Let’s be honest here, my friends, there are few studios that make a number 2 as good as Capcom does. Mega Man 2 brought improvements on all levels compared to Mega Man 1, Breath of Fire 2 not only brought a more coherent story than its predecessor, but also totally improved the formula of the series. Resident Evil 2 brought the famous Zapping system meme and also a game much more optimized and wider than its predecessor and… Do I really need to talk about Street Fighter 2?
The point is, if the game is from Capcom and has a number 2 in its title, their chances are better – by a large margin – than their predecessors are relatively high, but there are exceptions to that rule.
And the main one will be the object of this text.
To anyone’s surprise, given the introduction and title of this text, today I’m going to bring you some fun facts about the development and legacy of Devil May Cry 2. The famous worst #2 that Capcom has done to this date.
So come on, my friends! Let’s get our detective clothes, our best one-liners and let’s unravel (or not!) some of the mysteries that Devil May Cry 2 brought us and why it is considered one of the worst sequels of all time.
But before we start, a very important warning. Devil May Cry is not one of my favorite franchises and I don’t like the genre that people define as character action. Yes I know.
It might be a little shocking that I write about something I’m not so fond of, given my background here on Compass, but I’m fascinated by the development story of Devil May Cry 2, and this is a game that has some mysteries in its development and very interesting trivia.
First, I would like to briefly comment on what is perceived as product quality. I feel like, regarding the Devil May Cry franchise, I don’t have any bias for simply not caring about the series, so when people say that Devil May Cry 2 is the worst game in the franchise as a whole, I feel entitled to agree deeply with this speech.
Anyway, we’re not here to discuss the quality of the game for hours, but to shed some light on some aspects of its development that I find fascinating, so get in the car, detective, we’ve got a missing person case to solve!
The development of Devil May Cry 2, as you may have noticed, was not easy. To give you an idea of how… different… This process was, the assembly of the team responsible for the sequel and the beginning of its development took place even before the first game in the franchise was even released.
While this shows Capcom’s full confidence in the sales success and criticism of the first game, it brought some serious obstacles to the game’s sequel, such as the fact that it was developed by an entirely new team. The franchise would have a totally different direction from one game to another.
For the younger folks who might not know this story, the first Devil May Cry was released in 2001, a phase of sharp decline for arcades around the world. Capcom has always been a strong player in this segment and decided to restructure itself, anticipating that there would be a big drop in the sector’s revenue.
And she was right. In 2004, 3 years after this decision, the market failed to collect 866 million dollars according to research by the East Valley Tribune. Capcom has to thank – and a lot – its Business Intelligence team for helping with this decision making, right?
Well, and what happened in this restructuring and made the studio put the brakes on its arcade game releases? I will explain below.
Capcom has always had a big arcade game division, of course. After all, it was an important source of income for the company. However, at the beginning of the century they chose to transfer this entire division, which only produced arcade games, to make games for home consoles. And that brought some hiccups in the production of their games.
Well, it’s obvious that it would take some time for the team at the arcade division to get used to developing games for home consoles. These are games with completely different design philosophies and changing this philosophy that privileges games with quick gaming experiences – forcing the player to spend a lot of chips – to one that privileges long experiences and a deeper experience was quite a challenge for the teams that made the transition, as well as for Capcom itself.
The most attentive readers must already have an idea where I want to go with this whole story, right? So it is.
The team selected for the development of Devil May Cry 2 was none other than Capcom’s arcade division, completely different from the team that developed the first game.
The project started out so awkwardly that not even the heads of development of the first game (Hideki Kamiya, Hiroyuki Kobayashi, etc) were aware that there was already a development sequel to a game they haven’t even released yet.
Now we have the necessary background to explain why Devil May Cry 2 is so different from the rest and is classified as the ugly duckling of the series and, oddly enough, it’s not the development of the game itself that I came to talk about. for you today. There is a much bigger mystery that interests me much more than the development of this game!
I know it seems like an excess to give all this background, talk about the fall of arcades and Capcom’s internal restructuring in the 21st century, but all of this is very important for us to understand and gather clues about today’s subject, oddly enough, my friends.
