So, I unironically begun playing Devil May Cry 2...

[docbell1516]

Um... It's bad. Like, not the worst sequel to a game I've ever played (that dishonour going to F.3.A.R. and Resident Evil 6) but it comes close.
From the moment it was rushed in a six-month development period, this game was doomed to not live up to the first game's quality. And that sucks because there are some good ideas here: I dig the creature and character design, and really love the freeform combat mode which serves as the game's main improvement on its predecessor. Unfortunately, everything else is just meh.

Dante himself is not the competent, yet humorous character we met in Part 1. Instead he's a brooding, cynical weirdo who barely speaks at all. Further more in terms of setting, Vie De Marli is such a downgrade from Mallet Island; gone are the RE-inspired gothic stylings and atmosphere, in is a series of generic corridors sprinkled with a few admittedly impressive cityscapes.
But what really makes this game stink is the gameplay: It's overcorrection at its worst. Whereas Devil May Cry 1 was very hard, Devil May Cry 2 is too easy for its own good. Enemies and bosses are weak, the swords (including Rebellion, Dante's new signature after losing Alastor from DMC1 on Mallet) are overpowered, and if you thought that was bad, get ready to be holding down the X button on your gamepad most of the time because firearms are basically super-mega-ultra-hyper-turbo-God Gundam-death machines.
So yeah. It stinks. I'd happily go back and replay DMC1 or go forward and replay DMC3 because this is a sophomore slump in every sense of the term.

[Director Bison]

Yes DMC2 is a very flawed game, that never really had a chance. I don't know how much of DMC2 was an over correction, and how much of it was The team legitimately, not knowing what they were doing yet, since not a single member from the DMC1 team worked on DMC2. Frankly it's impressive the game even manages to reach mediocre, Considering the director Itsuno had such little time to salvage the entire production into a shippable game.

The kicker is some of the games problems don't need to be there, like on Normal the first enemies in the game are a complete joke, but on the hardest difficulty they're actually a little aggressive, and add a bit of pressure in the combat, but you have to beat the game twice before you even get to see that.

There is a fair amount of depth to DMC2, but it's entirely on the player to actually attempt to find any of that depth, because DMC2 doesn't teach the player it's mechanics or is designed in away that those mechanics are naturally discovered.

At the very least DMC2 ultimately ended up being a positive in the long run since the good ideas this game had, were heavily improved and refined in DMC3, DMC2 also gave Itsuno and his team the drive to make sure they knocked DMC3 out of the park.

[docbell1516]

Originally posted by Director Bison:

At the very least DMC2 ultimately ended up being a positive in the long run since the good ideas this game had, were heavily improved and refined in DMC3, DMC2 also gave Itsuno and his team the drive to make sure they knocked DMC3 out of the park.

Yeah, the thing with the two bad Devil May Cry entries is that they were terrible in the short term, but good in the long run with Itsuno requesting Capcom to make 3 and DmC performing horribly with audiences leading to a planned sequel being scrapped in favour of 5.

Though I haven't played DmC, I have seen reviews and clips of it online and I think of the two bad entries, 2 has the worse gameplay, voice acting, combat and graphics, whilst DmC has the worse characters, storyline, writing, music and intention. They both even out IMO and which one you feel is worse depends. And funny thing? Playing 2 made me begin a simultaneous playthrough of 1 and the difference in quality is night and day.

[Director Bison]

The DmC Reboot is objectively the better game, but if you love the story and characters of Devil May Cry, then it can be a tall order getting over what the reboot does. The tone and style of the reboot is the Opposite of what the appeal of DMC is to most people, and that even could have worked if things were handled with more tact, but as things happened the vibe was "this is the new better Devil May Cry, with the hip more bad ass and edgy Dante, and it's way better then those old lame games were"

If they made a few simple Adjustments, made it so it wasn't actually a reboot and the cast of where simply new characters, and not replacements for the old ones, then there wouldn't have been such a negative reception. It's not even like it would have been something new for Capcom, the have had Mega Man and Mega Man X and a bunch of other sub series for Mega Man, those game don't treat each protagonist as a Superior replacement of the last one, and Classic Mega Man didn't Disappear just because X happened, those games were still getting released, so there was nothing to fear.

The whole optics how everything happened with the reboot really got in the way of the fact the actual gameplay is solid, and in many ways the Reboot does the best job out of any DMC game at actually teaching the player how to Utilize it's Mechanics, most Action games simply throw things to the player and don't care if the player ever actually uses half of it. The reboot actual gives you a small tutorial so you at the very least get a feel for each Mechanic and how it should be used.

[Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented)]

Originally posted by docbell1516:

Originally posted by Director Bison:

At the very least DMC2 ultimately ended up being a positive in the long run since the good ideas this game had, were heavily improved and refined in DMC3, DMC2 also gave Itsuno and his team the drive to make sure they knocked DMC3 out of the park.

Yeah, the thing with the two bad Devil May Cry entries is that they were terrible in the short term, but good in the long run with Itsuno requesting Capcom to make 3 and DmC performing horribly with audiences leading to a planned sequel being scrapped in favour of 5.

Though I haven't played DmC, I have seen reviews and clips of it online and I think of the two bad entries, 2 has the worse gameplay, voice acting, combat and graphics, whilst DmC has the worse characters, storyline, writing, music and intention. They both even out IMO and which one you feel is worse depends. And funny thing? Playing 2 made me begin a simultaneous playthrough of 1 and the difference in quality is night and day.

DmC Reboot is actually a very good game. DMC fans hate(d) it because it looks and sounds nothing like a DMC game. The story is great, the characters are... surprisingly alright, and the gameplay is quite excellent. Its just that absolutely none of it is DMC.

