the same internal TV on which Suda51 watches a lot of his future games.
Mimmy is also a temptress. She begs Henry to stay with her forever and watch the ideas that float through Henry's subconscious, to spend the rest of his life connecting with his own subconscious. I can relate. It's a lot easier to just sit around and dream up ideas than it is to actually try to make them into something real. That's exactly what Mimmy tempts Henry to do, but due to his indomitable will, he fights the urge, and comes back to the conscious world. He disintegrates Mimmy, cutting off his connection to the subconscious, and potentially to his imagination as well (which is maybe why from here on out, the game is a lot less weird).
Mimmy may be gone for now, but I bet we'll be seeing her again in future games. If there is one thing the No More Heroes series hasn't been lacking so far, it's imagination.
Margret Moonlight: Servant of Death
Margret represents both the dead, and death itself. Her theme song; her mini-scythe weapons; her intimate connection to the pale, dead moon; her ghost-like appearance and abilities -- they all tell us that she is more connected with life than death. Travis has had a close relationship with death on a symbolic level for a very long time, but his meeting with Marget is where we get to see how Travis and death really get along.
So, what's Margret's motivation? What do death and the dead actually want? Nothing much, really. All Margret wants is to be remembered. Before trying to kill him, she asks Travis to hear her song. Then, as she is about to leave this world, she asks him to remember it. Travis abides, and as he walks away in the blinding moonlight, he whistles her song to himself, casting a long, black shadow in his wake. With that, Travis has taken up the mantle of death from Margret.
He's the reaper now, but then again, I guess he always was.
Captain Vladamir: The soul of a lost gamer
Through most of No More Heroes 2 -- and most videogames, for that matter -- the developer asks the player to bravely step into a mysterious, unpredictable world. The developer has total control, while in return, the player is given the opportunity to explore an undiscovered country. Sealed in the casing of our in-game characters, unable to really touch or feel the game world, we enter each game as an explorer.
Captain Vladamir the Cosmonaut, a refugee from lost space and time, is on the same kind of journey of exploration. He even has a game pad on his chest to prove it. His problem is that he's not able to play the game. His wires have been cut. He's out of control. While struggling to get a handle on himself and his surroundings, he constantly asks for help from a higher power. For Vladamir, that power is an unseen satellite that can bring down death like the wrath of God. However, Vladamir's overseers must not have cared for him that deeply, or else he would never have become so lost. He's pressing the buttons and he's giving the commands, but this is a game he isn't going to win.
In the end, it's Travis who sets him free. After he hits Vladamir with the death blow, the blinded explorer can see again. He sees that Earth, the place he's been trying to find for God knows how long, was under his feet the whole time. With that, he can rest in peace. Travis has ended his game.
Alice Twilight: The Last Ascetic
As Matt Helms tops off a Resident Evil 4-themed level, and Cloe Walsh a Metal Gear Solid-style stage, Alice Twilight is found in a world that reminded me a lot of Grand Theft Auto. Keep in mind, ,though that I don't really like the Grand Theft Auto games, largely because I find the simulation of petty (and not so petty) crimes to be rather dull. Running around a painfully realistic city, with no thematic music to accompany me (only the same crappy radio stations I can get in real life), and no grander purpose than to cause trouble and make money, is my idea of a soulless, bland experience.
I often wonder what people who love the GTA games would think of the series if they shared my perspective, if they didn't get any fun out of simulated car thefts and hooker murders. Well, one way I could find out is to ask them to play around in the overworld of the original No More Heroes, or play Alice Twilight's stage in No More Heroes 2. Most of Alice's stage looks like a real place, has no "unrealistic" use of thematic background music to keep things interesting, and takes place in a large, city-like area that's both repetitive and easy to get lost in. That's exactly how I feel about the GTA games, although at least in No More Heroes 2, it doesn't take too long for the level to turn into something more fun.
If Alice's stage is GTA without the vice, Alice is a player who takes no joy in vices. She's a follower of Asceticism, a spiritual belief that allows for no worldly pleasures. Bettering one's self is the only goal of the Ascetic. It's a joyless life that presumably calls for no pleasures or attachments whatsoever. One might guess that such a lifestyle might make someone question the meaning of life, or even become severely suicidal.
