Devil May Cry 1-5 & DmC

[ratsoalbion]

Another series that deserves its own thread, be it the Hideki Kamiya original, Ninja Theory's imminent reboot or anything in between.

Right now - with a week before we record Issue 63 of the podcast - we're most interested in your reminiscences and opinions regarding Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening and/or Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening Special Edition in either SD or HD flavours.

[mikeleddy83]

Haven't played DMC3 for years but I remember the boss battle with Vergil in a (water?) cave sticking out to me as the most memorable point, will have to revisit.

[SnakeyDave]

Only the odd numbered DMCs are any good and DMC 3 is probably the series highlight. Thankfully, it abandoned the po-faced seriousness of 2 and embraced how camply stupid - and therefore wonderful- Dante and DMC universe is.

I struggle to remember exactly what the story was about but it was told in an appropriately self aware and humorous way, but what really stuck out in my mind were the incredibly fun cutscenes peppered throughout. Dante is a strange character. He's so ridiculously designed; huge sword, big red coat, long blond hair, dual pistols and a rock and roll attitude (oh the phallic symbols). He's so blatantly designed to appeal an adolescent male audience that he can't help but seem silly. But unlike Kratos, who is also stupidly macho Dante in DMC 3 is fun, and I can't help but find him cool, in an admittedly adolescent look-at-that-long coat-swish kind of way.

I've always enjoyed the gameplay of the DMC series most among its genre brethren. It's more fluid and engaging than the lumbering God of War, and encourages greater experimentation than the ruthlessly fun but overly swift Ninja Gaiden. DMC 3 is probably the most challenging of the series, the early boss fight with the Cerberus probably being an icy difficulty spike too sharp for many. Once you've become skilled enough to pass it, you quickly become accustomed to the game's rhythm and challenge. Only Agni and Rudra were a particular point of frustration back when I originally played. The ability to switch weapons on the fly created supremely fun combo opportunities; juggling and moving between enemies resulted in frequently balletic action. Maintaining a SSS ranking was one of the bigger gaming highs than I can remember from my childhood.

Although the original DMC probably remains my favourite, partly as it's a bit more horror (starting out as a resident evil) and has a better setting and atmosphere, DMC 3 is undoubtedly the pinnacle of the series, and for a time, the genre, until Bayonetta went and blew it out the water.

[Scrustle]

DMC 4 was the first game in the series I ever played, and I thought it was great. Before that the only similar game I'd ever played was the original God of War, and I really enjoyed that so I thought I would give this one a go too. I really loved the fluidity and stylishness of the combat in DMC 4, especially using Nero. Although I agree with people that the way they pretty much recycle the first half of the game in the second half is kind of cheap, it didn't really annoy me that much. You were playing a different character with a completely different play style, so it felt sufficiently unique to me. In fact I also found it quite fun seeing how Dante's interactions with characters we'd already seen differed from Nero's earlier.

I've only ever played the old PS2 trilogy relatively recently, although I had been aware of the franchise for a while before DMC 4 came out. I just never bothered to get round to buying them until the HD re-releases came out. Even then, I didn't buy them immediately. I'm not having as much fun with it as with DMC 4, for several reasons. Originally I intended to go through each game in release order, but I've found the first game to be near unplayable. I can understand why it is though. It was pretty much the first game in its genre, and it was spawned from a game of a completely different style (Resident Evil 4), and I think as a result DMC 1 doesn't really feel like it understands how to do what it's doing well. That style of combat has been honed pretty well now, even by games of a different genre, so DMC 1 feels pretty terrible in comparison. The camera is awful, the controls feel clunky and unresponsive, and the move set is pretty limited. The graphics don't stand up well any more either. I got up to the point where you fight Nelo Angelo the first time and I just decided I couldn't fight through all the shortcomings of the game when I only really wanted to play the game to get it under my belt.

