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DEVIL MAY CRY 2 - by kristie macris |
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Devil May Cry left Dante and his new partner Trish as the coolest demon slayers for hire out there. The sequel finds Dante stripped of both his powerful sword, Sparda, and his demon gal. No explanation as to where either is, and the sexy demon replacement, Lucia with her strange clothes and her even stranger accent is more of an annoyance than a femme fatale. Hardly a sequel at all, Devil May Cry 2 is little more than a stripped down parody of the original. For Devil May Cry 2, Capcom promised the same trash talking attitude and rock star looks with a more highly evolved game play. Supposedly the game tracks your playing and the enemies difficulties grows as your skill does, but what's the point as the game requires no skill. The powerful combo moves of the original are gone, making the entire game in any difficulty mode, including Dante Must Die, just like playing in Easy Mode on DMC. Sure, Dante and Lucia's new jump moves and split shooting are fun, but pointless. For the most part, you can spend the entire game either holding down the default attack or repeatedly shooting the missile launcher. Since being stylish no longer matters, points are now earned for quick kills. No longer do you need to use certain weapons to defeat certain enemies, just use the sword of your choice, no combos needed. Upgrades to your weapons are mostly a waste of time as nothing new is added with each level. Since being stylish no longer matters, points are now earned for quick kills. Gone also is the plot. While DMC had a ridiculous but fun storyline, DMC2's story is hard to follow and pointless-something about a harlequin-clown millionaire wanting to raise demons to take over the world or some such. Even sadder is the lack of Dante's comments after each kill. In the first game, Dante was the epitome of cool and his one-liners kept the game entertaining and engaging. Sure the sequel moves faster, but for what, bragging rights having finished the game in a few hours. That's a few hours for both discs. While Lucia is more fun to play as she seems to jump around more easily and her throwing knives are more clever than Dante's machine guns, her missions are shorter and mostly just backwards versions of Dante's. The few minutes of the underwater world looks promising but ends quickly as does Lucia's entire disc. After completing both characters, the Bloody Castle is unlocked-a survival mode which loses its appeal after fifty or so levels with no end in sight. The only obvious evolvement is the slightly improved camera angle. Still there are many times when the bosses are off screen or jumps are hard to gauge. Having the ability to control of the view would solve this annoying problem. While most of the gothic feel and the detailed noir graphics are missing from DMC2, the music remains almost identical. Heavy guitar rifts and almost industrial techno. By the far the only thing keeping players awake. After the novelty of jumping off walls wears off, this game
can be compared to the side quests found on most other games:
a quick jaunt through some not as graphically advanced worlds
with a favorite character. While enjoyable, this highly anticipated
sequel is still missing the attitude of the first one. Devil
May Cry 2 does compete with the best of the non-Capcom action
thriller games, just don't expect it to be nearly as fun or as
challenging as the original. |
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