**Be sure to check out Nathan Stevens’ review of the PC version, too!**
The Devil May Cry franchise began on the PS2 and I would argue its one of Capcom’s most prestigious IPs. This is a franchise that has been tempered and not been run amok with too many releases, or re-releases, for that matter. I had hopes for some new DMC news at E3, but alas, nothing yet. Still, this Special Edition of DMC4 that was announced last year has had me interested since I first heard about it.
So what’s the big deal with it anyway? Sure the textures have been bumped up, the game runs in 1080p and 60fps now, that’s all well and good. There have also been some miscellaneous gameplay and balance tweaks although the specifics of these I do not know, I’m not sure if a change log has been shared by Capcom, it does not appear to have been. Several extra costumes are included, and these are not only playable in-game, but they’re also on display during the game’s numerous cutscenes, which is extra effort that I tip my cap to in Capcom’s direction. You also get the Legendary Dark Knight Mode and a Turbo Mode for those hardcore fans and/or Trophy hunters. But the best part about the Special Edition is that the campaign can be re-played with Vergil and also separately with Lady/Trish. As you may know the original game was pretty much split in half with Nero taking the first batch of missions and the legendary Dante taking most of the latter half. Now, you can revisit the story mode and play as Vergil the whole way through, or as Lady/Trish (taking the place of Nero/Dante) with each character having their own animations, weapons, special moves, and voiceovers. In some respects it basically triples the length of the original campaign if you’re think about it in a very generous sense.
The upgrades and extra goodies aside, the core gameplay of DMC4 is still very good, but not without some flaws I’ll get into soon. I had a strange realization around the ninth mission during my play through this past week, and that was that I never finished the game back in 2008! I’m not sure why I am mentioning that now, but it was a weird mix of deja vu and the lack thereof that made it finally sink in that it was not my memory that was lacking, I just literally never completed the story back then. Having done so now with the default pairing of Nero and Dante, I’m sure the reason was something other than the gameplay. DMC4 plays well and is fun, has a decent enough story to sit through the cutscenes, but it does have its fair share of flaws, too. Before getting into those I’ll setup the story, whose content stays almost the same no matter if you play as Nero/Dante, Vergil, or Lady/Trish.
So there is this religious cult known as The Order of the Sword. They worship a demon as their god and, well, there is something mysterious about them (surprise, surprise). They have the citizens of the small town (I believe called Fortuna), including the distrusting Nero and the girl he is in love with, convinced that they are no threat. As the opening cutscene depicts, the leader of this Order is apparently assassinated by none other than Dante, the renowned demon hunter and son of Sparda, the last great Dark Knight. Nero, a powerful yet misinformed and misguided youth, fights Dante, but is humbled by Dante’s skill and his knowledge. Confused, Nero sets out to discover more and also to protect his love interest, Kyrie. With the help of his Devil Arm, most demons, be they common ones like Scarecrows or bosses like Bael, are of little match to Nero.
As the story progresses, Nero becomes, well, unavailable I’ll say, and gameplay shifts to giving control over to Dante. All Proud Souls that you amassed are returned, allowing you to re-tool your skill upgrade allocations for Dante. I thought this was a smart way to allow players to switch protagonists mid-game and still feel both powerful yet still far from fully upgraded. Proud Souls, I might add while I’m at it, are earned during the mission completion summary. You are ranked based on Clear Time, Style, Penalties (Continues, Power Ups Used, etc) and the percentage of Hidden Orbs you found. That said, if you haven’t already guessed, the story is predictable with little to no surprises. But, it’s serviceable, and as such provides a decent backdrop to the action.
