I'm three stages in and it's not bad. I wouldn't say it's great either, though. One thing for sure: if you don't like jokes that break the 4th wall, you'll hate Travis Strikes Again right from the very start. Not only both Travis and Bad Man (the other playable character, who starts off as Travis' antagonist) mention the player directly, but Travis also mentions his Unreal Engine t-shirt and how cutting edge the engine is. And then secret tokens are in shape of Unreal's logo and are called "UE".
I wonder why there hasn't been a joke on how the Unreal Engine is at loading things despite its "cutting-edgness": loading times are somewhat long for the various environments and at almost every junction both geometry and textures aren't loaded in as you get back into the game.
Travis Strikes Again runs decently enough though, maybe it's not 60 fps but it's surely above 30 throughout. Music is pretty cool and the art direction is on spot no matter what kind of style is thrown at you.
Story goes that Bad Man wants to kill Travis because he killed his daughter (and my No More Heroes lore fails as I can't really recognize who she was), but they are sucked into a game world by the Death Drive Mk.II, a console controlled by the Death Gauntlet and its games are store on Death Balls. After completing the first stage Travis and Bad Man are thrown back into the real world and Travis' quest to recover the Balls begin.
In between stages you need to follow not-so-brief text interludes where Travis, his cat Jeane, and some other characters banter for a bit before Travis acquires the next Death Ball, and so you can continue. You can customize both playable characters' t-shirts and so far this has been the best part of the game, as the shirts features a large collection of indie games: Fallen Legion, Blazing Chrome, Hyperlight Drifter, Hollow Knight...there's a lot and new shirts can be purchased by either money or special tokens (called Atzeca) found in stages.
Travis and Bad Man control the same way, with a light and heavy attack, jump, dash, special attack, and skills. The difference between the two is that Travis does more damage, while Bad Man consumes less power when attacking.
You need to recharge your weapon like in previous NMHs, and here is done by pushing the left stick and waggling the right (or shaking the controller). Controls are good enough, with the heavy blow feeling particularly good, though the jump is a bit wooden and I've been through a couple of platforming sections.
There's a good number of enemies, from cannon fodder to more unique monsters, minibosses, and end-stage bosses.
The combat isn't particularly bad, in fact I was expecting less: there are foundations for a good action game, and you can also equip up to four skill chips for special actions...and those chips are named after Gundams (like Turn A, Wing, Psycho, Shining, etc.).
Boss fights are fun, although stages tend to go on for a bit too much and every one is based around a gimmick.
So far Travis Strikes Again feels like an average game, nothing more nothing less.
I wonder why there hasn't been a joke on how the Unreal Engine is at loading things despite its "cutting-edgness": loading times are somewhat long for the various environments and at almost every junction both geometry and textures aren't loaded in as you get back into the game.
Travis Strikes Again runs decently enough though, maybe it's not 60 fps but it's surely above 30 throughout. Music is pretty cool and the art direction is on spot no matter what kind of style is thrown at you.
Story goes that Bad Man wants to kill Travis because he killed his daughter (and my No More Heroes lore fails as I can't really recognize who she was), but they are sucked into a game world by the Death Drive Mk.II, a console controlled by the Death Gauntlet and its games are store on Death Balls. After completing the first stage Travis and Bad Man are thrown back into the real world and Travis' quest to recover the Balls begin.
In between stages you need to follow not-so-brief text interludes where Travis, his cat Jeane, and some other characters banter for a bit before Travis acquires the next Death Ball, and so you can continue. You can customize both playable characters' t-shirts and so far this has been the best part of the game, as the shirts features a large collection of indie games: Fallen Legion, Blazing Chrome, Hyperlight Drifter, Hollow Knight...there's a lot and new shirts can be purchased by either money or special tokens (called Atzeca) found in stages.
Travis and Bad Man control the same way, with a light and heavy attack, jump, dash, special attack, and skills. The difference between the two is that Travis does more damage, while Bad Man consumes less power when attacking.
You need to recharge your weapon like in previous NMHs, and here is done by pushing the left stick and waggling the right (or shaking the controller). Controls are good enough, with the heavy blow feeling particularly good, though the jump is a bit wooden and I've been through a couple of platforming sections.
There's a good number of enemies, from cannon fodder to more unique monsters, minibosses, and end-stage bosses.
The combat isn't particularly bad, in fact I was expecting less: there are foundations for a good action game, and you can also equip up to four skill chips for special actions...and those chips are named after Gundams (like Turn A, Wing, Psycho, Shining, etc.).
Boss fights are fun, although stages tend to go on for a bit too much and every one is based around a gimmick.
So far Travis Strikes Again feels like an average game, nothing more nothing less.
Comment