Compared to the first Devil May Cry, this game is worse in almost every way and much more frustrating
+Amulet gives you special powers and abilities
+Ability to upgrade swords and guns powers
Cons
-Slow paced exploration and fighting
-Easy
-Many frustrating moments
-Uninteresting story
-Broken lock on system
-Lucia's story and character are just uninteresting and dull
-Boss fights can take too long and drag on
-Stupid puzzles
-Controls are kind of dumb
So 2 years after the release of the original Devil May Cry, Capcom decided to continue what would soon become one of their landmark series. After such an incredible first title, many fans expected the game to improve on a great formula. Instead we got a game that was slow paced, horrible and slow combat, twice as easy, and many frustrating moments.
Gameplay- Well, I guess I should start with the improvements this game made over the first since I will be using the rest of the review to rip on this game. I liked the fact that you can now upgrade individual weapons such as guns and make them more powerful. I also like the fact that you now get an amulet that gives you special abilities and powers. Okay, well those are really the only improvements Devil May Cry 2 made. The game itself is very slow paced. I felt like there wasn't as much fighting, and too much puzzle solving and moving from empty area to empty area. For an adventure or RPG game, this might be okay, but Devil May Cry is an action, hack n slash game, where you're objective is to kill hordes of enemies in a single area, its boring solving mindless, relentless puzzles, and even when you're fighting enemies, the game is slow. Your combos in this game suck, and you swing your sword, especially as Lucia, very slow compared to the first game. And enemies get hit back way too often so it makes fighting a lot more tedious.
On top of that, the lock on mechanics are awful. Enemies that you aren't even focused on are suddenly locked on and you are forced to go for them. During boss fights this becomes very frustrating. On top of all this, the camera is awful, sure the first game didn't have a great camera either, but it was a lot better than this one. There are other frustrating moments as well, like the very slow and unnecessary underwater segment that lasts almost 2 missions, and a very annoying boss fight. Plus lets face it, the enemies and bosses in this game are very lame looking and tend to sit back and let you beat them for the most part. AI is horrible in this game. Yet, despite all this frustration, the game is still very easy. I only died a handful of times and beat the game in less than 2 hour with both characters. I felt I was very overpowered at the time of the final boss. As for the improvements, I still wish the upgrading of weapons was more through, it feels more like an afterthought and you can't buy specific abilities for your weapons like in Devil May Cry 1. Guns hold way too much priority in this game since there are way too many flying enemies and bosses that can't be hit otherwise. Again how many times do I need to say this is a hack n SLASH not a shooter.
As for the storyline, lets just say it was not interesting and too complicated for a typical game of this genre. On top of that I found Lucia uninteresting and the main antagonist uninteresting, as opposed to the first where the game had a pretty interesting story and boss.
Graphics- The graphics are pretty bad, for the most part. By bad I mean, they haven't aged very well. Devil May Cry 1 didn't have the best graphics either, but compared to other games in 2001, Devil May Cry 1 was at least pretty ahead of its time. You'd think 2 years would be enough time to update their graphics significantly, but instead we get a slightly improved Devil May Cry 1. There's no excuse for the graphics, when games like Silent Hill 3 came out the same year and had incredible graphics. As for the sound, voice acting is pretty mediocre, I hated Lucia's voice and sound effects were pretty identical to the first game. Music wasn't as catchy as the first game though.
So overall, this game has little saving value, and once you beat the game once with both characters, there is no reason to play this again, unless you are a completionist and want to beat both stories on hard and devil, although I don't understand how anyone with have the discipline to play through this game 3 times with each character. I guess you unlock new costumes and modes, although they are nothing that interesting. Overall this game does little to improve the series and should only be played once with both characters to fill in the gap between 1 and 3.