Moosey May Cry Part 6 (Part 1).

So, I need to note something up front here. When I started writing this feature, back in May, I didn't know how long it would take, or how long it would be. But, by the time I was done with the games (in the fall), at that point I could have published the pieces one after the other. The thing is, I thought doing it once a week was a good idea, and in isolation it definitely was a good idea. The issue being I did not realize it would line up so the final installment was on the week Giant Bomb was relaunching, during which users couldn't even log in, let alone post things.

Now, I knew for quite a while that the relaunch was happening, and planned for December. But I don't really follow everything the fine people at GB (particularly Chuck, who seems to have done the bulk of the heavy lifting on the redesign/relaunch (and props to Chuck for accomplishing it!)) say online, so I didn't know about the exact timing of the relaunch. Or the whole not logging in or posting thing.

Anyway, point being, if I had known I would have started the whole feature a week earlier, but it's too late for that now. So, yes, this is late, I'm sorry. Also, due to new limits on how long User Articles (which certainly sounds fancier than blogs) can be, I had to split this into two. Unfortunately there was not really a good place to make the split, so it's roughly in the middle. Again, I apologize.

Also unfortunate is that because the URLs are different now, the links between the previous installments appear to be broken. I don't know if there's a way in the new system to edit existing User Articles, but honestly even if there is it's probably not worth the effort for me. Especially if it needs to be reviewed every time.

So yeah, kind of a hassle, but I get it. I'm just happy enough of this stuff survived the transition to the new site, and that I have the ability to post anything at all. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I do this because I gotta get the words out of my head, and there's people here that like reading what I write. All those dang words will drive me crazy if I don't get them out, and this is as good a way to do that as I can think of. I've been writing here for so long now that I don't really know what I'd do without it!

One final note. While I couldn't post it to GB, I did post the final installment on the final Moosey May Cryday. As part of a collection of all six parts in a PDF on my itch page. Now, I'm assuming I'm allowed to link to my itch page, but I guess I'll find out otherwise if this doesn't get uploaded. It's free, and it's just a basic PDF with the same text as I posted previously. The PDF was my contingency plan around the site relaunch, which turned out to be necessary!

https://mooseymcman.itch.io/moosey-may-cry

Okay, enough preamble and apologies. But, I will put in the effort to link to the existing parts. Sadly the move to the new site seems to have eaten up most of the screenshots, which is a bummer, but the text is the important part.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

Part 4.

Part 5 (the reboot).

Part 6: The Return of the King.

Nero and Nico in the DMC van.

Originally released in 2019, and with its Special Edition just a year later in 2020, Devil May Cry 5 was a long time in the coming. How long exactly depends a bit on your perspective. For me, at the time I thought of it as being six years after the release of DmC, a long enough time that as I've said before, made me think the series wasn't coming back in any form. But from the perspective of Hideaki Itsuno, director of DMC 2-5, it was only four years since DMC 4 Special Edition. Not that long, and 4 SE was probably not long before full development started on 5. Conversely, it was a whopping eleven years since 4's original release. That's a long time to wait for a follow up to that story, and these characters.

Long enough that when rumors started spreading before its announcement in 2018, I thought they were all made up. Of course, having read now that the voice/motion capture actors for Nero and Dante (Johnny Yong Bosch and Reuben Langdon) posted pictures of themselves working together on a Capcom project...I mean what else could it have been? Still, I didn't believe it until I saw the trailer with my own eyes, and even then I was skeptical. It'd been so long, and 4 was...well, I already wrote about my issues with 4. Just remember that it'd been so long since I played 4 that my memory of it had warped, and I really only focused on the negatives, which in turn just built up that skepticism for 5.

Fortunately, as far as I can tell, development didn't really run into any problems or hiccups, so they more or less got to make the game they wanted to make. Which from Itsuno's perspective, was the best yet of his career, “the coolest” he could, and what he described as a, “pure action game.” I'm not sure if that means a game that is purely action, a game where the action itself is pure, or perhaps both.

The closest thing to an issue with development I could find in my limited research was that apparently the original English script was bad? Or at the very least Langdon didn't like it and that resulted in a fair amount of rewrites. No idea if that was just for Dante, or the script as a whole. For what it's worth, I think the final story/dialog in the game is pretty good, so if that's true I guess the re-writes were probably worth it? I do know that Bingo Morihashi was once again the scenario writer, but I also assume he was writing in Japanese, and maybe it was a translation issue. The whole reason I've brought him up is because I do enjoy the story in these games, on the whole, and I don't think it's a coincidence that the ones in the main series with the best/most fleshed out stories (3 and 5) were the ones he was most involved in.