Yes, my friends. There’s an incredible story within this development, which is interesting in itself. This is a case that is still unsolved today, so it’s time to dive into this mystery and understand the case of the mysterious director of Devil May Cry 2.
For those who have already finished Devil May Cry 2 and paid attention to the credits, you might even think that this author who writes you has gone crazy, because the name Hideaki Itsuno credited as the game’s director clearly appears in the game’s credits. But there’s a story behind that cloak that not everyone should know. Itsuno only arrived on the project during the last 5 months of game development, in an attempt to save a project that clearly went way off the rails by differing so much from its predecessor.
So despite the “glory” of being credited as the director of Devil May Cry 2 in the game’s credits, Itsuno only arrived at the end of the project – at the request of Capcom, which was very unhappy with the work of the previous director – with little room to dictate the directions that the game could take from then on when the game was practically ready.
The question that remains for us to ask then is this… Who is the real director of Devil May Cry 2 who narrowly escaped the “honor” of being credited for his work on the game?
We have a few hypotheses to work with here, ranging from the ones that have the most foothold in reality and others that look like they’re out of the craziest conspiracy theories possible, so we’re going to have some hard detective work today.
To start off interestingly, let’s take the two most famous – and craziest at the same time – theories and break them down to see if they help us glean some clues.
Theory 01: The director is none other than Shinji Mikami, director of the Resident Evil series.
Oh, Shinji Mikami…. A recognized name for having worked on classic games with a deep impact on the game industry like Goof Troop and Who Framed Roger Rabbit?… Ok, ok, I was kidding, stop throwing rocks at the author!
Despite having actually worked on these games, Shinji Mikami was even known for being the director of amazing franchises like Resident Evil and Dino Crisis. So why do people think he was the original director of Devil May Cry 2?
Well, the answer to that question is relatively simple. For those of you who don’t know yet, let’s reveal an important fact about the development of the Devil May Cry franchise. The first game in the series started its development as a sequel to Resident Evil 3, in other words… Devil May Cry started its career as Resident Evil 4!!!
Well… Unfortunately this theory has a very low probability of being true, as it is based entirely on the correlation of the development of the first game with the Resident Evil franchise and the fact that the Resident Evil 1 GameCube Remake was released in 2002 – right in the middle of the development period of Devil May Cry 2 – and the director of this remake was… Exactly… Shinji Mikami!
Not to mention that the development team for the second game was totally different from the development team for the original DMC. Shinji Mikami didn’t even know about the existence of DMC 2 when it started its development.
Although it is possible to accumulate two simultaneous director positions, it is very hard work and these are cases that rarely occur in the video game industry. I personally have never heard of such a case.
So I’m sorry, folks who think this theory is plausible. In my view it is simply impossible for Shinji Mikami to have been the director of both Devil May Cry 2 and the Resident Evil remake, nor was he making the decisions that needed to be reversed by Itsuno.
So… Impossible theory stamp on this one!
Theory 02: Oh… So the director was Hideki Kamiya, obviously!
The coolest bald guy from the far east, Hideki Kamiya. Photo taken from the residentevil.com.br website
Where do I start here? Although not as widespread as Shinji Mikami’s theory, some people believe that Kamiya was in charge of the directorship during the development of Devil May Cry 2. Well, if he was the director of the first one that makes sense, doesn’t it?
If the reader who is more wary to detail has come this far, he can discredit this theory right away, after all, when the development of Devil May Cry 2 began – as explained earlier in this article – Kamiya was still working on the direction of the first game and he didn’t know they were already preparing a sequel.
When his work on the first Devil May Cry was over, Hideki Kamiya went to be director on a game called Viewtiful Joe – which you probably know – So of course he would hardly be the director of DMC 2. The probability of this being true is even lower that Shinji Mikami’s theory proves true. Sorry, guys who believe that.
Impossible stamp on this theory!
Theory 03: It was certainly Hideaki Itsuno from the beginning, he only said that he arrived later to save his neck a little!
Well… I admit that this one has a certain plausibility if we don’t dedicate ourselves to exploring it fully. There are some strong arguments both for and against the veracity of this theory, so let’s go to them and find out if it’s likely, impossible or inconclusive!
