26th January 2013, 9:35 AM
So the new Devil May Cry is out, and congratulations! It's a reboot! To date, my favorite entry in the series is DMC3, what with it's style switching system. DMC4 came close, but I spent too much time as Nero in that one, and his demon arm mechanics just weren't all that compelling compared to Dante's styles. DMC2 isn't really worth mentioning...
So what's new here? Well first thing's first, everyone's complaining about his look. I must confess when I first saw it my thoughts were "this looks really generic". Having seen what the rebooted story looks like, I think it works now.
So in the original DMC, Dante is the son of Dark Knight Sparda, a demon who rebelled against the rest of demonkind to save humanity. Dante himself is half-human and half-demon. While DMC4 has "angels" in it, it becomes clear that they aren't true angels but a church's attempt to steal demon power and twist it into what they think a holy warrior should be. As such, the existence of angels is never established in the original storyline. It's just humans alone against a world of demons. Aside from Dante, there's Virgil, Dante's brother who "guides" him through hell and reveals he's decided to join the ranks of demons.
In the reboot, things are very different. First, Sparda lost. He was captured and banished from the world, which demons then took over (indirectly, with all the cultural commentary and subtly you might expect from a show about demons in the 1990's, such as a Fox News parody and a high demon acting as a corporate executive with the president in his pocket, fun stuff but certainly not all that serious or edgy). Humans have no idea they are being ruled by demons. Also, Dante is still half human, but his other half isn't human, it's angel. His mother turns out to be an angel who was killed near the same time his father was banished. As a result, you switch between angelic and demonic powers throughout the game. Dante was more or less homeless throughout his life, living on the streets and occasionally getting put into correctional facilities and foster homes, usually run by demons. As a result, he's a punk. That's why he looks like that. He's still got some style, but he's got major trust issues (his words). Contrary to reviews, this makes the new Dante the "emo" one (the new Dante won't be perfectly catching a thrown pizza or shooting a bullet into pool balls to perfectly break them and send them into demons while saying "Let's get crazy!"). So then there's Virgil. For some reason, while Dante lived on the streets, Virgil ended up in the lap of luxury, going to all the finest schools. He's a lot more level headed and is the "cool and collected" character reviewers call "boring" (I don't get it, what's wrong with cool and collected characters?). Anyway, Virgil has started a resistance movement with the goal of overthrowing the demons ruling the world, and is "guiding" Dante into joining it. (I don't know yet if Virgil is hiding something, but I'm pretty sure he is.)
That's all well and good, it's a nice setting to "reboot" the series into. Sometimes the cutscenes overstay their welcome though, and then there's some rather dumb things they did. Dante was always a lady's man, but this one makes him very hard to like in that category. First, they do a renaissance style painting at the starting screen with angels all around Dante, but they're all fawning over him, a few in bikinis, and with Dante making a symbol with his fingers like he's going to shoot the one in front of him in the head. Um, yeah I really didn't like that one, I shouldn't have to explain why. The opening crawl is oozing with sex, which is all well and good, it's part of DMC's style, but it goes just a tad too far. It's gotta be seen to be believed. The problem is very little of that sexuality serves any purpose. They spend so much camera time on a couple of strippers dressed like angels, and we never see those strippers again. It's just one of those things. Creating a settings is fine, but sometimes you gotta at least make sure your sexually charged atmosphere serves some sort of POINT, and it really didn't for a lot of the opening.
Well, all that aside, once it gets into gear, it works out well. Let's get onto the combat.
The combat is the greatest part of this reboot. I think this is the next step for these 3D beat 'em ups. Devil May Cry originally invented the genre, and then God of War honed and improved it on the field of battle. Devil May Cry now stands to take back the crown with the new developments. In the original, weapon switching was done via a menu. This was clunky and meant you'd generally stick with the same weapon through most of a fight. In DMC3, even with the amazing "styles", you still were forced to pick one at the start of each mission and keep it throughout that mission. In God of War, weapon switching could now be done without pausing. Kratos could now just hit a button and move to lion gauntlets or whatever. However, combos were still "locked", and it still wasn't perfectly smooth transitioning. DmC Reboot does away with all of that. Instead of a "style system", it now just lets you make your own styles in real time. The game throws a new weapon at you every couple of fights near the start of the game. Just enough time for you to get the hang of the last one before getting the next. The big change? You can switch to any weapon or attack you want in real time, mid-combo. Instead of a button being for "switching" weapons, you instead hold down a button to convert your attack buttons TO that weapon. So, you'll be using Dante's sword "Rebellion" for two strikes, hold down R2 to switch in a big ax smash, and hold L2 to swing a scythe around. The circle button converts to a hook shot with those two buttons too. R2 pulls things to you, and L2 pulls you to things. As a result, you can create some incredible combos all on your own by dynamically switching between all your weapons. I've never seen anything like it, and it is style incarnate.
