Rankings.
At the end of each level, you will receive a ranking screen showing you how well you scored on an A to D scale. The basis for this grade is calculated by each of the following things: level time, orbs received, damage taken, items used, and the amount of each of the different combat ratings you received.



These combat ratings include: Don't worry, Come on, Bingo, Are you Ready, and Showtime. You can achieve the higher ratings by stringing your combos together, and not pausing in between hits.

Difficulty Modes.
Hard- This mode is, as it says, HARD. You unlock this mode with Dante or Lucia after beating normal mode on both disks. Your character does less damage while enemies do two times the damage. Tougher enemies now respawn where easier enemies were in normal mode.

Dante or Lucia Must Die- The hardest mode in the game. This mode is unlocked after you successfully complete hard mode on both disks. This mode is nigh impossible. Enemies do much more damage and sometimes they have the ability to tap into their own Devil Trigger. When they do this, they seem to take much less damage.

Costumes.
Diesel Dante and Lucia- Beat normal mode to unlock Dante and Lucia in jeans and a jacket.

secret Lucia's- Lucia has 2 more secret costumes if you beat hard mode with her.

Original Dante- Beat Dante Must Die Mode to unlock Dante's costume from the first game. Comes with a maxed out force edge sword instead of Rebellion.

Secretary Lucia- Beat Lucia Must Die mode to unlock Lucia as one of Aerius' secretaries that you fight as Dante at the end.

Trish.
Trish- That's right, you heard me. Trish can be unlocked by beating Hard mode with Dante. She can be used in either Dante or Lucia's scenario. Trish comes equipped with the Sparda sword and Luce & Hombre handguns, and both weapons are at maximum levels. Most of her combos are similar to Dante's combos. She is also able to shoot yellow lightning, just like she did in the first game.

Trish has a few new moves that you can master:

3 hit combo: press triangle, triangle, triangle to do 2 diagonal slashes and one powerful downward slash.

5 Hit combo: Triangle, Triangle, pause, Triangle, Triangle, Triangle. Same as above except she adds in 2 more sideways slashes before the final one.

Multihit combo: Triangle, Triangle, pause longer than previous one, tap Triangle repeatedly. She does 2 diagonal slashes, then multiple stabs.

Trish can also do the standard High time and Stinger moves.

Round Trip: To perform the Round Trip, press and hold the triangle button. When you release it, Trish will throw her sword at the closest enemy and it will continually hit that enemy. While this is happening, you can shoot at the enemy, or hit them with your fists.

Air Raid: While flying in the air, continually press square to shoot yellow bolts of energy out of her hands. This eats up a ton of DT, but it kills enemies very quickly and efficiently since the energy passes through multiple monsters.

Vortex: Hold R1, and repeatedly press triangle and square to do a spinning attack towards an enemy. This does a ton of damage, but it also uses up a lot of DT.

Plant Sparda: Hold L2 and hold Triangle, then release Triangle to cause Trish to plant the sparda in the ground. She can now use her hands for hand to hand combat. Press L2 again to retrieve the Sparda.

Punch combo: Repeatedly press Triangle to do a 5 hit combo consisting of 3 punches and 2 kicks.

Bloody Palace.
The bloody palace is a secret game you get when you beat both Dante and Lucia's disks on normal mode. The object is to kill as many enemies as possible to collect orbs that you can use in the actual game. You will be attacked by varying amounts of enemies at each level and you must kill them all to advance to the next level. The enemies get more difficult the higher you go, and around level 1000 they get the ability to DT like in DMD mode. After you kill all of the enemies, you will be able to choose between 3 portals. the blue circle one goes up 1 floor, the white-circled one goes up 10 floors and the multicolored one goes up 100 floors. Equipping the Healing Heart seems to be the best way to survive, and Trish is the best character to use. There are 9,999 floors, and on the top floor, the enemies just keep coming at you until you die. When you die, you will get a red orb bonus of 10xthe number of the level you died on. Good Luck, you're gonna need it.

Trish seems to be the best character to use during this game. The flying goats make this incredibly hard, but Trish can take them down fast using the vortex. Lucia is also a good choice, if you abuse the cranky bombs. Just stand in the corner and jump up, then throw bombs. Since the enemies tend to migrate toward you, you will be able to hit many enemies at once. Just continue doing this to build up your DT, and then let loose. This becomes more difficult when fighting flying enemies at the same time, which is why Trish is the better choice.

You can also fight bosses in this mode. Every level 10 (ex: 10, 20, 110...) has a different boss for you to fight. This is not a recommended path, as it is very difficult to fight some of the bosses while fighting other enemies at the same time, plus they can DT after level 1000.