Devil May Cry 2

In Devil May Cry 2, the player guides either Dante or Lucia through a number of environments, fighting groups of monsters in fast-paced combat. The game consists of missions with specific goals in the play area of the game itself. The player's performance in each mission is ranked from D (poor/"Don't Worry") to S (excellent/"Showtime") based on the time taken to complete the mission, the amount of Red Orbs collected, the overall "style" displayed during fights, item usage, and damage taken. In contrast to the rest of the gameplay, the style judging system used in the game has been cited as being the harshest in terms of how it judges the player's performance.

Combat itself is based on the "style" the player demonstrates during a fight. The rating the player gains for style is improved by hitting enemies continuously while avoiding damage. This ranges from "Don't Worry", progressing to "Come On!", "Bingo", "Are You Ready?" and peaking at "Showtime". If the character takes damage, the style rating falls back to "Don't Worry".

At a museum, an item on display called the Medaglia attracts Lucia, a gaggle of demons and Dante. After defeating their foes, Lucia invites Dante to her homeland. An island existing outside the mainstream in the outskirts of the New World, Vie de Marli became a sanctuary for refugees of different races, beliefs and languages; as well as runaway slaves; in the distant past. Despite different cultural roots, all belonged to sects of the same ancient religion—which originated in the Mediterranean then spread to neighboring regions—and were branded as heretics in their places of origin.

Over time, these groups blended into one, the syncretism leading to new religions that worshipped demons. For divine conflicts, the people called for protection by the priests of their cults, who were known as "guardians".

Throughout the turn of the millennium, Team Little Devils—a group within Capcom Production Studio 4 helmed by Hideki Kamiya, who previously lead the successful Resident Evil 2—developed Devil May Cry. As production on that title wound down in the summer of 2001, company management greenlit a sequel, to be made by the arcade-centric Capcom Production Studio 1, for release soon after the original to capitalize on its high awareness and popularity.

The first director of Team Devil was a planner who had worked under Studio 1 General Manager Noritaka Funamizu. That crew ultimately contained many people who had mostly worked on fighting games, as well as some Team Little Devils members, and industry newcomers like producer Tsuyoshi Tanaka and planner Bingo Morihashi, totalling around 40 to 50 developers. Kamiya believes the change happened due to a lack of consciousness over directors' influence on game style, and an attempt to balance profits due to a company attitude against concentrating major titles in a single division.

The game received mixed reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Chief among the complaints was that the difficulty was lower than in the first game. The combat system was also criticized as being less refined, with individual weapons being weaker or stronger variants of the same weapon instead of different weapons with their own advantages and disadvantages. Boss battles were criticized for requiring less strategy than the original.

The environment was less detailed than the environments of the first game, trading detail for open space which also made stringing moves and combos together more difficult since enemies were more spaced out, nullifying one of the primary attractions of the first game. Furthermore, Dante's personality change did not sit well with reviewers. The addition of a second disc was seen as a cheap way for the developers to increase replay value since Lucia's missions are simply recycled material from Dante's own missions, with only minor variations. GameSpot chose Devil May Cry 2 as the Most Disappointing Game of 2003.