DMC as a series is known for stylized, high-combo, super-flashy action — it clearly inspired Platinum when doing Bayonetta and, done well, it’s hella fun. I will say, having recently played through DmC Definitive Edition, that the action in Ninja Theory’s reboot is far more interesting and enjoyable than in DMC4. Playing as Nero, especially after you play as Dante in the same campaign, feels pretty underwhelming. What I played of Lady’s part of the story was too gun/explosive-heavy for my interest, although I am enjoying playing as Vergil. Suffice it to say that DMC4 does have solid DMC-esque combat, no doubt about it, but, it’s not as satisfying or even as intuitive, control-wise, as other efforts in the franchise. While the action is plenty flashy and seeing those Style ranks get into the A and S’ is cool, it just isn’t quite as compelling. Furthermore, it’s hard to put a finger on it, but the controls seemed unnecessarily picky or, well, difficult in a way. It’s not especially hard to pull of any of the combos or actions, but being able to do them ‘on call’ proved more finicky than I was expecting. For example Nero’s jumping sword move, which is Triangle, pause, Triangle, Triangle seemed to demand almost different timing from one execution to the next. If you asked me to do that move like three times in a row back-to-back, I doubt I could. Pick something from DmC though, and I do not think I would have the same issue.
Be that as it may, and, I’m certainly willing to submit that maybe this is my issue more so than the game’s, stabbing, slashing, and shooting your way through DMC4’s story is relatively quick, painless fun. The final boss fight is one of the more annoying ones I have dealt with in recent memory, and I say that having it cleared it without using a continue or a Golden Orb, it was just the design of it that I thought lacked clarity. There were several instances of me trying to stay alive while trying to figure out what the heck the devs wanted me to do, but ultimately it worked out. I got lost several times in the story, too, which is almost hard to believe given that the second half of the game is essentially re-treading the first half in reverse. A few aspects are different, but the amount of area re-use and back-traveling in DMC4 is actually really high. Expect to encounter the same bosses again too. Couple that with what feels like an abundance of load screens (even though they’re generally like five seconds) and the prestige and fun factor for me dropped. On a related note, I have to mention I disliked how the secret missions were handled. Finding them is great/expected, no qualms there, but if you fail it, you are taken back to the main game. Want to try again? Go up to the insignia and press it again, go through another load screen, and another “here’s what you do in this secret mission screen,” then the few seconds of in-game scenery before it actually starts; and then hope you play it longer than it took to get back there in the first place. For the Special Edition, enabling some kind of instant quick re-try would have been a very efficient thing to do.
Now obviously re-designing the main campaign to eliminate the repetetion and re-treading would have massively altered the original game so I can understand leaving that untouched. And in the interest of making sure I am not misread, I did enjoy the game despite this design, I just think the game could have been far better had it included more unique and interesting areas. As is, beyond just the re-use, the areas themselves are not very interesting at all and come across as flat and generic. That goes for no matter what camera angle is currently in use too, and that is another element of DMC4 that I did not care for. The camera is often out of your control. This was done for cinematic effect I surmise, but it can make for some irritating encounters too, whether in combat or even just when running from one screen to the next. For example, you’re holding ‘up’ on the left stick and suddenly, the camera shifts at a scripted point, and now ‘up’ means go backwards — you get the idea. Other times the camera is very close to your character and you cannot see but a few feet in front of you. You can reset the camera or rotate it on your own in some areas, but very often you’re stuck with the original design. There was one secret mission that I literally quit trying after a few attempts because the camera was just all over the place, making it unnecessarily hard to go from jump pad to jump pad. Perhaps this is the point of the secret mission, make it hard on the player simply because the camera and thus the movement controls are a pain. Anyway, this might be just a good a place as any to mention that there are also a lot of ‘invisible walls’ which, combined with awkward camera placement and your interaction with it thereof, can make for an awkward game to watch, as well as play.
For all its significant shortcomings and issues, DMC4 was worth the roughly ten hours or so it took to clear on Devil Hunter difficulty with Nero/Dante. It’s quite possibly my least favorite DMC experience next to DMC2, but it does a largely admirable job of upholding the series. I enjoy Dante as a character, he’s probably one of my favorites in all of gaming, Vergil ranks up there somewhere too, and it’s really cool to get to play as him (with some of his Skills being inspired from DmC). The action is here, as are the bits of zany humor during the cutscenes. I’m also a Orb fanatic and weighing the options of what to spend your red orbs on in between and during missions is always a “little” element to the series that I like.
On that note, I’ll summarize my remaining notes and thoughts below…
