All right let's get this intro out of the way and onto the review. My name is Doffa; I'm a long time escapist, but first time poster. I've spent the past four years watching videos and reading forums and reviews, and I since I review every game I play in my head anyway, I figured I may as well start sharing them with the internet, just like a million other nerds already do. Now then, Devil May Cry...
I was looking around my local game shop recently to find something cheap and fun to cleanse my palate after the extremely disappointing Dead Space 2, and I came across a brand spanking new copy of Devil May Cry for just $35 (AUD). I had given Bayonetta my Game of the Year for 2010, and since it is considered a spiritual successor to the DMC series, I figured I would give it a shot. I just finished it today, and I must say I am not really sure what to think about it. I definitely enjoyed playing it, and was always happy to pick up and play it when I got home from work, or needed a break from assignments. But there is still definitely something off about it.
We'll start off with the good stuff that the series is known for: the combat. While it was definitely not as refined as the combat in Bayonetta, I still really enjoyed the tactical elements of having all the different weapons to choose from. I am also happy to note that the combat never gets too repetitive because of the strong diversity in the enemies. I liked the balance in the arsenal of weaponry as well, like how stronger weapons are slower or take more time to reload. They also seem to carry a weight to them that slows down our white haired hero. I never really tested this or not, but while playing I definitely got a sense of weight from the grenade launcher that felt very realistic. I actually find myself having a little trouble in describing how the combat flows so well, if you've ever played the game you will know what I mean.
My absolute favourite part of the game comes in the boss fights, which have the perfect balance of difficulty. If you lose a boss fight it always comes down to you not having played it the way you should have, none of the bosses have bullshit attacks that kill you in one shot. You have to strategise properly, because there is always one weapon combination that works the best, and when you figure it out, you will actually be laughing at how easily you are suddenly able to deplete the boss' health. It's especially satisfying when you do it to the boss that has been mopping the floor with you for an hour. The most difficult boss in the game is a large sludge monster that has some very powerful attacks, they can be dodged but it can take some tricky maneuvering to survive. Although repeatedly dying on the same boss, is frustrating it isn't the kind of frustration that makes you smash your controller on the desk or switch off the console. No, it's the kind of frustration where you slap your hand on your knee and say "alright, I'll just give it one more try and then I'll have a break for a while." Naturally, you say this every time you run out of lives for about an hour.
[http://devilmaycry.wikia.com/index.php?title=Nightmareℑ=Nightmareart-jpg]
This brings me to one of the most annoying features of the game: the lives system. Lives are represented by 'yellow orbs' which are very rare to find, and chew up cash at an alarming rate. If you run out of lives you have to go back to the start of the level, and generally you will only run out of lives on the boss at the end of the stage, so you have to go traipsing back across the annoying map, resolve puzzles, fight off enemies that you have to kill to get into the next room and then run out of lives on the final boss again. It's a pain in the ass that never stops getting irritating.
Most irritating of all however is the story and the characters that we are supposed to care about. I love myself a good story, and enjoy the ways that games can tell them. Devil May Cry offers an incredibly shallow story that is touched upon in the opening cutscene, the end cutscene and that's about it. You play as Dante, the son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, who by the way is never just called 'Sparda', he is always 'the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda', which gets funnier every time someone says it. Dante works...somewhere in his establishment called Devil May Cry (love the subtlety in the title drop Capcom), where he does...something, it's never actually explained. A woman named Trish drives a motorcycle through his wall, they have a little fight and then she convinces Dante to come with her to a castle somewhere to stop the resurrection of Mundus, or some bollocks like that. The rest of the game you are just wandering around the castle pulling levers and solving puzzles that consist entirely of "find something and put it in this receptacle."
Even worse than the overly simplistic puzzles, and bare minimum of story are the characters. They are barely developed throughout the entire game, this mostly comes as a consequence of the non-existent story, however there were ways they still could have developed Dante as a character better than they did. He jabbers on a couple of times about his Mommy issues, but we are never actually told anything about who his mother was or what she was like. And we are also not given any reason to care about Trish, who turns from neutral "let's just get this done" to "Me and Dante are sidekicks, yeah
", with absolutely no explanation. It is one of the many careless moments in the overly weak story of this game.
Bottom line: Devil May Cry is fun. The combat is very good and I had a great time against the bosses, and you probably will as well. If you don't care about story too much, I absolutely recommend it. But, if you are looking for a little more out of you games, I would probably give this one a miss. Naturally this would completely depend on the notion that you have never played this one before, and given its popularity that isn't too likely. Which actually, pretty much renders this review moot....Hmmmm.
