Devil May Cry 2

John Gillooly cries devil. Twice.

The hack and slash is a mighty fine genre with a long legacy behind it, and one of the standout titles of recent years was Capcom's Devil May Cry. Stemming originally from an overtly gothic move by the resident evil team, DMC was a revelation; bringing a fresh new blast to the genre and setting itself up as one of the more memorable titles of recent years.

Riding on this legacy, expectations for the sequel have been high, and on paper it appears that Capcom has delivered. Rather than be content with just playing Dante, the demonically infused hero destined to hack and shoot demons until the end of time, you also get a chance to play a new heroine, Lucia, whose odyssey intersects Dante's and comes on a second disc.

There is also a new way of upgrading abilities through shards of an amulet that you pick up throughout the game. Each shard affects the powerup Demon mode, enhancing combat and granting new abilities like flight.

Dante has changed little from the first installment, still the dark, brooding anti-hero who wields his sword and twin guns Ebony and Ivory in the pursuit of dead zombie types. If anything, he is less powerful, with fewer upgrades than the original. Lucia fits seamlessly into the role of female hack and slasher, quick and vulnerable. She wields short swords or throwable daggers and while she does have extra weapons to upgrade to, like Dante this part is short and ultimately unfulfilling.

Thrust into some sort of storyline involving a demonic media baron and a search for artifacts, gameplay falls squarely into the move forward while killing things category.
 
While bonus points are given for doing it stylishly, they are hardly an essential part of the game. This is a major letdown because above all Devil May Cry 2 is a game of style over substance.

One of the standout parts of the original was the fluidity with which Dante moved. He bounced off walls, smote enemies with deft sword strikes and casually gunned down those out of range of his steel. The sequel is this on steroids. Dante can know leap even higher from walls, raining down a hail of lead of unsuspecting bad guys as he soars past.

In an unashamed nod to a certain sci-fi flick he also runs effortlessly along walls and performs aerobatics that would make the most hardened gymnast wince with pain. Lucia's journey is remarkably similar to Dante's, with the missions intersecting on a regular basis, but with some extra underwater missions just for her.

The original game used a 3D engine with pre rendered backdrops, ah la resident evil. These finely detailed gothic environments suited the scene perfectly, and the sequel initially shows promise, with much larger environments and to play in, and a degree more freedom in the path you take. At least it gives this illusion as you bounce across the rooftops of the first town. Unfortunately the game is quite linear and becomes less graphically impressive as the game moves along.

A big part of the disappointing experience is the game camera. It has been zoomed out a lot more than the original one, which initially allows for more enemies on screen at once but hits a major flaw, one which ultimately provides the biggest gameplay hurdle. The first encounter with a zombie helicopter still sticks vividly in the mind, as you deftly take down the undead flying machine without ever actually seeing more than a name and a health bar onscreen.

For a large chunk of the game, you just end up going through the motions. The vast majority of enemies die a horrible death when off-screen, victim to a deadly combination of Ebony, Ivory and Autoaim. This also adds to diminish the usefulness of style points, there isn't much point running up the wall, backflipping and stylishly smiting an enemy that you cannot actually see.

Devil May Cry 2 is a fun enough romp, but there is nothing that drags it above the rest of the games out there. The original proved that the concept can work beautifully, but unfortunately this game is a fairly hollow experience.