I can't get a read on DMC4. What's up with you anyway, huh? I knew this wouldn't be as good as DMC3 going in just because of how perfect that game is, but even so, I genuinely don't know what to think of its followup title. In most regards, I can say it does its job as the next entry in the series, but it also feels incredibly lazy. That's probably because the game is literally unfinished, but even so, there's levels of polish here that I don't believe would exist with the rush to get the game published.
A lot of stuff packaged within this disc is simply inconsistent. The level design is pretty solid, but to balance it out, the puzzles are horrendous. This is very apparent from as early as the fourth level. You have to open doors by pushing these giant beyblades around a hallway and into the missing spots. Although you can push them quite far with each hit, this still takes forever and is not something I want to be doing in a combat game. There's a jungle level with Dante where black clouds cover each room entrance and exit and send you to a completely different room entirely. The game doesn't even tell you where to go at the start of the level, so have fun getting through it. In the same jungle area, there's a maze where you can choose one of four paths to proceed with only one of them sending you forward. You must choose the path that leads to light. It might just be the game being somewhat unoptimized, but I could barely tell which path the game wanted me to choose. There was the same amount of light and shadow on each path, just positioned differently. DMC1 had something similar, but you were following a tiny little spirit that you could actually see so you knew where you were going.
Don't even get me started on the game room. This singular room is the worst thing to come out of this series. This room alone is worse than the entirety of DMC2. The idea is simple: roll a dice and forward your character forward. Different spaces will trigger different events when landed on. White spots are the only ones that do nothing. Blue spots will spawn in red and green orbs or a set of treasure chests. Red spots will spawn in enemies of a short laser avoidance test. Finally, the worst ones of all, the yellow spots will send you either forward or backward to the next adjacent yellow spot.
This level took me about an hour because of the damned yellow spots. On my playthrough with Lady, (this is regarding the special edition, but the level is the exact same, so this is still a criticism of the base game) I landed on yellow spots that sent me backward FOUR TIMES. Getting sent backwards means dealing with whatever spots you just passed, which is usually a lot of enemies. I had to painstakingly meander across this awful board game only to die right before reaching the end. I then had to go through the ENTIRE board again! Why is this slow paced, RNG reliant, unfulfilling excuse for a level in a high octane, fast paced, combat oriented game? Who the hell knows. This might just be the worst level I've played in a video game. I've seen some bad levels, but few that are not only bad, but go against the entire point of the game.
Many fans proclaim DMC4 as having the most in depth combat in the series, and I can see why, especially in regards to Dante. Having access to all available weapons and styles at once opens up limitless opportunities for how any battle can play out and encourages you to optimize your familiarity with each of his tools. However, this has become a bit of a redundant point in recent years because of one thing: DMC3's refusal to be lesser than the best. The Switch port has a mode called freestyle mode, which allows you the same access to all styles at once, including his two bonus styles, as well as a weapon wheel consisting of five weapons as opposed to three, for guns and for devil arms. DMC3 wasn't really designed with this kind of freedom in mind, but it most definitely works and is my favorite way to play the game. Now that the objectively better game has what is arguably the main appeal of DMC4's combat, why would I ever play the worse game?
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, let's see what we're working with a bit more closely. For the first half of the game, you play as young devil hunter Nero. Most of his kit is based around his literal devil arm, the Devil Bringer. The main draw of this new weapon is all the grab related shenanigans it brings. There's a standard grab, which simply picks an enemy up and slams them into the ground. What makes it interesting, though, is how nearly every enemy and boss has a unique animation for when they get grabbed, as well as another different one in Devil Trigger. Some of them can cause collateral damage, as well, making it viable to use in large groups. Depending on the size of the enemy, Nero can either pull them towards him, or pull himself towards them. This is one of my favorite things about Nero: his ability to continue combos from a distance. When you launch an enemy far away, typically, the combo will end unless you're Vergil and can teleport right up to them. Instead of moving himself closer to the enemy, he moves the enemy closer to him, being able to continue the combo for as long as he wants.
The grabs are great, but the normal grab could have been used a bit better. Against bosses, there's usually a moment when you can fit in a grab on a weak point to activate a big finisher. There isn't much utility involved outside of big damage except for the normal enemies that can lead to collateral damage. There is another feature hidden within Nero's arm in the form of a counter. Before big attacks, mainly from bosses, you can time the grab against the attack to block it and initiate a counter attack. This is incredibly useful, kind of like a watered down Royal Guard, and it allows for a more aggressive game plan to make way.
