Well this is it. The review to end the Devil May Cry retrospective. Well I've been waiting to do this review for a long time, so let's get straight to it.
Capcom, during the period of time where their ego had grown to Duke Nukem levels, apparently decided that instead of expanding on their critically and financially successful action series, they would instead outsource Devil May Cry to the acclaimed Ninja Theory in order to reboot the franchise and appeal to a wider gaming audience. Or in simpler terms, Capcom was greedy, wanted to cater more to the casual market, and so they dumbed down their product in order to garner mass appeal. And that is what I want to emphasize here, I could care less about something as frivolous as Dante's hair color or the idea of the story being redone.
So first things first. Let's talk about the gameplay, the action segments and platforming segments. On a superficial front, the game is not that much different from the original Devil May Cry games and indeed it can be fun... if its your first hack and slash game and you've never played a Devil May Cry game before. There are about eight weapons, five melee weapons and three guns which seems like a fairly impressive arsenal at first glance until you start playing the game and see just how broken some of the weapons are. Guns are useless, Ebony and Ivory are easily at their weakest in this game and you could say guns are used to extend combos to reach SSS rank but we will get to that in a moment. There are two types of weapons ala Ninja Theory tradition, Angel and Demon weapons. Angel weapons are extremely fast but do very little amounts of damage, whereas Demon weapons are extremely slow and sluggish but inflict tremendous amounts of damage. And this is where the problems come in. Angel weapons for one, are next to useless since the style meter, Devil May Cry's trademark, increases based on damage dealt, not on pulling off combo after combo, meaning that if you want to increase the style meter then you're going to use Demon weapons like Arbiter [the axe] with Rebellion. This won't only increase your style meter to S and even SSS rankings, but unless you're up against certain enemies then you will never have any trouble dealing with enemies or even bosses. Indeed the only time I used Angel weapons was when I was forced to use them against enemies that were only vulnerable to angel weapons. That is the second worst problem with this game in regards to combat. The entire Devil May Cry series, even from the first game seemed to be built on the premise that you were allowed to create any fighting style you wanted and it was up to you and your skill as a player to determine how effective your approach to combat was. In Devil May Cry 3 and 4 this became even more apparent as you were given numerous weapons each one having different strategies, each one being equally effective that again, allowed you to create your own fighting style. But in DMC? You are arbitrarily restricted against certain enemies by being forced to fight certain enemies with certain weapons, and it doesn't matter if you dont want to use said weapon, you HAVE to use it. And its not even a matter of your weapon not being very effective against certain enemies, a red weapon does absolutely NOTHING to a blue enemy. In a game that is supposed to let you experience the thrill of combat and give you equally effective methods in combat, restrictions like this only serve to leave a bad taste in your mouth as even games like God of War don't have these kinds of restrictions. But the worst thing about this game is the lack of a lock on system. In a game with multiple enemy types, with some enemies being airborne, you NEED lock on system to help you manage the battle and deal with certain enemies first. An auto targeting system doesn't work since most of the time you'll end up attacking an enemy you didn't mean to target and you lose any momentum you built up during combat.
The second half of gameplay consists of platforming. Now Devil May Cry fans are well aware of the fact that platforming and Devil May Cry go about as well as ice cream on steak. So is the platforming any better in this game? Well, no it doesn't really work at all. While standard jumping does work better than other Devil May Cry games, the new grapple mechanics and Angel Glide abilities can be unresponsive at times. In addition, platforming just takes away from the game's main focus which should have been on combat and this is a malady every Devil May Cry game has suffered from and indeed something a lot of hack and slash games suffer from. Two radically different types of game play shouldn't exist in the same game period.
Before I move on to the other aspects of this game I feel the need to address the ranking system in this game. At the end of every mission you receive a score based on how well you did in said game. Your style meter, time it took to complete, damage taken etc. I'm by no means the best Devil May Cry player in the world, but in most of the games I've managed to beat them all on every difficulty with perfect scores. In this game while barely trying on Normal difficult, dying, taking damage and using items, while only using Arbiter/Rebellion combos to deal with enemies, I was able to get S on every single mission. In short, the game is too easy and gives out rewards too easily.
I've heard it said by many critics that the story in DMC is far superior to every other game in the series due to its more serious tone and underlying political messages about brainwashing, consumerism, and anarchy. I would also say that this statement is correct if you also take every fifth grade perspective on anarchy seriously. This story is still full of trademark stupid moments from the Devil May Cry series, but the difference is that this game takes every single moment of itself deathly serious whereas Devil May Cry was well aware of its own silliness and was able to have fun while at the same time possessing some serious moments here and there. Dante's character is one that is impossible to relate to and even harder to like since he acts like a foul mouthed teeny bopper who only exists to spout cuss words, have lots of sex with women he doesn't know, and act like an asshole to everyone around him including his own brother. He does go through some character development but it doesn't feel natural given his background and his attitude at the start of the game. It seems forced. It almost makes me wish for the silent, angry looking Dante that was shown in the first trailer for this game since he actually seemed like an original spin on Dante's character and not just a pale imitation based on what Ninja Theory themselves seemed to think was cool.
Before I end this review I would like to say this last thing. I have never seen such a shameful display on the parts of both the gaming community, and the developer over a single game in my entire life. The fan's outcry over the thought of a remake, while somewhat justified did not warrant the numerous death threats, overly negative comments filled to the brim with profanity and vile disgusting terms. Likewise, Ninja Theory's reaction and retort to the fanbase was completely unprofessional and childish. Biting at the hand of the fanbase [white wig joke and numerous in game jokes basically making fun of the Devil May Cry fanbase] were completely immature. I don't condone the actions of the fanbase and neither do the other sane members. But if you're going to attack all of us when you're trying to sell this game to us? Screw off and good job reacting like teenagers who got their feelings hurt.
So all in all, I have this to say. I don't like this game. Every single thing about it either falls short, or doesn't work period. Whether its the broken game play, atrocious pretentious story, overdone dull level design, or terrible soundtrack, this game fails as both a hack and slash game, and especially as a Devil May Cry. As a result, this game earns my first ever, 1/5.
1/5.
I'm out.
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