I already made a review on Devil may cry 3 before, but it was a shit review so i deleted it and i wrote a new one.

The first devil may cry has plenty of issues but i enjoyed my time with it overall, and a good sequel could fix its issues!
Right after i beat dmc 1, i immediately jumped onto the next entry which is the one and only DEE EM CEE TWO! Dmc 2 somehow manages to be worse than the first game in literally almost every aspect.
Well after dmc 2 it was time to jump onto dmc 3.
Dmc 3 manages to improve from the previous games in pretty much every single way while also fixing many problems.

I wasn't expecting the story in this game to be so fricking awesome, mainly because the first 2 games had quite lame stories. Dante and Vergil's beef is the most intriguing part about the story, Dante is a more goofy and energetic person that cracks many jokes and Vergil is a way more serious person. Lady is a really great character that was introduced in this game, and Arkham was aight i guess, Jester is much better. The story of the game is also filled with so many memorable lines and cutscenes, a lot of the things that Dante and Vergil say are stuck in my head just like the many kewl ass cutscenes in the game.

Dmc 3 adds tons of improvements to the combat system. This time you can choose different styles that you can equip which will change Dante's moveset. The style that i used the most is swordmaster which gives Dante's melee weapons more attacks allowing you to pull off much cooler combos against enemies.

Royal guard is used for blocking enemies attacks, and blocking an enemy attack fills up a meter for a powerful attack. I only used this style for a little bit since it is very hard to learn.

Gunslinger is similar to swordmaster but instead of expanding the moveset of the melee weapons, it expands the moveset of Dante's guns.

Trickster style is used for evading enemy attacks and i think that's it? Idk i never used this style.

Quicksilver and doppelganger are 2 styles that you unlock later in the game.

Quicksilver basically slows down everything on your screen except for Dante allowing you to deal a lot of free damage to enemies, but to make it less overpowered they made it cost devil trigger energy.

Doppelganger spawns a clone of Dante that can perform attacks, and similar to quicksilver it will consume devil trigger energy.

Another thing that makes dmc 3's combat so great are obviously Dante's weapons which unlike in the previous 2 games, all of the weapons are actually unique.
Rebellion, agni & rudra and cerberus are the weapons that i found myself using the most mainly because all 3 of them are fast weapons that aren't very difficult to use.
Beowulf is a fairly slow weapon that can be a bit difficult to use, but i often equipped it right before boss fights because it can deal some really good damage.
Nevan is a very tricky weapon to use... I'll learn how to use it one day

Vergil is also a playable character which is pretty radical! Do you guys know that one meme where the boss fight is overpowered as fuck when you fight him, but when you unlock the boss as a playable character he becomes trash? Well Vergil is basically the opposite of that meme, Vergil is overpowered when you fight him, and Vergil is overpowered when you play as him.
You have access to 3 weapons which are the Yamato, Beowulf and force edge, and instead of guns Vergil only has summoned swords.

Dmc 3 has a larger variety of bosses and unlike in the 2nd game (god i hope i haven't been mentioning dmc 2 too much) they are actually good this time. Well 99% of them at least.
The worst boss of the game is easily Arkham, this boss fight had so much potential, but for some reason they made you fight this giant ass blob that spits out eels i think? But thankfully this is the only boss in the game that i would consider bad. The bosses that i enjoyed fighting the most are: agni & rudra, cerberus, jester and obviously all of the fantastic Vergil boss fights.

The music is pretty damn great!
My favorite tracks are: taste the blood, Vergil battle 1, Vergil battle 2, divine hate and devils never cry.

Personally i don't have many gripes with this game other than the terrible 18th mission with the stupid ass obligatory boss rush, and a few enemies being annoying as hell to fight.