From Alice, we get a little of both. She tells us that her world is just an "endless cycle of violence, broadcast as a spectator sport" that's "addicted to the violence." She wants Travis to set her free. If I met one of the characters from a GTA game, I assume that's exactly what they'd tell me about their lives, and why they may prefer to be dead instead of having to live in a game that's so heartless. Travis's response is simple: "If you get tired of the battles, then fucking quit." What Travis doesn't get is that only player characters can end their game. Non-player characters like Alice can only escape by being ended by the player.
So, what does Alice really want? Like Margret (who has some connection to Alice, according to the pictures she is seen throwing into the fire), all Alice wants is to be remembered. That's what she's really been fighting for, and as she falls into Travis' sword, she seems relieved at knowing that Travis (and you, the player) will not forget her.
Not only will Travis remember her, but he has been changed by her. By witnessing her pain, her sense of loss and of being lost, Travis sees that this kind of game is wrong. Treating videogame characters like objects, like disposable victims of deserving of endless violence, is not what he wants to stand for. He decides to betray the rules of the game, and become "a hero by [his] own standards." He denounces the game, and pledges to "tear down the UAA."
First, though, he has a video store clerk to avenge.
Jasper Batt Jr.: The new Batman
The fact that Travis still goes after Jasper Batt, even after renouncing the UAA and the assassin's life, shows how much he really hates the guy. On the surface, we're told this is because Travis wants to avenge his "best friend," Bishop. That's silly. As anyone who's played the first game will tell you, the relationship between Bishop and Travis was pretty shallow. Bishop never deals with Travis outside of two brief types of interactions (bike delivery and video rental). He doesn't even have the decency to call Travis when his porno videos are overdue. He has a confused-sounding girl do it for him.
No, Bishop doesn't mean anything to Travis. What his death really signifies is that Santa Destroy, the town Travis calls home, is being taken over by big-money corporations. The lo-fi, humble trappings of Santa Destroy are being wiped out by Jasper Batt's company. This is a parallel to the gaming industry, where the types of low-budget, small developer games that used to be everywhere are slowly getting choked out by the EAs and the Activisions of the gaming world. That's something that Travis, or at least, the player, is supposed to care about.
Batt Jr. doesn't just represent American mega-corporations. He's also a parody of one of the world's most beloved symbols for "heroic vengeance." Just as Travis fashions himself after a character from a manga, Jasper Batt takes after someone from American comics. Like Bruce Wayne, Jasper Batt Jr. is an owner of a multi-million-dollar company. He also dresses like a bat, throws little bat-shaped boomerangs at his enemies, and fights to avenge the death of his family. If Jasper Batt were just a little taller and better looking, you'd swear he was Christian Bale.
Stranger still is the idea that from Batt's perspective, Travis is the villain of the Batman story. He's the instrument of chaos, the cold-hearted killer, the root of all of Batt's pain. Though it's Batt wearing the purple and green suit, it's Travis who plays the Joker in this scenario. The game doesn't actually do that much to dissuade the player from agreeing with Batt. Travis did kill Batt Jr.'s father and brothers. Travis really did start this cycle of revenge, and in the end, he really is the bad guy (or at least, the "worse" guy). Batt had one person killed. Travis's kill count is probably in the thousands.
This last battle may not affirm Travis's status as a hero, but it does work to achieve a few other things. It drives home that Travis has, in fact, formed relationships and attachments over the course of the game, and now fights for something different. He may have killed Jasper's family for cash in the first game, but that doesn't seem to be something he'd do now. The battle also re-affirms that superheroes and giant, baby-like corporate mascots look ridiculous, something that's always fun to see pointed out. Perhaps most importantly, though, this last fight lets us see Travis's real power: the ability to channel all the hate and anger of his opponents and kill them with that. It's quite a skill, and something that probably makes sense to a lot of gamers. How many times have you played a game that killed you countless times, then focused all of that adversity into determination, and then used that determination to eventually "beat" the game?
But that does raise a question: What does Travis have after all his enemies are gone, and there is no more hate and anger (or videogame) to re-channel against the world? Without a force to push against, Travis drifts towards the Earth in a frictionless free-fall, heading face-first into the end of his life, and more importantly, the end of the game.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Discussion of the final moments of No More Heroes 2 will have to wait for my next post on the game, where I'll focus more on the relationship of Travis and Sylvia: where it starts, how it changes, and how it ends.