Learning new moves is done as it ever was, by getting red orbs and "spending" them at a statue (this time an angel statue instead of the god of time statue in the original). The biggest change I've seen here is that you can now "try before you buy". Hitting triangle sends you into a pocket space with an enemy to test a move on, see if it works as well as you think, and then decide if you want to buy it. I love it.
All this said, here's a few negatives. The jumping is great for combat, working exactly as it should, but much like God of War, it is clunky as hell for the forced platforming the game throws at you. I hope they do less of that in future installments. Heck, I died a few times in the opening sequence because I couldn't quite jump far enough to clear gaps. Unlike the first one, Dante doesn't automatically switch to a "long jump" when he's near a gap. The story can get a little full of itself at times. It's not bad, and it's got a style all it's own, but there are times when I think I can almost hear the developers saying "Yeah, this edgy commentary on society will shock them! We're the first to ever say this!" which might be fine if it wasn't crystal clear that the only social issue they don't care about is feminism. Probably better if the story focused more on getting from plot point to plot point and kept perspective on itself a bit more.
As far as gameplay, the combat is absolutely solid, fluid, incredibly fun, very likely to change the genre forever, but considering how clunky that same control system is for platforming, they need to tone that down a bit next time. There are also a few fossils from the original series they should have discarded for this reboot. Firstly, I shouldn't need to wait to find a statue to upgrade my skills. I should be able to do that on the fly, just as in God of War. Secondly, also as in God of War, the "stage" structure is a bit antiquated. Stick some save points in there instead of me needing to make a crazy amount of progress just to record said progress between stages. Leave "stages" as something unlocked during progress, to be done on their own for style ranking (after all, I never go for the SSS during my first run through the game).
All in all, I still think it's a solid reboot with some clever ideas and amazing fight mechanics. I just think it needs polishing, and the story writers need perspective on the fact we're talking about a punk half angel half demon killing giant monsters, it doesn't really have the power to be "edgy", so make it over the top, stylish, and just a little drop of the self aware goofy. Other than that, I highly recommend it.
So what's new here? Well first thing's first, everyone's complaining about his look. I must confess when I first saw it my thoughts were "this looks really generic". Having seen what the rebooted story looks like, I think it works now.
So in the original DMC, Dante is the son of Dark Knight Sparda, a demon who rebelled against the rest of demonkind to save humanity. Dante himself is half-human and half-demon. While DMC4 has "angels" in it, it becomes clear that they aren't true angels but a church's attempt to steal demon power and twist it into what they think a holy warrior should be. As such, the existence of angels is never established in the original storyline. It's just humans alone against a world of demons. Aside from Dante, there's Virgil, Dante's brother who "guides" him through hell and reveals he's decided to join the ranks of demons.
In the reboot, things are very different. First, Sparda lost. He was captured and banished from the world, which demons then took over (indirectly, with all the cultural commentary and subtly you might expect from a show about demons in the 1990's, such as a Fox News parody and a high demon acting as a corporate executive with the president in his pocket, fun stuff but certainly not all that serious or edgy). Humans have no idea they are being ruled by demons. Also, Dante is still half human, but his other half isn't human, it's angel. His mother turns out to be an angel who was killed near the same time his father was banished. As a result, you switch between angelic and demonic powers throughout the game. Dante was more or less homeless throughout his life, living on the streets and occasionally getting put into correctional facilities and foster homes, usually run by demons. As a result, he's a punk. That's why he looks like that. He's still got some style, but he's got major trust issues (his words). Contrary to reviews, this makes the new Dante the "emo" one (the new Dante won't be perfectly catching a thrown pizza or shooting a bullet into pool balls to perfectly break them and send them into demons while saying "Let's get crazy!"). So then there's Virgil. For some reason, while Dante lived on the streets, Virgil ended up in the lap of luxury, going to all the finest schools. He's a lot more level headed and is the "cool and collected" character reviewers call "boring" (I don't get it, what's wrong with cool and collected characters?). Anyway, Virgil has started a resistance movement with the goal of overthrowing the demons ruling the world, and is "guiding" Dante into joining it. (I don't know yet if Virgil is hiding something, but I'm pretty sure he is.)
