Moosey May Cry Part 1.

“Devil May Cry is a franchise that stands on being cool. That’s what the franchise is, it’s about being cool.” - Hideaki Itsuno, director of Devil May Cry 2 through 5, in an article on IGN, looking back on the series.

In April of 2025, Netflix released a new Devil May Cry animated series. Not actually the first such series based on everyone's favorite stylish devil hunting franchise, but I haven't watched that older one (I probably will eventually). A re-imagining which kept some things almost exactly the same, but made others radically different, it was an interesting adaptation. Starring Johnny Yong Bosch as Dante, Scout Taylor-Johnson as Mary “Lady” Arkham, and the late Kevin Conroy as...let my check my notes here...the vice president of the United States.

The show had...I'll say a “mixed” reception. Both for the show itself, and the involvement of some problematic people, which I didn't know about when I watched it. Originally I had a whole thing written about them, but honestly, go look it up yourself if you care. I'm here to write about the games (which have also had some problematic people involved!), not the animated series.

The last thing I'll say about it is Rest in Peace Kevin Conroy, who was putting in great work right up until the very end. Truly one of the all time greatest.

Problems or not, I enjoyed that show in the moment, and even if I'm less enthusiastic about it now, the point is it inspired me to go back and revisit the games. And, as luck would have it, 2025 is also the twentieth anniversary of DMC 3, so we can just pretend that was the inspiration for this, if need be. Back on point, while I certainly could have simply gone and replayed them, this being the 2020s, naturally I couldn't do that without also making it Content. So here I am, with a six part retrospective covering every Devil May Cry. Yes, including the Ninja Theory reboot, DmC. But no, not literally every game with “Devil May Cry” in the title, I don't hate myself nearly enough to even attempt suffering the “Pinnacle of Combat” on a smartphone. My self hatred only extends far enough to finally “experience” DMC 2!

And only Devil May Cry games, I don't care if Shin Megami Tensei III features Dante from the Devil May Cry series. That doesn't count.

Now, I know what you've been thinking, “Moosey, April was half a year ago, why are you posting this now?” In not just October, but on Halloween, which may as well be November. Well, on top of six games being a lot, even if none of them are particularly long, I knew realistically I wasn't going to go through all six of them in a row. I wanted time to write about each before moving onto the next, and I didn't want to burn out by playing too much back to back.

Also, despite all my jokes about “The Summer of Death Stranding 2: On the Beach,” I did not expect that game to literally take me all summer. Okay, not literally the whole summer, but a literal two months spent playing pretty much just that game. A little Warframe in the evenings with friends doesn't count, I spent my summer On The Beach making deliveries!

I only got through two of the games before then, so really I did a good job picking up the pace after to have done the other four in the time since.

Before I get into DMC 1, I should give a brief history of my past experiences with the series. DMC 5 is the only one I actually played in the year of its initial release, all the rest I played after the fact. I didn't have a PS2, but DMC 1 and 3 were right up there with the Metal Gear Solids and Shadow of the Colossus for games I had to get to once I got my PS3 in 2007. I deliberately avoided 2, because even back then I'd heard it was bad! I certainly could have played DMC 4 at release (2008), but for whatever reason (I cannot remember why), I didn't get it until it was on sale about a year later. For the reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry, I was definitely skeptical prior to release, but I think its proximity to Metal Gear Rising made me wait, as I was in the final months of my time in college, and only had so much money. So, that waited until it was on PS+ about a year later.

Then, DMC 5, I didn't play right at release, but got to it a couple months later. Long time readers (it is causing me psychic damage to realize this is six years old now) will remember DMC 5 was the Moosies 2019 Game of the Year, so I was and am quite fond of it!

As a note, that I will likely mention again as needed, I didn't play any of the original releases for this feature. I played the HD Collection for the original trilogy, and the Special Editions for 4, DmC, and 5. I will note changes as I feel necessary, when I feel necessary. All of them the PS4 versions, aside from 5, which is on PS5. As far as “extras” in the HD Collection, it does feature concept art for each of the trilogy, alongside some bonus (fan?) art from DMC 4 era stuff. It's also got a BGM player, which is neat. Games don't do that enough these days, which is a shame. Pretty barebones, but better than nothing.

