DmC: Devil May Cry Review

 

 

 

 

 

 

Right, well figured it was time for a new review rather than just another revisit and this review will be on the action hack and slash game, DmC: Devil May Cry, which was effectively a reboot of the franchise back in 2013. The game itself however received a very mixed response from fans of which some were highly critical of Dante's visual re-imagining as a character. 

So, with that all said, let's take a look at this game and see how it stacks up against the rest of the franchise...

And the usual warning is coming up...

PLOT SPOILERS ARE AHEAD (BUT NOT THAT MANY!)

STORY

So, I will for quickness add a fairly brief part of the plot nicked straight from Wikipedia below.

"The game is set in an alternate reality of the series. The game's story takes place in Limbo City, a modern-day city secretly controlled by all-powerful demons, manipulating humanity through the comforts of life, with the demons themselves residing in a parallel plane called 'Limbo'. Living on the fringes of the brainwashed society is Dante, a young man at odds with the demons who constantly hunt him, and the civilian authorities they control. Dante is warned by a young woman named Kat that he is in danger just as a Hunter demon drags him into Limbo. Dante navigates the Bellevue Pier's carnival and kills the demon with Kat's aid, who can see into Limbo with her psychic powers. Dante returns to the human world and accepts Kat's offer to meet with her boss, Vergil.

Along the way, Kat explains that Vergil leads "The Order", a rogue vigilante organisation intent on exposing the demons and releasing the world from their control. Vergil tells Dante that with his help the Order can bring down the demons. Dante learns that he and Vergil are not only long lost twin brothers but also Nephilim, the children of Angel and Demon and the only beings capable of killing the cruel demon king Mundus. Their demon father Sparda was Mundus' chief lieutenant in the war against the angels until he betrayed Mundus when he fell in love with the angel Eva and sired the twins. Mundus, afraid of the Nephilim, attacked the family and killed Eva. Sparda spirited his sons to safety, wiped their memories for their own protection and gave each a sword (Rebellion for Dante, Yamato for Vergil). Mundus imprisoned Sparda and condemned him to eternal torture and has hunted Dante ever since. After learning of his past, Dante resolves to help Vergil bring down Mundus and his regime".  

THOUGHTS

As a stand-alone game, DmC works very well and it offers an interesting and refreshing new take on the series and even though alot of fans were very unhappy with the game itself, I myself really enjoyed playing it and the combat especially is alot of fun as it very quick and fast paced (much like the other DMC games). The game also features some very interesting game mechanics, which I will get into more below and another of its strengths is in its unique boss designs, which are pretty innovative overall. Dante's personality is similar to in the previous games as he exudes a certain level of cockiness but he is at heart a good guy, who wants to defend the Earth against the evil demons that pervade it.

GAMEPLAY

As for the gameplay, I will cover DmC's different gameplay aspects below in different sub-sections. 

COMBAT 

Starting with combat, this is where DmC itself shines as the combat has plenty of variation and depth as there are many combos and different moves Dante can learn as well as utilise several different melee weapons. Dante's primary weapon however remains as Rebellion, similar to the other swords in the series and he uses his twin pistols, Ebony and Ivory. Dante can unlock new abilities for both himself and his weapons as he progresses through the game and gains XP to do so. These moves can also be practiced in menu before you even try them in the game itself, which is a neat feature. 

ANGEL & DEVIL MODE WEAPONS

As for additional weapons, Dante will have access to two modes in the game known as Angel and Devil mode, these modes can also allow him to pull enemies toward him (angel mode) and objects (devil mode). Also with these modes, Dante can gain access to two different weapons for each, such as Osiris, which is a large scythe type weapon that can be used in Angel mode and the Arbiter, which is a large axe that can be used in devil mode. The other additional weapon for each mode are Eryx for demon mode, which are a pair of fist gauntlets that deal out fire damage and Aquila for angel mode, which are a pair of fast shurikens that emit waves of enery when thrown. Again with these weapons, Dante can upgrade them and unlock new abilities that will enhance Dante's attacks against enemies. 

DEVIL TRIGGER MODE

Another key aspect of the game is the use of devil trigger mode, which features in the other games and will allow Dante to perform more powerful attacks as time slows down and enemies are lifted into the air. This mode can also allow for Dante to gradually recover his health until the devil trigger bar has run out but this bar will be refilled as Dante kills more enemies. You can also pick up small and large devil trigger star items that will refill Dante's devil trigger mode.