Related to the narrative, I think 5 has the best overall, and importantly most consistently good voice acting of the series. Of course Johnny Yong Bosch knocked it out of the park with Nero again, but as I've alluded to before, even Reuben Langdon managed to finally put in a good performance. Unfortunately not everyone gets their time to shine, though. Lady and Trish (Kate Higgins and Wendee Lee, respectively) don't have many lines, and Kyrie (Stephanie Sheh again) doesn't even appear on screen! At least the new characters Nico (Faye Kingslee) and V (Brian Hanford) have a lot of screen time, and use it well. Nico especially, I get why her goofball antics and smartass remarks wouldn't be for everyone, but I really like her. My favorite new character in the game, and if we ever actually get a DMC 6 and she's not in it, I'll be upset. Dan Southworth also returns as Vergil, who really sounded like he was having fun with the role this time around, while still keeping true to the character.

Cone Tracing.

Back to “development issues,” there was a bit of controversy around the vocalist in the original battle theme for Dante. So he had to be replaced very close to release, though my understanding it was otherwise still the same band and song. At this point I could probably do a whole writeup about problematic people connected to DMC (including another one that happened within the last few months!), so I'll just gloss over that. Hey, at least they actually did the thing and got someone else, so good on Capcom for that.

Itsuno and his team certainly set high expectations for themselves, and replaying it now after revisiting all the previous ones, it feels it. Other than the levels not being as creative as they were in DmC, it feels ambitious. Not just ambitious, but confident. DMC 5 isn't just cool, it knows it's cool, and it knows how to handle itself. Cool enough that it knows it can get away with being a little corny or cheesy at times, but that just makes it feel all the cooler.

Before I get into it, I should say I was of course playing the Special Edition. Compared to DMC 4 SE, this one feels a little light on the new additions. 5 SE was more focused on being a “next gen” launch title and adding new graphical bells and whistles than a slew of new characters to play as. The only new “game play” additions are Vergil (who can be bought as DLC for the non-Special Edition), and the Legendary Dark Knight difficulty.

No playable Lady or Trish this time, which after 4 SE, I think is disappointing. They're both in the story, their models are already in the game. They even have a toggle for alternate outfit colors in the cutscenes, and nude models in game already, for the modders who want those sorts of...assets. V too, it's not just the ladies! No Dante or Nero though, sadly... In all seriousness, I get that “simply” porting their move-sets from 4 SE probably would have been harder than it might seem from the outside looking in, but I think it would've been worth the effort.

Vergil meanwhile, is Vergil, and you play through the game again with him. They do at least change a certain boss fight, unlike DMC 3, but I can get to that later. I'll just say that this is the only one where I actually did replay the whole game as Vergil, and as a sicko for this game, I think it was worth it. LDK, like in 4 SE, is just a much higher quantity of enemies. I only played up to the first real boss (Goliath), and it does as advertised. I will say, compared to 4's LDK, it doesn't always feel like as many enemies. Not that I counted, it's a chaotic mess. It doesn't feel like as many because the opening areas in 5 are more open so the enemies aren't always crammed into every square inch. In a few spots they are, like that bar at the end of the hotel section, but otherwise, this mode doesn't feel particularly interesting to me.

The new graphical features, like many games this generation, depend on what mode you pick. There's native 4K resolution, but with no ray tracing. Then there's two different ray tracing options, Performance (at 1080P), and Quality (upscaled to 4K), but Quality seems like a future proofing mode. Maybe a PS5 Pro could run it closer to 60, but I'm not going to try that until the PS6. My previous time with the Special Edition I played in the 4K mode, but this time I tried the Performance ray tracing, and I think I do actually like this better. It's mostly reflections, but according to Digital Foundry, also some extra lighting/shadow effects that...I don't think I would have noticed without a side by side. But it looks nice!

Will say, in contrast to every other game I played for these retrospectives, I did actually notice some framerate drops. In both the 4K mode, and Performance RT. Nothing too bad, only when there's a lot of effects right up in the camera (at least so far as I could tell), but yeah. Noticeable compared with all the other games, which are PS4 ports of older gen games (that I played on PS5). Especially when I'm pretty confident that if I had played the non-Special Edition PS4 version on my PS5, it would've been completely smooth. But then I'd have lost the traced rays, and the faster load times, so...what are you gonna do?

Lots of puddles to emphasize the reflections.

