At the time of this writing, I have just completed No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle after a 16-hour marathon play through, with occasional breaks to nap and go to the lavatory. This isn’t the best way to go about playing a game for review, but due to equally important Tatsunoko-oriented commitments, it couldn’t be avoided.

So here I am, trying to sum up and explain a game that’ll probably take months of analysis and multiple play-throughs to fully wrap my head around. Also, I really have to go to the water closet, which is ironic, because Suda51 (the creator of No More Heroes) sees his games as a sort of psychological bowel movement. All the information he takes in — movies, videogames, anime, relationships, conversations, everything that makes up his day-to-day life — is chewed up in his mind, and pooped out in the form of No More Heroes.

I’m going to try and take that as inspiration and go to the toilet myself. After that, I’ll be pooping out the ideal No More Heroes 2 review that I have the ability to. Take a look for it after the jump, but beware of possible minor, non-story-related spoilers.

No More Heroes 2: Desperate Struggle (Wii)
Developer: Grasshopper Manufacture
Publisher: Ubisoft
Released: January 26, 2010
MSRP: $49.99

Like its prequel, No More Heroes 2 focuses on Travis Touchdown, the living embodiment of the modern American videogame fan. In the first game, Travis started out as a regular guy. By the end of the story, he had become the #1-ranked assassin in the world, found out that his twin brother was married to the woman he’d been trying to seduce for the entire game, and discovered even creepier stuff about his half-sister Jeane. Speaking of Jeane, Travis also named his cat after her. He pets his cat pretty regularly, and just sort of stares off into space as he does so — not something you see most videogame tough-guys do in their off time.