3/10
Man. Going from DMC 1, which was a pretty enjoyable game, to THIS? This was just not it. DMC 2 takes a ton of what made DMC 1 really good with dante's personality, quick and meaty combos, satisfying boss designs and enemy designs, takes all of this and just THROWS IT OUT THE WINDOW.
Story
I have no clue what tf was going on. It was a simple start, evil dude on tower kill him. But after that the story just goes NOWHERE, and mainly focuses on random place to place. Yeah DMC 1 had that issue as well but in here it is even worse. I didn't do Lucia and only did Dante as I could care less to play this game a second longer, MAYBE with her story as well it would be easier to understand, but with just dante I could care less what happened. Doesn't help the voice acting is wack.
Characters
Wtf happened? There is only 2 characters who get fleshed out this time. The main villain has nothing going, and while I do hear he is fleshed out in the lucia side, again idc to play this game anymore. Dante is just... wtf happened to him? For how little he speaks or does anything you would think they would stick to his basic charismatic personality but nah, he is now depressed and has shorter sentences while also having basically none of what made him in dmc 1. I understand this is future dante where stuff happened to him, and now he has the coin he tosses but like DAMN express SOME personality man. Again didn't do lucia side so don't know much about her, but if even the devs said that they wish they could give her more scenes so she can actually show who she truly is, I don't think I missed out on much.
Gameplay
Straight. Downgrade. There is still some cool additions, weapon switching (only for the guns, Dante only has ONE melee type the whole game) is pretty cool. The new animations esp with the guns are just chefs kiss, and I love how expressive he is whenever he shoots his gun (which he will be doing, alot.). However apart from those short praises and with you can actually extend your stylish combo with the gun, this gameplay is just trash. There is so many reasons why I believe that, the biggest cardinal sin is easily how bleh the melee combat feels, floaty and bad? You have all of your moveset at the start which does seem good, but the problem is the game NEVER teaches you ANY of the moves, so a ton of the hidden moves is never explained, which means the combos are never easily explained on how to do. It doesn't matter at the end cause even if the combat was good, there is one cardinal sin as well... the game is boring. The Enemy design, level design, boss design, so many design choices in this game scream "help me mama I need help!" cause dear LORD this game is exhaustively easy. Enemies have no way of hitting if you walk around them (you can literally walk around and they can't hit you), doesn't help that guns now AUTO JUGGLE, making guns in this game easily the best option to use. It doesn't help that the boss design in this game encourages you to spam the guns cause some of these bosses are too far unless you gun them. Again, the boss design in this game SUCKS, they are all trash and barely encourage any of the fun melee mechanics this game kinda has. Even so, they are too. damn. easy... untill the last boss in which its actually pretty hard... if you again just don't gun them down. IDK what they were thinking, maybe to make this easier for those who struggled on DMC 1, but this was just not it man.
Music
Fine, There are some standouts... but that is only because I recognize them in DMC 5. Other than that I barely remember any of the songs, and even found some of them pretty annoying.
Last Positives / Nitpicks
-Honestly still has pretty fun moments with the mechanics, but is way too flawed design wise to even matter.
- Full screen bug this time where if I wasn't on borderless, exiting the game and coming back would freeze the entire thing.
- The game is 10x better when you know the development history of this being a spinoff tomb raider turned last minute DMC 2, from a team who didn't understand DMC, original creators never knew about this game till later, and a year later had to replace the currently unknown director and given to another director who had basically 4 months to turn this pile of shit to at least something that is a BIT? enjoyable? If this is the better product than 4 months ago, I want to see what they had before this cause dear lord what happened?
Conclusion
This game deserves the hate it gets. I only went through it cause I beat it in THREE AND A HALF HOURS? Maybe the timer was deceiving me cause this game was just SUPER short. Again, 2 sides and again, I don't care. Play this game if you want a curiosity of why this is hated, or just want to play them all. But if you are recommended this game by ITSELF? Block that friend.
