I just played... DmC: Devil May Cry

Hey guys, do you see the parallels here? DO YOU SEEEEEE THEM?

Yup.

                The media uses it influence to paint the protagonist as a diabolic figure to be feared and loathed, an energy drink is actually a kind of demonic poison to turn humans to cattle and the world actually runs on capitalism. DmC: Devil May Cry tries to be political, and it definitely isn’t subtle about it, and prefers to shove everything in your face and then rub it around a little.

                There’s a thin line between being brazen and being crass, and many works tend to straddle the line in between for better or for worse, but DmC whole-heartedly leaps into the crass side of the margin. All attempts at political and social debate is somewhat thrown out the window when two character movingly communicate in variations of ‘fuck you’. It’s clear that the game wanted to be something edgy, something controversial, something that’ll make you uncomfortable… and it is that, but it’s arguably only that.

                The biggest counter-argument given to protect the game’s storyline is that the original series didn’t have much of a story to write much about, and that is why I prefer to examine reboots largely independent of the originals’ storyline. In that department DmC is interesting enough, though the plot seems to suffer from bipolarity as it constantly tries to juggle between being something serious and being something satirically self-aware of too many things. It wasn’t on the level of ‘have to fight burning urge to Wikipedia the story because I really want to know what the fuck is going to happen next’ but it was interesting enough and kept me invested on the level of ‘I’m going to watch the cutscenes with attention because I actually want to know what’s going on… provided you don’t break into fuck you marathons again’. One thing that did surprise me a bit was the fact that the protagonists were a tad better than I expected, especially Dante… which is a good thing since I was expecting something of the ‘Oh God I want to kill myself because you killed a part of my childhood’ level, but found that he was actually in the ‘cracks a few good lines and is amusing enough when he isn’t being portrayed as a sexual thing and isn’t having a fuck you salsa with other characters’ level;though not as amusing as the third game’s ‘rocket rodeo Dante’ level or the fourth game’s ‘KYRIEEEEEEEEEE Nero’ level. The villains are a different ball game altogether and all manage to fall into the ‘I’m evil evilevilevilevil diabolical evil evilevil villainous evil evilevil watch me have sex’ category, with predictable evil traits and predictable evil actions all of which double up as dull.

How eloquent. 

                How to make a derivative action game in 3 easy steps! 
                   1. Have three kinds of weapons

a.       Slow but powerful

b.       Fast but weak

c.        Balanced
2. Have these kinds of enemies

a.       Basic grunt

b.       Stronger basic grunt

c.        Annoying enemy that dies easily when you reach it

d.       Heavy, easy to dodge but powerful enemy

e.       Very fast and elusive enemy

f.         Enemy that supports other enemies

g.       Giant enemy cat
3. Have bosses do this

a.       Slow, easy to dodge attacks

b.       OMG GTFO attack

c.        “Fuck you”

d.       Giant rampaging attack

Big, imposing and not at all difficult.

The game has incredibly environments, incredible locales, incredible levels and some really innovative ways to mix things up presentation-wise. The environment itself is your enemy, and the ways in which the world warps and twists is pretty damn impressive, and is easily the best part of the game, and is arguably the game’s selling point. One level might have you making your way across a twisted amusement park complete with psychedelic lighting, another has you navigate a twisting old mansion while another has you visit an inverted city and so on. There’s some pretty impressive variety in both style and design to be found here and this pretty much guarantees that you’ll have a blast your first time through. This game also does something no other game in the series has done successfully and that is: make the non-combat parts of the game fun.

The inverted city is arguably the best part.

Dem environments.

                “But alas, a statement doth echo forth. A word that sayeth a truth behind the nature of such whimsical games. Soft! He doth say: A game needeth other elements to be good, when the combat doth not satisfy in itself.”

I wasn't lying when I said that the city is LITERALLY out to kill you.

