1. What makes Travis' Schpeletiger new is that it is now twice as long (in addition to the better controls).
2. This has already been verified, but there have been doubts and concerns as to how Grasshopper is going to have 50 unique bosses, from their appearance to actual fighting capabilities. Suda explains to EDGE that basically there is nothing to worry about as they incorporated both the original NMH development team and the NMH2 team (many members being of both teams including the character creator) to brainstorm and according to Suda they had no problems shooting out several ideas and characters from that.
3. The name of the "schoolgirl assassin" we all know about is Kimmy. How appropriate. Suda also mentions that Kimmy wants to keep Travis "all to her self." Possible Misery references?
4. At the end of every boss fight, a 2D image of Travis will walk from one end of the screen to the other to hop onto the Schpeletiger and drive off, accompanied by some new piece of midi music.
5. The idea of Travis using other weapons, even projectiles, was considered by Suda, but ultimately canned as Suda says that the sword/beam katana is what Travis should always use. Suda calls Travis the "modern samurai."
6. It was implied that Bishop actually does not die or get killed off, as the article explains that Bishop will have a bigger role to play in the game. At the same time, Suda says that "Travis is fighting for himself" not for anyone else. Travis is fighting for revenge, but perhaps for someone else other than Bishop?
7. Speaking more specifically on the city, Suda explains that Travis had actually left Santa Destroy for those three years, and it wasn't until he came back that he had seen how much it had changed. Where Travis had gone is not said. Only a portion of the original city will be traveled, based on fan responses on the first game. The streets and sidewalks will be much more busier and cars will "get out of the way" of Travis' bike. There are construction signs and lights everywhere. One of the fighting grounds will be a "new school", "construction yard", and a graveyard. Not sure if the school is new in the sense that it is an additional one to the Santa Destroy High School or if it is just a remodeled SDHS.
8. There are still side jobs such as coconut collecting and a new one involving plumbing. Suda explains that he still wants the player to feel like he has to work hard to play the game as that is what it means to be a punk. Otherwise, he says, there is a disconnect between the videogame world and reality. Still, the side jobs are still improved and provide humor as well as entertainment.
9. It is confirmed that Destroyman comes back as a cyborg as wanting revenge against, who else, Travis.
10. Finally, the bosses themselves: it will not be as difficult, time consuming, and at times boring to collect enough money to advance to the next boss fight. In fact, Suda purposely wanted to mix things up to keep it from getting repetitive by having Shinobu and Henry as playable characters and, at times, fighting more than one boss fight, sometimes one right after the other, and sometimes simultaneously.
We have spoiler tags or something. Dvader uses them in the SMG2 thread.
Damned if I know how to use them. Normally it's okay but this game in particular, it's all about the absurd and unexpected.
Dvader does it by "change background colour" and "change text colour" to black. just choose the text you want to hide and do that.
Okay I've collected and refined my impressions so far, as well as filtering spoilers out.
Played almost 4 hrs of this at the weekend.
It's oh so sweet. The opening had my jaw on the floor, the music, the directing, the cutscenes, the graphics. Visually it looked so much better than the first game it looked incredible.
Then the game sort of dipped for a while. It's not consistently polished, there are some assy textures, copious amounts of slowdown - in the cutscenes of all things!
The first proper level was average at best. The first proper boss, was irritating as hell. Suddenly the game felt like the first No More Heroes, warts and all.
There is no open world in this game, there is this map and it's so hassle free to use it actually feels pretty amazing - a mark of how shitty the N64 openworld of the first game was.
At the same time you lose something by cutting out the overworld, you lose a sense of cohesion, of progression. When you are selecting levels off a list you get that.
If you remember the first game, it wasn't until Shinobu that the game lit up for me. In the technically shoddy game, among the boring side jobs, you were suddenly in this pitched battle that felt more like a lightsabre dual than any other game. There was a rhythm to it, there was strategy involved, it was a badass pitched battle.
I got to that point in NMH2 with a similar boss.I got beat down probably 6 times or so but kept coming back for more. This was EXCELLENT fun.