Another unique ability that Nero possesses is the excel system, which has more depth than his Devil Buster, but also contains more downsides than upsides. By revving his sword like an engine, Nero can store up to three EX gauges. These gauges will enhance whatever move you do next. Right off the bat, this mechanic is completely useless until you get the max act ability from the shop, which allows you to time an engine rev with the end of a sword swing to build an EX gauge instantly. This does make his combat a bit more engaging, and many of the EX moves are incredibly satisfying to hit, but there is still one big problem with the whole mechanic: lack of utility. Almost every EX move simply takes whatever the base move is and ups the damage. The animation changes, but the utility is the same. You're going to be using Nero's moves in the same places in combo regardless if they're an EX move or not, you'll just do more damage with an EX. Because you can get gauges instantly from any attack thanks to max act, there technically isn't any reason NOT to go for it all the time, but I find it kind of pointless to have this enhancing mechanic available to you at all times. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but the excel system is all style and no substance.
Overall, Nero is alright. He doesn't lack depth at all, but due to his kit generally being slower and stronger hitting than Dante, his combo utility is far more limited and less fun to play as a result. Apparently, he was purposely designed to be easier so newcomers of the series could jump into the game without any trouble, seeing how DMC4 was the first in the series to go multi-platform. I don't hate Nero's gameplay, but he's far from my favorite character to play as.
Dante, though? When people say this game has the best gameplay of the series, Dante and Dante only is what they're talking about. All four main styles from DMC3 return with the ability to swap between them at will. Look at any DMC4 combo video, and these will be getting swapped around like crazy, as if they're all fighting for a chance to simply be used by the player. Dante now has Vergil's Darkslayer style which you can sadly not upgrade like the others. But… he can do Judgement Cut. DANTE CAN DO JUDGMENT CUT. I could just end the review there and the score would not change with how much I still have left to praise and criticize.
Dante has mostly familiar weapons to start off with. Ebony and Ivory of course make a return, as well as his trusty shotgun, the Coyote-A. For Devil Arms, he sports his classic Rebellion, and Gilgamesh is basically an upgraded Beowulf from DMC3. They did heavily nerf Killer Bee, his divekick, which hurts my soul immensely. This was by far my most used move in DMC3 due to the tracking and horizontal reach, but that reach has been cut to shit. Dante might as well not even have legs now. He makes up for it with the rest of Gilgamesh's kit being pretty nice. He can now enhance each move he does by charging them, but with a just frame timing, he can do even more damage and raise the style even further. I'm a sucker for gauntlet type weapons, so Gilgamesh is alright in my book. As for the new weapons, they're two of the series' best weapons, maybe even THE best. Pandora and Lucifer are designed specifically with DMC4's gameplay in mind without being restricted to staple movesets like Dante's other weapons are. These weapons made me love what would otherwise be a long slog through the worst levels in the series.
Pandora is a gun with several unique formations. It has its own gauge up near Dante's health called the Disaster Gauge. By using Pandora's basic attacks, you can fill it up, which causes the more disastrous attacks to become even more powerful. Omen is one of the most badass moves in his arsenal, where he places down the briefcase, stands over it, and opens it, dealing massive damage to everything in front. It's a swiss army pocket knife of guns, rewarding you for dealing damage with it with… even more damage. It's just an exciting weapon to use that heavily incentivises you use it.
Lucifer is a weird one. Instead of straight up damage, it's more of a setup tool. However, unlike Nevan, this one is actually good. For starters, the way you set it up is quick and responsive. Dante will toss hovering mirage swords in different formations around him. These swords will deal damage when an enemy makes contact with them, but they'll also get stuck inside them. After either summoning more swords, waiting a set amount of time, or detonating them manually with a rose toss, they'll blow up, dealing more damage and creating combo opportunities. This weapon has so much depth it's insane. During my playthrough, I feel like I got a decent grasp of it and could string together some basic combos. I'm not DMC4 expert, I'm not breaking my fingers for this game, but what I could do I thought was cool and I enjoyed it a lot. Setting up swords, going at it with another weapon, detonating the swords, then continuing the combo is such a fun thing to do. Lucifer can be used in such various ways, I know I haven't even scratched the surface with it, but if I ever revisit this game, this weapon is what I look forward to the most.
In addition to these new weapons, this is the first game to introduce on the go style switching. I kind of got a hint of this already with DMC3 on Switch, but this game is clearly designed with it in mind and it works like a charm. Being able to Trickster out of any precarious situation after you get too aggressive or use Swordmaster to quickly overwhelm the opponent after narrowly avoiding their onslaught keeps the gameplay engaging. You likely already know what each of them do, so I won't go too in detail about them. Trickster grants defensive escape and mobility options, Swordmaster opens up new melee weapon attacks, Royalguard is a parry with insane risk/reward, and Gunslinger gives you new gun attack moves. New to the lineup is Vergil's Darkslayer style, where Dante wields the Yamato. Unfortunately, you can't upgrade this one, sadly, and it only has a few basic moves to use, but one of those moves is JUDGEMENT CUT. It's so COOL.