That's enough preamble, time to get to the game that started it all, Devil May Cry. So...

Let's rock, baby!!

Part 1: From humble, yet Stylish beginnings.

Released in 2001 on the PlayStation 2, Devil May Cry was kind of a groundbreaking game at the time. Was it the first game to ever have a literal letter grading system mid-fight? Probably not, but it's certainly the game that most embodies that ideal. It's not enough to survive, it's not enough to defeat the enemies, be cool while doing it! Yes, the game rewards the player with more Red Orbs at the end of every mission for getting higher ranks, but even without that, seeing the game grading me while playing pushes me to get better. Despite playing this game before, despite playing most of the rest of the series, and playing who knows how many hours of DMC 5 in recent years, I still got a jolt of excitement the first time I got a Stylish during this replay. And it was far enough in that I'd started to wonder if it even had an S rank, let alone the SSS that the later games go up to.

While DMC is known for its stylish, high flying sword and gun combat, that wasn't the original plan. In what I like to call every DMC fan's favorite bit of trivia, it started life as Resident Evil title. The now infamous Hideki Kamiya (under the supervision of the legendary Shinji Mikami) was put in charge what would have been “Resident Evil 4,” and instead this is what we got! A wise cracking devil hunter with a sword almost as long as he is tall, and a pair of pistols with infinite ammo. Much more fitting given the devs came to be known as “Team Little Devils.”

Another bit of trivia I think I had seen before, but forgot until doing some light research, was a bug in Onimusha that was the inspiration for DMC's combat. The unintentional ability to juggle enemies (which I dunno if it made it into the final game or not, I've never played Onimusha) became a core tenet of DMC. One of those things, just funny to think about all the many games over the years that were inspired in one way or another from DMC, even games like Bayonetta from some of its original creators, to an extent owe it even further back to a bug that I'm not even sure made it into the final game.

As I already said, I first played DMC 1 in 2007, a good while after release, but still long enough ago that I was in high school at the time. A very different time, and a very different me! Even then, those six years between release and my playing it, the world changed so much. But in the grand scheme of things, on the timescale of video games, it wasn't that long, so it didn't really feel that old at the time. Of course back then I was a different person, so I was just playing it because I heard it was good, not because I was looking at it with anything resembling a critical eye. Not that me of back then wasn't still writing about games, but hopefully all that stuff is gone from this world, I'd be too embarrassed to actually try reading any of it now.

While I do still have my PS2 copy of the game, between it being in a box buried under other stuff, and Capcom's eagerness to sell re-releases, the HD Collection was the easiest option. Also probably the best version of the game. I can't speak to the totality of changes, but from looking at a PDF of the original instruction manual, and my memories of watching Brad Shoemaker's playthrough on a website called “Giant Bomb dot com,” I know of at least a couple. Some of the controls are different (attack on Triangle, which has become the series' standard), and it now has full subtitles for all the dialog. Interestingly, when I watched Brad play it (on the Xbox 360 version of the HD Collection), that version didn't subtitle all dialog. Only the all but incomprehensible demons that got them, so that's a notable change for the most recent version. Aside from that, I'd assume this version is the same as the original? I guess it probably didn't have widescreen support? Dunno!

The description on digital storefronts does have one extra snippet of information: “The popular stylish action games Devil May Cry, Devil May Cry 2, and Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition return in one collection! As Dante, the ultimate devil hunter, you'll join forces with appealing characters such as Trish, Lady, and Lucia and enjoy incredible action for the first time in blistering 60fps.” Appealing characters and the first time in 60 FPS. Blistering. I certainly wasn't counting frames back on PS2, but if that is indeed different, that's a good, albeit expected change.

Okay, but what about the game?? Well, I'm happy to say, against all odds, on the whole, I think it holds up. Twenty-four years later, and Devil May Cry still rocks! Far from perfect, it's awkward at points, tedious in some ways, and in others feels very different from what the series would ultimately become. But when it gets down to it, it's got that core, that nebulous cool, stylish heart that's still pumping high octane adrenaline all the way up through DMC 5.

