It's not that bad actually. Whether you like it, love it, or loathe it, DmC: Devil May Cry is out and has been seeing a fair share of all of the above for the passed few days. Now, I'm just going to say it here, don't listen to the fanboys who are giving the game either a zero, one, or three. The game is far from scores like that and I doubt those people would know which games truly deserve those scores. However, I also have to say that other reviewers who give it an eight, nine, or ten might be getting caught up with the visuals and gameplay. For me, DmC: Devil May Cry is a decent game with quite a few flaws.
To get it out of the way, what do I think of the new look of Dante? Just remember that this is subjective per person. Personally, I don't like the new look nor how Dante is in the game, but it is an improvement over the initial appearance from the teaser trailer. Dante is just so boring and unappealing in this game. He is a foul mouthed, uncaring guy who doesn't have priorities and sees demons as pests rather than an actual threat. He doesn't get the proper motivation until later. He's basically the total opposite of the original Dante. Yes, I know that this is a different version, but I just prefer the original.
For that matter, most of the characters are uninteresting and bland. Vergil is completely useless during the entire story. Go figure that he's the leader of The Order, but hardly contributes anything until the end. Kat does more than Vergil in the game, but she is ultimately a weak character who's thrown in as a blatant love interest for Dante. Mundus doesn't have the same presence as he did before and instead seems and sometimes sounds like a wannabe Lex Luthor. The one character I was interested in most was a demon named Phineas.
Most of the characters' voice actors (except for Phineas) seem to have subpar performances. The voice acting is just so mundane. There are moments that call for good emotion, but the performances don't get there. These performances seemed very unspiring and directionless.
In general, the sound of DmC is rather good. I liked the metal music used, but the dubstep could have been dialed down. I'm going to be honest and say that I'm not a fan of dubstep, but it isn't a negative of the game, it's just a preference of music. There are moments in cutscenes where the sound may suddenly cut off for a minor second or two. This may be attributed to the thirty frames per second, but I'm not entirely sure.
The thirty frames per second are easily detectable at certain moments, but they aren't a complete deal breaker. While there is a lot of flare and style in the game, it might be off putting to some people. Limbo, for example, is a unique world where the physical realm gets distorted and broken. The foundation literally works at trying to prevent you from getting to your goal and the demons use overwhelming numbers and strength against you. The colors compliment the weirdness of Limbo and it is compounded by the ruined architecture and intense platforming sections. Again, however, the art style may not be to everyone's liking.
Among other changes that this game had from the previous Devil May Cry games was the type of universe it takes place in. This is a world of demons, but also angels who are at war with them. The unification of an angel and demon were things of rarity, but these unions did occur which results in a type of offspring known as Nephilim. In this case, the demon Sparda and angel Eva had Dante and Vergil. The story follows this, but with a huge emphasis on Dante's past and breaking down Mundus' empire.
It becomes quite apparent that DmC has a lot of similarities with Darksiders II and those are seen easily in regards to Nephilim. The story itself is weak and scattered with a few plot holes. The script and themes put in come off as juvenile and trying too hard. I had no care for the characters or the world at large. Nothing really caught my attention, although I didn't expect the last mission to go the way it did (in a good way).
At the beginning of each mission you are able to get new abilities for Dante, items, and upgrades for the weapons. There is a plethora of upgrades you can get. White spheres represent how many points you have to use for upgrading. Items are bought with red orbs that are obtained in the classic Devil May Cry fashion of destroying breakable objects or defeating enemies. By the game's end, you'll most likely have ninety percent of this.
The game covers twenty missions in the single player campaign, but there are a lot of single missions that are just padding. One such example would be mission eighteen where you must reactivate a power chamber and it's a huge puzzle. That whole mission was padding to the extreme just to add another twenty to thirty minutes to the game. At that point, you're well on your way to finishing the game and this sudden giant puzzle stops you. You can complete the entire game between seven to eight hours.
Speaking of which, the series mainstay of plentiful puzzles have been replaced by platforming. While the platforming was something new and interesting, it can become repetitive. Sure, these are new ways to get around with the angelic and demonic tools, but I felt very stressed from it all by the end. Gliding was a new feature that gives you a good push in the air, but I became very frustrated at times as to switch from angelic hook to glide and then to angelic hook again. It all requires the same shoulder button presses, which may not transition well for some players.