To use style switching the most effectively, you need to be on your toes and have great awareness, but it's not a super high ceiling to reach. I love how Dante poses with each style and says the name of the style as well, and then shortens the name if he's running. Damn it, I hate that the gameplay is this good. It's in sharp contrast to the shitty level design that it's hard to enjoy it to its fullest. I heard somewhere that because of the low budget, the devs wanted to put most of their resources into the actual combat and saved the level design for later, and it shows. This was released in a weird time for Capcom, where they were doing a lot more experimental stuff, lots of stuff that didn't work. I guess DMC4 came out a bit brighter than most, but still with rough patches everywhere.
What brings it down further is the enemy/boss roster. They all suck. Not all of them are necessarily bad, but the best an enemy can get in this game is mediocre and forgettable. I don’t remember most of their names, but you know who I do remember? Chimera. Fuck, no, FUCK Chimera. They can attach themselves to other enemies, that’s their whole gimmick. Once they do, they will randomly slash at you whenever they feel like it, including DURING A COMBO. Thank you Capcom, for creating an enemy that cannot be combo’d in the fast paced combo game, I truly appreciate it. Most of these enemies aren’t a problem for Nero, like the flying faust enemies, the echidna boss, the fire hounds, etc. because they’re mostly designed around Nero’s Devil Bringer, which makes it a pain to deal with them as Dante when you don’t have that. Berial is a pretty cool boss fight, though. Credo’s boss fight is peak, one of the best in the series. The Savior is one of the worst boss fights in the series, constant platform hopping dragged on for ten minutes is not fun. Mostly mediocre to terrible enemies, but there’s some good in there (the only good is Credo).
The story of these games is never anything remarkable. The situations the characters find themselves in isn't anything special, BUT the characters are the ones that make them interesting, and I love these characters. This game follows Nero, a new devil hunter who is a part of the Order of the Sword: a cult that worships Sparda, a demon, as a god. It's clear that Nero doesn't want much to do with the cult, as he blames god for ruining his life by giving him a demonic arm. Because the order fights against demons, he has to hide this arm from everyone, including his girlfriend Kyrie. Not knowing who his parents were and being abandoned at a young age, he was raised with Kyrie and her brother, Credo, a general of the Order of the Sword.
During a sermon, Dante casually drops in and kills the cult's leader: Sanctus. While Credo helps evacuate the people of the church, Nero stands up to Dante. After a lengthy battle, he's forced to reveal his arm and use its power. Dante casually gets stabbed through the chest and takes it like a champ, showing Nero that he is part demon, hinting that him and Nero have more in common than they think. He flees the scene, and the following few missions are just Nero running aimlessly trying to catch Dante. He eventually finds himself in the lab of the cult's lead scientist: Agnus. He faces a near death experience with getting brutally impaled multiple times, but the power of a strong devil arm in the order's possession, the Yamato, beckons to Nero and gives him the power to fight off Agnus.
Credo eventually turns on Nero, as well, claiming that what the order is doing is just. Agnus is learning to extract demonic power from demons and put them into other objects and people. The order believes that taking this power makes them angels, not demons. Their battle is interrupted when Kyrie finds them both fighting, and subsequently gets snatched by Agnus. Credo tells Nero that he has to figure out what's going on before they continue fighting, and the two flee after Kyrie in their own way. On his way there, Nero runs into Dante once again, who is now after Yamato. The two fight, with Dante confidently winning, but Nero pleads to Dante to let him keep it because he needs its power. Dante sees that he has a good heart and a strong moral compass, so he lets him keep it, then lets Nero pass through.
Nero then eventually finds Kyrie with Sanctus, now revived with demonic power. He aims to use her as a battery to power a giant statue called The Savior, and after capturing Nero as well, he can use his power as well as that of the Yamato for it to become fully functional. Credo attempts to save Nero, but ultimately fails. This is when Dante finally decides to step in with Trish by his side. With Nero and Kyrie captured, Credo dead, and Yamato now in the hands of a power hungry tyrant, he has to clean up what mess Nero left for him. The next few levels are just him running back through Nero's levels with no important plot stuff happening. He kills some bosses that Nero couldn't, he kills Agnus, and he faces off against The Savior itself. He's able to get Yamato back in his possession and pass it onto Nero, who is now traversing the inside of The Savior to find Sanctus. He of course finds him, and thoroughly beats him to a pulp. He kills him after all is said and done and everyone is happy and stuff.
