50% new, 50% the same new
Devil May Cry is a longstanding franchise that traditionally has been a Playstation exclusive is now out on the Xbox 360 to great surprise and joy of the user base. Finally, a great hack and slash game for a new group of people to try, but is it worth your 60 bucks?
The first thing to keep in mind is that Devil May Cry 4 is not just a hack and slash game but also an action-adventure game set in a fictional world. Unlike the previous games though, DMC4 may be considered a departure from the series for multiple reasons, the foremost being that you only play as Dante for less than half the game. The game introduces a new character as well who is the main focus of the story and the first half of the adventure, and since Dante is also motivated by his actions, that would make him almost more important of a character in the grand scheme of things.
Nero, the new character, is not a religious man. He and one of singers at his church, Kyrie, have a little something going on. So naturally the game starts off with Nero being late and Kyrie looking for him while singing her piece during mass. Kind of typical; that being said, Kyrie is also the sister of Credo, a member of "The Order" a nefarious organization that you'll learn about over the course of the game, so I won't give too much away here about it.
If you're a hardcore Devil May Cry fan and you're immediately disappointed by the lack of Dante in the game you won't be upset for long. Less than halfway through the opening cut-scene Dante drops in on a church session that Nero and Kyrie are attending for seemingly no other reason than to assassinate the pastor leading the mass, Sanctus. Thus, the events set off by him turn the cogs of destruction and mayhem that lead the course of the newest iteration of the franchise.
The playing style from experience players will have to be slightly refined to match Nero, as he's the character you'll play for most of the game. While not too dissimilar from Dante, there are a couple key differences that make him a unique character. Both Nero and Dante have gigantic disproportional swords, but Nero has a sword with a handle that resembles a motorcycle allowing you to rev it up to make the blade get red-hot to increase the damage with doing a move combo. This allows you to do some really damaging moves if you time your button hits right. Nero also has an arm called the "Devil Bringer," it looks and acts like a demonic arm should. When doing combos with it you'll pull off some extremely damaging combos that you can even pull off in boss fights. Imagine picking the boss up and throwing him across the stage!
Other than those two differences though, the Devil May Cry formula hasn't really undergone very many changes and retains the same basic puzzle structures and fighting moves you've come to expect, and that's not all a bad thing either. While the game has a variety of environments you'll traverse, it's worth saying that this game looks amazing. From the first cut-scene you watch up until the last one, you'll be oohing and ahhing at the gorgeous videos and the extreme attention to detail that is still rare in gaming today.
The loading times are minimal taking only a couple seconds to load each area. However, the areas are small and sometimes you'll be wishing they took a couple more seconds to load a bit of a bigger area since you'll be hitting a load every few minutes it seems like. However since there is no actual loading screen and it seems fairly instant, the only legitimate annoyance would be the noise it makes when you enter and exit an area. Talk about annoying!
The other annoying trend is also a major complaint with the entire game. Once you get exactly halfway through the game (which takes only about 5 hours) you're forced to switch to Dante. This wouldn't be so bad if you didn't have to unlearn the "Devil Bringer" mechanic and retrain your mind without any kind of intro to the character (which would have been nice for newbies to the series like myself). However at this point, you have to backtrack through the entire game, fight every boss over again, and return to your starting point to finish the game. This both is annoying and obvious filler which they don't even bother to cover up.
While you're backtracking though, Dante acquires the most powerful moves and equipment for your face-off with "The Savior" (again spoilers I won't mention). Some of the equipment includes Pandora's box, which is basically a super-weapon that you can pull out at will. Dante can transform Pandora's box into about 2-6 of the 666 possible combinations.
Clocking in at just 10 hours of game play for the average player who's never touched a Devil May Cry game before, it's the best hack and slash adventure game you can buy right now for $6 an hour. It's not going to change your mind if you hate the genre, and it's certainly not going to be the most innovative title you've ever played. But while the replay and the achievements might not be that fun or worthwhile, you'll want to at least give this game a rental because of its phenomenal story and genuinely interesting characters.
