Note — this review is a supplement to my original reviews of DmC Devil May Cry and the DLC, Vergil’s Downfall. Please refer to those for additional info.
Just over two years ago I reviewed and thoroughly enjoyed Ninja Theory’s reboot of one of Capcom’s best franchises, Devil May Cry. Simply entitled DmC Devily May Cry, Ninja Theory provided players with a origin story for the famous demon killer, Dante. Highly stylized action with a creative and vividly impressive presentation were two standout aspects to the game. A couple of month’s later, the Vergil’s Downfall DLC came out, which I also reviewed. Another six missions with a focus on Vergil, Dante’s brother, was compelling and helped bridge the gap between the end of DmC’s story and the rest of the Devil May Cry franchise.
Both of these titles are combined into the Definitive Edition available today on PS4 and Xbox One, running in 1080p at 60fps. The lightning fast action of DmC looks and plays silky smooth on the PS4, even though it does not quite look like a native next-gen title — there’s just something about the textures that give it that ‘upgraded/remastered’ look as opposed to that specific visceral look of a title that was built from the ground up on the new hardware. But, more importantly, the gameplay is fully intact and super fun. This time I played through both DmC and the DLC on Nephilm (hard mode), and had a blast. It took me right at twelve hours to complete the main campaign and just under three hours for Vergil’s Downfall, and that was with me trying to find all of the hidden keys, secret doors, lost souls, and health and devil trigger fragments that I could (in other words, I got a D rank for Time on every mission). Of course, I had already played through these two years ago so I was still somewhat familiar with major events and boss fight mechanics.
The original DmC offered a lot of reason to go back and replay the campaign under various new modes or enter the Bloody Palace, a wave-based challenge mode. The Definitive Edition maintains these modes, adds new ones, and also adds 60 waves of new challenges for Vergil in Vergil’s own Bloody Palace mode. The inclusion of a Hardcore and Turbo mode, Must Style mode, and Gods Must Die mode all bring new options and challenges to hardcore players. Turbo mode, which like many other options and modes, can be enabled on a per-mission basis, speeds up the already fast game another twenty percent. Hardcore mode re-balances the Style system, mixes up enemy placements, and generally just makes the game more challenging. In Must Style mode, you have to reach an S rank to even start doing damage to any foe, while Gods Must Die mode puts all enemies in their devil trigger mode as soon as they spawn.
In other respects, the games play identically to how they did on the PS3. With that, let’s get to the summary…