For all its variety the combat is shallow and repetitive. Style ratings are a joke, since it’s perfectly possible to have an epileptic seizure while playing and accidentally go beyond an S rating, or you throw your controller into a washing machine and watch the SSS ratings flow in, or as I experienced, still be in the mind-frame of ‘AAAH! What the hell is going on? Why are the buildings trying to kill me (and being so cool while doing so)? Why is Dante naked? How are hot pants preferable rebellion clothing? Why does everyone talk with lisps? Why the ‘fuck you’? What am I doing? What are these buttons? What the hell is going on? How did I get such a good rating?” The game isn’t easy, it’s just that everything is seemingly on the verge of collapsing in on itself if you so much as sneeze in their direction while they cough pleasantly in your direction and always give you a year’s notice before they cough. On harder difficulties their coughs are considerably fiercer, though even then the only thing having you break into sweat is the camera. 

Some missions have unique gimmicks to keep things rolling.

Did I mention that there is no lock-on? And that the game desperately needs it? And that there are camera problems? Massive camera problems? That can and will get you killed on harder difficulties? That you will get hit by off-screen attacks that you cannot see or hear? And you have to tussle with the camera stick while you tussle with your enemies and tussle with the developer’s logic behind not having a lock on? And that there are two dodge buttons for some reason, when one is more than enough?

Clearly, a helpful camera angle. 

Not included in the frame: The other enemies out to kill me. 

I love Devil May Cry 3 but there is one thing I definitively hate about it, and that is the gimmick enemies. They aren’t challenging or fun, just annoying – much like studying philosophy. The good news is that DmC doesn’t have gimmick enemies. Yay. The bad news is that there is a gimmick worked into some enemies. Boo.

You have Angelic weapons and Demonic weapons. So I suppose it was only the course of nature that the minions of hell begin colour coding their preferences regarding their personal beat-down desires. I can totally imagine one Stygian telling another “You know man, I have to confess something. I like it blue.” “What?!” replies the other, “I like it red! Tell you what, let’s team up! I get the red, you get the blue.” “Facing both of us at the same time?” the first one quips ponderously, “won’t that be just incredibly frustrating, annoying and not at all fun or dependant on skill?” “Oh yes, my blue loving friend.” And they laughed. A lot.

The demons of hell are also lacking in aesthetic innovation for that matter, looking like an army of mannequins because the developers were seemingly not bothered to try to come up with something interesting. The moment you see any enemy, you’re going to try to remember where you might have seen it before. And you do remember where you saw it before, but you try to remember where you saw it before where you saw it before. The bosses fare a bit better… but not by much. There’s one boss that’s pretty interesting in its presentation, and it’s definitely not the kind that I’d want to spoil here. Needless to say, it’s the environments that do the heavy lifting in the innovation and aesthetic design department, and the game can serve as a Lonely Planet – Limbo guide of sorts. Provided you don’t get too bored of the residents. While industrial metal can still be found about the game's soundtrack, there is an omnipresence of dubstep, and how much you like it obviously depends on your palette... and dubstep is not something I'm fond of.

The DLC uses odd, deranged animation to tell its story. It has its charm, but doesn't come across as high quality.

Vergil's smoother mobility is probably what makes the DLC more enjoyable... and the lack of dubstep.

One of the peculiar things I found was that the DLC was just far more enjoyable than the actual game, even though it is much (much) smaller, shorter and arguably easier in the long run. This brings me to another pickle, the name of the DLC is a spoiler in and of itself. While you could argue that those familiar with the original series ‘expected it’ and it was perhaps a forgone conclusion, it’s still a bit awkward for those not in the know. It’s like if there was a DLC for Titanic named ‘My Jack lies within the ocean’.

All in all, I’d say I actually had an enjoyable time with the game, though I can’t say the same for any subsequent playthroughs. Especially around the part I actually became tired of the game. It’s a fun romp, an environmentally enthralling romp, but in many ways a subpar romp, which is not as good a romp as some of the other romps before it, and not better that its competing romps.

Romp.