As for combat, it is really well done. This is arguably the best part of the game. You can have three firearms, Dante's standard sword (Rebellion), two angelic weapons, and two demonic weapons. There is a lot of room for growth in combos and weapon usage. Switching among the weapons in the middle of combat is easy, too. You will quickly find that you will favor some weapons over others.
In my experience, Ebony and Ivory became underpowered despite upgrades and were replaced by the shotgun (Revenant); however, there is no targeting system as opposed to previous games. Sure, Dante auto targets when doing distance attacks and shooting, but it's really annoying when you're not controlling who you're targeting. Something new is that angelic weapons can be used to kill blue enemies and demonic weapons can be used to kill red enemies. This can be a good thing or bad thing given how creative you want to be with combining different weapons because this does restrict you to using certain weapons at a time.
Now, the one thing about combat that came off a huge disappointment was Devil Trigger. It is practically pointless to use unless you are out of items (so you can regain health) or are outnumbered heavily (so you can have the strength boost). When Devil Trigger is activated, time is slowed down and enemies are thrown into the air. The problem with this is that grabbing enemies and trying to keep up the momentum of moves is a hassle. If you accidentally knock them back in the air, they'll stay there until you do something about it. Devil Trigger doesn't really last long anyway and takes even longer to get. Even more so to a full bar if you're determined (although it is not necessary to fill the entire bar to activate it).
A note that should be made about Devil Trigger is that Dante's hair turns white and his coat turns red. It's kind of a tongue-in-cheek idea to the original Dante, but the whole thing is dumb considering the blatant jab that Ninja Theory takes at people who don't like the look of the new Dante. It's a major middle finger moment and it's completely immature, which in retrospective with fans acting out about the new look is understandable, but not inexcusable. Plus, it's further pointless to have the joke because they are releasing the classic Dante costume for downloadable content (which most likely you will have to pay for).
Overall, DmC: Devil May Cry is not great and not horrible, but just average. While the story and characters are lacking, the graphics are nice, the combat is great, and the weapons are intriguing. It may not be the ideal reboot to a much beloved series, but it's decent. Only the most diehard of Devil May Cry fans may not like this game. This is evidenced by Metacritic user scores.
Would I get it for my collection? Can't say that I would. The story, characters, and game length are preventing me from even making the recommendation to other gamers to buy the game now. If you must buy it, wait until it's on sale for forty dollars. If you are curious, rent it and check it out for yourself.
Toyama discuss is Slitterhead going to be an action-adventure game and expresses horror while aiming at a wide range of entertainment, also if the trailer on The Game Awards was running on in-game engine or not.
Translated from Japanese to Arabic to English. I'm going to take anything here with a massive grain of salt.
It's not meant to be silent Hill. Their last game was an action game (Gravity Rush) and they want to do a new series rather than try to make another slow paced horror game like silent Hill or Siren. They've already made lots of those games.
They literally said they were "going back to their roots" and cited "Silent Hill" left and right in this project. They never cited Gravity Rush as an inspiration, you can't really blame people for being disappointed. It's like citing the most delicious burger you ever ate as an inspiration for a ham sandwich. It can still be good, but it's not remotely like your inspiration.
@TricksterArrow considering nothing was shown that could be considered gameplay the experience of actually playing the game could be very different than the vibe given from the trailer.
I dunno, like Toyama's definition on "won't focus on psychological horror" could mean going from his usual next tier WTF is going on horror to just normal mind fuck levels.
Hideaki Itsuno almost resigned from Capcom following the release of DmC: Devil May Cry.
I don’t blame him after how bad that game was and how poorly it sold (almost killing the series) I wouldn’t want to be at the company that greenlit that abomination.
The other article won’t let me respond anymore but quit saying it sold the worse and almost killed the series because that isn’t true. I don’t use wiki’s that anybody can put whatever they want the stats I posted were from capcom themselves from just back in August. I’m pretty sure they themselves know better than the wiki you tried to link.
Capcom wanted the original release to sell 2 million. Which was lower than DMC4 sales. When they were not on track for that 2 million they lowered it to 1.2 million. The numbers only went up when they re-released it on everything else and even then DMCHD collection performed relatively better. Get over it. Donte is dead and the real Dante lives. Troll harder and elsewhere kid.