Things like how combos work. Eventually the series gave Dante a second melee button while in his Swordmaster Style (more on that when I get to DMC 3), but the main combos vary based on timing. Rather than differing sequences of buttons, combos require pausing between certain hits, but making sure to keep it going before it's too late. In later games, pausing after the first hit can lead to a different combo than pausing after the second, for example.

I was really curious if this was still the case back in DMC 1, because I didn't really remember using it back then, or fully internalizing how to do well with it until the later games. Looking at that scan of the manual for DMC 1 (again, too lazy to dig out my own copy), I didn't see any mention of pausing mid combo, so no wonder 2007 me didn't realize it. Of course my memory might just be wrong, but that's beside the point. So, naturally I gave it a shot here, and the result surprised me. Yes, pausing for different combos goes all the way back to DMC 1, but...they're dependent on the length of the pause?

As far as I could tell, Dante has three different combos with his sword. Basic three hit swing, then a more advanced slashing combo, and one that ends with a series of thrusts. The basic combo is the easiest, that's just hitting the button with no pauses. The other two, though, require a different length of pause after the second hit. Short pause for the slashing, longer pause for the thrusting. I need to emphasize, this is a split second difference between these combos, and at most a second between the normal combo and Dante finishing the animation. In the heat of the moment, while enemies are attacking, it's not exactly easy to perfectly judge the timing!

Just fascinating to revisit this now, and feel how that system started. Again, I don't know if some other game made timing the key to combos before DMC, but it's definitely a neat idea! Except tying the three combos to a less than a second timing difference is a bit much. Maybe there is something to be said about the later incarnations being simplified, in a way, but I think it's for the best. Still have the skill requirement of timing it differently, but not making it quite so strict.

Other than that, it's definitely a lot simpler than what the series later becomes. Dante really only has two weapon movesets, with all the swords sharing one, and the Ifrit gauntlets being the other (punch and kick attacks that are more charge focused than timing). No Style switches, and even the weapon swapping isn't quite instantaneous. At least there is a melee weapon swap (between Alastor and Ifrit, but not the default or not-Soul Edge third sword), while guns require pausing and tabbing through a menu. I knew all this going in, but I wasn't sure how well it'd hold up after all this time.

The other core tenets of the DMC style combat are here too. Certain moves are dependent on what direction the stick is facing while Dante is locked on, being the main one. Hold back and the attack button to not only uppercut the enemy in the air, but to follow them as well. Sadly Dante hadn't quite yet learned how to stay aloft while slashing (or I guess he had forgotten given 3 is a prequel), but at least his Ebony & Ivory pistols will keep them juggled. That, and his iconic Stinger move is here too, sending him zooming forward with a killer thrust if the stick is pointing toward the enemy.

Ifrit has some similar concepts, with one of my favorite move names in the series, “Kick-13.” I have no idea why it has this name, it's not like there's a “Kick-12,” “Kick-7,” or any others named that way. Like a lot of moves, Kick-13 gets amped up if Dante activates his Devil Trigger, which of course is the last “core tenet” of the series' combat I need to mention. Displayed as a series of arcane symbols instead of a meter, it's simple in practice. Dante powers up, transforming, gaining a slight amount of health regeneration, and as I said, certain moves get more powerful. Others can only be done while in DT, like raining lightning down upon enemies, but moves like that are of course tied to a specific weapon.

As far as the ranged weapons go, I didn't actually use the pistols very much, I stuck mostly with the shotgun and “grenade gun” (launcher) later on. I'm sure the pistols are better for doing stylish combos, but the others do more damage, and knock enemies back, which is good for crowd control. Being an early PS2 game it can't shove in as many enemies as the later games, but it can still fit a good number of demon puppets into a tight corridor when it wants to.

Speaking of, the enemies also aren't as complex as they'd end up in the later games, but there's still some good variety here. Demon puppets, ghostly reapers wielding giant scissors, elemental lizards, and transforming shadows are just a few of them. Having a good combat system is key, but without fun enemies to fight, it ends up feeling like a waste, and thankfully that's not the case here.

