DMC2 = Feces
Ahem.
Warning: The following review contains DMC2 storyline spoilers--read at your own risk.
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Let's start with the basics:
DMC2 as of today (Saturday, September 08, 2007) is set after DMC4 in the DMC timeline. It finds Dante taking a job in the islands of Vi Du Marli...uhm...Vie du Marli...uhm...however the hell you spell that.
He was hired by the...
...
...you know what, I'm gonna summarize the important parts, and leave it at that.
*Dante gets hired
*Dante flips coin
*Dante goes to Island
*Dante flips coin
*Dante kills demons
*Dante flips coin
*Lucia pops up
*Old lady pops up
*Dante flips coin
*Lucia meets baddie
*Dante is somewhere else...probably flipping his damned coin again
*Star Wars moment, "Lucia! I am your father!"...or creator.
*Lucia, "No WAI!!!!!"
*For some inexplainable reason--the villain (Arius) doesn't kill Lucia...instead, he merely teleports her to a fate worse than death---back to DMC2's gameplay.
*Dante flips coin--kills baddie
*Lucia speaks cheesy line
*Matier (old lady) also speaks cheesy line
*Dante goes, "Yeah, lets go all the way to Hell!" while he is currently IN HELL.
THE END.
Now that we have those little details out of the way, how does this game play? Well, think of DMC1's gameplay--but drag it through mud--then take out everything the fans loved about the series except for Dante----and that's what you get. All the moves lack punch--impact, if you will. There are no damage animations for the enemies, instead, they just stop moving when damaged. How lame is that? Stinger (Dante's signature move) originally had a lot of power behind it. Dante essentially slides and slams the tip of his blade into the enemy. In DMC2, however, he runs, stumbles and pokes the enemy...yeah.
The gameplay is slow, repetitive--and most importantly, absolutely boring. Dante is just a different person, and this game is nothing like it's predecessor.
The enemies rarely fight back, even on the highest difficulty setting (1 or 2 bosses are the exception, but they are so spaced out, it makes little difference). You can easily defeat enemies by spamming the square button. Sure, you can try to get in some sword hits, but in the end, it just gets stale.
Graphically speaking, the game has better graphics than DMC1 and the jag-fest of DMC3. However, artistically speaking, it's trash. Brown and gray, that's the world of Vi Du Marli. That's all you'll ever see. The environments are completely uninteresting--the music is passable.
DMC2 is a poor representation of the Devil May Cry franchise as a whole. It plays, sounds, and progresses differently from it's brethren and ditches everything the fans hold dear. No smack-talking Dante, no quality head bobbing music, and the storyline isn't even original. In fact, I've heard this story before...it was in DMC1, but it lacks 'heart', if you will. Go figure.
The game is short. Less than 10 hours, but believe me, it feels like forever. There really isn't any other reason to replay it after beating it. Me? Well, I did, but only because I'm a hardcore DMC fan.
So here's the breakdown, folks:
Don't. Bother.
DMC2 = 4/10
...move along, move along.