Contest:
4:00 PM on 02.08.2010
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Looking forward to part 3!
The end of the Alice battle struck a chord with me, since I've played another Grasshopper Manufacture game, Contact, which dealt with a similar idea (is data alive?). I may blog about this. :O
Personally, my favorite boss battle was with Margaret and my favorite boss cut scene is easily New Destroyman's.
I completely missed that Vladimir's ties were cut.
Or who knows, maybe there really is no symbolism in Suda 51's work and he's just f*cking with us.
Lookin' forward to the conclusion.
Or anyone else see where he's coming from?
@ Everyone else- Thanks for reading that thing. I'm not sure I even like what I wrote, but there it is. It's amazing what having a deadline will cause you to come up with.
Evidently a very well recieved article. You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, the fact that you analysed anything by Suda51 and came out the other side vaguely sane shows that you have major cojones!
Really ironic when you consider that Grasshopper is currently working on something with EA.
Regarding Alice, there was another thing that I think ties into the "Non-player character" theory: the photos that she starts burning seem to show off a secret life that the player knows nothing about, but apaprently exists. That, however, doesn't really matter to Travis or the player, so she is burning them, because once she dies, there won't be any record of her life.
When I run over someone in GTA, that pedestrian may have had his/her own personal life, but it doesn't matter at all to me, so that secret life may as well not exist.
Honestly, though, with Suda51 taking something of a backseat for NMH2, I'm wondering if a lot of this is just nonsensical ass-pulling. I like to think that it isn't, though.
And good point about the photos. Alice couldn't have a personal life and be a videogame boss at the same time, and that's a sacrifice we should respect.
Damn, I sound so serious!
Also Bishop was his link with something else. Even if their relationship was lacking depth, every other character that he knows is related to the asesination world. Bishop may very well be his only way to look away form the madness of killing. Wich seeing the game realtes to the change of tone, as while assesiantion and normal life parts were balanced out it the first game, making the killing almost seem as a gme, here it is something real, more than the standard life of a citizen, which is now downplayed and even seen as more of a gmae, with the 8-bit style gmaes for that part of his life.
Well, maybe i'll blog about this, and my own interpretations, as it is a game that deserves this.
Waiting for the third entry of this.
You almost succeeded in making me no longer want to get this game when I get my Wii back... :\
Beautiful article man, can't wait for the next one.
My other issue with the Alice segment is that it never really addresses the similarities between Alice and Holly Summers from the first game. I'm still working out the actual meaning, but I did notice some things when thinking back on it. From the prosthetic legs (Alice has a lot more, of course) to the characters' distinct wisdom, to their acceptance of death, not to mention their request for Travis not to forget them, There's definitely something there that you may have overlooked.
anyways, despite my criticisms, I'm really looking forward to part 3. The ending was one of the parts of No More Heroes where I felt that, from reading forum posts, the majority of players really missed the point of. A fact which saddens me because I found it to be an extremely moving way to complete Travis' own personal journey.
The GTA feel comes very much form the urban/gang theme that is portrayed in the whole stage, or at least that was where I think it came. Still I think it is very interesting, as yes, the atmosphere of the stage has a SH feel to it, more so when you think that Alice's theme song, Twilight, was composed by the same man, reinforcing the eerie feeling that makes this stage close to the mythical terror saga. But then again the city enviroment and the waves of enemies seem more like a GTA game.
The million gunman part was enlightening, to say the least, I was really stuck on this one.
This had me rolling on the floor laughing, partially because I don't own a chair, but also because it was funny.
I finished the game tonight just so I could finish reading this article without spoilers.
Some of the analysis it doesn't seem like you've contemplated long enough, but as you've said- deadlines, and still overall I really liked these two articles. Really, there aren't too many video game news stories I'll read that are this long... well, except the Blatantly Better ones.
I guess we'll see in the sequel, if it ever gets made. Remember kids, get at least of of your friends to buy No More Heroes 2. It's good for them.
@ Phanto- I really hope you make a cblog about your perspective on NMH2, but if not, I'd be happy to hear about them via PM.
