Devil May Cry is one of Capcom's most popular franchises, and despite being a fan of some of the games that it went on to inspire, I never had any experience with the series itself. As an outsider, the general consensus seemed to be that a majority of people started with Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening or even the latest game in the franchise, Devil May Cry 5, but I figured that I should try and get into the series with the one that started it all. Devil May Cry was one of those games where, for a majority of my six-ish hour playthrough, I genuinely had no idea whether or not I was enjoying what I was playing, because while the game does have some good elements and interesting concepts, it is so heavily bogged down by poor and outright frustrating design choices that it boggles my mind how the game was even able to make it to store shelves, let alone spawn several sequels.
Before I go on and rant about everything that I found wrong with this game, I want to first start off with what Devil May Cry did well, and it's a good thing that there's quite a lot of positives to choose from. Stylistically, Devil May Cry is very striking and memorable, as the decrepit castles, damp caves, and especially the fleshy, pulsating depiction of the underworld made the game feel like an interesting tonal balancing act between effortless cool and an almost horror-like sense of unease with how you're venturing into the unknown. The score by Masami Ueda, Masato Kohda, and Misao Senbongi was incredibly effective in establishing the game's mood with its shifts between roaring, blood-pumping guitars and ominous ambient music, with the darkly ethereal track used for the Divinity Statues eventually becoming a favorite of mine. The core gameplay of Devil May Cry was also quite good, as the twitchy, fast-paced attacks and dodges not only made fighting enemies fun on its own, but it also made chaining combos together in order to get more red orbs feel satisfying. I didn't even mind the exploration that usually took place in between combat encounters, because while this was clearly an element of the game that was left over from when this was initially envisioned as the fourth Resident Evil game, it still gave me more chances to take in the setting's sights and sounds. Despite the unintentionally funny dialogue and voice acting and somewhat barebones storytelling, I still found the game's lore and Dante himself to be compelling enough for me to want to see it through to the end, although I felt that the relationship between him and Trish was a bit forced due to the sudden attempts at emotional impact being at odds with the little time these two characters actually spent with each other.
For every good thing I have to say about Devil May Cry, there's some aspect of it that aggravates me to no end, and while none of it was enough to make me outright hate the game, the flaws still felt glaring. For starters, the game's camera is absolutely atrocious, as having it constantly cut to different angles was annoying enough when you're exploring the area, but it made some of the boss fights barely even playable with how you get attacked by moves that you couldn't even see in the first place, whether it was because the camera was pulled too far back for anything to be visible or it was because it was at an angle where the objects of focus were straight up hidden. This makes the game's repeated boss fights even more annoying to deal with, as the game only has about four or five bosses that are repeated several times each (and in the case of Nightmare, having to repeat a boss fight just to repeat a boss fight), and it gets to the point where you fight a boss in one mission to go on and fight the exact same one in the very next mission. I also felt that the mission design was radically inconsistent, as some missions featured several bosses and took a good fifteen or twenty minutes (which was especially annoying thanks to the continues being consumable items), while others could be beaten in less than five minutes. Although the controls felt good when it came to combat, I can't say the same for the other game's aspects, as the clunky and unreliable wall jumps made platforming take way longer than it needed to and the underwater sections that turned the game into a first-person shooter were so jarring and controlled so poorly that I had no idea why they were even included in the game to begin with. There's a good game here somewhere, but there was a lot about Devil May Cry that held it back for me, but despite my mixed feelings on this game, I'm still interested in checking out the rest of the series (including the infamous Devil May Cry 2).
