Style.
written march 11, 2008
I had never played a Devil May Cry game until yesterday when I finished the latest itiration. After doing so i feel quite regretful I havent had a taste of this franchise before, as for the most part it is awesome.
Going into this I expected some girly stereotypical japanese characters, with some of the typically strange transition in dialogue and humour, which always grates on me. Well thankfully all of those conceptions were smashed, I guess I forgot that Capcom make this game, possibly the most successful eastern company to make games which translate well to western audiences.
The first half of the game I had a great time playing as Nero, the combat is no question the biggest strength of the game, although I was suprised when I was engaged by the excellent cut scenes and decent enough story. sty1e makes up 90% of this game, and I didnt find that to be a bad thing at all. Nero and Dante surpass cool and its fun to be them.
DMC4 does have its issues, and I can see them for some people being deal breakers. The game seemed intent to discourage me from enjoying it and it almost succeeded, with me close to not bothering to finish the last half. The problems come in the form of level design, Its not always obvious where you should go, and there is endless backtracking to the point where you arent always sure where you should backtrack to. Halfway through the game you swap from Nero to Dante, to then spend the entire last half of the game backtracking the progress you made in the first half. Unfortunately this backtracking starts out in the most frustrating maze-like level of the game.
This is where I almost didnt pick the controller back up, after the thirteenth time falling into a pit for going in the wrong direction in the maze. This and the added stress involved of having Dante and his fifteen hundred different sword sty1es put on me without much explanation. I guess for the seasoned Devil May Cryer having the accumulated sty1es from the previous three titles is expected and comfortable, but for me it all seemed a bit much. I couldnt really work out the practicality of 4 different sty1es that seemed more or less the same. I didnt feel I could play Dante optimally and this depressed me, I missed Nero's Devil arm.
Fortunately I had a look at a walkthrough to figure out why I wasnt advancing through the level, picked up the controller and marched on. Im damn glad I did because after this stupid level, the game picks up exponentially to the end, with the discovery of the coolest weapons so far I really enjoyed playing as Dante, by the end probably preffering him to Nero.
The game is dam awesome despite these issues, if you havent given it a go I thoroughly reccommend it. Im giving it 4 stars.