Like I said, the plot itself is not great, but the characters are what make it awesome. Something that kind of left me irritated after reflecting on DMC3 was Dante’s development. He and Vergil were two sides of the same coin: the former only accepting his human side, with the latter only accepting his demon side. Dante is able to triumph over Vergil in the end because he learns to accept both the human and demon halves of himself. But that kind of begs an important question: what does his human side bring to the table? It’s pretty clear that his demon side provides physical strength, hence why Vergil’s quest for power peaked when he finally possessed the demonic powers of his father. So then, how does Dante’s human side help him best Vergil, someone definitely stronger than him in terms of physical combat? The answer is love.
Nero spends the whole game fighting for the love of his life: Kyrie. Even when she becomes off put at the fact that he is part demon, he fights for her sake. He does everything in his power to rescue her from Sanctus, and although Dante needed to step in to help, he ultimately did that. Once he awakens with the Yamato, he claims that he will endure whatever punishment is given to him as long as he can save her in the end. Dante also alludes to this after his fight with Agnus, where the latter is in despair about losing despite having so much demonic power. Dante doesn’t deny the strength of demons, in fact, he even says that no human alone could ever match his strength. But humans alone are not weak. The human heart is capable of deep emotion, most importantly, the love for someone else.
It’s this love that the Order of the Sword ignored and what ultimately led to Sanctus’ downfall. This love also brings to light something else important to the cast, which is that anyone is capable of anything. Credo, pretty much Nero’s brother since they were kids, thinks of him as an enemy because of his demonic power and attempts to kill him. But, after Agnus kidnaps Kyrie, Credo retreats and is left to think about his next move. Eventually, that next move turns out to be an attempt to rescue both Nero and Kyrie from Sanctus’ clutches. He fails, and dies for it, telling Sanctus that while his ideas are sound, putting his beloved sister in danger was crossing a line. He beckons to Dante to rescue BOTH Kyrie and Nero.
Nero always saw his demonic arm as a curse, which is why he was so uninvolved with the religious part of the order. He was angry at God for giving him an arm that was seen as morally bad due to the demonic power residing within. But, in the end, he is able to see his arm as a gift rather than a curse and uses it for good. Not all demonic power is evil, just as not all of humanity is just. There are good humans and bad demons, just as there are bad humans and good demons. Sanctus, a power hungry demonic man wreaks havoc for his own gain, while Nero, a human with the power of a demon puts an end to his evil endeavors.
This all wraps up nicely into a nice little package with themes of morality of demons and humans, true strength, and acceptance. The third is covered more in DMC5 as well, giving Nero an arc spanning multiple games, but it’s pretty good overall. All the other characters are great as well, even if they don’t get any kind of similar arc. Credo is my favorite of them all, it’s a shame he had to die, but he died for a good reason and he was great while he lasted. In terms of pure fun, Dante is at his peak here. In DMC3, he still had to take heavy moments seriously, but here, he’s just having a good time. The opening cutscene before his fight with Agnus is maybe the greatest cutscene in all of gaming. Speaking of, Agnus is fun as well. He isn’t much more than a lackey, but he’s equal parts fun and menacing. Sanctus is the only one I’m not huge on. He serves his purpose well as a man seeking demonic power, disregarding his humanity for pure strength, but as a character, he’s whatever. His thematic presence was great, but nothing else is of note. Oh yeah, Kyrie exists as well. She doesn’t do much, but like Sanctus, she serves her role in the story well and gives Nero a reason to fight.
I’m glad that this game continued to use the music style that DMC3 experimented with. It doesn’t reach the same levels as DMC3, but there are a lot of solid tracks. The Time Has Come, Nero’s battle theme, is pretty good, but I much prefer it as the first half to the main theme: Shall Never Surrender. Credo’s boss theme, Swipe of Sword, isn’t anything special, but is incredibly catchy for some reason, so I end up enjoying it more than I should. Dante’s boss theme, Blackened Angel is cool, but his combat theme is better, taking the lyrics from Blackened Angel and remixing them over a new rendition of Lock and Load, the main DMC1 combat theme. I think it could be better if the lyrics actually had some kind of meaning. The lyrics it has sound cool, don’t get me wrong, but I genuinely don’t see how they relate to Dante.
DMC4 is rough. It has a good core, but almost everything surrounding it is flawed exponentially. The combat is, at its core, amazing, maybe the best in the series, but I can’t in good conscience say that when every other aspect of the gameplay sucks. The level design is bad, rooms are too big, playing through the same levels twice is boring, and the enemies suck to fight. I think it says a lot how, after I beat DMC3, I immediately went back and played it. When I beat DMC4, I did the same thing: play DMC3, because the level design is bearable while also boasting good combat, more bearable enemies, and bosses that are both memorable and challenging. It still has the modern DMC charm with awesome characters and tons of visual flair, which makes it a worthwhile time. It’s not a bad game by any means, but playing a game with this many contradicting ups and downs is aggravating. Doesn’t help that it was released in between the two best games in the series which are remembered fondly and praised by all. Play it once to experience it, and hopefully you’ll find more enjoyment out of it than I did and have the strength to keep playing it.
