Shinobi is ear-grinding "samurai" music, the melodies aren't great either.
Nightshade is much easier on the ears... but also has some way better tunes to boot. Stage 1, stage 2, boss theme (best one!), intro boss, and the bridge stage are my favorites. Stages like shinjuku and the container yard the music is so placid you can't help but enjoy them.
What Devil May Cry does is add variety, story, and adventure to the gameplay. Key-fetching and getting lost can be annoying, but it's better than nothing. DMC also has way better designs across the board.. better environments, way better enemies, and Dante isn't too bad himself.
It also has the fixed camera, which is both a good thing and a bad thing.
The bad part about DMC is that it's too hard, and it has a complicated combat system which is never explained, not even in the manual. No tutorial, they don't teach you what the buttons do, or how to juggle. There is an "easy mode" which does combos for you while you button mash, maybe you're supposed to watch and learn from that.
Anyway sorry I was just mad because I read a GT user blog that linked to an article "21 worst games of the 21st century" and guess what was on that list? Plus that article looked up gamerankings for the best and worst review of each game, Gametrailers happened to give the highest score, so they proceeded to make fun of the game site I visit most often as well. Also to top it off they listed Act Zero too, claiming the game was broken, even though it wasn't.