Dmc 3 is a game that i will never get tired of no matter what, every single replay that i do is just as enjoyable as the last one thanks to its amazing combat system, and the cutscenes are way too entertaining for me to skip them on replays. Oh yeah this is kinda random but pls capcom REMAKE THE FIRST 2 DMC GAMES.
Dmc 3 gets a 10/10

I played all versions of it, console + pc. It's something I've been going back to since I was younger. I love this game so much, it has the exact vibe I want from a fantasy game. The UI is probably the most creative Elder Scrolls has had at least to me, maybe not the best but I really love the look of it. The entire game is like that for me. Is it the world's best game? No, it's full of classic Bethesda bugs, stupid quests, random difficulty spikes, and wonky combat but it makes up for it in charm. It's a classic for a reason, I love Skyrim and other TES titles but I enjoyed this one the most. I could go on for like forever about the Brotherhood and Arena guild lines or the fun of just exploring Cyrodiil but just idk, if you see this and you haven't played it yet go play it.

Stellar Blade was an extremely fun game, but the story is pretty straight forward. (No Spoilers)

The combat was incredible, action like Nier with a bit of soulslike when it came to bosses having attack patterns with timed parries. Even had segments that made the combat just turn into somewhat of a horror game. The animations were crisp. Everything felt like it hit with force it was so satisfying.

The soundtrack was beautiful, every fight scene had a banger of a song play in the background and just roaming around the song fit the atmosphere. One particular song that played during a boss fight near the end was amazing.

The graphics were absolutely stunning. The character detail, particularly EVE, was insane. She looked so lifelike you'd think it was a movie. The cosmetics to make EVE stand out in many ways provided many options, made me want to replay the game just to see her in different outfits in the cutscenes.

Like I said at the beginning, the story was pretty straight forward but they told it quite well. However, I did wish they explored the word they built more. Normally, I don't mind getting collectibles to discover more lore but I felt like I needed to go out of my way to learn more doing so. What did shine however, was the side quest line of a duo that I loved so much. At the end of the day, it was still a solid story. Replaying the game to get the platinum trophy really makes you focus on the cutscenes even more knowing the end.

My biggest issue with the game is some stuff out of combat. It could be a bit rough. Some segments slow down to a crawling pace, especially a few parts near the end. Sometimes the movement wasn't quite responsive, EVE would not listen to the inputs and would do whatever she'd like, normally falling to her death, which got frustrating. Some of the puzzles, although pretty easy, ended up being tedious.

Overall, the game is great. They had some minor issues that I think could be easily resolved with some patches. I definitely recommend this game to anyone who enjoys action games.

If I had a nickel for every time I was lukewarm on a Yakuza game until the really well made final chapter, I'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice.

So, Gaiden, or Yakuza 6.5 (or 7.5 depending on who you ask) meant to tie up loose threads in Kiryu's story and god damn does it do it well. While the main story is just kind of okay, Kiryu himself and the wrapping up of his arc was phenomenal. It's about Kiryu trying his best to help with THAT THING from Y7, all while exploring key moments from his past under a new identity. Most of the new characters are cool if somewhat standard by Yakuza standards, except Akane. She's great, especially as the game progresses. Her whole thing is a network that small side activities stem from, as well as Substories. This is one of my gripes with the game. While I saw a map of smaller quests and by brain jumped to 'this is like a Xenoblade expansion holy shit let's goooooo' I quickly got bored of all quests leading back to the network instead of letting Kiryu stumble on wacky scenarios himself, even if most of the substories are good once you get into them (the 6 month dev time allowing for ChatGPT references of all things being especially neat)

And the next thing is the combat, because holy shit, the dragon engine got refined. It's back to every move feeling impactful and brutal, with satisfying heat actions. At least in classic Dragon style. Kiryu also has a new fighting style focused on gadgets, but due to these gadgets taking a while to get doing in dealing damage, I didn't feel much of a need to use it. But all the things I like from this apparently come from the judgment games, so I'm looking forward to that.