A lot of stuff packaged within this disc is simply inconsistent. The level design is pretty solid, but to balance it out, the puzzles are horrendous. This is very apparent from as early as the fourth level. You have to open doors by pushing these giant beyblades around a hallway and into the missing spots. Although you can push them quite far with each hit, this still takes forever and is not something I want to be doing in a combat game. There's a jungle level with Dante where black clouds cover each room entrance and exit and send you to a completely different room entirely. The game doesn't even tell you where to go at the start of the level, so have fun getting through it. In the same jungle area, there's a maze where you can choose one of four paths to proceed with only one of them sending you forward. You must choose the path that leads to light. It might just be the game being somewhat unoptimized, but I could barely tell which path the game wanted me to choose. There was the same amount of light and shadow on each path, just positioned differently. DMC1 had something similar, but you were following a tiny little spirit that you could actually see so you knew where you were going.
Don't even get me started on the game room. This singular room is the worst thing to come out of this series. This room alone is worse than the entirety of DMC2. The idea is simple: roll a dice and forward your character forward. Different spaces will trigger different events when landed on. White spots are the only ones that do nothing. Blue spots will spawn in red and green orbs or a set of treasure chests. Red spots will spawn in enemies of a short laser avoidance test. Finally, the worst ones of all, the yellow spots will send you either forward or backward to the next adjacent yellow spot.
This level took me about an hour because of the damned yellow spots. On my playthrough with Lady, (this is regarding the special edition, but the level is the exact same, so this is still a criticism of the base game) I landed on yellow spots that sent me backward FOUR TIMES. Getting sent backwards means dealing with whatever spots you just passed, which is usually a lot of enemies. I had to painstakingly meander across this awful board game only to die right before reaching the end. I then had to go through the ENTIRE board again! Why is this slow paced, RNG reliant, unfulfilling excuse for a level in a high octane, fast paced, combat oriented game? Who the hell knows. This might just be the worst level I've played in a video game. I've seen some bad levels, but few that are not only bad, but go against the entire point of the game.
Many fans proclaim DMC4 as having the most in depth combat in the series, and I can see why, especially in regards to Dante. Having access to all available weapons and styles at once opens up limitless opportunities for how any battle can play out and encourages you to optimize your familiarity with each of his tools. However, this has become a bit of a redundant point in recent years because of one thing: DMC3's refusal to be lesser than the best. The Switch port has a mode called freestyle mode, which allows you the same access to all styles at once, including his two bonus styles, as well as a weapon wheel consisting of five weapons as opposed to three, for guns and for devil arms. DMC3 wasn't really designed with this kind of freedom in mind, but it most definitely works and is my favorite way to play the game. Now that the objectively better game has what is arguably the main appeal of DMC4's combat, why would I ever play the worse game?
Maybe I'm being a bit harsh, let's see what we're working with a bit more closely. For the first half of the game, you play as young devil hunter Nero. Most of his kit is based around his literal devil arm, the Devil Bringer. The main draw of this new weapon is all the grab related shenanigans it brings. There's a standard grab, which simply picks an enemy up and slams them into the ground. What makes it interesting, though, is how nearly every enemy and boss has a unique animation for when they get grabbed, as well as another different one in Devil Trigger. Some of them can cause collateral damage, as well, making it viable to use in large groups. Depending on the size of the enemy, Nero can either pull them towards him, or pull himself towards them. This is one of my favorite things about Nero: his ability to continue combos from a distance. When you launch an enemy far away, typically, the combo will end unless you're Vergil and can teleport right up to them. Instead of moving himself closer to the enemy, he moves the enemy closer to him, being able to continue the combo for as long as he wants.
The grabs are great, but the normal grab could have been used a bit better. Against bosses, there's usually a moment when you can fit in a grab on a weak point to activate a big finisher. There isn't much utility involved outside of big damage except for the normal enemies that can lead to collateral damage. There is another feature hidden within Nero's arm in the form of a counter. Before big attacks, mainly from bosses, you can time the grab against the attack to block it and initiate a counter attack. This is incredibly useful, kind of like a watered down Royal Guard, and it allows for a more aggressive game plan to make way.
