From Suda51 himself, Travis Strikes Again should not to be confused with “No More Heroes 3”, but that’s not to say a third chapter isn’t a possibility.
The wishes of many Grasshopper Manufacture fans were finally answered last week when Nintendo unveiled Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes, a brand new adventure featuring the warped otaku assassin, Travis Touchdown. Gameplay and game structure have yet to be detailed, but Grasshopper’s “Suda51” Goichi Suda has been offering a trickle of information through various interviews since Nintendo’s Summer 2017 Showcase and the following Nindies@Night presentation.
Developer Grasshopper Manufacture released an official synopsis last week, but Suda51 gave a few more details regarding the plot and potential gameplay features in recent interviews with VideoGameChooChoo and Polygon:
Grasshopper’s original explanation states Travis Strikes Again is set one year after the events of No More Heroes, but Suda51 also claimed that the upcoming Switch-exclusive takes place seven years after No More Heroes 2. Suda reiterated numerous times that Travis Strikes Again is not a direct sequel- the fabled “No More Heroes 3”- but a later adventure that fills the gap in Travis’s post-United Assassins Association life, and addresses the void between No More Heroes and No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle; the debut trailer sees Travis confronted by the father of “Bad Girl”, the second-ranked Assassin of No More Heroes, just before the two are yanked into the “Death Drive MK-II” gaming console.
Though it has yet to be explained what other gameplay variants are in store for Travis Strikes Again, Suda51 confirmed that Grasshopper Manufacture is collaborating with other Indie developers to create the games within the Death Drive MK-II; Dennaton Games (Hotline Miami) and Yacht Club Games (Shovel Knight) are the only two confirmed studios thus far. Players can expect more of the bombastic hack-and-slash action of the Wii titles, but the exchange between Suda51 and Polygon may hint at a possible two-player setting and/or co-op mode. While referencing the Nintendo Switch’s Joy-Con functionality, Suda confirmed that Travis Strikes Again could be played using just one Joy-Con, but since there are “two main characters”, fans could speculate on what the other could be used for:
“One thing that we decided pretty much at the beginning of the development phase was that the game was going to be completely playable with just one of the Joy-Cons for the Switch. There are a few reasons for this: One of the reasons is that [we] wanted to provide the same sword-slashing gameplay as the previous titles- same sort of charging motions….And what’s going to happen with the other Joy-Con, well at this point it’s technically still a secret…[we’re] going to be releasing information at some point in the future, but as you can see, there are two main characters, so draw your own conclusions if you want. We can’t really say anything right now about what exactly can be done with the second controller- all we can say is that the game can be completely played with just one Joy-Con.”
Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes is expected to release exclusively for the Nintendo Switch sometime in 2018. For the purists still wishing for No More Heroes 3, in the interview with VideoGameChooChoo, Suda believes a proper third chapter is absolutely possible if Travis Strikes Again succeeds with fans and consumers.
ThePlatformer 