Devil May Cry 2

The Good
Devil May Cry 2 is fun, stylish, and graphically great. The voice acting is good, the visuals are near perfect, the gameplay is addictive, the levels are a-plenty, and the son of Sparda, Dante, is as cool as ever. Secrets and cheats abound, along with the new addition of CG cinemas, which were absent from the first game. In the in-game cinemas, Dante sometimes rides a motorcycle and flips a coin, which make him even more cool. You can now do awesome evasion moves, run along and up against walls, and you don't have to learn any new abilities (which is good and bad). You can still level up your swords and guns, and now equip amulets to add special characteristics to your Devil Mode, which looks truly cool. The loading times are fast, too. New baddies and bosses are here, along with a new character, Lucia, who has her own disc! It's like getting two games for the price of a new one (And you can also unlock Trish, from the first DMC, as a playable character). Sound good? It is.

The Bad
A few problems arose when playing DMC2. The first is the story... The game begins with Dante, who apparently got a call from the mysterious Lucia, helping her gather some Arcana artifacts before a corporate businessman, who is using devils and evil powers to gain the Arcana's, which will give him the power of Argosax, a most powerful demon (who is actually a combination of the bosses throughout the game) and allow him to rule the world. Dante, I assume, has never met Lucia, the businessman, or Lucia's grandmother (who plays a small yet significant role) before. However, he acts as though he's known Lucia for quite some time, and done random tasks for her grandmother as well. It's all messed up, so I don't really qualify this as a true story. It doesn't seem to concern Dante, and he is only linked to it by Lucia's distress call. However, it's his job as a devil hunter at the Devil May Cry. No explanation is given as to what happened to Trish, but you can play her if you beat the game on Hard mode with Dante.

Now, I can ignore this story-thing because the game is so darn fun. But what I can't ignore is how easy the game is. I mean, sure, DMC was mindnumbingly hard, but that doesn't give them room to make DMC2 fit for a two-year-old's video game playing level. Maybe I'm being harsh... I mean, the giant orb-shooting monkey was moderately tough the first time I fought him. Then again, maybe I'm not being tough enough; I completed the game in 3, maybe 2, days!

The Bottom Line
DMC2 was a fun and awesome experience. I strongly recommend it to the fans of the first; That is, if you don't mind the absense of story and the low level of difficulty. It's a perfect rental, and a good buy. Go out and play it.

Oh... what? "Is it better than the first"? Well..... I guess I'll leave that up to you.

The Good
This might be a weird thing to point out as something deserving praise rather than an obvious requirement, but the discourse around Devil May Cry 2 is so broken and filled with mindless hate that it might need to be said: this game works. The controls are responsive, the hitboxes are precise, the combat plays out as intended by the developers, there are no major glitches or game-breaking bugs. And at the very core, this is still a Devil May Cry game, with the series' trademark combination of melee and ranged weapons, stylish acrobatic movements, varied enemy types to fight, and a dark visual style.

An element that may seem like a minor addition at first but turns out to be DMC 2's centerpiece as you go on is the ability to roll. The game still places a heavy emphasis on vertical movement, with Dante getting even more air time while firing guns than in DMC 1 and Lucia being even more acrobatic than him, but its motto could very well be the Limp Bizkit quote: "keep rollin', rollin', rollin'". Since DMC 2, as opposed to the first game, mostly takes place in open areas or really large rooms, and the character's (especially Dante's) attacks push enemies back quite a bit, the game requires you to be constantly on the move to keep your stylish combo going. There are also some enemies and bosses, such as the Abyss Goat or Bolverk, who will require you to dodge their attacks by - you guessed it - rolling. And by itself, this is a pretty good gimmick - designing the combat around quick reactions and fast movements adds even more intensity and excitement to the already fast-paced combat from the first game, providing a great core for the experience to build upon.

