DmC Devil May Cry

DmC Devil May Cry - Virgils Downfall REVIEW

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It’s been almost 2 months since Ninja Theory dropped their reinterpretation of the Devil May Cry universe, and now we see the first single player DLC pack arriving in the form of Virgils Downfall, an expandable pack of levels starring, you guessed it, Dante’s older and all to flashier brother, Virgil. The story takes place after the end of the main campaign, so if you have yet to finish it, i suggest you hold off and play it (and possibly read this) afterwards. So does Virgil have the same fennes his brother did? Or is he a washed up wannabe who should have been shelved?

The game opens immediately following the end of DmC, where Virgil, sporting his signature Yamato sword, is on a quest of redemption to reclaim his existence after he was cast into Limbo for his betrayal. Starting off with a surprisingly low budget comic rendering of a would be cutscene, these continue appearing through the DLC to tell the majority of the games narrative. This is a shame seeing how beautiful the visuals of DmC turned out to be, but it does succeed in giving the game a separated feeling to it. The games story is somewhat predictable to anyone who’s finished the game and got the clear lead into a sequel, but does manage to come off as fresh enough for an expansion of a game that seeming told all it had to tell.

The combat has been largely untouched, which is a joy for me personally as i found their more accessible route to serious combos much more enjoyable than that of its predecessors. That said, Virgil has a much different feeling to play as, despite having the same basic controls across the board. The Yamato blade he brandishes is not only powerful, but comes off as a great tool to dive into the slightly more serious side of Devil May Cry’s combo system. Relying much more on timing and precise combinations, it comes off as having a slightly higher barrier for entry versus its primary campaign. This was by no means a disappointment, as I was challenged by some new enemy types, and found its slightly more restrictive combat to be much harder to master right away. The weapons system has been slightly revamped, with Angel and Devil powers only modifying the type of attack you perform with the same sword, and the chains being replaced by Virgils much quicker, though admittedly cheaper, teleportation technique.

The story is spread out across 6 chapters, each consisting of a series of battles and cutscenes as has become the tradition here. For an expansion costing just under 10 dollars, it comes off as pretty much perfect, delivering a satisfying amount of combat to scratch a certain sinful itch, but also managing to tie things up neatly enough to jump right into DmC2 should they end up going that route. That said, the 6 chapters come off as rushed, and add little content to anyone looking for anything of substance. Most of the battles come off as entirely too repetitive after just 2 chapters, and lack of continued re-visitation of environments already traversed in DmC left me wanting all too much more. Additionally, they have numerous bugs, leading in one case to me falling endlessly and needing to restart that checkpoint, which would have been completely forgiven had it happened only once. Also, for a characters who has a number of attacks in which he teleports to an enemy, there are far too many instances where this results in Virgil sparing with an enemy far away from any place to land, leading to a seriously unfair number of deaths at points that shouldn't have merited it.

The overall feel of Virgil's Downfall is just that, one of Downfall. I understand that DmC didn't succeed as well as Capcom would have wanted it to, but it’s far from the fault of the game, and delivering something like this to complete a package, only serves to sour the great impressions left from the initial campaign. It’s a shame that the older brothers outing was flawed, but it serves as an interesting metaphor for the whole take on Dante vs Virgil in the first place.

DmC Devil May Cry: Virgils Downfall gets a ⅗