It's almost impossible to talk about why this game is so awesome without spoiling the fun for everyone else coming into the game. It's best played with no foresight. Unfortunately I spoiled some of the game for myself by watching videos.
The game is just outrageous at times, when it pulls the unexpected out of its hat as a complete suprise it can have you grinning from ear to ear. When it's mundane, it's mundane, but when it's at its best it had my jaw on the floor on several occasions.
And giggling like a schoolgirl at other times, so much so I had to pause the game.
Some of the dialogue, the lines uttered by the characters are just RIDICULOUS. Ridiculously cool, quoteable and unexpected - these guys should be making films. Most good games have wow moments, some of the freaking dialogue here are wow moments.
I started playing as Shinobu. I thought I would hate these sections as I wanted to play as travis, but her two levels are so far the best of the bunch. Her animation is particularly great. It reminds of when you first saw the 3D Prince of Persia doing his thing in the Sands of Time. It's archaic now but the impact then is the same thing I feel about Shinobu.
She jumps as well, adding some verticality to the levels, a boss fight has you going up and down in a large chamber with tiered levels. One of the levels reminds of call of duty, starting from a low point and working your way upwards, seamlessly whilst being able to see where you started. Holy hell one of her levels is huge and you can see the cliffs in the vista and there are no loads. Very impressive.
The combat is the same as the first game for the most part. I was worried it was going to be cannon fodder but the difficulty ramps up and once you save there is no quitting levels. You can't go back to the overworld to power up or buy a new, stronger sabre. You just have to plug away at that boss and use all your skill. Which makes it very satisfying.
There is this move that is freaking awesome, where you swish the remote to use whilst running. It's as powerful as a charged slash and saps your batteries just as much.
At first I was thinking that this was no better than the first game only with slightly improved visuals. But the more I play the more memorable the game becomes and it's not saddled with the horrible overworld and boring minigames of the first game.
The game just hits you with so many memorable moments -gah! - can I spoil them for you or what? I have to say something. Well, I'll just say that they play subtle homages to a couple of well know franchises as well. And ----- GAH! I can't say or you guys will kill me.
Oh and the 8-bit minigames are excellent, there are even some really addictive
You could release this stuff on wiiware and it would be worth owning.
Oh yeah and the graphics can still look like ass on an HDTV.
Oh oh! The finishing moves are totally awesome
It's not quite QTE and it's not quite gameplay. Sort of reminiscent of Madworlds over the top finishers but more cool and awesome. That perfect punctuating moment on a boss well beaten.
One more thing. In design and polish terms, it still feels like these guys are lagging a fair few steps back from the best - Capcom/Platinum. Which still leaves this franchise in the "COULD be amazing category".
But creatively these guys are unrivalled. I can only imagine what would happen if you paired off their creative team with an actually awesome - technical developer.
Another thing is that with the first game it was all original. Here, cause its a sequel there are many familiar elements, like the transitions and saving and fighting and even a few characters. You know all this already so that stuff doesn't feel fresh, it's the unexpected stuff which hits you.
One more thing, technically this is only 75% of the way there. It feels like a third game is needed to finally nail the experience as it should be.
Games like Shattered Memories, Dead Space Extraction and Red Steel 2 have raised the bar in terms of what I expect from a 3rd party on wii in terms of polish.
Since playing more though, I can say it gets more polished as it goes on and is a great effort from Grasshopper.
The opening is about the best opening to a game I can remember.
It would be like starting a Star Wars game with a battle against Darth Vader.
Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
I beat two more bosses. This is infuriating! I can't talk about the game because of spoilers.
It was awesome fun. One of the bosses chased me around a tree, it was f****** hilarious and I had to break out a new weapon to keep the boss at a distance.
Then this other boss had these like magician moves and there were rocks crumbling and stuff. So good.
I also lost 40 minutes of my life playing the minigame jobs. There is this game where you fit tiles into a square. I'm useless at it but ridiculously addicted to it.
Wow.