But I didn't give up completely on the series. After that I decided to forget the idea of going through all the games in sequence and just went straight to DMC 3. I heard DMC 2 was by far the worst in the series, so I thought it would be even more of a waste of time than DMC 1 and just didn't bother with it. Although my time with DMC 3 so far hasn't been very long, it's clearly a vastly improved game over the first. Controls feel much better, there's many times more moves and the camera isn't a huge pain in the arse. Graphics are a huge leap up too. But even though it was much better, I was still having trouble with it. Not because of the quality of the game, but because of my own skill. Even thought I enjoy the DMC series, I am absolutely awful at it. Really terrible. Even though I had finished DMC 4 it was only on the easiest difficulty. I've gotten about half way through on the next level up, but got stuck and moved on to other things. I've been playing DMC 3 on the default difficulty so far and I've gotten up to Cerberus and was slaughtered several times in a row before I gave up. I wasn't angry at the game though, like I was wit DMC 1. I didn't feel like I was battling a terrible and unfair game just to stay alive, but rather I was just not up to the level of skill I needed to be. But even in that case, I get easily frustrated with failing repeatedly at games, so I walked away from it. I'll get back to it eventually, but when I do I think I'll have to allow myself to die a few times on purpose until the prompt comes up to lower the difficulty.

As for DmC, I'm cautiously optimistic. I've played the demo, and I thought it was pretty good. I've played through Enslaved and judging from that Ninja Theory may not have been the best choice for a studio to make a fast-paced action game. But the demo mostly put those concerns to rest. The combat feels fast and fluid, and very much like a DMC game, even at 30fps. The soundtrack is also pretty cool in my opinion. I also really liked the environments and some of the themes they seem to be covering in the story. I liked how the world was presented as what we normally see only being a veil for the demon world underneath, and the way that world moves and twists as you move around it. The fact that it's pretty colourful is a plus too. The way they're tying that in to the narrative looks pretty cool as well. The way that events and ideologies in our world are just fronts used for manipulation for the demons' own purposes. Like the way the obvious Fox News parody is presented as actually being a tool of the demons to track down Dante by spinning lies about him. They could do a lot with that.

But there were some things about it I wasn't so keen on. The control layout seemed really odd and alien for one thing. Having to hold down RT and LT to do certain things felt unintuitive. It felt okay in combat, but outside of fighting it felt peculiar. I was starting to get used to it by the end of the demo though, so I don't think it'll be a big problem. I'm also not really a fan of what they have done with Dante. I've got absolutely no problem with how they've made him look, and I personally think the criticisms about that are pretty silly, but the way he's written is what I have a problem with. He's a knob. While the old Dante came across as someone who had a comedic flamboyance, and was fully aware of that and able to have a lot of fun with it, the new Dante comes across and an anti-social arse. He swears because he thinks it makes him sound edgey, and has no respect for anyone around him. The old Dante was much more engaging and fun, while the new Dante is someone who I would avoid at all costs if I ever met him in real life. He's not alone in the game as being a foul-mouthed scumbag, but that doesn't excuse him. But even still, I'm looking forward to playing the full game. I'll just do my best to ignore what Dante says and does when I'm not controlling him.

But that's not my last word on the topic. I've also played another demo that relates to these games. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. In a way it's a spiritual successor to the original four DMC games, as was Bayonetta, since it's made by many of the game people that worked on them. I never personally played Bayonetta, but I hear it's very good, and worthy of carrying on the torch from DMC. Revengeance seems to be following in that trend. Although the demo is pretty short, it is fantastic. Controls feel really great and the dicing mechanic was really fun and satisfying. The game looks gorgeous too. The design of everything looks great and the overall fidelity is brilliant. From what I experienced story-wise it seems like it's going to be great too. I've never played any of the Metal Gear games before, but I understand that their stories and themes tend to be very philosophical and esoteric. It seems this time round there won't be any change to that. At the end of the demo I fought a robot dog with a chainsaw on the end of its tail, who throughout the fight was discussing the purpose of life and the agency of A.Is with Raiden. I love stuff like that and if the rest of the game is like that then I'm sold. If there's anything negative I had to say about the demo it would be that the enemy variety wasn't too thrilling. I guess it's another aspect that had to be in the game to make it fit within the Metal Gear universe, but for most of the demo I found myself fighting nothing but generic soldier dudes and a few smaller Metal Gears. It's a bit underwhelming when you compare it to the monsters and demons of DMC and Bayonetta, but it was only a demo. Hopefully the full game will have more interesting stuff in it.