Overall, it's a great finale and love letter to Yakuza, with the only issue being that Kiryu doesn't get a goodbye fight with Majima at the end (HE WAS RIGHT FUCKING THERE) with another ending that almost made me cry. And now, it's time to finish what I started. Onwards, to Yakuza 7!

While I beat Devil May Cry first, I'm reviewing this one now as it's the most fresh in my mind. Devil May Cry 2 is the infamous sequel to Devil May Cry, a game which had its own share of problems, but was overall enjoyable. Devil May Cry 2 on the other hand, has good gameplay on paper, but in execution, it plays a whole lot worse. Starting off, the improvements.

The amulets were a cool idea, and you can upgrade your weapons. Oh, and you can quick swap guns, now, and the controls are ever so slightly better.

Alright, now the downsides. For one, DMC2 is absolutely WAAAAAAAAAY too easy. DMC wasn't too difficult, but if you weren't prepared, you could easily die. DMC2 feels patronizing in comparison. If you've ever heard of DMC2, you've heard of how infamously overpowered guns are, and it's ALL true. Guns tear through enemies in this game, and also juggle enemies. Swords are nigh useless in this game because there feels like there's little combo game here. Unlike the delay based systems of DMC1 (ex. Attack, Attack, Small Delay, Attack), DMC2 has the player hold the stick in a specific direction to pull off an attack (ex Attack, Attack, hold Left, Attack). I didn't even know this was possible until the 5th mission; I had to look it up on the wiki. And even then, most of the attacks push away your enemy instead of keeping them in one spot, which is usually the opposite of what you want. And even if you did want to use the moves, half of the time it doesn't even work, but thankfully this game doesn't rank you based on the variety of moves you use, but rather how long you can keep up the damage, and how much you dodge attacks. So in the end, who should give a flying fuck about the swords? Half of the bosses encourage using guns anyways, and if ANYONE knows ANYTHING about DMC2’s awful boss design, it's the fucking INFESTED CHOPPER. I'm serious, 90% of the battle is just you shooting at the chopper off-screen, dodging easy ass bullets, and it gets old and repetitive FAST. You do this for about 2 minutes, and it's really irritating. The other bosses also lack the satisfaction of DMC1’s boss design; they're far too easy to bruteforce. The only time I actually died to a boss was the Infested Chopper fight, not even to the boss itself, it was that burning building climb with me trying for over a minute to get on a platform that I fell off of, because DMC ain't no Mario 64, that's for sure. Could they not cut that shit out from DMC1? Aaaand that's where I gave up essentially. It wasn't really fun to begin with, and the Infested Chopper as well as several other DMC fans tell me that DMC2 isn't worth finishing. I didn't even try out Lucia for god’s sake, I was just that uninterested. DMC2 is absolutely not worth any more of my time, and it's probably gonna stay that way for a while.

I’ve always liked Super Meat Boy, but never loved it until recently. Being one of the first of the many “masocore” platformers, it’s always maintained relevance since the 2008 prototype. It doesn’t have any major gimmicks, and instead focuses on the games of old. You have a simple goal.

