DMC: Devil May Cry review

I'm going to take a break from book reviews here for a minute. Today's review is going to show how absolutely nerdtastic I really am. I don't hide the fact that not only am I a complete book worm, but also a video game junkie. My video game collection is actually far more vast than my book piles.

I have been a HUGE fan of the Devil May Cry series since it was originally released in 2001. It was my main reason for owning a Playstation 2. All three of the original PS2 games are fantastic. Yes, story telling could have been better, but for what the lack in story is more than made up for in combat and characters.

Dante. Who doesn't love our white haired half demon, half human. He's witty and just an all around bad ass. Put him together with Trish and it's pure gold. The loss of Trish almost made me throw my controller in to the tv, but I eventually got over it and played the 3rd game. Random chick didn't fill the void the Trish left, but at least Dante was there. Plus the showdown with this twin brother Vergil was epic.

The fourth game took some time to get in to. I wanted to love Nero and eventually I learned. But a Dante look alike just wasn't the same. Although fighting against Dante was pretty neat in the beginning.

Now, in 2013 we come to DMC: Devil May Cry. This game is a reboot, which should have told me to stay the hell away. But I'm a diehard fan. I ignored the fandom voice in my brain and bought it.

 First I list off the things I really did like about this game.

The combat in this game was much more fluid and responsive. Combos were easy to pull off. And for a combo moron such as myself it was actually kind of nice.

The graphics are nothing short of amazing. Characters and even scenery look very realistic.

I really did enjoy seeing how the tension between Dante and Vergil all started. You do go in knowing some of the history between these two, but it's nice to get the full story.

I am one of the few who actually likes Dante's new look.

The level's of difficulty in this game are insane. With each play through you earn a new difficulty level. If you can make it through the "Dante must die" difficulty left then my hat is off to you. There is also "Heaven and Hell" as well as "Hell and Hell" which I can't believe people have already beat. Enemies are insanly hard and can kill Dante with one hit. I dig all the difficulty level choices.

Now for what I didn't like about the game.

While I do like Dante's new and younger look. Good god his attitude. He looks like an emo, I half expected him to act like it. Hell, I would have preferred it. The "I don't give a shit" attitude is becoming a norm among video game protagonists lately. I feel this must end. And where the hell did Dante's sense of humor go? Yes there are SOME lines that produced a bit of a chuckle, but not very many. I missed his wit and charm. Oh and the pizza eating. Where did his pizza obsession go? I could have made this a much shorter paragraph had I just said Ninja Theory did a great job of bastardizing Dante's character.

The voice acting is just bad and laughable. Actually, this made me laugh more than the so called jokes.

DMC has never been a storyline kind of franchise. I can accept this. While I do GREATLY enjoy the shots a Fox News in this game, it gets tired very quickly. Big bad demon (who killed Dante and Vergil's parents), is trying to enslave humanity....blah, blah and blah. There comes a point in the game where you just want to say screw it, demons can win for all I care.

I said earlier that I enjoy combat. What I don't enjoy switching between weapons to kill certain enemies. Midway through the game you get more weapons. As cool as these weapons are, the further you get into the game the less useful these special weapons become. It all becomes very confusing as to which weapon you need to kill what enemy. Yes, red means demonic and white means angelic. But when you start forgetting which button controls which weapon, it starts to become very frustrating and frankly not very much fun anymore.

The combo system is way to easy on players. In the original games you lost combo points for breaking from a combination of swings. It's so freaking easy to get points that it hardly seems worth doing combos at all. You loose points whenever you're hit or interrupted by an enemy, but with a dodge button getting hit is hardly a problem at all.  

Kat. Oh Kat. The most boring woman to ever enter into the DMC universe. Far more boring than Random chick in the 3rd game. She turns out to be a somewhat love interest for Dante, which just shows you how absolutely freaking boring Dante has become. She has no redeeming qualities that I can think of. Woot! She helped me in a couple of missions. Really, aside from the hunter mission and the portals to limbo, she could have been left out of this game completely.

Earlier missions are far more fun to play through. Here we come back to memorizing which button controls which weapon. The weapons early on are relevant and easy to remember. Plus these levels are just plain fun to play through.

The ending. Well. What do say about the ending. It was very.....unfulfilled. But Ninja Theory left it open for a second game. yay. I guess.

It's not by any means a horrible game. It's actually pretty fun to play for a short period of time. But if you are a die hard DMC fan you will find many faults. If you are just coming in to this series and haven't played any of the original games, then this reboot is for you. I don't seem myself coming back to play it unless they put out some kick ass DLC.

On the typical gamer rating scale I give this game a 5(maybe a 5 and a half)/10