"Let's Rock, Baby!" Uh, again.

Capcom's stylish hard action thriller Devil May Cry took the gaming world by storm in 2001 with its intense action, over-the-top presentation and a ballsy mix of sword and gunplay that made it the big dog on the PlayStation2 action block. The game was fun, frantic, deep and challenging, and did nearly everything right for a first-time title. Even today, Devil May Cry is an incredibly gratifying game that stands as one of the finest action games ever produced. Given Capcom's well-known reputation for running their key franchises into the ground with yearly sequels, the release of Devil May Cry 2 was almost inevitable. Blessed with a stellar debut and nearly limitless potential for improvement, Devil May Cry 2 should be one of the all-time greatest follow-ups.

It isn't.

In fact, Devil May Cry 2 bears only a superficial resemblance to its predecessor, as everything that made Devil May Cry a fantastic game has been stripped clean away. Where the original was stylish, fun and dripping with B-movie cheesiness, the sequel is bland, boring and lacking any personality whatsoever. Where once a detailed and haunting gothic castle was your stage, you now must trek through dreary, deserted and downright generic streetscapes. And where enemies could once decimate you in a scant few swipes, your foes now line up neatly to be slaughtered without uttering a peep. The game is so anathema to the balls-to-the-wall original that it's hard to believe that Devil May Cry 2 is a part of the same bloodline. To label it a disappointment is the epitome of understatement, but how did it end up like this?

For starters, the developers of the original Devil May Cry have since graduated to the Resident Evil series, leaving the production of Devil May Cry 2 to a completely different group of people. This in itself should explain away much of the difference, but many of their design decisions have drawn the series away from its initially successful formulas. For instance, Dante starts the game with nearly his entire arsenal of moves unlocked, and there are very few moves to learn over the course of the game. Compared to the progressive ability acquisition system of Devil May Cry, the game feels horribly unbalanced; it's fun at first but quickly becomes boring. All of Dante's badass new moves, from running up walls to firing in two directions at once, are very cool to look at but ultimately have no bearing on the game. Enemies are easily dispatched, whether you use the stylish new moves or not.

Success in Devil May Cry depended on lightning-quick reflexes, thorough knowledge of the battle mechanics and the ability to instantly recognize changes in enemy attack patterns, especially during boss fights. Enemies could kill you in one or two attacks, even on the Normal setting. Forget all of that for the sequel, because Capcom has turned down the difficulty so much that a child would have no problem finishing the game. On top of all this, the developers have stripped away anything even resembling a story. While few people would cite Devil May Cry's story as one of its strengths, it did reinforce the wacky flavor of the game and provided at the very least a bare minimum of incentive to keep playing. There are a handful of cutscenes in Devil May Cry 2, but most of them lack any significant exchanges of dialogue and still fewer make any sense. (So drop any notions of hearing the next "fill your dark soul with light" line, because you won't find it here.)

The environments also suffer mightily in Devil May Cry 2. While on paper it might have been a good idea to let Dante roam the streets of a deserted European-style city, in reality it makes for a very uneventful game. Much of the action in Devil May Cry occurred in cramped, crowded hallways, making for some very fast and frantic encounters that would often leave players with raw thumbs. With more space to work with, coupled with more lethargic enemies, Devil May Cry 2 is vast and empty, with almost none of the continuous action sequences for which the original is famous. There are a few alternate paths and hidden rooms to explore, but this seems to be just a case of creating a problem to solve another. Without the fast action core, Devil May Cry 2 is at most a neutered half-sequel.

Devil May Cry 2 still plays remarkably well and the new moves are quite easy to pull off. From running on walls to busting air combos, controlling Dante is smooth and intuitive. The game still tracks your battle performance and rewards you with red orbs accordingly, though the ranking system isn't as readily obvious as it used to be. Continually pummeling your opponents will yield higher style rankings, but this is much harder to do in Devil May Cry 2, as enemies will often stand around waiting for you to attack them. In addition, a handful of Dante's moves feel sluggish when compared with the first Devil May Cry. Specifically, the transition between swords and guns seems much slower, and it's now much more difficult to juggle an enemy into the air and then keep him there with handgun rounds. Weapons also seem to fire more slowly, though this could just be due to the lame weapons you start out with. (Where are the Ebony and Ivory? Where?)

Graphically, the game doesn't show much improvement over the 16-month-old Devil May Cry. I find this to be disappointing for a fourth-year software title, though to be fair it's not all bad. One the positive side, the Dante character model is much more detailed in DMC2, featuring better modeling and higher-resolution texture work than before, especially on his skin. His trenchcoat moves more realistically and displays much less clipping as well. Dante's new animations look fantastic, whether he's running up a wall or crossing his handguns across his body. Lucia is equally impressive, featuring excellent modeling and some very cool animation routines. To round things out, the loading screens are filled with some great artwork.

But aside from that, the game looks just like Devil May Cry in almost every respect. Once again the textures are very low-resolution and very muddy, and they turn into a smeary, blurry mess from all but the widest camera angles. The environments are dressed in a uniformly drab brown style that possesses none of the imposing character of DMC's gothic castle. Modeling on enemy characters is acceptable, though they too are adorned in low-res textures that are downright ugly at times. Like the original, Devil May Cry 2 lacks any sort of anti-aliasing, and many objects are plagued with jagged edges and shimmering textures. It's not quite as headache-inducing as Final Fantasy X, but it's still very noticeable. It's disappointing that Capcom hasn't been able to exhibit the same type of graphical improvements in there PlayStation2 titles that other developers have shown.

The game includes a host of extra modes just like the original. Upon completing Normal mode you'll gain access to Hard mode, and completing that will in turn open up Dante Must Die! mode. One of the coolest features is the ability to replay any mission once you finish it, which was noticeably missing from the first game. In addition, Lucia has her own adventure contained on a separate disc, though most of her missions are simply shortened versions of Dante's. Trish returns as a secret character as well, so if you ever wanted to play as her, here's your chance. There is a lot to do in Devil May Cry 2, but the game is so bland that I think most players will quit long before they start to unlock these extra features.

What started out as a promising new franchise in Devil May Cry has taken countless steps backward in Devil May Cry 2. Bland graphics, blander environments, laughable difficulty and the complete absence of a story all conspire to suck any hint of fun out of the game. This should have been one of the top marquee titles of 2003, but instead we've been shafted with a lousy imitator that bears very little resemblance to its predecessor. While there might be some hints of the old DMC glory once you reach the higher difficulty levels, most players will be too shocked and appalled to play that long. There is still plenty of opportunity for Capcom make a high-quality Devil May Cry sequel, but we'll all have to wait a little longer to get it.