Wait! What colour is his hair?
We never asked for this! What did Capcom do to our beloved action series? Why isn’t Dante’s hair white?!
Feelings of outrage assaulted the brains of the Devil May Cry fan base when DmC Devil May Cry was shown off at the 2010 Tokyo Game Show and until now, we really had no idea how it would turn out.
Action game fans rejoice! This game is the Devil May Cry experience we love, and it delivers style like no action game before it.
DmC is Ninja Theory’s reboot of the Capcom series that started out as a Resident Evil sequel in the PS2 era. The story begins with a fantastically voice-acted cutscene introducing us to the antagonist, Mundus, a demon lord controlling humanity through media, debt, and energy drinks. Capitalism BAD!
After a wild night out, Dante, the protagonist of DmC, wakes up in his trailer to a man in a mask on the television talking about a so-called terrorist group, “The Order”, and how humanity must free itself of its shackles. A hunter demon attacks as Dante meets a girl from The Order named Kat, who says she will help him, and he is pulled into Limbo, an alternate version of reality where demons exist and the world is twisted and contorted.
DmC emanates style like I have never before witnessed in a game. When Dante is pulled into Limbo, the world changes around him, sometimes stretching floors and walls before the player, or opening pits into nothingness below. Architecture crumbles and morphs into a twisted version of what was seen before, even going so far as changing gravity and allowing Dante to battle demons upside-down.
In keeping the review spoiler-free, it becomes difficult to explain some of the wicked changes to the environment without ruining some of the surprises throughout – however, a great example of the twists in the world is at one point in DmC, a character is explaining a method of attacking a compound by drawing with chalk on the ground, and when Limbo emerges, the world is covered in chalk scrawls and arrows. Words do not do this game’s look justice.
The gameplay is still as frenetic as ever before in the series, with juggles, style points, and a great upgrade system. Even gamers with little experience or interest in a combo-driven action game have a lot to love here. SSS ranks, the highest attainable prize in a fight are easier to achieve in DmC than previous titles, but are still as rewarding as ever. Switching weapons on the fly using the d-pad allows for combos utilizing any of the numerous tools in Dante’s arsenal, and a new system of pulling yourself towards enemies or pulling foes towards you using two different grappling hooks mixes up battles in many new ways.
Each weapon (aside from Dante’s guns – Ebony and Ivory are back! – as well as a couple others) has an alignment to either demon or angel abilities, and mixing these up in a fight is key to surviving many of the later battles in which enemies begin to have a weakness to one or the other.
Combos continue to flow even when switching weapons, and so the player can effectively use every ability in one long run if there is no damage sustained to pull back the ranking to a C or D from a possible SSS.
A big part of previous Devil May Cry titles was the difficulty and uniqueness to the boss battles. DmC is no exception to the latter half of this, though I never had much trouble against any of these super-powered foes, even playing through first on Hard mode. One complaint I have regarding bosses was that the game tended to explain a little too much in these fights. A supporting character might call out “shoot it in the face” or a glowing orb might broadcast exactly where to aim your attacks.
Despite my complaint, one boss fight in particular was one of the most exciting and strange events in recent memory. I won’t spoil it, but I am certain you’ll know it when you get to it.
The game carries a great sense of humor despite some of its darker undertones. The rebooted Dante still maintains his old cheesey badass attitude, and this is reinforced in some great voice acting. His one-liners are especially funny, though he is serious when he needs to be. The other characters are all acted well too, but Dante stands out as some of the finest voice acting I have heard in some time.
When thinking of the Devil May Cry franchise, it is easy to see why some players might be turned off to this kind of game. The action combat might seem daunting – or perhaps even boring – and the cocky main character might be misconstrued as uninteresting. I can assure you that neither of these claims are true. The combat feels great, particularly mixing up weapons and attacks on the fly to garner that valued SSS ranking at the statistics page of each mission, and Dante as a character is just as interesting as Uncharted‘s Nathan Drake or inFamous‘s Cole McGrath.
I never found myself wishing for the game to end, or being stuck and frustrated. This game is not a typical hack and slash action adventure. It offers so much more than that. Enemy waves are mixed up enough and with every tool at Dante’s disposal, combat becomes its own strategy meta-game. No mindless button-mashing to be seen in DmC, though I’m sure that the game would be possible on easy mode to slosh through like that.
DmC Devil May Cry may have a terrible name (Where is the colon!? And why is it named twice!?) but the game offers so much to love and with the replayability introduced in the several game modes (Remixed enemy groupings, one hit kill and death, and stronger foes), as well as the leader boards for every mission’s statistics, there is a lot of game here.
Action game fans and more casual gamers alike have a place in DmC. Whether your interests include stringing together intense combos or following an interesting story, or even just seeing something stylistically different than anything before, you have a great game in the latest offering in the much-loved Devil May Cry franchise. Oh, and Dante’s hair can be changed to white after your first play through – so don’t worry about that.
