Ok doke, so for another wee change, here is a look at video game for a change, this time I've chosen to look at Devil May Cry, which was originally a PS2 game, which was released back in 2001. Recently though it was re-released for the Xbox 360 as part of a remastered HD collection, along with DMC 2 and 3. But for this post I will mainly focus on the original, so here we go into geek mode.
The game begins with demon hunter, Dante, who is receives a visit from a strange lady called Trish, who attacks him with a sword, but he impressively fights her off, and he tells her that he hunts demons, who were responsible for the deaths of his mother and his brother. Trish tells Dante that the demon emperor Mundus, is planning to make a return, who was responsible for the deaths of Dante's family. Dante then makes a trip to a castle with Trish, who vanishes over the castle walls, leaving Dante to explore the castle, and inside he faces a variety of demons, including marionettes, a big hybrid spider/scorpion, a bizarre shape shifting cat, called shadow. Later Dante is attacked by a demon Nelo Angelo, who later on turns out to be his identical twin, and long lost brother, and after Vergil eventually dies, Dante takes Nelo's half amulet, which turns out to be identical to the one Dante has. On forming the two halves of the amulet, which transforms Dante's sword into the legendary Sparda sword, that once belonged to his father (also called Sparda funnily enough). Sparda was once a legendary demon fighter, but after time he settled down with a wife and two children, one being Dante and the other Vergil. As the story progresses it is revealed that Trish also works for Mundus and betrays Dante to him, however Dante chooses to save Trish when her life is in danger, and soon after, Dante does battle with Mundus to determine his fate and the fate of the world.
Devil may cry was for its time was quite ground breaking with its innovations in its control system, action scenes and gothic visuals. The gameplay itself is really good, and it is quite easy to control Dante, and the combat system itself is quite simple. However the camera angles do somewhat restrict the movement a little, as Dante can only turn in certain ways that the camera angles allow. Also the visuals, while they look stunning for their time, and still do, they are almost more like a 2D backdrop, and they lack the three dimensional feel, that some later action games would employ. Dante also moves a bit of a plodding pace when he has not engaged his special powers, but when he does use them, particularly the demon triggers, he can move like lightning.
And the gameplay mechanics of Devil may cry are definitely one of the games most impressive elements, as well as how Dante's powers can be upgraded, such as his speed, movement, and his ability to perform different attacks, such as aerial lightning attacks and my personal fav being the stinger attacks, where Dante drives his sword lunging forward into a stabbing attack to knock down his enemies. The weapons are also quite cool, with Dante's main guns, which he nicknames as Ebony and Ivory are standard, but they are good in a quick fight against some of the fast moving baddies, and there are is a shotgun, which can be used effectively at close range, mainly against the spooky ghosts that attack you with giant scisscors! Later on Dante also receives a pretty cool grenade launcher, although if memory serves it is a little bit slow with its rate of fire (I might be wrong there!).
The game however isn't without some flaws, and there are one or two that are quite frustrating, one of them being that you can't save your progress during a level, you have to wait until you have finished the level before you can save again. This is especially frustrating when you are facing a tough battle against one of the many bosses in the game, of which there are many! The game also has some limiting options, particularly when Dante is killed and you have to use special yellow orbs in order to bring him back to life, and you can only have so many, and it starts with three, and if you use them all up, you have to reload your saved game, and start all over again! Its almost like the game designers deliberately don't want to make things easy for you, although if you do lose in a boss fight, if you do get brought back to life, you do at least start back at the checkpoint just before the battle. The camera movement is also a bit annoying at times, as it feels pretty static as I already said, and it still has the feel of the early Resident Evil games, with the pre-rendered visuals, and it wasn't until Resident Evil 4, where they impressively brough the whole 3D interactive experince to life.
And one of the main criticisms that can be levelled at DMC has to be its difficulty level, the game is far from easy, and it will challenge you. You will also face some of the bosses more than once, as they reappear, particularly ones such as the hyrbid spider/scorpion creature, the shape shifting cat like creature. However out of all the bosses the toughest one by far has to be Nightmare, which is basically a giant amorphous blob, which produces a number of bizarre attacks, and if it get's the chance it can consume Dante into its underbelly where you have to fight baddies that it has digested, which you have to fight in order to get out! And yes you have to face Nightmare more than once as well, but for me once was quite enough, and it left me tearing my hair out trying to defeat it.
However... in retrospect, having played the game again, I actually didn't find Nightmare to be that bad this time round, maybe because I had stocked up well in extras, and if you use the air hike (let's Dante do a double jump in the air) it let's you evade his attacks alot easier, so a bit ironic that one, after all this time that it turns out it wasn't that bad. However one of the tougher bosses I found was the Griffin, a giant bird (funnily enough!) which has a variety of electrical attacks, that it can throw at you in different sizes and shapes. But... it has to be said (update) now that I've finished the game, that the toughest boss in it is by far the head honcho of the badasses, Mundus. Mundus takes two forms (well actually three) throughout the battle and both those parts are pretty tough, particularly the first one, where you have to defeat Mundus in the skies, as he takes on a God like form, who hurls lightning bolts and fireballs at you from all directions, as well as powerful rays, and in the second you fight him on the ground, where he summons firey dragons out of volcanic lava. And it has to be said I struggled with this big guy as I was shot down more than once by him, but eventually I managed to get past him, but it was pretty frustrating!
And I think the key to getting past these bosses is to stock up on orbs, and buy yourself some extra capabilities, such as the vital star to revitalise your health, devil trigger guages to increase the amount of time you spent in demon mode (which makes you faster or stronger). And another vital extra you can purchase to help rid yourself of the bosses is holy water, which can be used to drastically reduce the baddies health bar.
Regardless of its flaws though, Devil May Cry is a very impressive game, and the creators deserve nothing but credit for the game's stunning visual presentation, gameplay, story, voice acting, and its impressive ambient score, which as alot of today's games have the almost obligatory heavy metal guitar underlying it! The variety of baddies is also impressive and you will not be disappointed in the choice of bad-asses that you will get. And its no surprise that sequels followed, although Devil May Cry 2, which I haven't played, was considered a letdown, but Devil May Cry 3 was in itself an excellent sequel, and in Devil May Cry 4 we were treated to more of the same.
So that's it for my anaylsis of DMC, its a top game, although its not without its flaws, and it will leave you frustrated at times, but its all worth it.
So that's your lot!
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