Well, with the pacing of the game, the only appropriate way to design the levels in DMC1 was to make them particularly short. Can you imagine trying to do a level like the sewer level where you fight the Death Scissor for an excess of an hour? That would be unfathomably irritating. That would kill the game. Plus, the whole point to the levels in DMC1 is to beat them as quickly as possible. The faster you are, the more enemies you kill, the more advanced your attack techniques, the less damage you take and the weaker weapons you use grant you a better overall score.

And how can you say that Dante's attitude doesn't really matter? I haven't played DMC2, but I'm genuinely upset to learn that he's a watered down mute in the game, rather than the smarmy wiseass he is in the first one.