Whoo, boy. Where to begin?
Anyone who went on a gaming site over the past year must know about this one. The reboot of Devil May Cry was subject to fan derision from the very first trailer, both for its radical reimagining of the series and Ninja Theory’s involvement. The actual release of the game did little to change the minds of many hardcore fans, who dismissed it as a misguided mess that was way too easy.
I myself have been a fan of the series for years. My feelings for the DMC reboot were more mixed; although I didn’t hate it reflexively like other fans, I was never super excited about it either. My ambivalence proved to be justified upon playing the game, as DMC is a very mixed bag despite having flashes of inspiration.
The combat exemplifies this more than anything. I’m not one of those hardcore DMC heads putting out combo videos on Youtube, so a lot of the changes they made to streamline the controls were wonderful for me. I loved having a single launch button, a proper air dash, and being able to pull enemies towards me and myself towards them. The grappling mechanic expands on what was done with Nero in DMC4, which was the main reason I liked playing as him more than Dante in that game. I really hope they keep those elements in future titles.
What they shouldn’t do again is the angelic/demonic weapon nonsense. Being limited to certain weapons against certain enemies in the heat of battle got irritating really fast, largely because the weapons themselves were also a mixed bag. The demonic axe and the default sword Rebellion were the only two weapons I really liked using. That was an issue in the other games, but it was by far the worst in this one.
The boss battles, meanwhile, were all disappointing. All but a few centered on hitting convenient weak points while dodging super-telegraphed attacks. It was a huge let down from the more tense and varied boss battles of DMCs past; while I'd go out of my way to refight bosses in DMC3 and 4, the regular enemies were more fun to fight in this one. The fight at the end with Vergil was a real letdown as well, coming nowhere near his fights with Dante in DMC3.
On the flipside, I preferred NT’s approach to stages over the previous games. The navigation is focused and straightforward; unlike in past games, I rarely got lost or frustrated with all the random wandering around I had to do. The degree of environmental variety afforded by the Limbo mechanic, which morphs the stages into demonic, potentially dangerous visages, was a far cry from the blatant bullshit rehashing of DMC4. The nightclub stage in particular is one of my favorites in the entire series.
But while they did a bang up job with the setting the game took place in, the story and the characters weren’t handled nearly as well. The writing was shit even compared to past games in the series, and the voice acting was awful almost across the board. Most of the character re-designs were either bland (Mundus) or stupid as hell (Dante, Vergil). This, more than anything else in the game, threw cold water on Capcom and NT's claims that this was the new direction the series needed.
The game also runs horribly on consoles. I played the demo on PS3; I could've lived with the 30 frames-per-second had it not been for the weird tearing issues and constant slowdown. There were several times during the demo where the slowdown would mess up my combos due to missed inputs, which made the experience grating. DMC4, meanwhile, ran at a solid 60fps on consoles; how NT managed to screw up like this, I have no idea. So I got the PC version instead.
All in all, while there were several gameplay changes that the series has needed for years, DMC was a mediocre game overall. Capcom and Ninja Theory spoke of the need for an alternate take on the series to keep it fresh; this did little to convince me, and Capcom’s admission that sales were below expectations proved the marketplace didn’t buy it either. They’d best keep that in mind when they make a sixth entry in the franchise, whenever that happens.
Score: 6/10
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