@ Aaron- I would have never thought of SH2. To me, that open sequence in Alice's stage is about 2 things; cinematic pacing, and the sudden revelation that you have established yourself as the ruler of a city, for better or worse. Those are the 2 things that GTA prides itself on, and pretty much the only 2 things that I like about the series.
Still, that's not to say that your idea about SH2 is wrong. I just don't see it as clearly as the GTA connection.
As for Alice and Holly, while they both definitely illicit sympathy and respect, I think the two characters are pretty different. While Holly has had to turn part of herself into a machine out of necessity, Alice uses her extra limbs to over-achieve.
Also, Alice looks like she's becoming a giant bug. If MGS4's Beauty and the Beast crew had a spot for a scorpion, Alice might pass the audition. Holly, on the other hand, still appears human. She just looks like she's been broken by the world.
So Alice is what happens when you sacrifice everything to become number one, while Holly is more of an example of a PTSD victim.
That's just my take anyway. Maybe I'll think differently after I have some coffee.
@ ScottyG- In a good way?
@ kurokotetsu- I think you're right about Bishop. He did represent Travis's link to the "regular" world, and there is something to be said for the fact that it was severed.
I guess his death would have meant more to me (and to Travis?) if he was a character from the first game that I liked a bit more. Thunder Ryu's already dead, but maybe Naomi? Maybe even Sylvia?
That's not to say that Bishop's death is meaningless to me. I guess it just doesn't feel that emotional, more like Travis wanted revenge on principal alone.
I'll keep myself, for the sake of everyone's patience, to describing the last fight with Jasper Batt Jr., as I found it the most egregious in meta-gaming vs. a powerful narrative story.
You made a very good point about Pizza Batt being a construct about bigger game developers. His fight is set over three very predictable, deliberately clichéd phases. That this is the guy that’s putting the unique (to some extent) 8-bit games in San Destroy out of business is very telling (although 8-bit mini-games is sort of clichéd in itself now). The pointlessness of revenge could even be gathered from the goofiness of the fight, as you stated, this guy thinks he’s Batman. You can’t take him seriously, he’s worked out this big revenge plot but he’s just a kid playing with toys, a foil to Travis playing with light sabers and robots in a very clear way.
So if that’s their point, fine, but they did effectively mutilate any semblance of emotional power the story should have at that point. This is the big revenge fight and it ends with Travis cutting a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon up. No conclusion, no last chance to take pity on what appears to be a kid. After all, revenge doesn’t end does it? It just continues. He might not be killing for money anymore but that was already established in the beginning because he left the UAA. It undercuts the half of the emotional consequences of revenge that they had been trying to make.
The worst part was that the three heads turned out to be replicas (two at least). Talk about deflating any emotional power. They disclose the secret right before the only hard part of the entire fight! Bishop wasn’t much of a character in the first one anyway, but when I saw those three trays I thought “Damn, Suda51, you cold bastard, you’re not afraid of anything! I’m going to tear this guy a new one!”
So what’s so bad about revenge again? It’s sure to get an NPC nobody cares about from a previous game killed? Frustratingly, since this is Suda51, you can argue that’s also deliberate, you’re killing for a completely architected reason. Someone else is only forcing your character to care. But at a certain point that kind of circular logic doesn’t hold water with me anymore. If there’s one thing I learned from reading Lucky Wander Boy is that there’s no limit to what can be read into a game. That Suda51 does try to say a lot only makes it more difficult to pick it apart. There was a lot of noise in their message and it’s always hare to tell what was intended and what wasn’t.
By contrast, the first game ended in two ways. The regular ending, in my opinion, the more powerful of the two, was a fateful meeting of two people, serious in both real revenge and their history together. It made you question what Travis knew and didn’t know getting into the competition and his motivations at a subconscious level. Was he searching for Jeanne all along or just fate? The second ending was a throw up to video games, a tongue and cheek show down that ended with funny reference to the concept of sequels. Both showed a bit of funky irreverence and deconstructing of video game tropes. Neither, however, seemed to contradict the plot or mess with the story out of boredom. There’s always some room for messing with the player, players can laugh at themselves, but when developers mess with the story, they do it at the expense of the story.
In any case, the plot is still head and shoulders above most of the stuff out there and your post is definitely a must read for people interested in the undercurrents of the game. Perhaps if there’s an NMH3 it will bring NMH2 into a greater overall narrative
I'll keep myself, for the sake of everyone's patience, to describing the last fight with Jasper Batt Jr., as I found it the most egregious in meta-gaming vs. a powerful narrative story.