ADDITIONAL RANGED WEAPONS

Dante also has some additional ranged weapons that are the Revenant, which is a powerful shotgun that can be used to clear crowds of enemies and Dante can even use it in a nun-chuk type of way as he can fire multiple shots in all directions. And the other additional ranged weapon is Kablooey, which is a firearm that fires explosive needles that Dante can hit his targets with and manually detonates the needles themselves to deal the damage. 

ENEMIES AND BOSSES

As for the enemies, the game its fair share to fight, which are a big array demons that come in all shapes and sizes and present different levels of challenge to the player. In fact each enemy is given their own intro screen with their name for the player to indentify more easily. This however reminded me of watching Guy Ritchie's film, Snatch, where we see the characters names appear together with freeze framed footage of them! 

As for the bosses, there aren't as many bosses in the game as in other DMC entries but the bosses that are in the game are very well designed and do present a fair level of challenge for players depending on what level of difficulty you play them on. The bosses also tend to have more than one phase, which will often force the player to learn and dodge new moves and change your attack method. Overall though, the bosses are pretty decent in the game. 

ORBS

And lastly there are orbs, which are another key part of the game and they are basically Dante's currency for buying items and he obtains them for slaying enemies (well the red orbs are anyway). There are different coloured orbs though as previously mentioned, red orbs provide Dante with currency to buy items, purple orbs however recover devil trigger energy, green orbs restore part of Dante's health and yellow orbs will allow Dante to resurrect upon death.   

GRAPHICS 

Moving onto the graphics, the game looks terrific for its time and thanks to its 2015 remaster in the definitive edition release, it got upgraded to 1080p 60fps, which makes it look even better. The game's environments are definitely rich and varied with plenty of detail and the limbo effects make the game's look very distinctive and unique. Character model wise, the game is also pretty good although it has to be said that all the characters seem to have weirdly pale grey eyes that doesn't look quite right and they do to be honest still look a bit dated by today's standards. Regardless of that though, this is still one good looking game not to mention VERY colourful! 

MUSIC 

As for the music score it was actually composed by two different bands, starting with Noisia who are an electronic trio, who provide some of the game's weird electronica, dub-step style music, which to be fair actually does really suit the game. And the other band is of course an industrial metal one named Combichrist (good name!) who provide some pretty crunchy metal tracks with the singer doing your standard growling into a mic like we hear in so many metal bands! Again though in all fairness, metal has always been a staple of the DMC soundtrack, so they're music is not out of place here. If I had a preference however of course it would be for Noisia and their electronica tracks, which pack more atmosphere but as I said the metal tracks still serve their purpose well enough.  

VOICE ACTING (Warning: this section may contain spoilers!)

As for the voice acting, the cast all do a fine job here. 

Starting with Tim Phillips who is excellent in the main role as Dante, the demon hunter, who is half angel and demon. Phillips does a pretty good job at capturing Dante's heroism while also displaying his cockiness and sense of humour and he even delivers a few good jokes in the game too! 

In fact I will mention a couple of his jokes such as the one where Dante near the start while he runs through the limbo world, it is blowing a storm and all of a suddent a white wig appears out of nowhere that lands on his head and makes him look almost like the Dante we know from the DMC game series. So, Dante looks at himself and after a pause he says "Not in a million years!" and he throws the wig away!

Then there is the scene where Dante struggles to escape a church in which the floor breaks into several parts and he has jump over the gaps to reach the windows. So, on finally jumping out the window, he sees Kat and says to her "Sorry, that seemed to drag on forever! Church!". Then there is the one where Dante infiltrates the building that will lead him up towards Manus and Kat warns him that he will need to go through five levels of hell and Dante steps into a lift and we hear some elevator music as the lift heads up and he quips "Yep, this is hell!" and he get's out the lift and looks at the monstrous climb he has infront of him and he says "Ah this is much better!". 

David de Lautor is also very good in his role as Vergil, Dante's brother, who reaches out to him and asks for his help in taking down Mundus. De Lautor also does a good job at conveying the moral ambiguity of Vergil's character as he appears to be taking down Mundus for all the right reasons but is there something else behind all this??? 