Stay Classy, Escapist
I was looking around my local game shop recently to find something cheap and fun to cleanse my palate after the extremely disappointing Dead Space 2, and I came across a brand spanking new copy of Devil May Cry for just $35 (AUD). I had given Bayonetta my Game of the Year for 2010, and since it is considered a spiritual successor to the DMC series, I figured I would give it a shot. I just finished it today, and I must say I am not really sure what to think about it. I definitely enjoyed playing it, and was always happy to pick up and play it when I got home from work, or needed a break from assignments. But there is still definitely something off about it.
We'll start off with the good stuff that the series is known for: the combat. While it was definitely not as refined as the combat in Bayonetta, I still really enjoyed the tactical elements of having all the different weapons to choose from. I am also happy to note that the combat never gets too repetitive because of the strong diversity in the enemies. I liked the balance in the arsenal of weaponry as well, like how stronger weapons are slower or take more time to reload. They also seem to carry a weight to them that slows down our white haired hero. I never really tested this or not, but while playing I definitely got a sense of weight from the grenade launcher that felt very realistic. I actually find myself having a little trouble in describing how the combat flows so well, if you've ever played the game you will know what I mean.
My absolute favourite part of the game comes in the boss fights, which have the perfect balance of difficulty. If you lose a boss fight it always comes down to you not having played it the way you should have, none of the bosses have bullshit attacks that kill you in one shot. You have to strategise properly, because there is always one weapon combination that works the best, and when you figure it out, you will actually be laughing at how easily you are suddenly able to deplete the boss' health. It's especially satisfying when you do it to the boss that has been mopping the floor with you for an hour. The most difficult boss in the game is a large sludge monster that has some very powerful attacks, they can be dodged but it can take some tricky maneuvering to survive. Although repeatedly dying on the same boss, is frustrating it isn't the kind of frustration that makes you smash your controller on the desk or switch off the console. No, it's the kind of frustration where you slap your hand on your knee and say "alright, I'll just give it one more try and then I'll have a break for a while." Naturally, you say this every time you run out of lives for about an hour.
This brings me to one of the most annoying features of the game: the lives system. Lives are represented by 'yellow orbs' which are very rare to find, and chew up cash at an alarming rate. If you run out of lives you have to go back to the start of the level, and generally you will only run out of lives on the boss at the end of the stage, so you have to go traipsing back across the annoying map, resolve puzzles, fight off enemies that you have to kill to get into the next room and then run out of lives on the final boss again. It's a pain in the ass that never stops getting irritating.
Most irritating of all however is the story and the characters that we are supposed to care about. I love myself a good story, and enjoy the ways that games can tell them. Devil May Cry offers an incredibly shallow story that is touched upon in the opening cutscene, the end cutscene and that's about it. You play as Dante, the son of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, who by the way is never just called 'Sparda', he is always 'the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda', which gets funnier every time someone says it. Dante works...somewhere in his establishment called Devil May Cry (love the subtlety in the title drop Capcom), where he does...something, it's never actually explained. A woman named Trish drives a motorcycle through his wall, they have a little fight and then she convinces Dante to come with her to a castle somewhere to stop the resurrection of Mundus, or some bollocks like that. The rest of the game you are just wandering around the castle pulling levers and solving puzzles that consist entirely of "find something and put it in this receptacle."
Even worse than the overly simplistic puzzles, and bare minimum of story are the characters. They are barely developed throughout the entire game, this mostly comes as a consequence of the non-existent story, however there were ways they still could have developed Dante as a character better than they did. He jabbers on a couple of times about his Mommy issues, but we are never actually told anything about who his mother was or what she was like. And we are also not given any reason to care about Trish, who turns from neutral "let's just get this done" to "Me and Dante are sidekicks, yeah
", with absolutely no explanation. It is one of the many careless moments in the overly weak story of this game.Bottom line: Devil May Cry is fun. The combat is very good and I had a great time against the bosses, and you probably will as well. If you don't care about story too much, I absolutely recommend it. But, if you are looking for a little more out of you games, I would probably give this one a miss. Naturally this would completely depend on the notion that you have never played this one before, and given its popularity that isn't too likely. Which actually, pretty much renders this review moot....Hmmmm.
Stay Classy, Escapist