[Todinho]

Well I only played DMC 1&2,While I loved DMC 1 for it's ridiculous story,fast-paced&challenging gameplay and great creativite in general I hated the sequel,the level design was both bad and boring just as the overall enemy design and not even the combat felt all that good to play,the story was dull and didnt made much sense,not that the first game was a masterpiece in storytelling but it had a compelling plot at least.The game left me such a bad taste that I quit the series and never looked back,everybody says that DMC 3 reddems it all but I never mustered the courage to play it,well maybe the podcast can change that.

[Combine Hunter]

Dude, I absolutely agree with you on DMC 2. It's terrible. But DMC 3 does more than redeem the franchise, it's one of the absolute best 3D brawlers out there. The difference in quality between 2 and 3 is staggering.

[delb2k]

For a long time DMC 3 was the pinnacle of the 3rd person action game for me. A violently impactfull ballet of brutality and acrobatics where so much time had been spent on the mechanics it was almost impossible to find a fault.

The reason for this was the way the game allowed the player to express themselves through their own ability with Dante. The designers knew what they wanted to create, a system of moves and dodges that never broke that feeling of being in control while always teasing possibilities in front of you. From the inter-changable weapons to fast switching from melee to bullets no character had ever felt so brimming with power and yet so challenging to master, the joy of finding a new set of moves that fit perfectly together is one thing that will always be a highlight and something only recently re-awakened in Bayonetta and, happily, the DmC demo.

Plus it was tough. Not unfairly so but it was very aware that it wanted to present a challenge and punish those that did not take the time to learn the art of dodging and timing. Any room could leave the player feeling like a god once emptied. The next could leave them feeling like a fool in a split second.

The only sections I felt less happy about were the boss battles. While the levels revelled in expression the bosses I found to be a ritualistic chore of pattern match timing. The story was slightly cookie cutter but to be honest that was the last consideration I had while playing this.

This was as perfect an expression of combat as I could have wanted in a genre that the western developers have never managed to hit the heights of. The upcoming reboot shows a ton of promise with Capcom hopefully giving Ninja Thoery that final piece of the combat puzzle they have been trying to solve since Heavenly Sword.

[James]

I tried Devil May Cry when I finally picked up a PS2 around 2005. Great fun until the first battle with Phantom (yes, that early), at which point I broke against his stony hide like weak sauce on rocks. To my shame, I never did beat him and haven't played 2 or 3 either. Thankfully the HD Collection on Xbox 360 sits near the top of my 'To Play' list and will be conquered in due time.

Devil May Cry 4 is, therefore, the only game in the series I have completed. I enjoyed it much more than most, likely due to not having the long shadow of DMC3 cast over it. I did struggle to reach decent rankings for each area or crack open the SS and SSS Combat Adjudicators though - I guess I'm not blessed with even the sort of skills that Darren Forman would call 'basic'. Alas!

[Jerome McI]

For me Devil May Cry 3 was one of my favourite games on the PS2, the combat was challenging but made you feel like a badass when you manage to pull off the an amazing multi-weapon combo and the story engrossed me completely with the conflict between the two brothers. While I did play the 1 & 2, they just didn't hook me like 3 did and as for 4, while I enjoyed the gameplay the story just wasn't up to snuff considering the quality of 3. All in all I'm definitely looking forward to DMC the new take on the franchise has me optimistic and after playing the demo my doubts of Ninja Theory's combat capabilities were squashed.

[ratsoalbion]

Solid review scores coming for DmC.:
http://www.capcom-unity.com/gregaman/bl ... res-abound

As I have no money right now, and I'm about to get a new PC, I shall wait, pay less and play it in 60fps on that format.