The Reboot is looked upon much more kindly these days (especially after the course correction with DMC5). But unlike DMC2, the hate for the reboot is largely superficial. If DmC was your very first intro to the franchise, you would likely think the game is incredible and love it. If DMC2 was your intro to the franchise, you likely wouldn't play any more of the games in the series.

[Director Bison]

Originally posted by Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented):

the hate for the reboot is largely superficial.

I'll admit there was large majority of people who hated the reboot for it's surface level elements, but the reboot got plenty Legitimate criticism as well.

The 360 and PS3 versions were 30fps, when the standard for the franchise has been 60fps since DMC1.
It was undercooked on release. The reboot launched without proper Style degradation, once you got to an S only taking damage would lower your rank, they had to patch the game so the style meter Functioned as it should have, there was no Bloody Palace at launch, but at least that was free DLC.
The cutscene that interrupts right in the middle of the Bob Barbus fight was unskippable, that needed to get patched.
The 360, PS3, and PC, still have wonky balance in terms of damage, Demon Dodge is way over powered, and it can Trivialise many fights even on the hardest difficulty.
It's Trivial to stay in the air forever making many ground enemies not much of a threat if you choose to do so.
Tying the end of level ranking system to getting collectables makes it so regardless of how well you play you can't get an SSS rank without the collectables in many levels, and on the flip side if you do have all the collectables you'll likely get at least an S rank regardless of how poorly you play.
The color coded enemy types which prevent you from using most of your weapons, That was only somewhat Addressed in the Definitive Edition which still isn't on PC.
Vergil can not be played in Dante's Campaign, or Vice versa Dante can't play Vergil's levels. Vergil didn't even get a Bloody palace of his own until the Definitive edition.

They wanted to streamline the gameplay of DmC which they did but at the cost of reducing the total amount of Possibilities for the player, individual weapons now have less they can do on their own, Kablooey for example is an Underwhelming weapon, it's only Functions are Shoot and Detonate, it doesn't even have a Charge up that lets you shoot all the darts at once or something.
Devil Trigger is a shell of it's former self, now just a Generic God of War rage mode, instead of something that Augmented and improved your movelist like Previous games.

Some of the reboots issues were Addressed in the Definitive Edition, but that was never brought to PC, and only now after so many years that we've started getting PS4 Emulation PC players will be able to play the improved version of the game.

I'd still say even this base version is a Solid game, but it was not an adequate Successor for the franchise that wrote the book on how to make an action game in 3D. It was a game intended for people new to the genre but it didn't have enough appeal for the Veterans who have been playing these games from the Very start.

[docbell1516]

Originally posted by Director Bison:

Originally posted by Tyrant (My Vision is Augmented):

the hate for the reboot is largely superficial.

I'd still say even this base version is a Solid game, but it was not an adequate Successor for the franchise that wrote the book on how to make an action game in 3D. It was a game intended for people new to the genre but it didn't have enough appeal for the Veterans who have been playing these games from the Very start.

Exactly. I mean, I do sympathise with people who are aware of the faults of DmC but love it regardless (I myself am a fan of Silent Hill: Homecoming), but it and 2 are considered the nadir of this franchise for a reason.

EDIT: Now, when I say "sympathise with people who love it", I don't mean apologists like Tyrant who misrepresent the game because they can't handle the thought of someone not liking it and all the hate it rightfully receives. I'm referring to people aware of what DmC is, where it went horribly wrong, and still enjoy it due to what it got right. Same thing with the game that started Capcom's dark age, Resident Evil 5; that game is one of the weaker entries too, and I don't sympathise with die-hard apologists who misrepresent everything to paint it as something it's not, but I DO with those who like it in spite of what it got wrong. In fact, I myself fall into that latter camp too, so...

[Yoinkyz]

a blade even if broken can still be sharp. -dmc2

[mdesaleah]

DMC2 is the worst game I’ve played pretty easily.

It’s not broken, but it’s soooooo boring. And something this tedious and boring is less interesting than something with a few bugs.

(I’ll take RE6 over this any day. That game is a mess of throwing everything at once, but at least the combat is fun and gets more time if you play Mercenaries mainly. Disable the QTEs in the menu helps a bit for the main game, but Chris is still a bore)

[Reyeme]

Originally posted by docbell1516:

Originally posted by Director Bison:

Capcom's dark age, Resident Evil 5

I think you misspelled RE6 mate, RE5 was fine as it was just multiplayer RE4 with a much better PC port compared to 6 which was just a mess that tried to appeal to the mainstream with bs multiplayer modes instead of sticking with only co-op. RE5 was the start of the decline but RE6 was where the series hit rock bottom! What a confused, mess of a story that valued quantity very much over quality!

[Director Bison]

Originally posted by Reyeme:

I think you misspelled RE6 mate

I did ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ not!
You messed up your reply formatting, lol. putting words in my mouth that are docbell1516's and your words into docbell1516's instead of your own mouth.

What a fumble.

[CthuluIsSpy]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

DMC2 is the worst game I’ve played pretty easily.

It’s not broken, but it’s soooooo boring. And something this tedious and boring is less interesting than something with a few bugs.

(I’ll take RE6 over this any day. That game is a mess of throwing everything at once, but at least the combat is fun and gets more time if you play Mercenaries mainly. Disable the QTEs in the menu helps a bit for the main game, but Chris is still a bore)

It is pretty broken though. The camera doesn't work right and doesn't let me see the enemies I'm shooting, so I just have a good look at Dante shooting at nothing. The obligatory lock on makes it nigh impossible to do some of the puzzles and it doesn't help that the enemies infinitely spawn and some enemies have 0 telegraph attacks that hit you with huge knockback. Like that bloody monkey. So that just encourages you to keep using guns.