Dr Fetus has kidnapped Bandage Girl. Save Bandage Girl! It’s as simple as it gets. Well, what about the controls? You run, jump, and that’s it. So, where’s the fun? The controls. I firmly believe that Super Meat Boy has the best controls of any platformer released to date. Meat Boy is incredibly fast, while also having a floaty jump. Normally I’d say that this is bad for most games, but Super Meat Boy makes it work. All of the levels are designed with this high speed and floatiness in mind, stretching the controls to the furthest possibility. It’s most noticeable in the much later levels, but even then, this attention to detail is present in earlier levels. It makes the game feel truly limitless, by allowing you to speed through the levels, having an extremely high skill ceiling down to the very frame. It’s a bit unwieldy, but once you master it, it feels like you can do anything. And do everything you shall, because there's a catch. It’s called SUPER for a reason. Super Meat Boy is considered among the hardest platformers, and for good reason. It’s a relentlessly difficult game, doubly so for 100%, but that’s where the beauty of the game lies within. Sure, you may retry a dozen times just to unlock the Dark World level, but by all accounts, the game pushes you to that mastery by rewarding you for overcoming challenges. It wants you to succeed. It’s difficult, but fair, and one of the most rewarding to conquer. The levels all feel distinctive from one another, and each individual one teaches the player a different lesson throughout their short runtimes. The level progression of Super Meat Boy is nothing but incredible. It introduces a gimmick in one level, and each level builds upon it. And then suddenly, another gimmick pops up. And then another, and another, and another, until you’re working with all of the mechanics before you even know it. And then the Dark World version of the level shows how much better you can get with said mechanics. No gimmick feels underutilized, nor unfun and cheap, and no level feels forgettable at all. It emphasizes how strong the whole game’s design is. And if you really want a challenge, you can always go for the Bandages! The bandages of Super Meat Boy force you to master the level to even get a shot at them. Getting them is the easier part. Surviving is harder. If you so much as graze a saw with these babies, you lose the bandage, but succeed and the game proudly announces that you got the bandage. It's a feeling like no other. I had my shit absolutely rocked throughout the entirety of Super Meat Boy 100%. Getting the bandages really made me feel like I accomplished something, both in a metaphorical and literal sense, as unlocking bandages allows you to play as brand new characters.

Akin to The Binding of Isaac, all characters cover a specific niche. Meat Boy is your main man, with all of the levels designed for him first and foremost. The others give you entirely new platforming abilities, but typically have a stipulation, like for example, Commander Video. He gets a short float, but is pretty slow compared to Meat Boy. There's about 10 characters overall, a few of which require a secret code to be inputed. The cool thing about it is that most characters come from other indie games, making Super Meat Boy feel more like a video game which proves how far indie games have come. Even more interestingly, the console and PC versions of the game has different characters within them, each accommodating the difference in the Indie scene on PC and Consoles. The Warp Zones themselves have the same characters, so Commander Video from Bit.Trip, Jill from… Mighty Jill Off, Ogmo from Jumper, the titular character, Flywrench, and The Kid from I Wanna Be The Guy are all here and accounted for. Meanwhile, Gish, Tim, Guy Spelunky, Pink Knight, and The Ninja are console exclusive, while Headcrab, Alien Hominid, Josef, Naija, RunMan, Captain Viridian, and MR. MINECRAFT, are all exclusive to PC. In the end, it doesn't really matter which version you play, but it kind of sucks that we never got some Super Meat Boy Definitive Edition with all of the characters from both versions, but in general, the balance of characters is very solid. While The Kid is among the best characters in the game for the best double jump in the game, he is a lot slower and jumps lower than Meat Boy. And also, in order to even get him, you need to complete the 3 hardest levels in the game, back to back.

This is a perfect transition into talking about the bane of my existence. GOLDEN GOD. Is actually really fun! Super Meat Boy will take you about a weekend to complete, but GOLDEN GOD could take upwards of a month to achieve. I played on-and-off ad nauseam over the course of a year, amd Golden God completely transforms Super Meat Boy as a game. In order to achieve Golden God, you need to
- Clear all 7 Light Worlds, with an A+ Rank
- Clear all 7 Dark Worlds (aka X worlds), harder versions of the Light World, but no A+ ranks are needed
- Obtain all 100 Bandages
- Unlock every Character
- Clear all Warp Zones, sets of 3 bite sized levels with 3 lives per level
- Clear all Glitch levels (technically optional but adds to 100%)
So... yeah, any completionist certainly has their work cut out for them. The Dark Worlds alone nearly broke me, but damn did I pop off when I cleared every one of them. Chapters 1, 2, 3, and 6 are pretty manageable when it comes to their challenge, but I genuinely contemplated quitting the entire operation at World 4X. I was 100%ing each World at about 1 or 2 per day, but 4X threw off my flow by a lot. It took me about 3 days to fully beat it alone, and 5X only got more and more challenging. 5X is among the most challenging worlds in the entire game. Each level was a challenging contraption made with only the most difficult platforming setpieces in the entire game. But each time I died, the music always brought me coming back for more!