[Sean]

I'm kind of excited to check out DmC tomorrow, but, I'm sad to see reviews say the story and characters are bad. That was Ninja Theory's strong suit, IMO.

[Scrustle]

Solid review scores coming for DmC.:
http://www.capcom-unity.com/gregaman/bl ... res-abound

As I have no money right now, and I'm about to get a new PC, I shall wait, pay less and play it in 60fps on that format.

Haha! I like how they took the obviously suggestive innuendo in the Destructoid review as the quote from it.

Also I think it's kind of silly that some places scored it at 8.9. I mean, really? They're saying that the game is exactly 1% worse than a game that would score a 9? That's just petty and arbitrary.

Anyway, I'm glad the game got good scores. I'm not sure if I would have rated it so high from my experience, but I've still got a lot of the game to go.

[Sean]

What's even better is that IGN stopped using that scale for a couple years because of that very thing, only to go back to it last year and now we've seen a couple times.

I think they gave Halo 4 a 9.8, as well. It's silly.

[NokkonWud]

I'm sure many of you know I've been playing this over the weekend and yesterday and I've almost finished the SP campaign, or, at least my first playthrough because I do intend to go through it again.
It really is fantastic and the slew of 8's and 9's certainly don't surprise. For me it's exactly how you go about crafting the re-imagining of something. Ninja Theory have knocked it out of the park.
I love it.

I'm kind of excited to check out DmC tomorrow, but, I'm sad to see reviews say the story and characters are bad. That was Ninja Theory's strong suit, IMO.

The story is pretty standard fare, it's certainly nothing new, however, the way in which it's presented means that it's not a problem. The presentation is slick. Really slick. For me it's better than anything we've seen Ninja Theory do, from the phenomenal environment design, beautiful colour palettes, intuitive combat to the truly fabulous soundtrack (it works so well!) and it's all done in a way that's so self-aware that I found it very easy to just get wrapped up in it and see it through.

As for the characters? It's not Trip and Monkey, but I'll tell you right now, it's still better than the majority of games manage. I love the new Dante, the youthful rebellion of his character in this, his image, his voice, his attitude, I found him interesting and I'd look forward to the next cut-scene just to see what would be said and done next. Then there's Kat who I really like as a character, she's not as strong of a character as Nariko or Trip, but she's still a good character, it's just that DmC makes no bones that Dante is the star of the show. That's not to say Kat is overlooked or that Ninja Theory overlooked trying to create a bond between the two, they do and for me, succeeded. Just because it's the worst of the 3 doesn't make it bad.

Ultimately I guess my feelings are that people are being too precious. Old Dante is iconic, sure, but there were 4 original Devil May Cry games and only two of those are even remotely revered as classics, so why not change it up? It's the right call and, when it's done like this and done this well, I struggle to see the majority of criticism I've seen as anything other than resentful bitterness towards the change. Ignore that, remove that from your mind as you play and enjoy one of the best games in the genre released in many years.

[aidopotato]

Only getting to listen to the podcast now so sorry for the tardy post- but thought as a service to folk who are only discovering the game now, I'd clarify something that wasn't mentioned re: devil triggering in DMC3 (apologies to those who already know this- thought I'd just mention it for those that don't);
Devil mode is powered down from what it was in the previous outings (he's faster, yes, but not dramatically stronger) However, the really useful application is his devil trigger explosion (DTE). In essence- once you have upgraded his devil trigger meter past the base 3, instead of tapping the dt button, you can hold it down. You'll notice that the markers on his DT meter will begin flashing red (first the 4th, then the 5th and so on). When you let go, instead of just DTing like normal you will 'explode' into devil mode- damaging all the enemies around you.
This ranges from doing slight stun damage to those nearby (1 or 2 flashing markers) to wholesale annihilation of all standard enemies (a fully-upgraded DTE) to the most powerful single maneuver in the game, capable of halving most bosses health bars (full DTE combined with royal guard's just release).
It's not even that tricky to do, once you start exploiting it. It saved my bacon many times when i was obsessed with this game back in the day; it's an absolute must for taking on DMD mode, and is by far the most useful thing about devil trigger mode in this iteration of the game.

