Devil May Cry 2 : When The Development Story Is More Interesting Than The Game

My Devil May Cry journey continued this week as I started and completed Devil May Cry 2. Fresh off the surprisingly entertaining (although sometimes annoying) DMC1 I was looking forward to seeing what DMC2 has to offer as I had heard nothing about it. Well now I know why.... this game is bad..... like easily worst game I have played this year kind of bad. I do think it did have its moments but this game is just shockingly boring and terrible in every way that I just had to look into what was the reason why. The answer was a really crazy development story that is ten times more interesting than the story plot of the game. It also actually made me respect that the game was released at all and made me look at it in a different light. Lets get into it and the actual review itself.

DEVELOPMENT MAY CRY

The original DMC game was developed by Little Devils (Coolest developer name btw) and directed by the masterful Hideki Kamiya (RE2, DMC, Okami) who was tasked with producing a new resident evil game and ended up creating a completely independent IP that became DMC. Capcom saw the hype already around DMC and decided to greenlight a sequel while the first game was still being developed. They wanted to release a second game at latest a year after the first game releases to keep the hype for the franchise going and make as much cash as possible. They tasked the arcade dedicated Capcom Production Studio 1 to develop the new game and didn't even inform Little Devil a second game was being made. This obviously lead to some tension but development continued on.

Now the biggest issue is that due to DMC not even being released when the second game began development Capcom Production Studio 1 had no idea what kind of game to make and didn't even know how Dante should act. The only thing this mysterious director wanted was the game to feel more like a shooter which actually explains a lot since I hardly used my swords in the game. They made Dante a serious and dark character instead of the cheeky smartass that we know and love, and basically the game went deeper and deeper into a pit of development hell.

Eventually the game was such a broken mess that the novice director was fired and the legendary Hideaki Itsuno (Dragon's Dogma, Street Fighter Alpha, CapCom Vs SNK) was called in to finish the game (quick side note of how many absolutely incredible directors Capcom have, like it's actually crazy how stacked their team is). Itsuno and his team had only ever really worked on fighting games prior to DMC2 and he was given only 4 months to fix and release the game. When Itsuno asked the development team what state the game was currently in they said the only current thing that is working is the Stinger attack movement. A broken game with nothing working and only 4 months till release sounds impossible to fix...... but he did it.

Itsuno and his team managed to do the impossible and release a game that yeah was bad but at least it was playable and I had zero bugs during it. The amount of work and sadly crunch time that must of gone into this game is actually crazy, the fact it was even functioning four months earlier and they released a full game that took me 6 hours to complete (I only finished it as Dante.... that was enough for me) is just a crazy achievement to Itsuno and his team. So yeah it actually made me respect this game quite a bit, not because of the game itself but because of the accomplishment of what a good director and team can do to turn the impossible into something salvageable.

After the game was released and obviously very poorly received, Hideko Itsuno reputation was slightly affected as his name was on the box. However he promised to bring DMC back to its glory and went on to direct all of the other DMC games, not only bringing him to legendary status but also making DMC one of the most popular video game franchises ever.

So Mr Itsuno you really are one of the all time greats. While I am gutted you left CapCom and DMC I do totally understand because I can only imagine the craziness they put you through. I am also so excited to see what you are currently working on at LightSpeed.

ALL THE PAIN AND ZERO THE FUN

So onto the game itself, this is where it goes from interesting to painful.

Also their will be spoilers but this game is so empty of story that their isn't anything to really spoil.

So you are back at it again as Dante this time being hired by a woman named Lucia asking you to help her kill some demons. The intro cutscene it pretty good here actually as Dante is being quite badass and cheeky but this is the only time he seems like hes old self. Trish is nowhere to be seen in this game due to obviously the developers no knowing she exists and ended up joining with Dante as well as nearly all enemies from the first game are also missing (nearly is the key word there though). Lucia does seem pretty cool though as she runs around slashing enemies with her dual blades and she does appear slightly more often than Trish did I believe. She is a playable character as well where you can run through the missions with her instead but I have to admit the idea of playing through this game again is just to painful to do.

Now this is where the story just disintegrates. You help Lucia rescue her mother and the mother informs you about an evil corporation who's boss Arius has been using demonic methods to take over the world as he wants to be king. You then go to stop him. That's it...... well except you find out Lucia was created by Arius which doesn't really make sense (maybe you find out more playing as her) but to be honest that didn't even surprise me. But yeah thats the plot, you work your way to the tower and kill him, then fight a weird blob monster. That's it.....you get nothing more about Sparda or anything, it's just so goddamn weak.

Now this may seem harsh as it is an old game and the original DMC also didn't have a lot of story but it was interesting at least with Dante fighting his brother Vergil and Trish betraying you to only redeem herself then Mundus being this demon king who is very angel like. The story always hit when it needed to hit whereas DMC2 just is nothing. Plus the gameplay on DMC is absolutely on point and super fun where as boy oh boy DMC2 gameplay is probably the worst in nearly any game I have played.

When I played DMC it felt almost souls like in it's style. Combat was intense and getting hit normally knocked at least quarter of your health bar off, resources where hard to get and most importantly leveling up your combos and weapons felt incredibly rewarding. The game was hard but it felt great winning fights and eventually leveling up enough to feel strong but never too strong. In DMC2 however you are basically a gun god. Long gone are the days of using your pistols just to keep combos going nononono your pistols, shotgun and rocket launcher (....yep) are kind with your sword feeling like a dull knife in comparison. You walk to a mob of enemies and just blow them away without a second though, it still takes ages as the devs decided for every mob to have at least 50 enemies appear, but you walk through without losing a bit of health. The enemies themselves are slow to react to you and often stand near you for about 5 seconds before trying to hit you, even then it is normally a wild swing or a jump that goes completely pass you. Their is absolutely no challenge her at all. I breezed through every level and think I only died once throughout the entire game and that was to a super annoying boss. Actually lets quickly talk about the bosses.

Now this is where you could see they had some decent ideas. Most of the bosses where actually quite interesting in their design, challenging no, but they did normally look badass. My particular highlight was the building that turned into a demonic monster, I really enjoyed the cutscene and the fight even if it was easy. The final boss also looked badass in its final form, a humanoid fire demon that change gender depending on their attack = Hell yes! However every boss fight was not challenging at all thanks to your completely overpowered guns being able to blow them away, especially when you released your Sparda powers and you basically become the ultimate gatling gun from hell. Normally you could just chill in a corner or even just stand in the middle of the arena and shoot them crazy completely destroying their health bar and ending them within 5 minutes. Two boss fights though were crazy annoying. One was where you had to fight a demonic attack helicopter which was an easy fight that just kept going and going thanks to it keep reappearing with full health, and the other being a giant moth that births giant worms that would make DUNE proud. The moth fight in particular was challenging but not the fun kind as these worms would just keep spawning making it long and annoying. Oh and I hardly remember the Arius fight it was that quick.

So in summary, combat is terrible, story is terrible, enemies can be interesting looking but overall are terrible. But you have to remember that Itsuno had only 4 months to make a complete broken mess into a releasable game and for that I have to say that it is bloody impressive. I had no bugs, no crashes, no screen clipping and while it was not fun it was very much a sit down and just destroy mobs of enemies kind of game. It did it's job of being a video game and for that I have to say im strangely glad I played it. You can see that Itsuno managed to do the unachievable and while it doesn't make me respect the game it does make me greatly respect the man. So yeah don't play this game but do remember how good Itsuno is. On the plus side it makes me extremely excited for DMC3 which will be the ultimate anime redemption arc.