Super Meat Boy’s soundtrack is legendary, no doubt about it. Some of the most Newgrounds esque shit that you can imagine, but it’s some of that good shit nonetheless. Forest Funk was stuck in my head for months once I first conquered Super Meat Boy, Beatus Blues is an incredibly catchy tune. Can O’ Salt is a Minecraft song (described by one of my IRLs), Hell feels grand and imposing, and The Rapture feels like a goddamn military tune. The End is weirdly cinematic but also really good, and CHAPTER MOTHERFUCKING 7!

Chapter 7 is where my 100% streak really died off. I completed 5 levels a DAY at this point. There are no bandages, no warp zones, nothing. Just you, your controller, and Bandage Girl. Yeah, for Chapter 7 alone, you get to play as Bandage Girl. And these levels aren’t among the most difficult in the game, they ARE the most difficult in the game. Don’t let the happy music and overabundance of pink fool you. The Cotton Alley has some of the most pseudo-pixel perfect shit that you can imagine, but once again, it’s HARD but FAIR. I never wanted to ragequit because the game wasn’t unfair. It’s one of the hardest 2D platforming levels ever made, but one of the best. Every single piece of tech that the game taught you comes back for a spectacular finale, and a spectacular finale that is. This all culminates in the HARDEST level I’ve ever beaten. “The Four Letter Word” is IMPOSSIBLE. It’s 1 minute of straight pixel perfect platforming, easily the hardest level in the game, and it was 11 PM. I was in my room alone, with only the bright visuals of the Cotton Alley keeping me awake. But I was determined. And it took over a very long time, but after an hour, I saw Meat Boy. I was at the goal. I made the final jump, and dropped my controller. I was so satisfied, but I knew that was only half the battle. So, I got a good night’s rest, knowing that the following day would be hell.

Or was it? I powered through Cotton Alleys’ Dark World like it was nothing. I was Meat Boy. I felt the heaviness on my heart each time he died, but each victory kept me coming back for more and more. I crushed half of the levels like soda cans. But the remaining few pushed me past my breaking point. And with 4 levels to go, with just me and the game, I received... Golden God??? Welp, that was fun! Yeah, not sure why the achievement unlocked early, but I decided to leave it at that. But as the final completion reward, you unlock the Meat Ninja, who always runs and can teleport through sawblades after pressing X. You can’t use the leaderboards with him, but it’s a solid reward for 100%.

Super Meat Boy is a masterclass of game design, being one of the best platformers ever made. It has over 300 handcrafted levels, all of which test the player’s skills in the best way possible. It’s one of those pick up and play games, where you can play and clear a few levels, or complete the entire game in a sitting. It’s a fun game, to put it simply, and I can’t recommend it enough, now that the XBLA store is shutting down. Rest In Peace, but long live Steam. Welp. What is there to to cover now?

MYSELF. Yeah, I know this is pretty out of scope to cover in a controversial platforming series with a silly cube of meat, but I wanted to talk about another controversial platforming series with a Witch. A dark one, perhaps. Plus, it directly related to me and the near future of zeusdeegoose as a whole, and I’ve done so in the past with my Binding of Isaac reviews. So humor me for a bit, or, if you’ve had your fill, feel free to click off, and I wish you a good day. For many people within my Discord and other related spaces, they knew that I was re-reviewing The Legend of Dark Witch series in it’s entirety; keyword, was, and I have to upsettingly say that said review series is now canceled. Many people don’t know about it, and I think that’s a good thing. It was a series that I used to play in the past, and me and a few friends have heavily criticized over the past few years. We also have a bit of bad blood within said community itself. We were talking about it again and how the developer sucked, practically beating it down as a farce of a franchise, mostly leaving the community stuff out of it as a whole. And while I still agree those remarks about the developer, one discussion got taken pretty far as I took a jab at one of the wiki’s vandals, and that spiraled into one of the members of the server leaving. Initially, I thought it was going to be a lighthearted joke, but it was pretty inappropriate of me and for those involved, I do apologize. I won’t extrapolate anything further at the behest of the people in said chat, as the server that the discussions were held within was a private venue, and I don’t wish to share any links so said server.