To further add to what Segata said the wiki takes the sales data FROM Capcom, silly boy you can rage all you want but the fact is only a loud minority liked DmC, the game is a faillure and a black mark on the series the fact that we got DMC5 instead of DmC 2 should make that obvious.
@Ak91 lol no it doesn’t what I posted was from capcom and so the poster below can see what I’m talking about ill post them again. 4 sold 3 mil,DmC sold 2.4 mil,3 sold 2.3 mil,1 sold 2.16 mil,2 sold 1.7 mil and the hd collection sold 1.1 mil.
@segata how is sharing my opinion that DmC isn’t bad like the hardcore gate keeping DMC fans try to make it out to be trolling? There’s a reason you see a lot of people on the web wanting a sequel to DmC and there’s a reason it sold well and is one of the highest rated DMC games there is. Trolling is saying hurr durr the DMC series sucks and only DmC is good which I’ve never said. Now I’ve said the series only has one masterpiece with DMC 3 while 1 and 4 are just ok and 2 is straight bad and I’m sorry but that’s not trolling. You don’t share my opinion that’s fine but don’t resort to the trolling accusation because you don’t agree with someone that’s just childish and not a good look.
DMC is the worst selling Devil May Cry game. That is a fact.
DMC is the worst Devil May Cry game; but it still is a good action game.
Yeah, so, the game was actually a pretty good action game bro. Not as good as DMC 1,3 and 4, but a good action game.
In no way, shape or form was it a "bad game", it just wasn't really a DMC game.
Now a bad game would be DMC 2. That one was just a disaster
It wasn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination.
It was a stylistic reboot that did it's own thing, nodding towards the tone and mechanics of the original.
That's usually how reboots work. It was a solidly made game through and through, thus any opinion of the game is just that - opinion; based on whether you enjoyed the new take on the series.
The game reviewed rather quite well. Fans of the original series just didn't like the take on the reboot. I actually enjoyed the game for what it was. Solid story, good combat/gameplay. But, I was also never a very big DMC fan so I didn't get caught up in the the remake controversies.
This isn’t true this was on resetera and its worded like that to make it sound like DmC made him want to quit and that’s not what happened.
Outsourced development to external team was an insult to internal team, more so if they think they can do that.
I never liked DmC, i tried to like it, but i couldn't. It just didn't appeal to me.
But strangely i liked dmc. I finished it.
Now i am interested in DmC5. It feels so realish/americanish like dmc compared to DMC 1-4 Which felt more fantasy-ish/manga-ish.
Meh. All these cry baby purists can suck a fat one. Devil may cry 5 is the definitive one but DMC rocked and got phenomenal reviews. You guys should just be happy the DMC future isn’t just pachinko.
Yep. I loved it too. dmc has more "mature" atmosphere than DMC, like American TV series. It's more suited to the setting and characters in Devil May Cry universe. The DMC 1-4 was more like a US comic book written by Japanese mangaka.
I haven't played it yet, but it seems DMCV has that "mature" American TV series atmosphere.
This week, the @ARGCast, Robert (@thedcd) from NMOGames, MaroonersRock and SuperHeroHype and David (@DaGiltyMan) from RetroZap join Mike (@AssaultSuit), Tiny (@Tiny415) and ;Aaron (@Ind1fference) to talk about Battletoads, games, movies, low flow toilets and more video games.
Great review. I will say that DmC is Ninja Theory's best efforts ever put in a game. The combat in the game is far better than anything they have done in past games. They really tried hard to impress, but ultimately failed due to their ego. I'm not sure if anyone is going to remember DmC by the end of the year, but I'm sure people will remember the controversy surrounding it.
Haven't played it yet, but I'm cautiously optimistic. It can't be as bad as NG3 and I don't mind the new look...
i will be fair it's 8.5 at max for me
and the pc version is very very good
Boy, this was one great game.
I largely agree with some of the points you're making, though, even though I for example thought Devil Trigger was a lifesaver.
To each their own, but I'm playing it now and the full game is a lot better than what the demo offered.
Heavenly Sword meets DMC, but once you start unlocking more abilities it definitely leans more along the DMC gameplay.
It's actually pretty good so far.
You said it's not that bad, but gave it a 6. You know you wanted to give it a higher score, come on, you know you wanna.