Sage Mears is also pretty good in her role as Kat, a young human female, who helps out both Dante and Vergil (who is her boss in the story). In fact Mears voice actually reminded me of another actress, Valorie Curry as she sounds almost like her when you listen to her!

Louis Herthum is very good too in his role as the main antagonist, Mundus, who controls the limbo world aswell as the mass media that keeps humans brainwashed and it is of course up to Dante to try and destroy him in order to save humanity from his tyranny. Herthum also voices the character of Bob Barbas, who is a media news reader who propagates false stories about Dante and is really of course one of Mundus's demons. In fact his character reminds me of Tucker Carlson from the right wing, conservative new channels, Fox News, who is no stranger to firing out propaganda to the masses! 

Lou Beatty Jr does very well also in his role as Phineas, who is a demon that helps out Dante when he travels into part of the limbo world to track down and destroy Bob Barbus. Dante basically helps recover Phineas's missing electronic eye. 

And last of all is Robin Riker as Lilith, who is Mundus's partner and also carries his child and she also provides some amusing dialogue and banter with Dante as she leads him toward their final fight within her demonic nightclub.  

FLAWS (Warning: this section may contain spoilers relating to the story!)

As for flaws...yeah DmC isn't quite perfect.

For starters, I felt that while the game has a very unique and interesting visual style, its also pretty overkill in the colour department as the colour scheme of the game is pretty extreme with bright reds and greens and everything else!

The game should also have an epilepsy warning with it because in the missions where Dante fights Lilith and her minions, it is in a VERY flashy nightclub with many distracting looking patterns that resemble equalizers (for music that is) not to mention disco lights. This is even arguably worse in the following mission where you fight Lilith and her demon spawn son, who is a giant mutated baby creature and you get nothing but flashy light and equalizer patterns everywhere! In fact I had to turn down the colour on my TV because the colours were so extreme in this part of the game, it was giving me a headache! Thankfully there are no other levels in the game like this.

Another issue I have is to do with the devil trigger mode, which is a bit annoying this time round because when you activate it throws enemies up into the air. However, this can make it difficult for you to properly attack them and it really would have been better if you could activate the devil trigger and keep your enemies on the ground as that would make the process alot easier. 

I also felt there was a frustrating lack of health in the game at times and even though you can buy items at divinity statues that are scattered throughout the missions, the prices inflate each time (like in the other games) you buy a specific item. And this is also compounded by the small amount of orbs you get from killing enemies not to mention the red coloured grubs that are stuck to walls.

Some of the side missions can also be a bit of a pain too as they require Dante to do a series of challenges that can get a bit tedious such as trying to kill a room of enemies without taking a single hit because if he is hit, he will die and has to start all over again. Yeah, this kind of challenge to me can get a bit dull to deal with after a while. To be fair these challenges will offer Dante a chance to farm for more orbs but that's about their main appeal. 

And last of all, I have to say that Dante's character can be a bit of an arrogant dick at times in this game, which I can imagine might have annoyed some fans. Now to be fair, Dante has always been a pretty arrogant character but at the same time he always balanced it out with his good side and heroism. But here there are a still a few moments where we get Dante sounding annoyingly arrogant especially later on where he teases Vergil and says to him "I'm better looking than you" and Vergil says "I'm smarter!" and Dante fires back with "And I have a bigger dick!". I mean how does Dante know that unless he sneaked a peek at Vergil's johnson while Vergil was taking a piss or something??? To be fair though, Dante is still fairly likeable in the game and he is arguably more likeable here than in Devil May Cry 3 where we got a far more annoying arrogant, younger Dante. 

Anyway that's it for the flaws.

SUM UP

So, to sum up, DmC: Devil May Cry is a pretty solid and very entertaining stand-alone video game that pays close homage to the actual franchise with the same character of Dante but with just a different visual look. The game also has great graphics, very fast-paced and fun action as well as a pretty jacked up and energetic soundtrack and even some fine voice acting from its cast. 

It does have some problems of course relating to some gameplay mechanics and its visuals can be a bit too extreme at times in the colour department with some levels guaranteed to give you a headache and have you reach for the remote control to turn the colour down! 

However any flaws aside, DmC is very good game and a pretty underrated one that doesn't get as much appreciation as it maybe should from its fans and I still think its worth a look if you haven't played it yet.

So, I will rate DmC:

8 out of 10. 

So, that's it for now and I'll see you in the next one!