“Prepare for the next stylish chapter in Shinji Mikami’s ultimate action thriller, Devil May Cry! Dante, the mysterious half-man, half-demon action hero is back to battle the legions of the underworld. Sporting trash-talking attitude and rock star good looks, Dante launches into a new adventure with twice the environments, twice the graphic sizzle and twice the gameplay of the original!”

Wow, cool description. Whoever that advertiser was, he’s good. But Mikami’s game? Um… exactly what DOES this dude do besides give the orders. Ah heck, whatever. As long as he keeps us happy with DMC2 then I won’t ask. Ignorance is bliss, right?

All right, enough of that. Onto the juicy stuff! Producer Tsuyoshi Tanaka is exploring all types of ways to make this sequel live up to fan’s expectations and more. He’s even considering having Dante fight in a motorcycle according to Mike Smith, Editor-in-Chief of the Official Playstation 2 Magazine in UK. Cool, huh! If they can pull that off then Ms. Lara Croft will have to make way for the new twin-pistol-attractive-motorcycle-kicking-make-my-day-I’m-the-terminator-feeling-lucky-you-dirty-punk action hero! (And dare I dream a movie too? Ah… Sweet…) Anyway, it’s a brand new team working on Devil May Cry 2. But while no one from the original DMC crew will be here to reveal the next installment of Capcom’s gothic thriller, Tanaka’s team still communicates with them for input and ideas.

The new game takes place in a European-looking city where players will be able to fight on the lower and upper parts of the city. The ruler of this location will be Dante’s chief nemesis. While the identity of this bad guy is concealed from the public eye, his agenda is pretty much the same-o-same-o: revive the demons, take over the world, and kick Dante’s butt for intervening in his affairs. Hopefully this new ‘villain’ will learn a couple of things from Mundus, whose serving jail time from trying to, you guessed right, take over the world. (Gosh, don’t these bad guys have anything better to do? Like… playing video games?)

Dante will not only have better animation this time around (like his trench coat’s moving against the wind), but he’ll have a new, darker look and mood. In fact, many resources (Smith and Tanaka) all suggest that Dante will return with a darker edge than he did in the previous game. Could the absence of Trish have something to do with it? Who knows…

And speaking about the absence of Trish, Dante’s new partner in arms will be a mysterious female. Gamers will get the chance to play her. She’ll have her own storyline and will be sporting some nifty moves of her own. However, what these moves are is anyone’s guess. In addition, there will be a couple of non-playable characters in the game too! Whoo-hoo! The bad news, though, is that they won’t help out Dante in his quest to kick demon butt. Tanaka claims that: “DMC is supposed to be a ‘stylish’ action game which requires you to hone your skills so you feel like a cool guy. You can’t be helped by somebody.” Sure, uh-huh, whatever… Doesn’t that make Dante stubborn then? Man, it must be difficult living under Dante’s roof. I can just imagine Trish (or the new chick) asking him to fix the leak in the bathroom only to have Dante say, “No, I can do it myself!” And… splat! The entire bathroom is flooded by water. Uh… okay. Sorry, about that folks! Er… moving on…

The batch of enemies will consist of both old and new enemies, this from the PSM magazine (the only magazine that’ll really give you the scoop on DMC in my humble opinion). Thankfully, Dante will be heavily armed with several old and new weapons. But not only that, Dante will now have the ability to lock onto two targets, whereas in the previous game he could lock onto one. Great to hear, but doesn’t that mean that enemies will be harder and fiercer than the first game? I hope not. I couldn’t stand Nightmare or those annoying Nobodies.

Finally, Tanaka and the gang are considering ways to purchase moves while doing it in a “stylish” way, so they’re kind of thinking of modifying the orb system to suit the game’s theme. I don’t know how they’ll do that but I guess I’ll have to wait for more details as they arrive. I think I’m more curious on Dante’s Devil form, though. I mean, Dante’s demon form will be “more fierce and more flashy”, said Tanaka. Hmmm… All these pieces… How do they fit?! This looks like a mystery for Scooby Doo and the gang!

My Thoughts and Guesses: No doubt this game will be DA BOMB! I’m even anticipating for those DMC commercials when it comes to a video store near me. The first was hilarious (with the man slashing up his furniture and his wife in the other room wanting to know what he was doing!). I mean… we’ve got it all plus more. This is what I love about Capcom. They keep us guessing, even if they keep taking out money while we’re at it, LOL. My suggestion to you all is to purchase the game the moment you get the chance to because it’ll probably fly faster than Dante’s devil triggered form.

Here are a couple of my guesses for the game. These aren’t fact. Just my guesses for the game. Don’t go spreading this as a rumor or something or I’ll send Dante’s new partner out to get you. Okay, so, onto my guesses. The DMC Illustration Edition book displays two characters never before seen in the game. Ones called Tony Redgrave and the other is called Aisha. There are also two OTHER characters featured in this must-have book. One’s a cop and the other a female. I’m guessing that since these guys didn’t appear in the first game, they MIGHT be some of the non-playable characters Tanaka suggested. (Oh, and be sure to check on Dante’s gun. It’s says, ‘For Tony Redgrave’. Ha, Scooby Doo, eat your heart out). All right. Here’s my other guess in regards to Trish’s absence. Either Trish:
(a) Decided to go demon hunting somewhere and will be back in another Devil May Cry game (Hey, they did this to Chris Redfield! Why not?)
(b) Went demon hunting but got kidnapped
(c) Died
(d) Had enough of Dante and split
(e) Became an Internet freak and never got out of DMC Headquarters
(f) None of the above.

That’s it for now! As usual, stayed tuned as more comes!

(Sources came from PSM and OPSM magazines)