Note: This review contains spoilers for Devil May Cry 2
Near the end of the production of the original Devil May Cry (DMC1), Capcom struck while the iron was hot and greenlit a sequel. Unfortunately, this sequel faced a very troubled production under its original director, who remains anonymous to this day. When Capcom assigned the second director, Hideaki Itsuno, to the project, he was shocked by the lack of any real progress, which amounted to almost nothing aside from the Stinger animation. With only a few months left, he built pretty much the entire rest of the game from scratch. The end result, Devil May Cry 2 (DMC2), released on the PS2 in 2003 to poor reviews, though it still established some series conventions and had high sales numbers. The game’s development disaster also motivated the team to improve their work, with most staying on for future entries. In fact, near the end of development, Itsuno successfully convinced Capcom to let him direct Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening from scratch because he didn’t want to be forever known as “the guy who directed DMC2.”
In the years since its release, DMC2 has gained a reputation as the worst game in the series, even more so than the controversial reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry (DmC). It really is. However, I’ve also felt unsatisfied with my coverage of the game in the past, both in my review of the original PS2 version and the other when talking about the Devil May Cry HD Collection as a whole. Since I re-reviewed DMC1 in the context of its origin as Resident Evil 4, I decided that even though DMC2 is certainly the worst game in the series, it deserved a better and more in-depth look. As with my re-review of DMC1, this re-review is based on DMC2 as presented in HD Collection.
