Devil May Cry 2 (PlayStation 2) review "Devil May Cry 2 is an underwhelming sequel in every respect. From its sloppy presentation to its water-downed game play, we’ll be only left to wonder what possessed Capcom to make such a lousy follow up to their original smash hit. Maybe the blame shouldn’t lie with Capcom, rather the fans that could be found pouting in their rooms after repeatedly dying to the same clan of scythe-wielding monstrosities all night long. They whined and wished that the game wasn’t so difficult since they clearly l..."

Devil May Cry 2 is an underwhelming sequel in every respect. From its sloppy presentation to its water-downed game play, we’ll be only left to wonder what possessed Capcom to make such a lousy follow up to their original smash hit. Maybe the blame shouldn’t lie with Capcom, rather the fans that could be found pouting in their rooms after repeatedly dying to the same clan of scythe-wielding monstrosities all night long. They whined and wished that the game wasn’t so difficult since they clearly lack the skills required to beat such a title. After all, DMC was one of the first Playstation 2 titles to unforgivingly bombard the player with wave after wave of mocking marionettes and cat-like apparitions. It was difficult, and the strong persevered.

However, things don’t seem so difficult this time around. Just the first few minutes in, we’re able to tell DMC2 isn’t anything like the original past its main character and the ponderous swords. Dante is here in full fashion, flaunting his red attire and his over-sized weapon that’s capable of finishing off any demons that’d dare to stand in his way to save the day. A few swings from of our mighty blade will leave most would-be enemies scattered about on the floor in bloody heaps. Bosses fall similarly; we’ll find that systematic button mashing, followed by running away and shooting, will take care of any boss. All the bliss and high-adrenaline action found in the first DMC isn’t anywhere to be found in this substandard sequel. The fighting system has simply retrogressed into nothing more than slashing, running and shooting. Trying to find out what skills would do the most damage to an enemy isn’t a concern anymore, since we’re able to take them all out with the same redundant attacking patterns. Never mind those abilities that each weapon used to have, they were stripped away and disposed of for a more elementary ‘Level Up’ system.


Yet, things still manage to get worse. With this new ‘Level Up’ system, strengthening our weapons costs a lot more orbs than it should, making us have to replay levels to get their full potential, something we will be reluctant to do. There are different weapons, but we won’t be using any of the others since they’re practically useless on our quest. We’ll find them and never even touch them the rest of the game since it costs so much to upgrade them and get them on par with the main weapon.

Still, things worsen even after this. The levels make us feel like we’re stuck on stage three the entire game, since there is no real development besides the laughable, clichéd storyline. The monsters stay the same through the whole game for some reason or another. The same bloody-thirsty, claw-wielding denizens that were found in the first level can easily be spotted in later stages still trying to end our adventure prematurely, but will be met with a same fate as their foolhardy brethren ten stages earlier.

As mentioned before, the levels always make it feel like we’re not going anywhere and really not completing anything; in fact, all we're really completing are rudimentary seek-and-find adventures. Stages present the same challenges to us each time: search for this and defeat these monsters, no matter how many we may throw at you. Such things become jarring later on when we’d expect harder puzzles or more mind-bending tasks, but instead, we’re met with “Insert this red jewel into this statue’ tomfoolery. Bosses are a predictably lame and provide no real sense of resolution for each level. In fact, half of the bosses I’ve faced, I thought were nothing more than mini-bosses thrown at me as a way of telling me ‘prepare for something even bigger and badder later!’ only to be disappointed when I found myself starring at the completion screen only seconds later.

If the whole ‘slash, run and shoot’ thing isn’t really our cup of tea when it comes to completing levels, we can just always shoot and ask questions later. Most monsters are able to be taken out at a distance so we don’t even get hit. Of course, this hurts our final ranking -- our main source of getting orbs -- but since everything costs so much, we won’t think twice about it. Capcom never really implemented any type of system that encourages good performance on our part other than some silly ranking system that awards a petty amount of orbs. The main thing on our minds at this point is just managing to make our ways through the tedious and unexciting levels to find some kind of ending point to the chaos.

The hallmark of the series falls flat on its face, too. Turning into a devil really doesn’t add much as it should to a type of game like this. It’s taken back seat to all the lame combos and guns. When we go into devil mode, we’ll just not take as much damage and deal out a little bit more pain. It’s really hard to work such a secondary aspect of the game into our regular fighting repertoire when we can get the same results from not even using it. It’ll be left behind for more favorable things, notably just killing the monsters by button mashing. To the hardcore, Capcom offers us another character to play the whole game through with; probably something they won’t even manage without some degree of patience for DMC2’s grievous flaws.

Who will like DMC2? Surely not fans of the first one, and most likely you won’t, either. From its watered-down game play, unbelievably easy missions and any real lack of development past the first few levels, DMC2 feels more like a huge step backwards instead of step forward. If a sequel’s job is to usurp the previous installment with a large arsenal of weapons, badder bosses and harder challenges, then DMC2 has failed horribly on every level.

Community review by Sclem (March 27, 2005) A bio for this contributor is currently unavailable, but check back soon to see if that changes. If you are the author of this review, you can update your bio from the Settings page.