You made a very good point about Pizza Batt being a construct about bigger game developers. His fight is set over three very predictable, deliberately clichéd phases. That this is the guy that’s putting the unique (to some extent) 8-bit games in San Destroy out of business is very telling (although 8-bit mini-games is sort of clichéd in itself now). The pointlessness of revenge could even be gathered from the goofiness of the fight, as you stated, this guy thinks he’s Batman. You can’t take him seriously, he’s worked out this big revenge plot but he’s just a kid playing with toys, a foil to Travis playing with light sabers and robots in a very clear way.
So if that’s their point, fine, but they did effectively mutilate any semblance of emotional power the story should have at that point. This is the big revenge fight and it ends with Travis cutting a Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade balloon up. No conclusion, no last chance to take pity on what appears to be a kid. After all, revenge doesn’t end does it? It just continues. He might not be killing for money anymore but that was already established in the beginning because he left the UAA. It undercuts the half of the emotional consequences of revenge that they had been trying to make.
The worst part was that the three heads turned out to be replicas (two at least). Talk about deflating any emotional power. They disclose the secret right before the only hard part of the entire fight! Bishop wasn’t much of a character in the first one anyway, but when I saw those three trays I thought “Damn, Suda51, you cold bastard, you’re not afraid of anything! I’m going to tear this guy a new one!”
So what’s so bad about revenge again? It’s sure to get an NPC nobody cares about from a previous game killed? Frustratingly, since this is Suda51, you can argue that’s also deliberate, you’re killing for a completely architected reason. Someone else is only forcing your character to care. But at a certain point that kind of circular logic doesn’t hold water with me anymore. If there’s one thing I learned from reading Lucky Wander Boy is that there’s no limit to what can be read into a game. That Suda51 does try to say a lot only makes it more difficult to pick it apart. There was a lot of noise in their message and it’s always hare to tell what was intended and what wasn’t.
By contrast, the first game ended in two ways. The regular ending, in my opinion, the more powerful of the two, was a fateful meeting of two people, serious in both real revenge and their history together. It made you question what Travis knew and didn’t know getting into the competition and his motivations at a subconscious level. Was he searching for Jeanne all along or just fate? The second ending was a throw up to video games, a tongue and cheek show down that ended with funny reference to the concept of sequels. Both showed a bit of funky irreverence and deconstructing of video game tropes. Neither, however, seemed to contradict the plot or mess with the story out of boredom. There’s always some room for messing with the player, players can laugh at themselves, but when developers mess with the story, they do it at the expense of the story.
In any case, the plot is still head and shoulders above most of the stuff out there and your post is definitely a must read for people interested in the undercurrents of the game. Perhaps if there’s an NMH3 it will bring NMH2 into a greater overall narrative
this game really needs to be played on the wii though. i'm sure suda could make a great game on any console but this game is the first game in ages that made me remember why i own a wii.
and i have no clue what the fuck squawkderby is squawking about. different races/genders have different perspectives cuz of different experiences. duh!
I'm sure most people who played the game didn't read into it at all, not were they prompted to. Actually, that's the main complaint I'm hearing about NMH2, that "it doesn't try hard enough to make you think". Obviously, that wasn't much of a problem for me, as I'm still thinking about the game all the time.
@ Squakderby- Trust me, I agree with you more than you probably think. I've long thought that the way people tend to make an issue out of race for the sake of making an issue out of it only perpetuates racism.
That said, I do think that people generally have different experiences depending on where they grow up, and what race, gender, sexual preference, etc, they are. That's why, in this instance, I do think it would be interesting to hear what a black woman would say about Shinobu and her boss fights. The developers of this game were trying to put themselves in the shoes of a black woman when they created Shinobu, just as they tried to put themselves in the shoes of a white man when they created Travis. I mean, it's not Precious or The Color Purple or anything, but still, NMH2 does make a genuine effort to give us the perspective of a black woman, something no videogame has really done before.
Is it so crazy (or "subtly racist" as you call it) to put a particular value on what black women might think of the first game ever made to (temporarily) star a black woman? Would you be saying that if I wanted to know what people who live in a nursing home thought of Bubba-Hotep, or what a Serbian immigrant thought of GTA IV?