[ratsoalbion]

Crikey, that sounds useful - and fun!
Thanks for the insight aidopotato and apologies for not covering this in the podcast.

[aidopotato]

Yeah- it's a bit of a gamechanger. I should've also pointed out that doing this instantly burns all the flashing DT markers, so the time you spend in DT mode is reduced, but it's well worth it (if you drop it in mid-combo in a mob of baddies, your style meter goes through the roof).
Also, while not quite as powerful as DTE+Just Release, combining it with Real Impact (Beowulf/Swordmaster move) does mad damage to a single enemy.

[Scrustle]

That Devil Trigger Explosion does sound really useful. I'll have to try it out next time I'm playing DMC 3. I'm sure if I used it before then I would have gotten past the boss I'm currently stuck on with much more ease. So far I haven't even used Devil Trigger at all. Same with DmC. I keep forgetting that it's there. I haven't been told I can even use it yet in either game.

And as for the criticisms for DmC, I agree it is just being "precious" and resistant to change. I've been hearing a lot of the people complaining about how their "legitimate" issues are being ignored and they keep getting straw-manned by people saying that they're still just complaining about Dante's redesign. But I've taken a look at these "legitimate" complaints, and what they're saying is that the game has been watered down and the combat is far less deep than before.

I guess it's true no one has really addressed those complaints, but they're simply false. Combat is pretty much the same as it's always been in the series. You have similar types of weapons and each have a wide range of different moves comparable to older games. A lot of the actual moves are even lifted from older games. The only significant difference is that there are less weapons. But DmC still has a fairly wide range, and counting the number of weapons in a game as if that has any correlation with quality is just stupid. If that were true then surely Borderlands would be several million times better than every single DMC game combined.

Also I've been noticing that DmC actually feels slightly more responsive than DMC 3. Playing them literally back to back DMC 3 feels like there is a very minute delay between button button input and on-screen action compared to DmC. It's still very responsive, but DmC feels just ever so slightly more so. Dante also feels slightly more mobile in DmC. You can dodge in any direction any time you want. You also have more aerial combat options, like an extended version of what Nero was capable of in DMC 4.

So these accusations of the game being dumbed down and made too simple and easy are just baseless. It's just rabid fanboy rage at seeing something change. It's the same kind of knee-jerk reaction we see any time any series with a devoted fanbase does something slightly different. This fanboy rage also blinds these people. This is another thing I see so often in cases like this. They are furious at the game when they see the announcement; people rebuke them by saying they haven't played the game; the demo/game comes out and they play it; they still hate it because they went in to it determined to hate it because they won't ever allow any entertainment of the idea that they may have been wrong; they use their skewed experience of the game to justify their hate so they'll never be dissuaded. It's just so futile and frustrating and merely one of the reasons why we need to kick this stupid fanboy mentality out of the medium, and when it goes as far as it has with this game then that should be a wake up call to everyone that we need to do something about it.

[ratsoalbion]

You speak both truth and sense Scrustle.
I believe that fanboyism is borne almost entirely of insecurity, so until humans aren't profoundly insecure beings I think we'll have to continue to suffer their tedium and ignorance, sadly. They can be incredibly frustrating, but remind yourself that you're enjoying life more than they are and pity them instead.

[NokkonWud]

I really don't like not being able to pick at least one negative out of a sizeable post to have a discussion about, but you're exactly right Scrustle.
DmC isn't "watered down", it's just slightly different. There are less weapons, but even still, there are 7 weapons, plus chaining to and pulling enemies to you and Devil Trigger, so there's not exactly a shortage either.

I was annoyed at the negativity around the game prior to playing it, after playing it and seeing the quality that this game oozes (and it really does), I'm actually quite livid. Seeing so many people who's opinion I find does matter and who I do pay attention to (Darren G and Sean from this podcast, Brad Gallaway of Game Critics) going wild about how much they're loving it shows me that Ninja Theory are the right people for the job and that Capcom's decision to hand it to them was both well thought out and supported.