Another unique ability that Nero possesses is the excel system, which has more depth than his Devil Buster, but also contains more downsides than upsides. By revving his sword like an engine, Nero can store up to three EX gauges. These gauges will enhance whatever move you do next. Right off the bat, this mechanic is completely useless until you get the max act ability from the shop, which allows you to time an engine rev with the end of a sword swing to build an EX gauge instantly. This does make his combat a bit more engaging, and many of the EX moves are incredibly satisfying to hit, but there is still one big problem with the whole mechanic: lack of utility. Almost every EX move simply takes whatever the base move is and ups the damage. The animation changes, but the utility is the same. You're going to be using Nero's moves in the same places in combo regardless if they're an EX move or not, you'll just do more damage with an EX. Because you can get gauges instantly from any attack thanks to max act, there technically isn't any reason NOT to go for it all the time, but I find it kind of pointless to have this enhancing mechanic available to you at all times. Maybe I'm being nitpicky, but the excel system is all style and no substance.
Overall, Nero is alright. He doesn't lack depth at all, but due to his kit generally being slower and stronger hitting than Dante, his combo utility is far more limited and less fun to play as a result. Apparently, he was purposely designed to be easier so newcomers of the series could jump into the game without any trouble, seeing how DMC4 was the first in the series to go multi-platform. I don't hate Nero's gameplay, but he's far from my favorite character to play as.
Dante, though? When people say this game has the best gameplay of the series, Dante and Dante only is what they're talking about. All four main styles from DMC3 return with the ability to swap between them at will. Look at any DMC4 combo video, and these will be getting swapped around like crazy, as if they're all fighting for a chance to simply be used by the player. Dante now has Vergil's Darkslayer style which you can sadly not upgrade like the others. But… he can do Judgement Cut. DANTE CAN DO JUDGMENT CUT. I could just end the review there and the score would not change with how much I still have left to praise and criticize.
Dante has mostly familiar weapons to start off with. Ebony and Ivory of course make a return, as well as his trusty shotgun, the Coyote-A. For Devil Arms, he sports his classic Rebellion, and Gilgamesh is basically an upgraded Beowulf from DMC3. They did heavily nerf Killer Bee, his divekick, which hurts my soul immensely. This was by far my most used move in DMC3 due to the tracking and horizontal reach, but that reach has been cut to shit. Dante might as well not even have legs now. He makes up for it with the rest of Gilgamesh's kit being pretty nice. He can now enhance each move he does by charging them, but with a just frame timing, he can do even more damage and raise the style even further. I'm a sucker for gauntlet type weapons, so Gilgamesh is alright in my book. As for the new weapons, they're two of the series' best weapons, maybe even THE best. Pandora and Lucifer are designed specifically with DMC4's gameplay in mind without being restricted to staple movesets like Dante's other weapons are. These weapons made me love what would otherwise be a long slog through the worst levels in the series.
Pandora is a gun with several unique formations. It has its own gauge up near Dante's health called the Disaster Gauge. By using Pandora's basic attacks, you can fill it up, which causes the more disastrous attacks to become even more powerful. Omen is one of the most badass moves in his arsenal, where he places down the briefcase, stands over it, and opens it, dealing massive damage to everything in front. It's a swiss army pocket knife of guns, rewarding you for dealing damage with it with… even more damage. It's just an exciting weapon to use that heavily incentivises you use it.
Lucifer is a weird one. Instead of straight up damage, it's more of a setup tool. However, unlike Nevan, this one is actually good. For starters, the way you set it up is quick and responsive. Dante will toss hovering mirage swords in different formations around him. These swords will deal damage when an enemy makes contact with them, but they'll also get stuck inside them. After either summoning more swords, waiting a set amount of time, or detonating them manually with a rose toss, they'll blow up, dealing more damage and creating combo opportunities. This weapon has so much depth it's insane. During my playthrough, I feel like I got a decent grasp of it and could string together some basic combos. I'm not DMC4 expert, I'm not breaking my fingers for this game, but what I could do I thought was cool and I enjoyed it a lot. Setting up swords, going at it with another weapon, detonating the swords, then continuing the combo is such a fun thing to do. Lucifer can be used in such various ways, I know I haven't even scratched the surface with it, but if I ever revisit this game, this weapon is what I look forward to the most.
In addition to these new weapons, this is the first game to introduce on the go style switching. I kind of got a hint of this already with DMC3 on Switch, but this game is clearly designed with it in mind and it works like a charm. Being able to Trickster out of any precarious situation after you get too aggressive or use Swordmaster to quickly overwhelm the opponent after narrowly avoiding their onslaught keeps the gameplay engaging. You likely already know what each of them do, so I won't go too in detail about them. Trickster grants defensive escape and mobility options, Swordmaster opens up new melee weapon attacks, Royalguard is a parry with insane risk/reward, and Gunslinger gives you new gun attack moves. New to the lineup is Vergil's Darkslayer style, where Dante wields the Yamato. Unfortunately, you can't upgrade this one, sadly, and it only has a few basic moves to use, but one of those moves is JUDGEMENT CUT. It's so COOL.
