Look, here's the thing... the first, third and fourth Devil May Cry games had some of the best melee combat of any game ever. In terms of the hack-and-slash genre, I'd only put the Ninja Gaiden games as being of equal calibre purely in terms of combat engine. Especially with DMC3, the guys at Capcom managed to create some truly game changing, top of the line gameplay. You simply don't get much better than the combat in DMC3.
If you're going to continue a series, then I would expect the developers and publishers to build on that. If your previous game had one of the best combat engines ever, then the obvious decision for a sequel is to make it even better. And if you can't do that, what's the point of even making a sequel?
This new DMC reboot should have better combat than either 3 or 4. While DMC 4 had many flaws, Capcom at least managed to polish the combat even more. They should have gone further with that. Instead, they gave the series to a developer who has only ever produced mediocre-at-best combat engines, and started taking steps backwards. I wouldn't mind Ninja Theory taking over the series if they managed to make the combat better. I wouldn't even mind them rebooting the universe and pushing their new Dante in everyone's faces if the fighting was at least a step up from previous games. But that simply doesn't seem to be the case. Not only have they wound everyone up with all the canon-rebooting, but they simply don't seem to have justified it with improved combat at all. In every bit of footage I've seen, the combat has seemed serviceable at best- some depth, but seemingly laggy inputs, no real sense of flow, and dumb enemies who telegraph their every move. Any other game, perhaps, that wouldn't be a problem. But Devil May Cry has long been the benchmark against which game melee combat is measured, and standards should be higher for it than for other games. If Ferrari followed up something like their Enzo or F35 supercars with a Vauxhall Nova knock-off, then it doesn't matter how serviceable and fuel-friendly it is, it's still a step down in performance.
Ninja Theory were simply a poor choice of developer. Their prior games haven't had anything close to stellar combat, and the Unreal Engine (which they use extensively) simply isn't built for fast-paced, reflexive hack and slash games. If any third-party developer out there is capable of taking up the mantle, it's Platinum Studios. Not surprising considering that they have some of the same guys who worked on the original Devil May Cry games. The DMC reboot should have brought the same refinement to the genre that Bayonetta did, and that Metal Gear Rising looks to. Instead, as a hack-and-slash game, the mechanics just look... meh. And no amount of pretty scenery can make up for that.