Secondly, after said conversation, I realized something huge. I didn’t NEED to re-review the series. I mean, what would I get out of it? Initially, the thought going in was that this would re-introduce people into zeusdeegoose’s past by re-reviewing what got the ball rolling for the long ass review format and to bury the hatchet for the final time, but here’s the thing. I already kind of did that. I had already archived my Wiki reviews on Backloggd, and notwithstanding the occasional bias, my criticisms of each game have still held up. So the newer reviews would just be... lesser. I don’t have the energy nor the time to discuss every stage in Dark Witch 2 again when that would go against the overall message of the review series; that being that The Legend of Dark Witch is a dogshit series, aside from 1 and 2, and I don’t think it’s worth potentially burning some bridges just to prove my point. Me and other friends have already long since moved on, and potentially bringing a lolicon back into the spotlight simply isn’t worth the effort that’d I’d put into it.

Thirdly, I got burnt out. Ladies and Gentlemen, I LOVE tearing apart games I hate, believe me. Super Meat Boy Forever is one of my favorite reviews that I’ve ever made. But I can only say “This game fucking sucks” so many times before getting tired, folks. And that’s just the review side. Imagine playing 8 games back to back, 99% of which are mid, and the 1% are games that I’ve burnt myself out on and already played for hundreds of hours already (not joking, btw). I didn’t hate myself for booting up The Binding of Isaac, because The Binding of Isaac is an actually GOOD video game that I like. Wow! But whenever I boot up any Dark Witch game, I just feel disappointed.

Fourthly, who cares? I could make point after point about why NAN-A and The Legend of Dark Witch suck, but it’s fruitless. The Legend of Dark Witch is far past it’s eShop era where it was actually semi-popular. Hell, I’d bet now that the games don’t even average a sale a day, with the 3DS eShop now gone. Now, only a very small, inactive fanbase remains. Ever since me and others left, it’s a complete GHOST TOWN. Nobody cares about it anymore. I’ve barely heard anyone in my online sphere talk about it, and it remains as a niche franchise, like it should be. People got their balls blown off with 1 and 2, and then almost all of us collectively fucked off afterwards because the games SUCKED and it wasn’t active anymore. Now that the dust has settled, it’d only serve to piss people off who still give a damn about the series anymore. And trust me, they WOULD get pissed. I’ve seen it firsthand. And as funny as it would be, I don't want to act as if I'm some villain or something.

So... yeah. That’s all I got to say on the matter. Sorry to anyone who was expecting the review, and sorry to anyone who was involved in the first incident. It was a flawed idea from the start, and I really don’t have anyone to blame for the reviews except myself. Now, for real this time, I’m burying the hatchet. No more of my valuable time will be spent on a video game franchise made by some jizzer. I may edit this out sooner or later, because truth be told, it’s mostly irrelevant to a game series with a funny meat man, but I just needed to get my thoughts out, off of my chest, and announce that the series is canceled, as disappointing as it may be. Finally, I still have all of my Dark Witch reviews in a Google Doc, so if you'd like to see them, whether that be out of curiosity or otherwise, come on over. ;) Shoot me a DM to @zeusdeegoose, either on Twitter or Discord. They’ll remain forever unfinished, but hey, if people wanted to know how it would've played out, they can come and see. But now, with all that being said, lets just move on to greener fields because I don’t know what else to talk about.