To use style switching the most effectively, you need to be on your toes and have great awareness, but it's not a super high ceiling to reach. I love how Dante poses with each style and says the name of the style as well, and then shortens the name if he's running. Damn it, I hate that the gameplay is this good. It's in sharp contrast to the shitty level design that it's hard to enjoy it to its fullest. I heard somewhere that because of the low budget, the devs wanted to put most of their resources into the actual combat and saved the level design for later, and it shows. This was released in a weird time for Capcom, where they were doing a lot more experimental stuff, lots of stuff that didn't work. I guess DMC4 came out a bit brighter than most, but still with rough patches everywhere.
What brings it down further is the enemy/boss roster. They all suck. Not all of them are necessarily bad, but the best an enemy can get in this game is mediocre and forgettable. I don’t remember most of their names, but you know who I do remember? Chimera. Fuck, no, FUCK Chimera. They can attach themselves to other enemies, that’s their whole gimmick. Once they do, they will randomly slash at you whenever they feel like it, including DURING A COMBO. Thank you Capcom, for creating an enemy that cannot be combo’d in the fast paced combo game, I truly appreciate it. Most of these enemies aren’t a problem for Nero, like the flying faust enemies, the echidna boss, the fire hounds, etc. because they’re mostly designed around Nero’s Devil Bringer, which makes it a pain to deal with them as Dante when you don’t have that. Berial is a pretty cool boss fight, though. Credo’s boss fight is peak, one of the best in the series. The Savior is one of the worst boss fights in the series, constant platform hopping dragged on for ten minutes is not fun. Mostly mediocre to terrible enemies, but there’s some good in there (the only good is Credo).
The story of these games is never anything remarkable. The situations the characters find themselves in isn't anything special, BUT the characters are the ones that make them interesting, and I love these characters. This game follows Nero, a new devil hunter who is a part of the Order of the Sword: a cult that worships Sparda, a demon, as a god. It's clear that Nero doesn't want much to do with the cult, as he blames god for ruining his life by giving him a demonic arm. Because the order fights against demons, he has to hide this arm from everyone, including his girlfriend Kyrie. Not knowing who his parents were and being abandoned at a young age, he was raised with Kyrie and her brother, Credo, a general of the Order of the Sword.
During a sermon, Dante casually drops in and kills the cult's leader: Sanctus. While Credo helps evacuate the people of the church, Nero stands up to Dante. After a lengthy battle, he's forced to reveal his arm and use its power. Dante casually gets stabbed through the chest and takes it like a champ, showing Nero that he is part demon, hinting that him and Nero have more in common than they think. He flees the scene, and the following few missions are just Nero running aimlessly trying to catch Dante. He eventually finds himself in the lab of the cult's lead scientist: Agnus. He faces a near death experience with getting brutally impaled multiple times, but the power of a strong devil arm in the order's possession, the Yamato, beckons to Nero and gives him the power to fight off Agnus.
Credo eventually turns on Nero, as well, claiming that what the order is doing is just. Agnus is learning to extract demonic power from demons and put them into other objects and people. The order believes that taking this power makes them angels, not demons. Their battle is interrupted when Kyrie finds them both fighting, and subsequently gets snatched by Agnus. Credo tells Nero that he has to figure out what's going on before they continue fighting, and the two flee after Kyrie in their own way. On his way there, Nero runs into Dante once again, who is now after Yamato. The two fight, with Dante confidently winning, but Nero pleads to Dante to let him keep it because he needs its power. Dante sees that he has a good heart and a strong moral compass, so he lets him keep it, then lets Nero pass through.
Nero then eventually finds Kyrie with Sanctus, now revived with demonic power. He aims to use her as a battery to power a giant statue called The Savior, and after capturing Nero as well, he can use his power as well as that of the Yamato for it to become fully functional. Credo attempts to save Nero, but ultimately fails. This is when Dante finally decides to step in with Trish by his side. With Nero and Kyrie captured, Credo dead, and Yamato now in the hands of a power hungry tyrant, he has to clean up what mess Nero left for him. The next few levels are just him running back through Nero's levels with no important plot stuff happening. He kills some bosses that Nero couldn't, he kills Agnus, and he faces off against The Savior itself. He's able to get Yamato back in his possession and pass it onto Nero, who is now traversing the inside of The Savior to find Sanctus. He of course finds him, and thoroughly beats him to a pulp. He kills him after all is said and done and everyone is happy and stuff.
Like I said, the plot itself is not great, but the characters are what make it awesome. Something that kind of left me irritated after reflecting on DMC3 was Dante’s development. He and Vergil were two sides of the same coin: the former only accepting his human side, with the latter only accepting his demon side. Dante is able to triumph over Vergil in the end because he learns to accept both the human and demon halves of himself. But that kind of begs an important question: what does his human side bring to the table? It’s pretty clear that his demon side provides physical strength, hence why Vergil’s quest for power peaked when he finally possessed the demonic powers of his father. So then, how does Dante’s human side help him best Vergil, someone definitely stronger than him in terms of physical combat? The answer is love.
