There are times where I would consider myself to be a bit of a rubbish gamer. Not because of my general skill when it comes to playing the games themselves, but because of the list of games, and gaming franchises that have passed me by over the years. Sometimes it’s been down to games being on a platform that I didn’t have at the time, other times it is pure negligence on my part. Amongst the plethora of games that I’ve missed is the Devil May Cry series. And recently released is the reboot of DMC. There has been a lot of uproar from hardcore fans of the series about the change in direction for the series, in particular the look of the main character Dante. But I went into the game with no preconceptions of what to expect. And while I am generally familiar with what the game once was, having not played the older generation of the game, I was optimistically excited by what I had seen in the build up to release.
For those who aren’t aware, DMC is a hack and slash beat ‘em up game from Ninja Theory, focussed on the exploits of a young male named Dante. Dante is a nephilim, the spawn of Demon and Angel. Having these genes give Dante a huge range of abilities and weapons to use to reach his goal – avenge the death of his mother, and his father’s eternal imprisonment. He is not alone in this though, he is joined by his brother Vergil, and psychic Kat. On the way to their goal they need to overcome huge amounts of demons in order to get to the main target – the demon lord Mundus. Ninja Theory has made an effort to focus on the story telling in this reboot. And by doing so have included a massive amount of cutscenes, both short and long. And while the story is relatively strong, the overuse of cutscenes can sometimes take away from what DMC is meant to be.
DMC, at its core, is a game for the combo hungry gamers that strive to string together a huge amount of attacks and watch their scores soar to silly heights in the quest to climb up leaderboards and beat previous records. Saying that it is very easy to pick up and play. I quickly found myself combining different weapons, ground attacks and air attacks and what I saw on screen was a superbly smooth transition from one move to the next. Everything happens so quickly and seemingly effortlessly on screen that even the most simple of attacks look impressive. It’s not just the fighting that looks good in this game, the environments that you fight in are some of the most brilliantly artistic, creative and imaginative that I’ve seen in a long while. Combined with ever changing enemy types there’s plenty to keep your eyes interested.
Stringing together combos won’t be the only things you’ll be doing. DMC has its fair share of platforming in between battles, where you need to get from one area to the other by combining different jumping techniques and angel/demon grappling hooks. There are also plenty of hidden goodies to find and collect, a huge range of secret missions, and upgrades to unlock for each weapon and ability. Along with a load of different difficulty modes to complete, there is plenty of bang for your buck.
The music is another strong point of the game. Ninja Theory expertly recruited Noisia and Combichrist to create the soundtrack. And unsurprisingly they have created and excellently dark, bassy and noisy soundtrack to accompany the in game fights. As soon as each track kicks in it really gets you immersed and fits the tone of the game perfectly.
Despite all of the massive positives, my problem with the game is that it doesn’t hold my attention as long as I would like. I wanted to continue through the story, but I found myself wanting a break from the fighting for a while, and couldn’t play the game for longer than an hour or so. A long gaming session wasn’t on the cards for me. But every time I went back for an hour or so at the time I did enjoy myself. I’m sure that people who enjoy beat ‘em up games won’t experience the longevity issues that I did, as it’s something that I experience with fighting games in general.
If you were a fan of the previous Devil May Cry games, I’d hope that you wouldn’t immediately dismiss DMC just because of its change in direction to previous games, as you’d be missing out on a cracking game. And if this will be your first visit to the DMC universe, you’re sure to have a blast.