I want to start with the arguments that credit this theory as true. To understand these arguments, we have to delve deeper into Itsuno’s career within Capcom.
Hideaki Itsuno joined Capcom in 1995, specifically to work on Street Fighter Alpha, as a planner and gradually worked on other games from Capcom’s arcade division and… oops… wait a minute!
A game director from Capcom’s arcade division credited as director of Devil May Cry 2, the company’s restructuring – merging the arcade division into the home console division – taking place at the time of the game’s development… uh… actually it fits, it’s all suspicious, right?
But that’s where the cold water bucket in this theory comes in, my friends. And this bucket of cold water even has a name: Auto Modellista.
I will explain.
I don’t blame the fellas who don’t know this name. Auto Modellista – Game released in August 2002 for Playstation 2 – was one of three games developed by Capcom with a focus on testing the waters for online gaming, since – in the Playstation 2 era – online multiplayer was a gimmick and not yet a necessity as it is today.
Capcom’s idea at that time was that at least one of the three games released with a focus on online multiplayer would reach the sales mark of 1 million copies. The three games in this initiative were Resident Evil Outbreak, Monster Hunter and Auto Modellista. Only Auto Modellista failed to achieve this goal.
So it is. Guess who the director of Auto Modellista was? That’s right, my man! Himself, Hideaki Itsuno. With the release of Auto Modellista in August 2002 and the release of Devil May Cry 2 in January 2003 leaves us between 5 and 6 months of gap between the release of the two games.
The date matches what is said by both Itsuno and Capcom that he served as the game’s director for about 5 months. So we can also discredit this theory by the same parameters that we used to discredit both the Kamiya theory and the Mikami theory.
Impossible stamp for that theory too!
Theory 04: Oh, so it was some director who doesn’t even work in the industry anymore, of course!
Well, this one I’ll say right away that we have neither how to credit nor how to discredit. We just don’t have enough information (at least as of this writing) about the background of the person who was the director of Devil May Cry 2 before Itsuno arrived.
It’s quite possible that this guy disappeared from the face of the Earth and never appeared again. (Speaking of which, what’s the problem with directors who just disappear without a trace? Do you already know the story of Shinichi Shimomura? If you’ve never heard of it and want one more mystery to try to solve, read my article on Compass that talks about it clicking here!).
Our mysterious Devil May Cry 2 director may no longer be working in the video game industry after his unsuccessful work on the game… Or he may simply have continued as a director at Capcom, or with some other position in the company, or even moved from the studio. Who knows?
Yes, my friends… Regarding this theory, we will have to wait for the emergence of new information about the case, because we still don’t have what it takes to understand what actually happened and who this person really is.
Inconclusive stamp on this one!
Theory 05: It was certainly some arcade director at Capcom and chose not to be credited for protecting his career.
Look. Okay. On this one I concede.
Given the entire development history of Devil May Cry 2, that fact – at least – seems obvious to me. It’s even more obvious if we take into account that it was a detached team from Capcom’s arcade division responsible for the game’s development, more specifically the team responsible for Capcom’s fighting games in that division.
So that leaves us with the following question: who in Capcom’s fighting game division was the director of Devil May Cry 2?
Let’s go to the main suspects. To compile this list, let’s take a brief history of directors of these Capcom fighting games released before 2001 and who were still working in the studio during Devil May Cry 2 development.
• Iyono Pon – Prominent Capcom fighting game producer during the second half of the 1990s. His name appears in credits as a producer of games of the caliber of Street Fighter Alpha 2 and Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness. Despite often acting in a prominent position within the company, the name “Iyono Pon” may be just a pseudonym, as it was common for people who developed games to put pseudonyms on credits during this time.
• S-Hama – Yet another mysterious directorial pseudonym case in the second half of the 1990s, S-hama is credited as director on Darkstalkers 3 (1997) and also actively participated in Capcom’s famous fighting crossovers with Marvel.
• Koji Nakajima – Credited as a producer on the game Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure, released in December 1998, Koji Nakajima is a strong candidate for the Devil May Cry 2 director’s mantle. After all, he was already in Capcom’s home console division, despite his involvement as a producer on Jojo’s fighting game.
