For some reason, I always feel like Ninja Theory gets singled out for criticism way more than they deserve. It's sad, as they have actually made three pretty distinct games so far, all with well told stories, all with increasingly solid gameplay, and with two of them as completely original IPs. They do good work, and they have some really creative people over there. I feel like they deserve more credit than they get. Kung Fu Chaos was also a pretty great party game. Heavenly Sword was decent gameplay with a surprisingly strong story, Enslaved was a fun character action/platformer with another cool story, and DmC was just a fantastic game all around. That's coming from someone who's a huge fan of the series and has played the other Devil May Cry games multiple times. I've played plenty of more complicated character action games, but that doesn't mean they are instantly better. There's room for both.

Ninja Theory is the biggest casualty of the "AAA or bust" mentality that seems to exist in the industry, especially among physical disc based games.

I didn't care much about Heavenly Sword either. The only reason I bought that game was that the PS3 lineup was a wasteland, and it was unplayable for me for months... I also feel that while many people was impressed with the performance, the lines were cringe worthy. The script made God of War looked like classic literature.

But I did enjoy DmC, more than I have enjoyed a DMC game in a long time (certainly more than DMC 4), so I can't really say I see a pattern of crappyness here...

DmC is the best devil may cry game yet, even if it did drop some of the complexities of the combat. Still doesn't make it a very good game, I guess, but it was ok.

I can't speak for the other Ninja Theory games, but DMC: Devil May Cry is definitely far from a brain dead game. Yes while I agree that certain aspects of it could have been better(which isn't exclusive to this game alone), it was overall an awesome experience.

The platforming is amazing and fast paced, the combat is engaging and fun, and for the most part the story was fresh and interesting, albite not the best ever. I'm not sure why you hated the enemy design, I mean, the demons from Limbo looked like demons from Limbo. They were supposed to be chaotic and weirdly constructed; I actually thought it was cool.

Moreover, the boss battles were pretty sweet too, sure it may not be essentially that challenging but it's fun and engaging, plus it has some extra stages to keep things interesting. So one boss has a a lot of jumping around and that completely turns you off? Each boss had a particular gimmick of it's own that involved punching, platforming, and jumping. It's how the gameplay mechanics work here, so obviously they would design the boss battles around it. Not sure why you hated Vergil's boss battle, that was probably my favorite throughout the game. It was cinematic, thematic, fun, well designed and quite frankly awesome. Vergil was your match in many ways, and unlike some of the other bosses he didn't take your damage, he blocked, attacked, countered and so on. Same goes for the enemies, they were no cake walk if you decided to play on the higher difficulties, in fact I found myself using a lot of interesting combinations and tricks to get past certain enemies. I don't see how that's bad design, though not including the lock on feature was fucking ridiculous.

Furthermore, the level design was probably the greatest thing about DMC(on which we seem to agree on). They completely and utterly utilized the limbo concept. The environments were absolutely spectacular and chaotic. I loved every second of it!

Honestly, after playing DMC, I'm upset Hellblade won't be available on Xbox One.

Heavenly Sword has some genuinely disturbing characters and cutscenes.

Ninja Theory is alright, new DMC was solid and had some brilliant level design; Heavenly Sword is okay. They're not Platinum or anything but they seem to be vaguely competent.

I absolutely disagree. DmC is extremely limited compared to DMC3 and 4 and there is a very clear 'best' way of playing the game due to elemental enemies, unbalanced weapons and a faulty style system. Nothing like this will ever come out of DmC:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORgSuIIesIE

I know people are ragging on dmc combat, but wasn't Capcom extremely involved in the gameplay design?

@crysack: Oh, it already has. Like I said plenty of advanced combo videos showing off DmC's combat on YouTube. And I found the elemental enemies fun. They were a great way to test your adaptability. And Dante in general has always been stupid overpowered. Especially once upgraded.

@demoskinos: Dante actually sucked compared to Nero in DMC4 though, why doesn't Dante suck more in the new DMC? Outrage.

I would argue that the biggest casualty to that mentality is the entirety of THQ, but Ninja Theory is definitely up there.

Did Dante get impaled with his own sword in DmC. I don't remember.

Weird, because the moment it switched from Nero to Dante in DMC4 I went from feeling shitty and ineffectual to ridiculously overpowered. That and the shitty board game at the end are the only things I remember about DMC4. Oh, and some sort of plant boss?

I enjoyed Enslaved for what it was even though it was a little simple and DmC is probably my second favourite Character action game after Bayonetta. I prefer DmC to the older Devil May Cry series just due to the story. Ninja Theory made a character that seemed like a douchebag (much like DMC3 Dante) from the promotional material into a great character. Ninja Theory's games are good at telling stories with very few characters which allows them to focus on them more compared to a game of a similar length with more characters.

I really respect your DmC opinion especially! Overall, I like Ninja Theory because they try to push into new frontiers in video game storytelling. Between them and Naughty Dog, they are forcing the industry to get better at characterization. That's what I appreciate most about them. I guess I'm just really glad they are able to keep making games and weren't shut down after Enslaved didn't sell.

Capcom may have been involved (Whatever that actually means), but Hideaki Itsuno definitely wasn't.

I respectfully disagree. Two of the three games mentioned by VBM were based on prior source material which they then tried to add their own twist on (twists which in my opinion fell flat), and their characterization has never struck me as anything more than average, at times subpar, on every level.

Enslaved in particular was always very strange to me. Reinterpretations and retellings of classic stories are pivotal to the creative history of human beings, but Enslaved felt so dramatically off from what Journey to the West was as a story that at some point I wish they had left the hints at nicknames and general themes. Of course they didn't 'ruin' or 'desecrate' it or anything - it's a retelling, one of many in the grand tradition - it just happened to be so bizarre that it did not sit right with me personally.

I pretty much agree with you. They are a slightly above average studio.

I remember enjoying both Heavenly Sword and Enslaved quite a bit. On the other hand, I remember Platinum games to be a fever dream of bullshittery with incomprehensible stories that didn't make sense even if you try to accept their logic and dialogue that's below stupid. That said, I think I'd have enjoyed Bayonetta a lot more if Sega didn't completely botch the PS3 port.

So, meh, to each their own.