That's all well and good, it's a nice setting to "reboot" the series into. Sometimes the cutscenes overstay their welcome though, and then there's some rather dumb things they did. Dante was always a lady's man, but this one makes him very hard to like in that category. First, they do a renaissance style painting at the starting screen with angels all around Dante, but they're all fawning over him, a few in bikinis, and with Dante making a symbol with his fingers like he's going to shoot the one in front of him in the head. Um, yeah I really didn't like that one, I shouldn't have to explain why. The opening crawl is oozing with sex, which is all well and good, it's part of DMC's style, but it goes just a tad too far. It's gotta be seen to be believed. The problem is very little of that sexuality serves any purpose. They spend so much camera time on a couple of strippers dressed like angels, and we never see those strippers again. It's just one of those things. Creating a settings is fine, but sometimes you gotta at least make sure your sexually charged atmosphere serves some sort of POINT, and it really didn't for a lot of the opening.
Well, all that aside, once it gets into gear, it works out well. Let's get onto the combat.
The combat is the greatest part of this reboot. I think this is the next step for these 3D beat 'em ups. Devil May Cry originally invented the genre, and then God of War honed and improved it on the field of battle. Devil May Cry now stands to take back the crown with the new developments. In the original, weapon switching was done via a menu. This was clunky and meant you'd generally stick with the same weapon through most of a fight. In DMC3, even with the amazing "styles", you still were forced to pick one at the start of each mission and keep it throughout that mission. In God of War, weapon switching could now be done without pausing. Kratos could now just hit a button and move to lion gauntlets or whatever. However, combos were still "locked", and it still wasn't perfectly smooth transitioning. DmC Reboot does away with all of that. Instead of a "style system", it now just lets you make your own styles in real time. The game throws a new weapon at you every couple of fights near the start of the game. Just enough time for you to get the hang of the last one before getting the next. The big change? You can switch to any weapon or attack you want in real time, mid-combo. Instead of a button being for "switching" weapons, you instead hold down a button to convert your attack buttons TO that weapon. So, you'll be using Dante's sword "Rebellion" for two strikes, hold down R2 to switch in a big ax smash, and hold L2 to swing a scythe around. The circle button converts to a hook shot with those two buttons too. R2 pulls things to you, and L2 pulls you to things. As a result, you can create some incredible combos all on your own by dynamically switching between all your weapons. I've never seen anything like it, and it is style incarnate.
Learning new moves is done as it ever was, by getting red orbs and "spending" them at a statue (this time an angel statue instead of the god of time statue in the original). The biggest change I've seen here is that you can now "try before you buy". Hitting triangle sends you into a pocket space with an enemy to test a move on, see if it works as well as you think, and then decide if you want to buy it. I love it.
All this said, here's a few negatives. The jumping is great for combat, working exactly as it should, but much like God of War, it is clunky as hell for the forced platforming the game throws at you. I hope they do less of that in future installments. Heck, I died a few times in the opening sequence because I couldn't quite jump far enough to clear gaps. Unlike the first one, Dante doesn't automatically switch to a "long jump" when he's near a gap. The story can get a little full of itself at times. It's not bad, and it's got a style all it's own, but there are times when I think I can almost hear the developers saying "Yeah, this edgy commentary on society will shock them! We're the first to ever say this!" which might be fine if it wasn't crystal clear that the only social issue they don't care about is feminism. Probably better if the story focused more on getting from plot point to plot point and kept perspective on itself a bit more.
As far as gameplay, the combat is absolutely solid, fluid, incredibly fun, very likely to change the genre forever, but considering how clunky that same control system is for platforming, they need to tone that down a bit next time. There are also a few fossils from the original series they should have discarded for this reboot. Firstly, I shouldn't need to wait to find a statue to upgrade my skills. I should be able to do that on the fly, just as in God of War. Secondly, also as in God of War, the "stage" structure is a bit antiquated. Stick some save points in there instead of me needing to make a crazy amount of progress just to record said progress between stages. Leave "stages" as something unlocked during progress, to be done on their own for style ranking (after all, I never go for the SSS during my first run through the game).
All in all, I still think it's a solid reboot with some clever ideas and amazing fight mechanics. I just think it needs polishing, and the story writers need perspective on the fact we're talking about a punk half angel half demon killing giant monsters, it doesn't really have the power to be "edgy", so make it over the top, stylish, and just a little drop of the self aware goofy. Other than that, I highly recommend it.