Devil May Cry 2

The first Devil May Cry game I played left me a little underwhelmed, which seems like my own fault since it was revolutionary when it came out in 2001, but has been imitated many times over since then. Still though, I could recognize the appeal- the combat was fun, there's a nice focus on style and combos, and the cocky protagonist Dante felt like an early incarnation of Travis Touchdown. I recently tried out the second game in the Devil May Cry series knowing that fans like to pretend it didn't happen, which is understandable. The series was shifted in-house to a completely different development team and rushed out without much of a quality check; Dante has gone from cool and funny to a boring stoic bad-ass; and gameplay-wise the cramped rooms of the castle in the first game have given way to an expansive city with not all that much to do, thus making combat significantly easier- a huge chunk of bosses could be be beaten by standing far away and repeatedly shooting them with unlimited-ammo guns. The lower difficulty is seen as a negative to most, but it's kinda a positive to me when my goal is simply to power through all of my games as fast as possible. Still though, Devil May Cry 2 really brought nothing new to the table and made several aspects of the first game worse, so while I didn't hate the game, there's really no reason to recommend it.