There's also an option for the framerate to go all the way up to 120...but the only 120 Hz screen I own is on my Switch 2, so... Again, this feels like something that will need a future or Professional console to actually hit consistently, so I don't think it's any big loss on my end. I dunno if Capcom ever fixed it, but apparently at launch on PS5, if you had a 120 Hz TV, there was no option to turn off the unlocked framerate, if instead you wanted a (more) consistent 60. This was also before VRR was patched into console, so that would probably help? Anyway, again, I can't speak to this, so I dunno!

I do know that LDK mode turns off the ray tracing. Too many enemies to reflect, I assume!

That's it for the new features. Well, I guess it includes some bonus arms that were DLC for the original version, but I'll get to that later. I'm sure “bonus arms” sounds crazy if you've never played or seen this game, but it makes sense. Speaking of DLC, I forgot to mention this about DMC 4 (and I dunno if it was in the original or just for SE), but I'll mention it here:

The microtransactions. They're...Capcom games. I dunno when it started, but at some point Capcom began flooding their games with them. If the games themselves didn't feel 100% balanced without the microtransactions, I'd call them rotten. In this case, you can buy as many Red Orbs as you want to unlock new moves, fuel one of Dante's weapons, or use to brute force your way through the game if you're out of Gold Orbs (extra lives). And Blue Orbs, which is a scam! The description even tells you there's a finite number of the Blue Orbs in game, and a finite max health, meaning buying more would be useless. To an extent, the fact that the game is perfectly fine, and if anything better without the microtransactions almost makes it feel scummier. Like, there's an honesty to buying skins in Fortnite, or circumventing the grind in Warframe, but this feels like Capcom is trying to pull one over on people.

Gets real crowded in Legendary Dark Knight Mode.

Speaking of Fortnite, put Dante in, there's plenty of Street Fighters and Residents Evil in there! Actually, don't, I'd probably be tempted to get Lady too if they did the whole cast, since she's the most gun focused of the lot...

But back to Capcom's microtransactions, I think you need to go digging on your console or PC storefront of choice to find them? Pretty sure they aren't advertised inside the game itself. That'd be very uncool, and I don't think Itsuno would approve. Anyway, trust me, if you've never played these games before, if you just play the game and ignore the stuff outside it, it's totally fine. That's true of the modern Resident Evils, and it's true of Itsuno's most recent (and seemingly final) Capcom game, Dragon's Dogma II. It just feels scummy to think about.

But what about the game?? Don't worry, I'm there! I'm here!! Well, almost. First I need to give a spoiler warning. Less for the main narrative, and more for some game mechanics that don't unlock until the final boss/subsequent playthroughs. But also some stuff for the main narrative. Not everything though! I know, anyone who really cares would have played it already, but my hope with this retrospective is that someone who hasn't might get inspired to check out these games. Is it likely? Probably not, given how few people actually read this stuff, but it's not impossible.

Okay, now let me start at the start, with the story. After establishing via the previously on that DMC 4 is now set after 2 (a game which is only barely mentioned here!), DMC 5 opens with Nero and the mysterious new V already on a mission. They're running late, with Dante and the gals (Lady and Trish) already deep into a grotesque series of demonic growths. Later it's revealed to be the innards of the demon tree Qliphoth, but it doesn't look very arboreal from the inside. V uses his demonic summoned critters to scout ahead, and so Nero is left on his own.

Aside from his new face scanned likeness bearing a weird resemblance to a certain professional wrestler, the most striking thing about Nero is that his demonic right arm...is gone. Only a bandaged stub at the elbow remains. But he's not deterred, because he's left handed, and one arm is more than enough to swing his Red Queen, or shoot his Blue Rose (he even has a different one handed animation for reloading when you charge it up!). Yes, for better or worse he still just has those weapons for the duration, but more tools get added to his repertoire as the game proceeds.

Which it does, and after a few tutorial fights, Nero makes it to the demon at the center of this evil tree: Urizen. He's already taken down Trish, Lady, and even the Legend himself, Dante. And he did it without even standing up off his thrown! After a “you're supposed to lose” boss fight, Nero ends up retreating with V as the tree grows, flooding the streets of the London inspired Red Grave City with demons. Unlike DMC 3, here we actually see people fleeing from (or being killed by) the demons, and later soldiers trying to fight back.

Then Morrison (voiced by Joey Camen) is introduced, or re-introduced for those who watched the original DMC anime... Which I have not. But he was white in that, and he's black here, so I'm considering him a new character! No idea why they made that change, other than to maybe have at least little more diversity in the cast? I'm glad to see them include a black character, even if he's not in the game much, so he feels a little token-y. Unless Nico's tan is supposed to be indicative of anything, so far as I know the rest of the characters are entirely white.

