I think it's important to play a game for yourself to see how you really feel. I went into this, knowing very well the immense amount of disdain this game receives, hoping there would be some good I could get out of it and feeling hopeful. (Also going to preface this with how I feel very sorry about the incredibly unfair position the development team was in and how borked DMC2's production was)
This was not the case, Devil May Cry 2 was just as bad as everyone had said, but now I know intimately why instead of just hearing it. The combat is very empty and unsatisfying. Even aside from guns having crazy knockback, the standard attacks are very weightless and clunky. This game only avoids the lowest rating because I like the way it looks and its dreary, dull atmosphere was kind of interesting to me.
The level design in particular is the worst, consisting entirely of empty hallways with no design at all. Plus, the Secret Rooms are just big empty boxes of enemies to fight and finding them is very annoying, just flat textures that randomly are secrets.
The boss fights are very boring, consisting of naught but a few minutes of mashing the Gun button repeatedly. The Infested Chopper in particular is just that, and Arius isn't very interesting either.
Speaking of Arius, this plot is so bad. Lucia is a cool character but even then her motivations are poorly explained and she doesn't get to do much. Plot elements like the "Arcana", Argosax, or Arius doing a 180 in tone just come out of nowhere and disappear.
While most would qualify something like this as a waste of time and insist you skip this, I am going to take a rare stance and suggest the opposite. In spite of how awful this game was, I think it (spoiler for my future review) made me appreciate Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening so much more. Hell, it made me appreciate video games in general more. It made me realize I took good feeling combat and existing level design a bit for granted. It's important to gut-check how you feel about games like this so you can appreciate and fairly rate the upper tier of games too.
This was not the case, Devil May Cry 2 was just as bad as everyone had said, but now I know intimately why instead of just hearing it. The combat is very empty and unsatisfying. Even aside from guns having crazy knockback, the standard attacks are very weightless and clunky. This game only avoids the lowest rating because I like the way it looks and its dreary, dull atmosphere was kind of interesting to me.
The level design in particular is the worst, consisting entirely of empty hallways with no design at all. Plus, the Secret Rooms are just big empty boxes of enemies to fight and finding them is very annoying, just flat textures that randomly are secrets.
The boss fights are very boring, consisting of naught but a few minutes of mashing the Gun button repeatedly. The Infested Chopper in particular is just that, and Arius isn't very interesting either.
Speaking of Arius, this plot is so bad. Lucia is a cool character but even then her motivations are poorly explained and she doesn't get to do much. Plot elements like the "Arcana", Argosax, or Arius doing a 180 in tone just come out of nowhere and disappear.
While most would qualify something like this as a waste of time and insist you skip this, I am going to take a rare stance and suggest the opposite. In spite of how awful this game was, I think it (spoiler for my future review) made me appreciate Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening so much more. Hell, it made me appreciate video games in general more. It made me realize I took good feeling combat and existing level design a bit for granted. It's important to gut-check how you feel about games like this so you can appreciate and fairly rate the upper tier of games too.