The thing that my describing mechanics, moves, enemies, etc can't really convey is that they just work when put together. No, it's not as seamless an experience as the later games. There's just enough of a pause when switching melee weapons that you can't easily keep a combo going while switching, and the game on the whole has that feeling that the developers themselves were still trying to figure out what exactly this game is. But in the moment, it's fun! Dodging at the last second and moving in for the kill is fun. Launching enemies up in the air is sick! Kicking demon ass rocks!

Really, the only thing in the combat that doesn't hold up so great is the camera. There's zero manual control, and while it usually shows the area well enough to get by, sometimes Dante still gets hit from off screen. The real issue I have is that the cuts are so jarring that I get turned around and disoriented pretty easily. Not so different from olde timey Resident Evil, which makes sense! Though, to be clear, unlike those old Residents Evil, DMC's areas are all rendered in 3D, so often the camera follows Dante around a bit...but when it cuts, it cuts.

That, in truth, is the most interesting part of revisiting this game. By the time the series got to DMC 5, it had moved to entirely linear levels, just with the occasional goodie to find hidden on a side path, or behind something. It doesn't even pretend to be about, or have any real sort of exploration, the furthest it ever goes are different paths through a level, particularly on the ones with different characters to choose between.

Nowhere else is that origin as a Resident Evil more evident than the setting of DMC 1. Mallet Island (not pronounced like the hammer) features a stately castle, complete with a lush forested garden, a scary old pirate ship for some reason, and of course a scenic view of the demon realm. There's loading screens aplenty (often but not necessarily every literal room), but by and large it feels like one big, connected space. And it's put together in a way that makes enough logical sense to feel real enough. Aside from the pirate cove, that feels completely random, haha. I'm not sure how much of this is the HD remastering, or just strong art design, but it also holds up better visually than I would have expected. “Looks like a PS2 game” can be a compliment, after all!

To an extent, especially early on, DMC does kind of encourage exploration, but there's not really too many places to go without getting stuck on locked doors. I was surprised by how many Blue Orb chunks (like what if Zelda heart pieces combined into a screaming face) I found in the first hour or two of the game just by poking around. The bizarre thing about DMC's structure is that despite having this interconnected island that you can theoretically freely explore, it has a completely linear mission based structure. Even stranger is how short the missions are. Many of them take less than five minutes!

There was exactly one time when I felt like I needed to do some exploration to figure out what to do, and even then I suspect it's because I missed something in the previous mission. At one point Dante needs to get across a bridge, and in said mission it started with Dante right at this bridge. Problem is the bridge was up. With no obvious way to lower it, so I decided to put on my thinking cap and try to logic out where in this castle I'd need to go. After a bit I got there, realizing it was basically in a spot I had been in the previous mission, but I hadn't found the hole to go down into the room. So, did I miss this in the previous mission and had to backtrack, or was this intentional? Dunno! I'm glad it happened though, because it was the only time in the game, and I liked it.

I love what DMC ultimately became, and if making such a well paced, expertly designed action game requires losing the exploration, that's probably for the best. Yet, replaying DMC 1 does make me wonder what a modern DMC with more of a focus on exploration and even puzzle solving would be like. Whether that was DMC 6, or a remake of the original (certainly in the cards once Capcom runs out of REmakes), I'd like to see them take a crack at it. Would they still go with this mission structure, and make them all so short and linear? Or would it all come full circle, and they'd try to make DMC feel a bit more like RE? Who can say!

Considering I only found two of the “Secret Missions” in my time with the game, and only completed one of those two, I certainly didn't explore nearly as much as I could have. Or should have? I'm not sure, the second one was not fun (attempt to trick a rock spider into killing another rock spider), which is why I gave up on it.

Probably the biggest issue I had replaying DMC 1 is sort of tied into that mission structure. The game has Yellow Orbs, which function as extra lives. Upon death, it shows how many Yellow Orbs are remaining, and then upon a button press one is consumed and Dante is reloaded at a checkpoint. I didn't run out this time, but it's safe to say it's game over, reload the save if there are no Orbs. This system is...very tedious to work with. Since the missions are so short, it really doesn't make sense to burn through a bunch of Orbs when I can just spend three minutes to run back through a few rooms.