And yeah, I would absolutely "cry out" to hear the perspectives of white males on Travis Touchdown, if it weren't for the fact that every single review or analytical post I've ever read about No More Heroes was written by a white male. Not that I have anything against white males. In fact, some might even say that I'm a white male, though that's debatable in some circles.
In short, ignoring race/gender/sexual preference is great when it comes to how you treat other people, but when analyzing movies/book/videogames/art/and narrative device, you'd be missing part of the picture if you ignored anything, don't you think?
Also, I don't think I ever brought up "racism" or "misogynism". Sounds like you might have brought some baggage of your own to this party.
Still, you make a valid point and I'm glad you spoke up. Just in case you don't read this, I'll send it a long as a PM as well.
@ SuperFlounder- Amazing comment, worthy of it's own blog. I don't see anything wrong with you saying it twice.
In response, I'll say that I felt a lot of of emotional power from the game's ending, more than the first one. The severed heads bit actually hit me pretty hard, which was a surprise. I didn't think I had grown to care about Sylvia, Henry and Shinobu, but seeing them dead (even just for a second) showed me (and Travis) that I did. That's all their deaths needed to do, so bringing them back to life a few minutes later was actually fine by me.
As for cutting a giant Thanksgiving Day parade balloon in half, yeah, it's silly, but it's fantastic symbol for a cliche-but-touching ideal; the little guy finally getting one-up on Goliath. Blimp-Jasper is how I see Bobby Kotick. Now, I'm not saying that I want to see the man cut in half, but I would not mind one bit if Grasshopper Manufacture somehow put Activision out of business. That's some symbolism I can get behind.
And the stuff that happens after the battle, the free fall, the realization of paradise, and the rescue of "whore Sylvia" from her fall from grace, all awesome stuff.
This comment's pretty long too. Better PM it to you too, just in case.
I wish I had written the post in a better way. If I had, I think it's likely that you would have seen from the start how much we see eye-to-eye on the whole idea of race and gender.
Thankfully though, you brought up your opinion, which gave me the opportunity to respond to it, and in doing so, clear up what I meant in the first place.
And yeah, Jasper is really tough on Bitter, though I actually thought New Destroyman was worse.
The very worst though is Jasper on Deathmatch. There are no checkpoints in the battle, so you have to kill all three forms on the same life bar. I came close once, bu that was out of at least twenty tries.
I know it probably doesn't unlock anything to beat him, but I'm still compelled to do so. I'll probably keep trying until I die.
Anyway, thanks again for reading this thing in the first place, and taking the time to exchange ideas with me. It means a lot.
However, I have to disagree with your statement of Travis and Bishop's friendship and how there was never one to begin with. Yeah, Touchdown does care deeply for the city and the state it's become since his departure, and Bishop was sort of his whipping boy through NMH 1. But there's a reason why they threw his head through Travis's window, and not that strange guy's that visited his grave. There's a reason why he screamed out his name, and why he's pretty much pissed all up to the final boss fight. Bishop was his friend, and more than likely the only friend he ever knew. Hell, it was Bishop who got Travis those dual-katana.
That's just what I think. Bishop was Travis' only friend, and to me, that's the only reason why I'm taking him through each kill-fest to make it to the top.
I just get the sense that Bishop is supposed to represent more than "a best friend". Little "Mom and Pop" video stores are dying relic of a simpler time. That time is what I think Bishop represents.
Maybe it would have been better if instead of Pizza Batt, it was Netflix Batt, or if Bishop ran an arcade instead of a video store? Or maybe that would have been too obvious?
@ The NoMoreHero- I really appreciate that. Hopefully someday, more teachers will make No More Heroes required reading/playing for their classes.
As for Million gunman, I honestly see race as a factor only in that in the context of our society, and the culture that the West exports to other cultures around the world (Japan), people who are rich and cultured a more generally represented as white guys. Other than that I don't see him as anything more than a mash up of Bond tropes. The golden gun, his accent and clothing all reminded me of bond. The fact that level itself is a sort of spy and espionage themed also made me think of Bond films. His tactic of retreating through doors, very much like a bond villain. He does condescend to Shinobu but more from a "you're just a girl" perspective. You have to realize, he's probably sort of pissed when he sees her like Destroyman, all the assassins are looking forward to fighting the Crownless King, not his lackeys.