I dunno, it's probably just something they either didn't think about when making the game, or they made the cast predominantly white to try to appeal to westerners, who are famously entirely white. No people of any other races or ethnicities in countries like the United States! I'm just saying Johnny Yong Bosch is Asian-American, and I think they could have reflected that in Nero. Faye Kingslee too, I believe. Don't forget that prior to DMC 4 SE, none of these games had Japanese voice acting, so the English actors were the de facto voices!

Anyway, questions about why the cast is more diverse than the characters they play aside, there's a flashback revealing what exactly happened to Nero's arm. Nero and his playfully antagonistic friend Nico are working in the garage on the company van, which we later see has a neon Devil May Cry logo on the side. Kyrie calls them in for dinner, a call that Nico is more than happy to answer.

But Nero stays behind as a mysterious cloaked figure shuffles in. Anyone familiar with the series will probably recognize him, and already know what he's after. But Nero isn't suspicious, he sees someone in need and offers to let him in for a hot meal. But the figure doesn't say anything to this genuinely kind gesture, instead he rips Nero's arm off, and turns it back into the Yamato. He slices open portal with the reformed blade, disappears, and Nero is left with way more questions than...arm-swers.

Horrible wordplay aside, I think 5's story is pretty ambitious compared to the rest of the series (reboot excluded). It jumps back and forth through time, and always landing on oddball, very specific times in a detail that I greatly appreciate. Never mind that it switches perspective between three playable characters, and does so in ways that make a lot more sense than 4. The Dante section of DMC 4 was filler, and as fun as Dante's moves are, those levels drag that game down into the gutter.

I'm not going to say that every single level in 5 moves the story forward in some interesting way, there's definitely parts where Nero and V are just fighting demons to help clear out the city. What I'm saying is there's no filler in this game, which shouldn't be remarkable, but for this series, it kind of is. And before anyone brings up that you refight some bosses as V, yeah, I know. I think that part is interesting, because you fight them with a different character, and there's a strategy in what order you pick, both for the fights, and which of his summons to awaken.

Back to Nero. Time jumps forward, a month after Urizen defeated the entire cast of this game. Red Grave City is now in complete ruins, overrun with demons, and the only humans left being a few soldiers with more bravery than actual demon fighting prowess. Buildings are collapsing, streets torn asunder, and double-decker buses left crashed on the side of the road. Apparently the inspiration for basing the city on London came from the trips Itsuno made to the UK to oversee Ninja Theory on DmC, which is a fun bit of trivia. It's also a bit odd considering literally no one in this game has anything other than an American accent (with Nico sounding extremely southern), and this is where Dante has lived his whole life, but that's neither here nor there.

Nico and Nero tear into town like a van outta hell, and what follows may be the best opening credits sequence in any game I've ever seen. It's like they saw that bit where Dante is getting dressed in slow motion in DmC and knew they had to one up it. The van is flying through the air, Nero hopping around kicking demon ass, while one of the greatest songs in game history blasts (“Devil Trigger,” composed by Casey Edwards and featuring Ali Edwards and Cliff Lloret on vocals). The various names credited flying around with the rest of the debris, it's an absolutely amazing sequence that definitely does not condone smoking.

Once the player regains control, Nero's big new mechanic is introduced, the Devil Breaker arms. Nico, being the master weapon-smith she is, forged a series of bionic arms, each with a different gimmick. The default Overture creates a giant electric blast in the shape of a hand, Gerbera blasts Nero around, tackling into enemies or dodging freely in any direction, Punch Line is a rocket propelled punch (that he can even ride!), and so on. More unlock as the story progresses, and even more were DLC/in the Special Edition, but some of those are a bit more jokey than actually useful. The Mega Buster is neat, and it's cute that he does the jump with it equipped, but I don't actually like using it. Sweet Surrender, on the other...hand, is a “personal massager” for Kyrie's benefit, but in game is supposed to restore Nero's health. It's so little though, it really doesn't feel worth it to me. As long as Kyrie likes it though, that's what matters.

I'm not going to list them all, but I will say that at least all of the ones from the main game have their uses. Each arm can be charged up for a separate/more powerful effect, but at the cost of it self destructing. They also break if Nero is hit while using them, or they can be manually detonated. No other way to swap between them (perhaps the one issue with it I have), and it can be useful for breaking free if he's been grabbed.