Sooooo... it might be too early, but it may be time to start another review series. I’ve been playing a wider variety of games than ever before. Old games, new games, and even bear games. I’ve had good games and bad games, but it’s true love that we share! So I do have quite a few on my mind that I want to do. Blaster Master Zero, Super Monkey Ball, and Devil May Cry are all on my mind. So, I hope you’re looking out for those because they’re probably coming soon. Blaster Master Zero will probably be first up, as I’ve finished all of them, and then Super Monkey Ball and DMC will follow soon after. Again, there may or may not be a bit of a drought when it comes to reviews thanks to the aforementioned cancellation, so apologies. But, zeusdeegoose always comes back stronger than it was. So please tune in, when it’s ready of course. But in the meantime, I’m going back to the Basement so I can type more reviews. If you’ve read this far, I really appreciate your support, but please go outside. It’s almost Summer now, and the sun is good for your skin and health. Don’t be like me. Or hell, play Super Meat Boy! You wont regret it.

Top 5 reasons why DOOM still rocks in 2024 (by a tenderfoot born in 2000):

1. The amount of testosterone per pixel. If you want to play in lower difficulty levels you’ll have to acknowledge your lack of masculinity and pick the “I’m too young to die” option. I find it endearing.
2. The shotgun.
3. The main character’s walk cycle. It’s so exaggerated, I love how much it moves up and down, right and left, and how the weapon also swings around with each step you take. It makes you feel like a fucking berserker.
4. The action is great, but there are also some amazing horror set pieces. Lights will suddenly switch off and you’ll have to survive a shooting in the dark by trusting your instincts and the fleeting light of each shot you fire.
5. Finally, a horde of demons coming from Mars is too cool and iconic to be true and we should point out more often just how well this thing knows its own aesthetic.

DMC 2 is so strange that it deserves more than its reputation simply being "game sucks." It doesn't deserve better, but it does deserve more. Let me start by just aggregating all my major issues with the game:

1. The enemy AI is almost unilaterally broken. A lot of bosses are ostensibly pacifists. They don't to hurt Dante. In many instances they simply can't.
2. Pretty much 95% of bosses can be killed by spamming Ebony & Ivory. If you have a turbo button on your controller you can bring your playtime down from 3.5 hours to probably two-hours-forty-five.
3. The plot here is more an elaborate collection of mostly unrelated cutscenes than a coherent storyline.
4. The game employs an auto lock-on and a manual lock-off (what), neither of which really work properly.
5. The upgrade system has pretty much been stripped out for... something that I never really understood. You can reach S-rank sometimes by just mashing Rebellion.
6. Infested Chopper.

As you'll notice, that means basically every pillar of the game is ostensibly busted. And that is true. But DMC2 also has some cool elements. I'll list those next:

1. The art direction is mostly really good. Lots of super cool locations and enemy designs.
2. Dante animates quite well. He also feels a lot more nimble than DMC1.
3. Gaining new traversal powers to use in Devil Trigger is a great idea.
5. There's a great amount of environmental variety here, something I think DMC suffers with as a series overall.
4. It's still Devil May Cry, so it's intrinsically cool.

Often, playing this game is like playing an NES game that's sort of objectively disastrously programmed but is still fun both in spite of, and because of, all these issues. It's almost comedic how all the tentpole elements of the game are just in shambles, it's sort of fun chuckling while standing in the corner of a boss arena burning their health bar with Ebony & Ivory while the boss just vibes alone in the opposite corner.

Because DMC 2 is so short and so extremely easy, you can kinda just sit back and enjoy the mess unfold. This game is almost entirely painless to play through: if all the big problems coalesced in a game that was angeringly hard then it'd be a half star. But it's not. Above all, DMC 2 is just sort of a source of bemusement. I think it's worth playing if only just to appreciate how a game of this status turns out this bizarrely. It's rare to play something which fails so completely, and I'd be lying if I said that's not worth the afternoon it'll take to see through.