Before I go on and rant about everything that I found wrong with this game, I want to first start off with what Devil May Cry did well, and it's a good thing that there's quite a lot of positives to choose from. Stylistically, Devil May Cry is very striking and memorable, as the decrepit castles, damp caves, and especially the fleshy, pulsating depiction of the underworld made the game feel like an interesting tonal balancing act between effortless cool and an almost horror-like sense of unease with how you're venturing into the unknown. The score by Masami Ueda, Masato Kohda, and Misao Senbongi was incredibly effective in establishing the game's mood with its shifts between roaring, blood-pumping guitars and ominous ambient music, with the darkly ethereal track used for the Divinity Statues eventually becoming a favorite of mine. The core gameplay of Devil May Cry was also quite good, as the twitchy, fast-paced attacks and dodges not only made fighting enemies fun on its own, but it also made chaining combos together in order to get more red orbs feel satisfying. I didn't even mind the exploration that usually took place in between combat encounters, because while this was clearly an element of the game that was left over from when this was initially envisioned as the fourth Resident Evil game, it still gave me more chances to take in the setting's sights and sounds. Despite the unintentionally funny dialogue and voice acting and somewhat barebones storytelling, I still found the game's lore and Dante himself to be compelling enough for me to want to see it through to the end, although I felt that the relationship between him and Trish was a bit forced due to the sudden attempts at emotional impact being at odds with the little time these two characters actually spent with each other.
For every good thing I have to say about Devil May Cry, there's some aspect of it that aggravates me to no end, and while none of it was enough to make me outright hate the game, the flaws still felt glaring. For starters, the game's camera is absolutely atrocious, as having it constantly cut to different angles was annoying enough when you're exploring the area, but it made some of the boss fights barely even playable with how you get attacked by moves that you couldn't even see in the first place, whether it was because the camera was pulled too far back for anything to be visible or it was because it was at an angle where the objects of focus were straight up hidden. This makes the game's repeated boss fights even more annoying to deal with, as the game only has about four or five bosses that are repeated several times each (and in the case of Nightmare, having to repeat a boss fight just to repeat a boss fight), and it gets to the point where you fight a boss in one mission to go on and fight the exact same one in the very next mission. I also felt that the mission design was radically inconsistent, as some missions featured several bosses and took a good fifteen or twenty minutes (which was especially annoying thanks to the continues being consumable items), while others could be beaten in less than five minutes. Although the controls felt good when it came to combat, I can't say the same for the other game's aspects, as the clunky and unreliable wall jumps made platforming take way longer than it needed to and the underwater sections that turned the game into a first-person shooter were so jarring and controlled so poorly that I had no idea why they were even included in the game to begin with. There's a good game here somewhere, but there was a lot about Devil May Cry that held it back for me, but despite my mixed feelings on this game, I'm still interested in checking out the rest of the series (including the infamous Devil May Cry 2).
6 Comments
@ljamest12 Do you know if Devil May Cry 4 and DMC: Devil May Cry are worth trying?
I am actually playing DmC atm, and gameplay wise it is pretty fun. It isn't exempt from problems, but it's enjoyable. The real problem with that game is the story and its characters...obnoxious would be an understatement.
The first half of DMC4 is fun, the combat is as fleshed out as ever and that aspect of the game is mostly enjoyable. Unfortunately though, after a while it becomes obvious that the game was rushed out the door and the second half really suffers for it. All of Dante's missions involve going through the missions you just did with a different character, but backwards. The gameplay inbetween the fights can be pretty frustrating too, they tend to consist of frustrating platforming, a tedious dice mini game, and wacking a bunch of floating statues around. You also have to fight four of the same bosses three times, and none of those bosses were anything to really write home about to start with. It's a game I would say is worth trying, but by the end it gets pretty frustrating.
The first half of DMC4 is fun, the combat is as fleshed out as ever and that aspect of the game is mostly enjoyable. Unfortunately though, after a while it becomes obvious that the game was rushed out the door and the second half really suffers for it. All of Dante's missions involve going through the missions you just did with a different character, but backwards. The gameplay inbetween the fights can be pretty frustrating too, they tend to consist of frustrating platforming, a tedious dice mini game, and wacking a bunch of floating statues around. You also have to fight four of the same bosses three times, and none of those bosses were anything to really write home about to start with. It's a game I would say is worth trying, but by the end it gets pretty frustrating.
If you play 2 though, you might as well play both DmC and 4. They might as well be perfect games in comparison.
DMC4 has amazing combat IMO, possibly even more fun than 5. It's obviously unfinished though, to the point that it's kinda embarrassing that it was put out in its state. Worth playing if you're going through the whole series for sure though.
(more fun at its best, V is def a more consistent experience)
ljamest12
9 months ago