DMC: Devil May Cry (2013)

"This will make you Ultranumb."

Many years ago, Mundus the demon lord waged a war for control over hell's dark domain until he was betrayed by the dark knight Sparda. After betraying Mundus, Sparda fled to the human world where he courted an angel named Eva and the two conceived twin sons; Vergil and Dante. Not longer after, Mundus attacked Dante and Vergil's family, imprisoning their father and slaying their mother. The two brothers must reunite to take their revenge on Mundus and save the human race from their indentured servitude to hell's legions.

It's difficult to review a game like DMC because the game has a disproportionate share of good and bad components which while not entirely crippling, does make it hard to derive much entertainment value from the game. This review may at times seems contradictory because there are so many contrasts of extremes at play.

TRON: DMC

The first thing we'll cover is presentation. This particular entry feels more grounded in the real world as it addresses social and political issues in society. There is a Glenn Beck type news correspondence named Bob Barnabas and a very Fox News like program referred to as Raptor News. The game addresses the use of propaganda, drugs, including those mickies slipped into our Mountain Dew, and other methods the System uses to control the masses. Except in DMC the System is a demonic power structure rather than a human one. This is interesting on one level because it shows that the demons have conquered the world without resorting to a "winner take all" war because controlling the mind through the media is more efficient. This also places Dante and company in a unique position because they are seen as deviants in the best light and terrorists in the worst which places the leads in a moral conundrum as they have to fight to save a world that sees them as the enemy.

Conversely, it is here that DMC asserts itself as the Anita Sarkeesian of video games because it tackles issues bigger than its ability to discuss them intelligently. The game clearly has a "We are the 99%" feel which - even in its year of inception was well-passed the point of being socially and politically relevant. So when DMC is released two years later, the war it's trying to convey seems largely unimportant. Of course given the length of development for games DMC cannot be blamed for not being topical, but this does point to an issue that Ninja Theory was more interested in riding what was at the time, a trend, rather than tell a unique or compelling narrative that would do this fiction proud. There is also an "Us vs Them"/"Power to the People" tone of the game which feels equally ham-fisted because not only is it out of place but its coming from a development team that isn't actually passionate about telling that kind of story. I say this because if the reverse were true, the narrative would be much stronger and these elements of the plot wouldn't feel so crow barred in.

Someday we're going to look back on this and laugh.

Part of rebooting a series is taking liberties with your source material and DMC does this liberally, sometimes to great success and sometimes not. In the original series, Dante and Vergil were half-human half-demon twins. In DMC they are Nephilim i.e. offspring of angels and demons. It's here that the liberties taken with the original lore become a problem and if this sounds familiar it's because THQ did the exact same thing with Darksiders which was released an entire three years before DMC. In Darksiders, the Horsemen come from a race called Nephilim which being the offspring of angels and demons - are more powerful than both. DMC says this outright in explaining why Dante and Vergil are the only ones who can kill Mundus. So either Ninja Theory is copying the Nephilim lore used in Darksiders almost word-for-word, or this is one sizeble coincidence. Alternatively, one could argue that Ninja Theory is copying Biblical lore of the Nephilim but if that were the case they'd be even further off base where the origin of said race is concerned.

A more positive aspect of this re-imagining of the original series is in its portrayal of Vergil who, in addition to serving as the Spock to Dante's Kirk, is also seen in a more heroic light in this entry. Throughout the game, Vergil shows that he is dedicated to overthrowing Mundus in order to free the humans from his control. Of note is that the dichotomy between Vergil and Dante actually shows Vergil to be far more altruistic. Vergil is fully aware that Mundus killed their mother but unlike Dante who agrees to work with Vergil solely for revenge, Vergil's motivation is the liberation of the human race. In addition, when Dante wants to save Kat, the female lead who gets captured to the surprise of no one, Dante wants to trade himself for her safety but Vergil outright forbids it because given that Dante is the key to saving the world, Vergil isn't going to sacrifice the well-being of the human race for one person while Dante seems more than willing to. The similarities and differences between the twins has always been riveting and this is somewhat true in this entry as well. However, once again DMC takes one step forward and two steps back with Vergil's heel turn at the end and I'll explain why.

"We are brothers after all."

Throughout the development of DMC, Ninja Theory took potshots at the original series and the fans for enjoying it. As they got more bad PR than pre-orders they took strides to make the game more similar to the original series contrary to their initial position that they were confident enough the game could stand on its own. This becomes a problem with the narrative because the lack of the commitment to one particular direction causes the character development to negate a large component of its own plot. Anyone who has played the original series is aware that whether you see Vergil as a villain or a well-intentioned extremist he is one of the primary antagonists, true. However, in DMC Vergil's decisions and conduct throughout the game are almost unanimously virtuous and this isn't an act. So this is why it comes out of nowhere when at the end of the game Vergil comes out and says "Haha yes now I can rule the world." 

This is the issue. Ninja Theory portrayed Vergil as being a truly genuine, heroic character and based on the script it seemed like the game would take the relationship between Dante and Vergil in a less antagonistic direction than the original. However, they clearly reached a point where the development team lost confidence in their own story and had to throw in a call back to the previous games or they were afraid it would tank. If you play this game, the final battle between the twins even feels tacked on. I'm not saying that Vergil shouldn't have been the final enemy. What I am saying is that based on the narrative structure within this entry, Vergil's heel turn is not justified by the plot or the character development. It's just there because it had to be. This doesn't ruin Vergil's character, but it does make one question the narrative integrity of the game. What about Dante?