So then.... gah, another awesome thing I can't talk about. You have this sureal battle in a field. Then they started offering up revenge missions. Remember in the first game you would drive to some location, have some crappy one hit death timed mission and fail it. Then have to drive all the way back to do it again?
The Revenge missions here are awesome fun. For a start you just select them off a list. Secondly there are no one hit deals here, so far. And the locations are new stuff that doesn't appear in the single player. It actually takes you to different parts of the city, even interiors that you've never seen before.
Some missions are kill everybody, others are assasination missions where there is one dude to kill, with protection. It gets heavy here as they put me inside a saloon of sorts with descructible furniture. And then they dumped the brutes on me, massive guys with big health bars.
I should mention the artificial intelligence, it's not super advanced but it had definetely moved on from the first game. They don't sit around waiting for their turn to fight, if there is someone behind you he will attack. Sometimes they grab you from behind like in Streets of Rage and the guy in front pummels you. Also, you get dizzy really easily here and knocked flat on your ass a lot. You have this estascy gauge which is like the special move bar in a Marvel vs Game and when it fills up you unleash these amazingly fast attacks.
It looks amazing, it's sensory overload as Travis skips about tearing these guys to pieces, your eyes can barely keep up. What makes it more fun is that it's on a timer and the bad guys run for it when you go into that mode. Last night I was near the end of my estacy and was chasing down this brute who was eluding me. Right when my gauge was about to run out I sliced that fat bastard in two. It was so satisfying.
Also, now you can switch between weapons on the fly and they all have a real meaningful effect on the combat. If you equip twin blades they are shorter so your reach is less, yet because you have two, you land more blows and can fill your estacy gauge further.
I bought this long beam katana, like the long sword in Monster Hunter, it has a huge reach but it's slow and cumbersome to use. Yet it keeps some baddies at arms length and was crucial in beating one boss.
I then played more of that godamn addictive tile mini-game and still couldn't beat it.
It's here when I realised that this game is so much better than the first. It just cuts out all the BS, no boring mini-game jobs, no horrible overworld. It cuts the fat and you're left with one scorchingly satisfying sequence, one after the other.
Then I went to this mission in a parking lot, I had to kill all the baddies but it was like an endless slog as they kept replacing and replacing the enemies. Visually the game gets more solid as it goes on, it was looking pretty swish. And even though there were too many enemies they gave you lots of pick-ups and boosters to finish them off.
Because it was an open level, there were no camera problems, no caught on scenary problems. Just deliciously satisfying bloodshed. Having blood in this game makes a real difference, it's like a fireworks explosion when you finish a guy.
And the motion controlled moves are so fun.
Then out of the parking lot I entered a grocery store, and they had descructible shopping carts filled with cans that scattered all over the floor when you knocked them down. And then up top to this boss fight, which looked be-autiful.
This game gets better and better.
Damned thing is that I can't tell you why without spoiling the impact of the things they throw at you. It's great stuff. 
When it comes to describing this game the same words keep popping up: satisfying, visceral, irreverent, ridiculous, cool and most of all FUN.
For more reviews and impressions check this page.
Just back from the post office where I picked up my copy!!
Shouldn't you have posted impressions by now?
Did some more 8 bit minigames, some of them really have the gameplay nailed down. The pipe laying game is probably based on some old 8bit title I know nothing about. Whatever, it's still really addictive. But the tile laying puzzle is just, gah, addictive. You are often left with one piece of the puzzle that wont fit, but you KNOW it will. So it drives you mad to do it again.
Also plugged through some revenge missions, got to this one which was tough, kill a specific guy who is no pushover, only he's surrounded by brutes and then at a distance there are guys with uzis who shoot you in the back. Oh and you have about 4 minutes to beat him.
It will take a miracle to beat this one. Also the Gym 8 bit games to boost your stamina or strength dont work. They are really poor and difficult to control.
Went to another boss battle, still can't talk about it, twas cool though.
Have the papers meet with an unfortunate accident with the stove.
I believe he has shares in most indie publishers.