Included with the arms (and even built into the connector on Nero himself, in case he runs out) is a grappling hook, to replicate the Devil Bringer ability from his original demon arm. This is key to Nero's play style, because he can't teleport like Dante. He's got his own mobility abilities (like a triple jump!) that Dante doesn't, but this grapple is kind of the main thing. Pulls most enemies to him, or him to the big ones, and I certainly use it a lot. The only kind of awkward thing is it's mapped to the same button as the Devil Breaker function, but you grapple if locked on, and use the Breaker if not. A lot of grappling an enemy in, releasing the lock on button, using the arm, re-locking, etc. Takes some getting used to, but I got used to it in that first playthrough back in 2019, so not a big deal.

The only thing missing from DMC 4 is the grab. There, Nero could grab most enemies (some need to be stunned or whatever), and do some sort of grapple or throw move. The Buster arm here does that, except it breaks after use. But without that, it's the one piece of the puzzle missing... At least for most of the game.

The Photo Mode was really useful for getting these shots. Mid rocket surf punch.

I won't get into every story specific, but something I didn't mention in 2019 because the game was so new, is that a couple major mechanics unlock for Nero in the literal final boss of the game. One of which, in retrospect, perhaps the game was foreshadowing. I didn't think about it in 2019, but it's a tad odd that the one character in the game who didn't have a Devil Trigger had the song with the lyrics, “pull my Devil Trigger,” huh?

The short version is that with his emotions running high, and some words of encouragement from Kyrie, Nero finds the strength that was in him all along, and finally pulls that Devil Trigger. He doesn't just summon a JoJo's Stand like in 4, he goes full Devil, but also with the summoned energy demon arms to back him up. Not unlike the doppelganger that a certain other character summons as his Devil Trigger...

It's wild to think about how much this game holds back until this fight. In a first playthrough, it's just this, then the fight against regular enemies in the credits where you get to use Nero's DT, and those grab moves. Makes complete sense from a story perspective, but you don't see this very often. It's there quite specifically to add replay value, to give players more reason to play the game again, and spend time working their way up the Bloody Palace. Kind of the exact opposite of most modern AAA game design, which emphasizes making sure people see everything, and everything gets used as much as it can. Not many studios would make this many animations for a new game plus mechanic!

And it's the thing that makes Nero feel complete. Not that he isn't fun on a first playthrough, he's got (so far as I can tell) all his sword moves from 4 alongside some new ones, and the robot arms on top of that. Perhaps in a bit of “phantom pain” with the lost arm, he doesn't really sing until the post game, with the DT, and the new abilities that come with it.

What I'm saying is that not only is DMC 5 my favorite stylish action game to play, I think it does a great job with its story, themes, and working them into the game play too. Not that it's anything revolutionary, but holding it back until so late in the game for a character moment is really cool.

Of course, if you're a sicko like me, finishing DMC 5 is where the real DMC 5 starts. Itsuno himself has said that he thinks Son of Sparda is the most fun difficulty in the game, with the new remixed enemy encounters, and (I believe) boss fights having altered behavior. That's not even the highest mountain to climb here, but... I have mixed feelings about the even higher difficulties.

So, on the original version of DMC 5, I beat the game on Dante Must Die, and Heaven or Hell. Heaven or Hell is frankly easy, yes you die in one hit, but so do all the enemies, so it's really a victory lap where you simply shoot all the enemies and bosses, speedrunning through to the end. DMD however...

I had previously beaten SoS on the Special Edition (both with the main characters, and Vergil), so when it came time for this retrospective...I made the choice to try DMD for it. I'd already beaten it before, what could possibly go wrong? It's not like this literally just happened when I replayed DmC, or anything! Well, it turns out it's a lot more tedious than I remembered. I got seven or eight missions in, and enemies spending almost all the time in their Devil Trigger, taking basically no damage, it wasn't fun. So I went back down to SoS, had the blast that this game is supposed to be, and still felt enough of a challenge when it counted.

Again, if the game's director thinks it's the most fun difficulty, I don't feel bad. Maybe I'll go back and brute force my way through it, but again...I did it once already, I don't need to a second time, just to have a second of that Trophy. It'd be another story if that was the only thing I needed to do to get the Platinum, but Hell and Hell is...obviously possible, but it ain't possible for me. Dying in one hit while the enemies have full health, and limited Gold Orbs per mission...I'm good at this game, but I'm not play it flawlessly good.

And...you'll have to tune in soon to read the rest! Sorry I'm too long winded for my own good!!