Great For A Newcomer
I've never been a DmC fan, nor was I ever interested enough to pick the previous games up in all honesty. I've played Devil May Cry over at a friends house years ago and to be honest I didn't think it was particularly interesting, just seemed cool and that was about the best rating I could give it at the time. I've seen some footage as well and it never struck me as anything interested, plus I was kinda lazy about playing through all the installments just to pick up the 4th one for a game that I wasn't even that keen on. So a reboot, once I heard there was one of course, seemed like an interesting choice and it did look more intriguing, so after some thought, I decided to give it a shot, and I did not regret my decision.
What I particularly liked about the game were the main characters, and no, before you say anything, I understand that some fans aren't particularly fond of the new versions of the characters, which is understandable, but honestly, in my personal opinion, this is the dante that had actually grabbed my attention. I'm not bashing on the previous version, he seemed cool and fun, but I've seen the older version and I found the DmC incarnation to be particularly interesting, and at times even funny too. Sure it's easy to assume that he's your basic punk asshole who doesn't give a fuck about anything but that aura, or that aspect of the character fades away pretty quickly, I mean, sure from a shallow perspective we see him being jackass but that's to be expected, because the story itself is centered around telling who Dante truly is, which is exactly what happens. Plus he doesn't squeeze in an insult in every single sentence, he only really swears at the Demons, and to be frank the timing is awesome because his remarks made me laugh quite often. I've also become fond of Virgil, though I understand that he's different from what fans are accustomed to. The most common complaint I've heard is the lack honor, however I still enjoyed him as a character, considering that he's the opposite of dante in every sense of the word. He's smart, efficient, patient, balanced and quite honestly awesome. As for the third integral character, Kat, I enjoyed her contribution, though I would have preferred that we could get a bit more insight on her origins, would have made her presence much more compelling, nevertheless she was pretty cool, and I'm glad they didn't rush the ever-so-obvious romance story. It had good moments and by the end of the game, it was still Progressing, which, by the way, is good because otherwise.
The story, as I have heard, has never been the core strength of Devil may cry, which fortunately isn't the case with DmC. Look,the idea that people with power are able to control the community through control and propaganda isn't something particularly new, but add a bit of demonic mumbo-jumbo and you've got yourself a pretty interesting story with tons of style and personality. Speaking of which, the level design is absolutely spectacular. Limbo is an awesome idea which really provides a lot of opportunities for the gamer himself. The environments defy every law of physics and the atmosphere really compliments the main protagonist as well as the gameplay. Platforming is mainly based on the reconstruction of as well as the fast-whip traveling around the shattered derbies, This mechanism is applied to boss battles as well, which really engages the players and make the experience even more worthwhile and fun. Which brings me to my next point, while the boss battles might not be particularly revolutionary, in terms of presentation and experience, they are pretty great. Each boss battle, or any other fight in general has this cinematic natural feel to which games rarely provide these days. Every time Dante moves , whether it is landing on the edge of a platform or waving around your sword, Rebellion, it feels completely real. The enemies in the this game aren't particularly THAT diverse , but for the most part they are pretty interesting and cool, considering most of them aren't just fodder, in fact they challenge Dante's abilities to a huge extent.
Moreover, the gameplay is one of the games main strengths, however it is not without it's flaws. Before moving on to the negative aspects, lets talk about what the game gets right. Much like Mercurysteams castlevania, Ninja theory makes very good use of what dante can do. His new found abilities are closely tied to him being Nephelim, a hybrid of an angle and a demon. Meaning that NT gives the gamers wide range of power-ups. The game really makes it vital to stay focused when playing the game, this is due to the very specific nature of the controls. You get 4 different weapons, two of which a tied to either the demon or angle side of Dante. The Demonic weapons are heavy, powerful and slow while the angelic ones are weak in comparison though fast and efficient, in fact, they are best used for crowd control. The game i'd say is pretty well rounded too, it's not ridiculously hard nor is it easy, in fact, i'd say it is balanced, because most of the times you can pretty much tell, either by sound or stance when someone is attacking you, which gives you control over what is going on. They also seemed to have toned down the damage your guns do, which is a welcome addition because now they can be mostly used for juggling or staggering some of your enemies rather than imposing serious damage, which would have made things easy. Now since I'm talking about fire arms, I might as well mention one issue I had with the game. It has no lock-on system, which can be pretty annoying when fighting the little flying demons that keep appearing while you're trying to deal with the heavy hitters. I did not mind it to much, but that was probably because I was playing on Demon Hunter difficulty, which is Normal in DmC standards. Something that further annoyed me was the Devil Trigger, because it was kind of disappointing. As soon as you enter your demonic state every enemy is suddenly thrown up into the sky, and most of the time you try reaching them rather than killing them. I suppose they wanted to make things more difficult , but in my opinion, it just made things annoying because something like the Devil Trigger should be useful in dealing with a lot of enemies and not be reduced to a health restoration tactic.
Anyways, aside from these minor complaints, I'm pretty much really satisfied with this game and I really hope that the rumor or whatever about Capcom going back to the original series isn't true, because I really want to see this through, I like the characters and story, both of which were completely apt for the style and tone of the whole game. Not to mention the fact at in the end we reach an important development, which I hope isn't completely abandoned. Ninja Theory has discovered it's voice and it managed to reinvent an older series by giving the game it's own identity. I'd personally recommend this to everyone because it's really fun and enjoyable.
Score: 9/10