The Bad
Unfortunately, another change to the combat system made to improve the gameplay's flow and intensity was significantly worse. Devil May Cry 2 gets rid of separate fighting styles stemming from the first game's electric sword Alastor and fiery gauntlet Ifrit along with their distinct movesets, instead providing the player with a much more basic choice of a regular sword, a strong heavy sword, and a long lighter sword. Instead of spending your Red Orbs on specific moves that allow for more variety in your playstyle, you use them to simply level up your swords and guns, with no distinct perks and abilities. An attempt to provide some variety was made through the amulet system, which allows you to customize and adapt your Devil Trigger perks, but it's pretty barebones and nowhere as integral to the game as Alastor and Ifrit were before.

Another limitation in DMC 2's combat is its targeting system. Dante and Lucia always lock on to a specific enemy (not only when you press the lock on button), which makes quickly reacting to the situation on the battlefield more difficult. While some people might have found the more freeform movements in the first game somewhat inaccurate, they were undeniably better than an arbitrary lock on system that actively fights you.

Possibly the biggest disappointment of Devil May Cry 2 in relation to its predecessor is its approach to bosses. Even though they still have some interesting visual designs, the battles aren't anywhere as creative as in the first game, and - with some exceptions like the intense sword fight against Bolverk or the exciting return of the cute arachnid Phantom - they're often limited to shooting your guns at the enemy while avoiding its highly repetitive attacks. And while most boss encounters aren't as bad as the absolute slog of a fight against Trismagia, they are definitely the most underwhelming aspect of DMC 2.

A minor mistake that still takes away from the experience is that while rolling helps pacing and mobility during fights, Dante is still pretty slow when simply traversing the levels. It feels as if some areas, especially in the town streets, were designed for Lucia's speed and used for Dante's missions without adapting them to his movement at all. It's not a major problem, but it makes the game feel more awkward to play than it would have otherwise and could have easily been avoided with more playtesting.

The Bottom Line
Devil May Cry 2 is an uneven yet overall decent experience that can be really fun once it clicks, but never reaches its potential and becomes especially bland and underwhelming during most boss fights. 6/10

[based on the PC port in the HD Collection]

The Good
You could cry out of happiness for seeing two DVDs the moment you open your case, but otherwise, this game doesn't give you a reason to. I dunno what happened to Trish (pitty, 'cos I'd like to know), but Dante got a new partner, another so called... demonic creation, and what else is new, it's a "she" again. Not a blonde anymore (huh, was Trish blonde, anyway?), a redhead, got some gutsy moves she can perform, but even her toughest trick isn't enough to compete with Dante. Luckily, the two of them are on the same side, and you play through the entire game as either Dante or Lucia, although, the real order of things is to first play as Dante, and then as Lucia, I believe.

Playing two characters across the same game would be boring and repetitive, and definitely a no-no for people like me who don't like replaying same games. Luckily, Capcom has a major degree in making character stories a fine crossover of events, and thus you will visit different places (or same ones but at different time), fight different battles and see the cutscenes from both sides of the story.

The moves are simply one step ahead of every other game at the time, including the original Devil May Cry. You can now run on the walls both vertically and horizontally, you can double-jump with or without bouncing, and you'll be doing all that at the same speed as the original game let you, and that game was smooth on every means possible. And just when you thought graphic can't go any better, you're about to get shocked, twice.

Trifling with your enemies is yet another state of the art, both visually and painfully. To every its own, pain for them and visuals to you. Hordes of minions will now pour on every side, and what you thought is a lot in DMC, in DMC2 is just a warm-up. It is great how you can virtually lift your enemy in the air if you shoot fast enough at him. And the finest thing of shooting while in the air is still here, you slow down the fall by your own shooting. And to make this game one huge step ahead of its predecessor, there's no green slimy thing to fight, and all the other boss fights are easier than any in the original game.

The Bad
Puzzles are easy, battles are neat, visuals are great, everything runs fast, but one thing does hold it in the process... the story. It isn't worth a dime, and if you compare it to the prequel, you may get a feeling like the original DMC had truely marvelous story, so go figure, it's that big a difference. This seems like a story without meaning, or perhaps with one... to keep the game from falling apart into the range of mindless Id's and other shooters which I am even afraid to name.

Music isn't bad at all, it fits quite nicely, but isn't something that would require a soundtrack, music was better in the first game, imho.

The Bottom Line
Bigger! Better!! Meaner!!! And it's a must if you're either hardcore quick-action, Capcom, or DMC sympathizer.