Not gonna make some grand contrarian gesture here and say that this is totally underrated game that folks need to give a second chance, but I will say that the vitriol this gets seems a bit overblown. Doesn't help that the game makes its worst mistake right off the bat by having you start with Dante's campaign, which has clearly been so slashed to pieces and stitched together that it's hard to believe it was shuffled out the door in this state. DMC has never been a franchise for story people and I'm well aware of that, but even with that caveat I find it strange that no one at Capcom stopped to wonder if the player may need some degree of context to understand why they're doing anything here. It also needs be said that Dante plays terribly here - he's been defanged of almost his entire arsenal of moves from the prior game and is shockingly sluggish considering how vast these levels are. If there is a prime sin this game makes early, it's that it ends up being painfully dull for the entire first campaign.
But then you get to Lucia, which I feel is the part of the game that gets damned with faint praise by most. Sure, she's not the magical band-aid that fixes all of the problems here, but compared to Dante, her campaign feels paced and groomed to somewhat resemble an actual game, and the story finally starts to make sense due to the cutscenes providing actual plot context for what you're doing and who all is involved in the drama. Still, her campaign still suffers from the lack of challenge inherent to the whole game and adds in a couple of shitty water levels for good measure, so it's not like I can call the back half of the game a total resuscitation of the experience.
It's weird - I heard the overwhelming consensus that this was a front-to-back dumpster fire with no redeeming qualities, and by the end of Dante's campaign I was inclined to agree. After Lucia's campaign, though, I feel like this is less a "dire black sheep" entry in the franchise and rather a "merely mediocre misstep" in a franchise I'm learning to fall in love with.
But then you get to Lucia, which I feel is the part of the game that gets damned with faint praise by most. Sure, she's not the magical band-aid that fixes all of the problems here, but compared to Dante, her campaign feels paced and groomed to somewhat resemble an actual game, and the story finally starts to make sense due to the cutscenes providing actual plot context for what you're doing and who all is involved in the drama. Still, her campaign still suffers from the lack of challenge inherent to the whole game and adds in a couple of shitty water levels for good measure, so it's not like I can call the back half of the game a total resuscitation of the experience.
It's weird - I heard the overwhelming consensus that this was a front-to-back dumpster fire with no redeeming qualities, and by the end of Dante's campaign I was inclined to agree. After Lucia's campaign, though, I feel like this is less a "dire black sheep" entry in the franchise and rather a "merely mediocre misstep" in a franchise I'm learning to fall in love with.