Nero spends the whole game fighting for the love of his life: Kyrie. Even when she becomes off put at the fact that he is part demon, he fights for her sake. He does everything in his power to rescue her from Sanctus, and although Dante needed to step in to help, he ultimately did that. Once he awakens with the Yamato, he claims that he will endure whatever punishment is given to him as long as he can save her in the end. Dante also alludes to this after his fight with Agnus, where the latter is in despair about losing despite having so much demonic power. Dante doesn’t deny the strength of demons, in fact, he even says that no human alone could ever match his strength. But humans alone are not weak. The human heart is capable of deep emotion, most importantly, the love for someone else.
It’s this love that the Order of the Sword ignored and what ultimately led to Sanctus’ downfall. This love also brings to light something else important to the cast, which is that anyone is capable of anything. Credo, pretty much Nero’s brother since they were kids, thinks of him as an enemy because of his demonic power and attempts to kill him. But, after Agnus kidnaps Kyrie, Credo retreats and is left to think about his next move. Eventually, that next move turns out to be an attempt to rescue both Nero and Kyrie from Sanctus’ clutches. He fails, and dies for it, telling Sanctus that while his ideas are sound, putting his beloved sister in danger was crossing a line. He beckons to Dante to rescue BOTH Kyrie and Nero.
Nero always saw his demonic arm as a curse, which is why he was so uninvolved with the religious part of the order. He was angry at God for giving him an arm that was seen as morally bad due to the demonic power residing within. But, in the end, he is able to see his arm as a gift rather than a curse and uses it for good. Not all demonic power is evil, just as not all of humanity is just. There are good humans and bad demons, just as there are bad humans and good demons. Sanctus, a power hungry demonic man wreaks havoc for his own gain, while Nero, a human with the power of a demon puts an end to his evil endeavors.
This all wraps up nicely into a nice little package with themes of morality of demons and humans, true strength, and acceptance. The third is covered more in DMC5 as well, giving Nero an arc spanning multiple games, but it’s pretty good overall. All the other characters are great as well, even if they don’t get any kind of similar arc. Credo is my favorite of them all, it’s a shame he had to die, but he died for a good reason and he was great while he lasted. In terms of pure fun, Dante is at his peak here. In DMC3, he still had to take heavy moments seriously, but here, he’s just having a good time. The opening cutscene before his fight with Agnus is maybe the greatest cutscene in all of gaming. Speaking of, Agnus is fun as well. He isn’t much more than a lackey, but he’s equal parts fun and menacing. Sanctus is the only one I’m not huge on. He serves his purpose well as a man seeking demonic power, disregarding his humanity for pure strength, but as a character, he’s whatever. His thematic presence was great, but nothing else is of note. Oh yeah, Kyrie exists as well. She doesn’t do much, but like Sanctus, she serves her role in the story well and gives Nero a reason to fight.
I’m glad that this game continued to use the music style that DMC3 experimented with. It doesn’t reach the same levels as DMC3, but there are a lot of solid tracks. The Time Has Come, Nero’s battle theme, is pretty good, but I much prefer it as the first half to the main theme: Shall Never Surrender. Credo’s boss theme, Swipe of Sword, isn’t anything special, but is incredibly catchy for some reason, so I end up enjoying it more than I should. Dante’s boss theme, Blackened Angel is cool, but his combat theme is better, taking the lyrics from Blackened Angel and remixing them over a new rendition of Lock and Load, the main DMC1 combat theme. I think it could be better if the lyrics actually had some kind of meaning. The lyrics it has sound cool, don’t get me wrong, but I genuinely don’t see how they relate to Dante.
DMC4 is rough. It has a good core, but almost everything surrounding it is flawed exponentially. The combat is, at its core, amazing, maybe the best in the series, but I can’t in good conscience say that when every other aspect of the gameplay sucks. The level design is bad, rooms are too big, playing through the same levels twice is boring, and the enemies suck to fight. I think it says a lot how, after I beat DMC3, I immediately went back and played it. When I beat DMC4, I did the same thing: play DMC3, because the level design is bearable while also boasting good combat, more bearable enemies, and bosses that are both memorable and challenging. It still has the modern DMC charm with awesome characters and tons of visual flair, which makes it a worthwhile time. It’s not a bad game by any means, but playing a game with this many contradicting ups and downs is aggravating. Doesn’t help that it was released in between the two best games in the series which are remembered fondly and praised by all. Play it once to experience it, and hopefully you’ll find more enjoyment out of it than I did and have the strength to keep playing it.