The Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes launch party happened yesterday in Shibuya. It featured Grasshopper staff alongside Swery65 as a guest and fans of Grasshopper attending this party.
DLC Details
- DLC 01 from the Season Pass is Black Dandelion, making Shinobu Jacobs playable alongside her original voice actress.
- Shinobu will receive two exclusive chips, and also have her own dialogue during the game worlds of Travis Strikes Again.
- It will feature the visual novel segment of Badman, Travis' unfortunate partner in the events of Travis Strikes Again, written by Masahi Ooka (long-time writer of Grasshopper).
- Grasshopper showcased her new finisher:
NEW T-SHIRT: Deadly Premonition (probably The Missing too)
- Travis will be able to wear a T-shirt of Deadly Premonition as a legendary collaboration
NEW STAGE: Killer Marathon (Work in Progress) for the second DLC Bubblegum Fatale
- Inspired by a pinball game and has a marathon aspect that wasn't disclosed further.
- It's going to be the hardest level of the game, they want to make it almost unclearable in Spicy mode (the hardest difficulty).
- Says there is a Back to the Future III homage in the game.
Release date of DLCs
- The release date of DLC:01 Black Dandelion is going to be February 28th, whereas the second DLC starring Bad Girl will be released on April 28th at the latest. Both are included in the season pass.
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The event launched an exclusive new T-Shirt that sold out in 10 minutes, based on Joy Division's Unknown Pleasure album art. Suda said it was only going to be available there so I'm seething with rage at the idea that I will never wear a t-shirt as cool as this one
Travis Strikes Again
- The reason Suda51 developed Travis Strikes Again for the Switch
- How he came up with the concept of the Death Drive (games within a game)
Music of Travis Strikes Again
- The reason to hire two DJs for the music of the game and his outline of the music
- DJ Abo was inspired by Donkey Kong for the music in Coffee & Doughnuts to replicate that 2D platformer synthwave feel.
- Some music in Life is Destroy had been AI generated and touched up in order to give a "ghostly" feel to them considering the theme of the game was about witnessing the murders of a serial killer on the run. The music is apparently generated in real-time in the game.
- The boss fight of Smoking King was sung by Uki Satake, a popstar of the group 9nine and a voice actress (she was the voice of QT from Space Dandy for example). Says it has a lot of easter egg within it. In New Game +, the music becomes an instrumental version in the hope that players would become involved and sing to it.
- The Eight Hearts music was made with overseas fans in mind, with the rap and the low-bass music that they thought was the kind of thing people from overseas would like.
They talked about the music a lot but the most interesting is that the final boss music has a mysterious message, and it has a meaning that can be potentially only found by mixing and cutting the music around. DJ Abo would not tell you if you got it right on twitter, but he would like your tweet to let you know he acknowledged your fan theory and give you hints
The music itself is a remix of No More Heroes layered on top of the popular Russian station numbers music UVB-76
Swery65
Swery on Travis Strikes Again
He approached his opinion of the game as a game designer and he enjoyed how everything was visually available. Like skill icons being darkened when they are still charging, but also how this information is also available to see in the gameplay. He also liked how when Travis or Badman are behind a wall and you can't see them, there is an outline of the characters with different colours, making it so that you always know what you're doing if you're P1 or P2. He says there are simple design concepts that makes a game much easier to play and enjoyable.
Suda's opinion on Swery
Suda feels Swery likes mysterious things with an edge to them and all of his work is very new and innovative. He's a bit of a weirdo who comes up with ideas you don't see in games and realizes them, and it's pretty cool. Like the game The Missing looks normal but comes with an edge.
Swery going indie and The Missing
He felt that the general idea was that Swery's games have really good stories but that's all they are, so he brought game design first for the creation of The Missing.
Swery is 45 and he spent 24 years in the industry. About 2 years ago, he established White Owls after things happened (health issues, Access Games). He thought today is the indie era and wanted to create pieces of art instead of big games, and he felt he wanted to go for something like Grasshopper was doing.
A part of the intro of Swery's game "The Missing" was shown and the moment where the character keeps walking was said to be a homage towards Suda51's game "Flower, Sun, and Rain", a game infamous for making the player walk for dozens of thousands of steps. What he felt about Suda's game and his approach about walking is (transcribing the interpreter): "You can have somebody feel and think, give them a little bit of time, don't make them press buttons, just let them experience the game. And I think it went well, it gives you a lot of chance to have emotional change when you're playing the game".
Swery first wanted to make a side scrolling action game and add additional layers but without using items. Instead, he wanted the character itself to become an item. Says he was probably really drunk when the idea popped up, but it worked out great in the end.
Industry trends and collaborating together
Their opinion is that the industry rules right now with the Steam store, Epic store, and the Switch. They really want to do a collaboration together. Maybe in the future doing a VR adventure game. Or Suda coming up with a game and them working together.
That was pretty much all from this party.
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Big NMH spoilers from the post-credits of Travis Strikes Again:
The 3 of No More Heroes 3 has been datamined
It is of a similar font as Back to the Future 3
Also, the post-credits scene of Travis Strikes Again is called "NMH3" in the debug menu
It might have something to do with the Killer Marathon stage. Or No More Heroes III is going to carry some time travel shenanigans.
It is of a similar font as Back to the Future 3
Also, the post-credits scene of Travis Strikes Again is called "NMH3" in the debug menu
It might have something to do with the Killer Marathon stage. Or No More Heroes III is going to carry some time travel shenanigans.