3/10
Man. Going from DMC 1, which was a pretty enjoyable game, to THIS? This was just not it. DMC 2 takes a ton of what made DMC 1 really good with dante's personality, quick and meaty combos, satisfying boss designs and enemy designs, takes all of this and just THROWS IT OUT THE WINDOW.
Story
I have no clue what tf was going on. It was a simple start, evil dude on tower kill him. But after that the story just goes NOWHERE, and mainly focuses on random place to place. Yeah DMC 1 had that issue as well but in here it is even worse. I didn't do Lucia and only did Dante as I could care less to play this game a second longer, MAYBE with her story as well it would be easier to understand, but with just dante I could care less what happened. Doesn't help the voice acting is wack.
Characters
Wtf happened? There is only 2 characters who get fleshed out this time. The main villain has nothing going, and while I do hear he is fleshed out in the lucia side, again idc to play this game anymore. Dante is just... wtf happened to him? For how little he speaks or does anything you would think they would stick to his basic charismatic personality but nah, he is now depressed and has shorter sentences while also having basically none of what made him in dmc 1. I understand this is future dante where stuff happened to him, and now he has the coin he tosses but like DAMN express SOME personality man. Again didn't do lucia side so don't know much about her, but if even the devs said that they wish they could give her more scenes so she can actually show who she truly is, I don't think I missed out on much.
Gameplay
Straight. Downgrade. There is still some cool additions, weapon switching (only for the guns, Dante only has ONE melee type the whole game) is pretty cool. The new animations esp with the guns are just chefs kiss, and I love how expressive he is whenever he shoots his gun (which he will be doing, alot.). However apart from those short praises and with you can actually extend your stylish combo with the gun, this gameplay is just trash. There is so many reasons why I believe that, the biggest cardinal sin is easily how bleh the melee combat feels, floaty and bad? You have all of your moveset at the start which does seem good, but the problem is the game NEVER teaches you ANY of the moves, so a ton of the hidden moves is never explained, which means the combos are never easily explained on how to do. It doesn't matter at the end cause even if the combat was good, there is one cardinal sin as well... the game is boring. The Enemy design, level design, boss design, so many design choices in this game scream "help me mama I need help!" cause dear LORD this game is exhaustively easy. Enemies have no way of hitting if you walk around them (you can literally walk around and they can't hit you), doesn't help that guns now AUTO JUGGLE, making guns in this game easily the best option to use. It doesn't help that the boss design in this game encourages you to spam the guns cause some of these bosses are too far unless you gun them. Again, the boss design in this game SUCKS, they are all trash and barely encourage any of the fun melee mechanics this game kinda has. Even so, they are too. damn. easy... untill the last boss in which its actually pretty hard... if you again just don't gun them down. IDK what they were thinking, maybe to make this easier for those who struggled on DMC 1, but this was just not it man.
Music
Fine, There are some standouts... but that is only because I recognize them in DMC 5. Other than that I barely remember any of the songs, and even found some of them pretty annoying.
Last Positives / Nitpicks
-Honestly still has pretty fun moments with the mechanics, but is way too flawed design wise to even matter.
- Full screen bug this time where if I wasn't on borderless, exiting the game and coming back would freeze the entire thing.
- The game is 10x better when you know the development history of this being a spinoff tomb raider turned last minute DMC 2, from a team who didn't understand DMC, original creators never knew about this game till later, and a year later had to replace the currently unknown director and given to another director who had basically 4 months to turn this pile of shit to at least something that is a BIT? enjoyable? If this is the better product than 4 months ago, I want to see what they had before this cause dear lord what happened?
Conclusion
This game deserves the hate it gets. I only went through it cause I beat it in THREE AND A HALF HOURS? Maybe the timer was deceiving me cause this game was just SUPER short. Again, 2 sides and again, I don't care. Play this game if you want a curiosity of why this is hated, or just want to play them all. But if you are recommended this game by ITSELF? Block that friend.
3/10