Devil May Cry 2 was released in 2003, a full two years after Metal Gear Solid 2. Why am I talking about a game developed by Konami in the same sentence as a game developed by Capcom? Read on, and you'll find out.
Here's a timeline of absolutely amazing PlayStation 2 games:
- Devil May Cry - 23 August, 2001
- Metal Gear Solid 2 - 13 November, 2001
Then, a not so great PlayStation 2 game, Devil May Cry, released 25 January 2003.
It feels as though the confusing backlash this factoid delivered in 2001 was something Capcom didn't figure out until the 11th hour before the release of Devil May Cry 2, where an asset flip maybe occurred.
You see, in Devil May Cry 2, you get to choose which protagonist you want to play. You can take Dante through a slightly longer campaign, or elect to slaughter demons with Lucia, a new character.
No matter what you pick to do, the campaigns are pretty much identical. It feels like they were developing for a new character's point of view, ignoring Dante, and then thought "well, what if the fans revolt or compare us to Metal Gear Solid 2?"
Don't worry, I'm doing that now.
Animations differ slightly. Sound effects between the characters are different, as are the character models. Everything else, however is vastly inferior to the prior game in the series, except for the visuals.
Visuals are improved by way of a more dynamic camera - providing improvement over the previous title's fixed views. Textures, in exchange are lower resolution, but they're filtered adequately to allow for the hardware of the time to deal with what Capcom were attempting to pull off.
There's less storytelling, and far less narrative, with breadcrumbs forming little more than granulated flour instead of being some delicious morsel to let you know what is happening in the world.
Combat is worse, with combos pretty much non-existent, and weapon upgrade paths just being "level 1, level 2" "level 3", and.... that's it. The combo system is fed on the basis of you dodging into the next enemy and unleashing an attack, instead of rolling out with an impressive variety of attacks.
Audio is horrible. The sound effects from the characters and enemies are adequate, but low resolution, no excuse, given the fact the PS2 could play DVDs. Music is okay (with one track in particular being quite good) - but battle music is a mess of hard rock guitar riffs that is obscured by the audio compression artefacts you can hear. Absolutely unforgivable.
Overall, this is the worst Devil May Cry game that I've played to date. There's one more title left in the HD collection for me to play next - Devil May Cry 3.
I don't know what to expect, but I expect it to be better.