Devil May Cry 2 (PlayStation 2) review "The Action game genre is one that everyone has to love. And anybody who is into the genre realizes that Devil May Cry is one of the top titles. The first Devil May Cry was a huge jump of success for Capcom. But, with the new developers they hired, it seems we are left with a downfall. Capcom said they wanted to fix flaws in the first game, and add to the sequel. Instead, they fixed some of the flaws, but they took away what made the game best. "

The Action game genre is one that everyone has to love. And anybody who is into the genre realizes that Devil May Cry is one of the top titles. The first Devil May Cry was a huge jump of success for Capcom. But, with the new developers they hired, it seems we are left with a downfall. Capcom said they wanted to fix flaws in the first game, and add to the sequel. Instead, they fixed some of the flaws, but they took away what made the game best.

The story in this game had some major flip-flops in it. We all loved in the original title when you find out about Dante past in all sorts of ways. The connection between him and other demons, and you get to watch him take on some fierce enemies. Here in Devil May Cry 2 you are taken to South America where some “Evil” owner of a company has been trading deals with the devil. Some random old woman asks Dante to rid of this evildoer and in return she will let him know of his father. Of course, Dante being a curious young demon, he takes up on the offer. Then this is where the in game scenes come in. You will notice that instead of the usual “story” cut scenes; Capcom replaced it with videos of Dante moving towards his next mission. Also Capcom went all out on ruining Dante’s personality in this game as well. Instead of his usual taunting bad ass, he is some random demon who fights and doesn’t even have anything to say.

Capcom added a new character to the story; that goes by the name of Lucia. She is basically just thrown into the story to be the mysterious young girl. The whole purpose was probably to make everyone think she has some big relation to Dante. But you soon find out she is just there. Lucia has her own story mode alongside Dante, but in reality, I don’t think that anybody really cares about her story. The main character is Dante, not some little Indian girl who throws daggers around. They took out all the manliness as possible and I think that is what frustrates me the most.

If you liked the manliness from the first Devil May Cry, you will be disappointed with the new poor fighting system. Instead of being able to do sweet combos and ruin any monster that opposes you, we are stuck with some button mashing deal. Although this new system isn’t the greatest, it will still leave you pleased with your end results. If you can kick enough butts, you will be told directly by the game. In the top right corner there is a stylish rating system just like before. Depending on how much damage you inflict to your enemies, is what rating you will receive. And with the better ranking you receive the more orbs you obtain.

Capcom thankfully brought back out beloved Red Orbs. Just like before you can use these to buy items, but unfortunately there are no cool moves to purchase. There is no ability to turn into Devil Mode and fly around with lightning shooting out of your hands. You can simply level up your weapons. That was a horrible idea; it takes out the originality of Devil May Cry. Next thing you know Capcom will make this game a RPG (role playing game) and Dante will have partners in crime.

Although Capcom took out the cool moves, you do gain specific attributes to help in your quest. In this game you get amulets instead of buying abilities. And with each amulet comes a special ability. For example, the first amulet you receive gives you the ability to fly. You really only use it for the level you obtain the item, but I guess Capcom thought having Dante being able to fly was a good idea. Besides flying, you will gain speed and a lot of power from other Amulets.

Having strength can be a good thing, but you need the weapons to get the job done. Our beloved Ebony & Ivory have returned to help Dante in his journey. But one thing that has really changed is the power behind them. Dante doesn't have the same guns we all remember from the first title. Not only do the guns not do as much damage, but they don't shoot as fast either. It would seem our hero is getting to old to be a demon hunter.

Capcom also added some more weapons to help Dante kick some butt. Adding some cool guns was a good idea, but they left us with some dull swords. None of the swords have cool designs, or cool abilities. But, don't get me wrong, the swords don't have to have fireballs shoot out of them to be cool. It's just that swords seem so weak in this game, and it takes forever to level them up.

Even though Capcom left us with a tedious fighting system, we can give them credit that they tried. There is a new button to help Dante perform different escapes. Instead of having one button to flip and jump on walls, the developers put in two separate buttons to get the job done. The last thing you want is Dante jumping the wrong way when you are trying to escape a battle. The new combination of buttons is better, but they still could have fixed it up some more. It would have been nice to use more than one button to attack, so it makes the battles more of a challenge.

The level design has changed as well, but for the worse. In Devil May Cry you had the giant castle to freely go through. The mission also told you to just go to a specific spot, but if you wanted you could at least backtrack. Now we are left with no backtracking. After each level you are lead to a new area, leaving it impossible to head back to your previous area. The levels are also very large in size. At least with the first game you would know where to go. Here there is a lot of area to cover, and it's mostly empty. If you remember in the other game, whenever you would travel through a hallway, there was always a lot of enemies to stop you from advancing. But with DMC2 you are left with a couple enemies trying to stop you in what would seem like a coliseum. There is so much space to run away from your enemies, it makes it almost not worth fighting them.

One thing that the developers fixed was the third person BS in the water levels. Our hero's have the ability to go with third person, making it easier to take down enemies. It is so much easier to control your character as well. There is still some complication to the water levels. You won’t just fight some monsters and traveling to the next area, you actually have puzzles that you need to solve before you can advance. But it's not like the enemies in the water levels are hard either.

Surprisingly Capcom left us with some crappy enemies in this game. There were so many cool enemies you would find in the first title. But here, we are left with some flying birds, bats that are on fire, and some dumb possessed tanks from Shinobi. You would think that they would put a giant alligator with lasers on its head. It's about equivalent to the crap they put in this game. The monsters are always the best part of the battles. If the developers from the old game seen this, I think they would break down and cry.

Another important feature to the levels is the camera angles. We all like to see what we are attacking. With normal enemies this isn’t such a problem, but since Capcom added some flying monsters, you can't really tell where they are. Thankfully we don't have to fight much of these guys, but it can make battles really annoying. There is nothing worse then being locked onto and aerial enemy and having other ground enemies beating you to a pulp. Also note that they fixed a couple camera problems. It was horrible on the first title fighting Phantom, you would go to a bad area where you can't move and he would shoot a fireball at you and your left with a molested health bar.

Besides the great camera angles, the thing that made Devil May Cry so unique was the difficulty. The first game was actually a challenge, but not to hard. This game is so pathetically easy it makes you sick. You could probably fight any boss blind folded and beat them on HARD mode. Since this game is so short and simple, you are left with a horrible challenge. The first game would take a while to get through each mission. You could easily beat this game with both characters in less time that it took you to beat the first game. Both of the characters are basically the same in story category, the only difference is the weapons and some levels. Else wise Capcom left us with a horrible challenge. You could hand this game to a 5 year old and they could beat it by button mashing.

One thing that made no sense was the fact that this games graphics seem worse than the previous title. Usually when a company makes a sequel to a game, it looks way better. But they kinda just stuck with some random graphics and left it at that. Our hero also looks like he has aged quite a bit as well. In actuality he wouldn't have aged that much in such a short amount of time. Our hero is going to be in a wheel chair for the next game, just you wait and see.

This game is not the best one to pick up, but if you are a fan of the series it wouldn't hurt you to grab it at a game store. You probably won't be pleased if you are a fan of the series, but it doesn't mean you shouldn't check it out. There is somebody out there that must like this game. If you want anything you should get the third game that is coming out, I'm sure that title will blow away both of these Devil May Cry titles together. Hopefully our Dante will come back and kick some ass!

Community review by alucard517 (March 28, 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.