Son of Sparda

The less said of Dante is perhaps best. This isn't because Dante is not the same character as in the original series, not at all. The reboot Dante is unlikable simply because he is. While in the original Devil May Cry, Dante was stylish, well-dressed, educated, sophisticated, and while he had a cavalier personality he knew how to get serious when the situation called for it and he usually saw the bigger picture. The reboot Dante is a slob, he literally grabs the nearest clothes he has lying around and wears them, he isn't exactly the fastest horse in the stable, and his personality isn't cavalier so much as it is completely irresponsible. And this is what people need to understand when examining the issues that some gamers have with the new Dante. People don't like the rebooted character "not" because he isn't the original Dante, but because he does not have any qualities that endear you to him. That's the issue here. I didn't dislike the new Dante because he didn't look or act like the original. I disliked him because he's an irresponsible burnout. That's the difference. Dante does start to grow out of his off-putting personality 3/4 of the way through the game but by then it was too late to win me over. So the story is run of the mill, the presentation isn't great, and the characters are hit and miss, what about the gameplay?

SAVAGE!!!

Like other areas, gameplay in DMC is a mixed bag. The combat is very stylish thanks to the number of moves Dante can learn and the ability to switch between swords, gauntlets, axes, scythes, and guns on the fly. For experienced Devil May Cry players, it's easy to rack up an SS or even SSS ranking and I found myself doing this regularly, sometimes switching up four to five different weapons in one combo. There's also a nice touch presentation wise where the camera always zooms in on Dante when he strikes the last blow in slow motion. There are hiccups though. You can't cancel out of a combo so when an enemy is about to strike you don't have much choice other than to try and stagger them or eat their attack. In a genre where cancelling out of your combos to be able to dodge and retreat is pretty much standard, I'm surprised that DMC doesn't allow you to do this while titles like God of War, Metal Gear Rising, Bayonetta, Lords of Shadow, and so many others have this feature. Even the original Devil May Cry series always allowed you to cancel out of a combo, dodge an attack, and then get right back into the action without missing a beat, but this entry does not. So you run into a situation where when you take on larger, more powerful enemies, your combat is less stylish and more stop and start. It's hard to get into a flow because you constantly have to land three or four hits, stop so Dante's animation frames will allow you to dodge, land three or four hits and repeat. You lose a lot of fluidity even if you're highly skilled.

Hope you like this stage because you'll be seeing it a lot.

Level designs are also hit and miss. There are some very nice touches when Dante enters limbo and the environment literally turns against him. Bold letters will display words of discouragement such as "DIE" or "FALL" when you're platforming. It's also really appropriate because sometimes the messages will be orders for your enemies reading "STOP HIM" or "DON'T LET HIM ESCAPE." Some levels will have buildings that try to close in on you, floors will break apart, and some levels even stretch as you're platforming to make timing difficult. This is very fun and exciting. However, this too becomes a problem because DMC has to load during the worst times - i.e. during the actual jumps you need to make to get from one platform to the other. During those areas where I have to jump, glide, or grapple onto a certain ledge, the game will actually stop, load, but it wouldn't complete the animation because it was loading at the precise moment I input said commands. During DMC I regularly found myself falling into pits because the game would pause right as I'm platforming. This happened more times than I could even keep track of and it made level progression very frustrating. Also, while reused assets has been par for the course since the NES era, you usually catch that sort of thing between games. However, there are some levels which are repeated no fewer than three times which detracts from the variety. Within the levels themselves, so many of the textures were the same and I found myself running in circles more than once.

This is actually one of the better designs. 

The boss designs are uninspired which makes sense as with the exception of perhaps two battles they're all equally run of the mill. Attack the head and dodge using glide or the grapple points in your environment will get you through most of the battles, and the fight against Mundus is pretty similar to the fight with Blackheart at the end of the Ghost Rider video game. None of the battles in this game are exactly epic and I've run into one or two regular enemies that are actually tougher than some of the bosses. The only real high-point is the final fight against Vergil which - while not entirely justified by this entry's narrative - was quite fun. The final battle is also the only aspect of this game that actually "feels" like Devil May Cry is supposed to feel. The presentation during the Vergil fight doesn't knock it out of the park like say Devil May Cry 3, but it's definitely the highlight of the games battles given the speed, ferocity, and calculated attacks that Vergil is known for are all on display. This is also the only part of the game where the music is appropriate for the action. Compare the metal played during Vergil's battle with the dubstep during the fight against Mundus.

"That was one hell of a party."

It goes without saying that DMC is the most polarizing game in recent years as it has been contentious since its inception. Heated feelings aside, sometimes a game is lacking and it has nothing to do with fan reception. I went into DMC without any baggage and I took the game as it was. It was flawed, buggy, dull, and even though there are some high points such as Dante unlocking his Devil Trigger and the final battle against Vergil, there are so many things wrong with this game that it's frustrating to trek through all that to get to the good stuff. I didn't feel angry when I finished DMC, I just felt letdown and thought of how much time I wasted instead of doing something constructive. If you absolutely must play this game you can rent it on PSN or buy it on Amazon for less than $15 but unless you're that hardcore I can't recommend it. It's probably not "as" bad as you think, but it's definitely not as good as you'd hope.