I almost gave this 3 stars because I'm scared of DMC fans combo-ing my ass, but I just didn't really enjoy this one.
You can tell this was a prototype for Resident Evil (this isn't a detriment to the game btw), with the backtracking map design, horror aesthetic, fixed cameras and text descriptions of the environment. Honestly the horror design is probably the coolest aspect of the game, especially in the alternate worlds with the warping walls and the ominous skyboxes.
Speaking of fixed cameras, considering I'd recently played the original Resident Evil, this didn't initially bug me, but it does suck for executing direction inputs and gauging your relationship to enemies (camera really collapses during Nightmare boss battles).
This game is very hard, a lot different from the experience I had with DMC5. In DMC5, I didn't really feel any pushback until Son Of Sparta difficulty, as I feel the game focuses more on just letting you experiment with flashy cool shit. DMC1 on the other hand will kick your ass on Normal, mostly because attacks do humongous damage. This is a pretty short game anyway, but I probably could've finished it in 2 hours if enemies did 40% less damage. I didn't find the difficulty that rewarding of a hurdle to overcome, especially because of the yellow orb system that I am personally not a fan of. Unlike later DMC games where revival items allow you to get right up again, the original DMC uses them as a consumable-checkpoint system; if you want to save them, you have to restart the level fully. This shouldn't be too much of a grievance because of how short the levels are (ranging from 2-30 minutes) but can be extremely annoying on levels with bossfights. Maybe I'm just terrible at this game but it felt pretty unintentional to abuse saves and restarts to farm red orbs so I can actually survive more than 2 hits from bosses.
I appreciate this game for being the start of a genre, but unfortunately it wasn't able to fill my dark soul with light. Dante is a pretty awesome character though
You can tell this was a prototype for Resident Evil (this isn't a detriment to the game btw), with the backtracking map design, horror aesthetic, fixed cameras and text descriptions of the environment. Honestly the horror design is probably the coolest aspect of the game, especially in the alternate worlds with the warping walls and the ominous skyboxes.
Speaking of fixed cameras, considering I'd recently played the original Resident Evil, this didn't initially bug me, but it does suck for executing direction inputs and gauging your relationship to enemies (camera really collapses during Nightmare boss battles).
This game is very hard, a lot different from the experience I had with DMC5. In DMC5, I didn't really feel any pushback until Son Of Sparta difficulty, as I feel the game focuses more on just letting you experiment with flashy cool shit. DMC1 on the other hand will kick your ass on Normal, mostly because attacks do humongous damage. This is a pretty short game anyway, but I probably could've finished it in 2 hours if enemies did 40% less damage. I didn't find the difficulty that rewarding of a hurdle to overcome, especially because of the yellow orb system that I am personally not a fan of. Unlike later DMC games where revival items allow you to get right up again, the original DMC uses them as a consumable-checkpoint system; if you want to save them, you have to restart the level fully. This shouldn't be too much of a grievance because of how short the levels are (ranging from 2-30 minutes) but can be extremely annoying on levels with bossfights. Maybe I'm just terrible at this game but it felt pretty unintentional to abuse saves and restarts to farm red orbs so I can actually survive more than 2 hits from bosses.
I appreciate this game for being the start of a genre, but unfortunately it wasn't able to fill my dark soul with light. Dante is a pretty awesome character though