I just don't think gender/race was a point in this game. Frankly, if it was, how using the dismemberment of two blameless groupies in the fight with Colin fit into all this. Travis doesn't really seem to care that much, he could have just MOVED, but he chose to cut through them instead. Ofcourse, when he actually has to kill some white cheerleaders who actually were in the ranking and did intend to harm him, he shows some misgivings. I just don't find that cohesive with a game that's really interested in the politics of black sexual female identity.
The way I saw that fight, Nathan threw the women at Travis, then attacked Travis through the women. Nathan definitely treated them like objects (in this case, throwing weapons), and likewise, Travis treated them him an attack. That does work to establish Travis as a heartless bastard, something that I think gradually changes through out the game. However, I don't get the sense that it says anything about misogyny. It does say that Nathan doesn't care about his companions, and Travis doesn't care about anybody.
And I agree that Million Gunman has some Bond Universe-like traits. The question is though, what does the Bond reference mean? Is it done just for fun, or is it trying to say something?
Do you think that Bond and his villains represent cartoonish exaggerations of many of the traits we as asociety associate with the rich and upper class? If so, what does that mean in relation to Shinobu? In the Million Gunman level, she basically breaks into a bank, ignores the money, and goes on to behead a money-obsessed English gentlemen who calls her "sir" once his head has been removed. That's pretty damn weird, isn't it?
Maybe it's all meaningless and random, but even as I'm writing this now, I'm coming up with possible interpretations of what this scenario could be saying. A Bank is a place where people put their valuables to keep other people from getting access to them. Shinobu breaks though that. She gets to where the stuff that many people value above all things (money) is held, where she does battle with an enemy who is constantly trying to stay as far away from her as possible, only attacking her from a distance.
It's Shinobu's task to close the distance. The breaks in and gets close, closer than the high class guy wants. Does that say something about her? Does that say something about what she's doing in this game, (temporarily) taking the starring role of the game away from Travis?
It may not have been intended to say anything, but it says something to me.
who are you and why aren't you in charge of your own magazine?
I am now...
1. heading immediately to read part 1.
2. downloading both pages for future NMH reference.
3. anxiously anticipating part 3.
4. did I meantion anxiously?!
kudos.
PS - the only part I disagreed with: it's never shown on screen, but I believe NMH-related media has said that Bishop is Travis' "one and only true friend." not sure on the details, but I would assume that means he really was important to Travis.
maybe Travis valued the -simplicity- of their shallow relationship as it was one of the few non-effed-up relationships in his life? maybe?
As for Bishop, I'm just going off Travis's relationship with him in the first game, which is pretty limited. You're right though, I could have been interpreting the whole thing wrong.
Whoops, yeah, my mistake, Copeland. I think what you've read into the Million Gunman fight is on the mark. I think the difference here is that where I would label it all under characterization of a protagonist and boss, you also find some symbolism in it. Which is valid, since I agree there's creative and corporate symbolism in the character of Jasper Batt, Jr., after all, and sexual/personal symbolism in Sylvia. I just personally didn't take away any symbolism from the Million Gunman fight, when taken in the context of the entire game. His odd decapitated uttering, to me, just signified his complete subjugation to the proven better warrior. The odd gender pronoun, may be weird translation, or to further symbolize acquiescing.
The treatment of the afro babes in the Copeland fight, however, do relate to misogyny in my opinion, though not overtly. It's like, to me, how there's the old 80's horror movie rule that states that the sluts never make it to the end. Many feminists would point out that since these two women are sexualized, and obviously sexually active with Copeland, that their value would be predictably marginalized in their depiction. And they are, played off like that, their heads rolling about in a manner that I don't think is supposed to invoke pity. By bringing this up I don't mean to say that Suda51 intended to say anything about sex/gender/whatever, its more like he just didn’t deconstruct what was actually going on there. Travis does indeed change from his overtly murderous mindset, in the next fight in fact, but fact that the death of those two particular innocent people doesn't seem to play a part in it I found sort of telling.
Still, I'm frankly just sort of glad there are still games being made that cause people to think about these kinds of things at all, in between button mashing anyway. Can’t wait for part 3.