Devil May Cry is one of the few gaming franchises composed of at least five full titles that I am “current” on. I have played through DMC1-4 as well as DmC, and at least two of these games I have played through twice (also a rarity for me). Going into its eighteenth year, and having had a very well made Ninja Theory soft reboot in 2013, the series has returned with the original DMC crew at the development helm. It’s been eleven years since DMC4, and with DMC5, we see the continuation of the story and the return of a lot of familiar faces.
Earlier this week, Eric Layman wrote a SSS quality review on DMC5 that you should absolutely read. I had rare, wide-open weekend this past weekend, so I took the opportunity to indulge in DMC5 and completed the game and have gone back to replay the two missions that allow you to select your playable character. What follows is a brief review of my own experience with the game, meant only to supplement Eric’s assessment, not to rebuke it or anything like that.
As with many sequels anymore, there is a welcomed “story so far” video available that is worth the few minutes it takes to watch. In it, we’re reminded of series protagonist Dante, his “gray-hat” brother Vergil, lead female characters Lady and Trish, the evil super demon Mundus, and eventually, with DMC4, Nero. I liked how the video would show the logo of each of the series’ four canonical games as it unfolded the chronological story of events; this helped me recall each game specifically. Anyway, there’s something about Dante that is, on the one hand, so generic, yet, I would still call him one of my favorite videogame characters. As Eric mentioned, you basically have a character that was likely inspired by The Matrix — trench coat, sword, wicked gun play, acrobatic — and he’s also loaded with cheesy, yet sometimes grin-worthy one-liners and tropes. The son of a human and a demon, Dante wields the devil sword Sparda which he has used to slay numerous demons. He runs a business, Devil May Cry, in which he’s called to sort out the latest demon invasion or issue.
The story of DMC5 jumps around between events that took place over the course of about a month, and they involve the infamous Devil May Cry business (obviously). An opening cutscene reveals demons on the loose in the city, and a towering, sky-reaching demonic-power infused plant at the center of it all. Nero and his partner/driver/weapons-builder Nico get to work. Nero wields the Red Queen sword, the Blue Rose six-shooter, and now uses Devil Breaker components for his right arm. The Devil Breakers are interchangeable prosthesis for Nero’s right arm (trying to avoid any spoilers) that Nico makes and sells to him (in exchange for Red Orbs). You can also find Devil Breakers during missions; their priced fairly, and found often enough that you’re not likely to run out in any critical sense. Upgrades help you equip more of these during the flow of the game, but I never found it necessary to upgrade beyond the capacity of holding five. Devil Breakers, as Eric mentioned, have a variety of names, looks, and functions, but they all share the common goal of killing demons and looking damn good while doing it. To that end, they’re very effective. My favorite was probably Rawhide, which manifests itself as like six whips that slash everything close by. I thought the devs did a nice job with the variety of Devil Breakers and also in how they balanced their power and their fragility.
Devil Breakers are not individually upgraded, but everything else is — character Abilities like running faster, double-jumping, collecting orbs, that’s all here, and also the numerous weapon upgrades for Nero, V, and Dante. Completionists will find plenty of reason, as with previous DMC games, to replay multiple times. There’s enough to unlock, especially with Dante and his four unique postures, numerous weapons, and two-stages of Devil Trigger (DT and the new Sin Devil Trigger) that it literally would take about ten million orbs to unlock it all. Personally, I don’t intend to invest that much time into the game by a long shot, but it’s there for the hardcore players to indulge in if they so choose.
The hardcore players, which DMC has a tendency to draw in, will have a lot to invest in here. Three playable characters, each with a unique skill set, as Eric described in fine detail in his review. Juggling between the characters and their unique attributes and increasing layering of gameplay mechanics (Dante especially, again) impressed me from just a pure “videogame fan” standpoint. I thought Director Hideaki Itsuno and his crew did just a hell of a job with the combat and Style system of DMC5. It’s decidedly old school, yet with layers of intricate complexity that really skilled players can tap into, yet it’s also surprisingly easy to jump into and have success, fun, and look good while doing so. It’s both highly technical and yet comfortably accessible. The revive system is more forgiving than I recall any other game in the series, too. Anytime your player dies, you have the option to spend an increasing amount of Red Orbs to get a partial revive, or spend a Gold Orb for full revive. I think I found more Gold Orbs in DMC5 than probably the first four games combined. Anyway, whether this is your first DMC game or your sixth, you’ll be able to jump into the story or the combat readily.
Speaking of that story — it gets a lot better towards the end than I had anticipated. I had my concerns early on because it seemed to be an all too familiar tale of yet another super, ultra, never-before-seen badass demon that makes all previous demons look like wimps. Seemingly cognizant of this, the plot takes some commendable turns in the final stages that, relatively speaking, gave the whole experience a nice boost and makes me hopeful that DMC6 won’t take eleven years to release. As Eric mentioned, DMC has a unique style all its own. Sometimes facepalm-worthy, other times it’s just hella cool, but it’s unmistakably DMC. Some of the cutscenes (and there are quite a few) and quips made were genuinely funny. Other times things fall flat, but it’s more hits than misses. Integrate that with a pretty good story, excellent combat, fast load times, slick presentation, high replay value, and you’re well on your way to an excellent game.
Personally, what stood out to me the most in a negative sense with DMC5 was the lackluster level design. Not all levels suffer from this, but most are very linear. This is true for the series to this point, but, it was reasonable to hope that there would be more evolution here. Not God of War type evolution, but still. Some levels have a temporary alternate paths, and it’s a good idea to look around for secret areas to find extra orbs and secret mission entrances (loved how they did this by the way, in how you have to adjust your view to see an image painted across multiple walls). Anyhow, in addition to linearity, there is also a lot of monotony in the art design, too. As the game moves on, and the characters are working their way deeper to the root of the massive demonic plant, you’ll spend several missions traversing a pattern of narrow corridor dumping into an arena, then to another corridor, another arena, etc, until a larger arena opens up that has the boss fight. The visual depiction is cool at first, but gets monotonous.
Coming into DMC5 as a fan of the series, I had high hopes for DMC5. I’m happy to say those hopes were met and even Exceeded in some respects. While there is room to improve in some critical areas, primarily in level design, DMC5 kicks ass, in Style.
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