“But what about collectibles?” I don't remember if this was in the original on PS2, but this version has a save option mid mission. Using it doesn't mean you can reload a save from in the middle of a mission, it always goes back to the start. But it does save items and Orbs found, so I would make sure to save after finding anything, then reload if I died. At least until late game when there would actually be tough encounters, or other boss fights after a boss in a mission.

The tedious part is there's no option to not use the Yellow Orb after dying. You need to use it, load in, pause and select “Reset” (“Exit” exits the pause menu), then reload the save, back at the start of the mission. Yes, I could have just used the Orbs, but I died enough early on that I would have run out on Phantom (the lava arachnid boss), and I remembered the final boss well enough that I knew I'd want them there.

Funnily enough, despite the early parts being so tough...on the whole I think it's actually easier than I remembered? I definitely died more to Phantom than the final boss, in all honestly. I still wouldn't call it easy, but once I got into the right groove, and some upgrades, I wasn't dying much. Some bosses I thought might be a struggle I beat on the first try! The only time I died to “Nelo Angelo” (who may or may not secretly be a familiar face...) was his third and final fight in the game.

I know I'm a sucker for boss fights that feel like a duel with a foe of similar strength to the protagonist, but those were my favorite fights in the game. Fun, and tough, but not too tough. Made me pay attention to what he was doing, and try to properly dodge his attacks, then rush in for the counter attack when he was open. I don't hate Phantom (it being both a spider and a scorpion is a cool design), but it's nowhere near as fun a fight as dueling Nelo Angelo. Same with that “feather-face” boss Dante tells to “flock off,” a good enough fight on its own, but it doesn't have it like those duels do.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the game's bizarre soundtrack, which along with the voice acting, is really the thing that most dates it to the early 2000s. Ranging from dramatic Gothic pipe organs to rave dance hall jams, it's...A Lot. But it's fun! And it's iconic enough that when they called back to it in DMC 5, I got a big laugh and a hearty amount of nostalgia, so it was good to re-experience it where it began again.

And what about the story, and voice acting? Well, the story is pretty barebones, but sets up enough interesting ideas that the later games could do something with them. Trish being a demon given the appearance of Dante's mother to trick him is certainly an idea...that the game doesn't do much with. Nelo Angelo really being Dante's brother is, well all I'll say for now is that Vergil is a name I will be mentioning a lot in the future.

Then the voice acting...is certainly not the worst of the era, but Dante's, “fill your dark soul with liiiiiight,” is one of my absolute favorite “so bad it's good” line reads. This is purely my nostalgia talking, but I do love this era of voice acting. There were bright spots of genuinely great voice acting, like the Metal Gear Solid series, but this era of actors who were clearly trying, just not very good is endearing to me. Yes, it's better now that good voice acting has become the expectation for games, but sometimes I do miss the goofy bad line reads. And if I'm being brutally honest, I genuinely like Drew Coombs' cheesy performance as Dante here more than the first couple performances from the actor who would become the go to for the games...but I'll get to him when it's time.

I think I've about exhausted everything I have to say about the original. But I do want to reiterate how glad I am that it's still fun. I'm sure some of it is nostalgia, but I'm not too proud to admit when things I liked back in the day don't hold up. If anything, there's certain aspects of the game that I better appreciate now, all these years later than I did at the time. Some nuances to the combat that teen me might have mashed over. I didn't play DMC right in 2001 when it was new, but it does warm my heart to know a game that was the pinnacle of cool in its day is still a hell of a good time in 2025.

So, with my revisit of the original done (completed right at the end of the month of Devil May Cry, if you believe it!), the obvious next step is the infamous Devil May Cry 2. The only one I had not played prior to this retrospective! No nostalgia to buoy it this time. Will it live up to its reputation, or will I find a diamond in the rough, and be a DMC 2 defender? I don't even know, I haven't played it yet!

I mean, as of when I posted this, I know the answer, but I didn't back in May! So, tune in next week for the next installment of Moosey May Cry.