• Yoshihiro Sudo – Producer of Marvel vs Capcom 2 (released for consoles in 2002), Sudo is one of the darlings of this theory and he is always remembered as a strong suitor to have received the mantle of director of Devil May Cry 2. However, the dates don’t match very well, especially between the release of Devil May Cry 2 and Marvel vs. Capcom 2.
Well, regardless of who was responsible for the role in game development, this theory is very plausible, therefore Likely stamp successfully acquired!
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Bonus theory – Is Yoshiki Okamoto the all mighty boss?
Here’s a bonus for all friends who had the patience to read this far. It’s a crazy theory that I developed myself while researching to write this article! So I’m not going to stall and release it into the world at once!
Maybe you know Yoshiki Okamoto. Producer and director of some famous games for Konami and Capcom (including Final Fight and Street Fighter II!). The younger ones may know him for being the designer of the 2013 hit mobile game Monster Strike.
But if you don’t know him, that’s no problem, because I’m going to talk a little bit about him here and now.
This guy has done a bit of everything in the gaming industry, you bet. Do you know Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption? So, he was one of those responsible for its creation. (Long story… Maybe it’s a topic for some other text of mine here at Compass).
This theory has a huge hole – I think – that I’m going to comment on now.
Okamoto’s last job as a director was in 1989, just over 10 years before Devil May Cry 2 began development. But… What if it was a very unsuccessful return to the directorship?
Whether that happened or not… I don’t think we can say for sure. Now I bring here facts that might corroborate the verisimilitude of this theory, so let’s get to them.
• Fact 01: Yoshiki Okamoto has worked in both the arcade games division and the home console games division at Capcom, which means he had a good transition between these two divisions and could be the bridge between them, necessary for the internal restructuring from Capcom that was going on in the early 2000s.
• Fact 02: The dates fit. Well, you, who checked Okamoto’s career background, can see that the dates fit. In 1997 he left Capcom to found Flagship, yes, that is a fact. But I remind you here that Flagship was created to outsource the work of Okamoto, who continued to work mainly with Capcom from the opening of the company until its closing. And it’s exactly the closing of Okamoto’s activities at Flagship that we’re going to talk about here.
Flagship was quite a partner for Capcom – for other big companies like Nintendo, for example, too, to be honest – and Okamoto has always had a prominent position in the studio, obviously.
Do you know what year Okamoto left Flagship – a company he founded – to start another company? 2003. Do you know what year Devil May Cry 2 was released – a game whose original game director was kicked off his chair by Capcom to make room for Itsuno? – Exactly! 2003!
.
• Fact 03: One of Flagship’s projects was a canceled Resident Evil 4 script! Yes, the folks at Flagship acted mostly as scenario writers for Capcom’s most famous games, but there’s a possibility that Okamoto got involved in a closer way thanks to this script.
Of course, these are just crazy things in my head that came up while we were trying to solve this Devil May Cry 2 secret director mystery. Obviously this bonus theory is inconclusive, if not improbable, but I think thinking about it helps us to draw important conclusions about this case.
Inconclusive stamp for this bonus theory, my friends!
The fact is – even after all this detective work – we’ll probably never know who the actual director of Devil May Cry 2 was, and it’s okay not to know that. The person wanted to remain anonymous and Capcom granted that request, even preserving that person’s career.
Maybe it’s even better that the world doesn’t know who the director actually was. I see Capcom respecting this request as something positive in the industry.
This is just another tiny story within the endless other stories we have in the gaming industry. One more mystery that will probably never be solved and that, curiously, thinking about it brings me a greater satisfaction when playing Devil May Cry 2 (not that I want to play this game very often, for Christ’s sake).
We don’t come to many conclusions about revealing the identity of the mysterious director, but some things are better not to know, especially if it means tarnishing someone’s life and career.
Uhm… I didn’t expect to come to that conclusion when I started writing this article. Interesting. It feels weird.
So I say goodbye here, my friends. And for you? Who do you think was the director of Devil May Cry 2? Do you agree/disagree with the theories presented here on the subject?
