5 years after Devil May Cry 4, Capcom finally gave the series a new entry with a new Western developer. Ninja Theory’s DmC: Devil May Cry rebooted the Devil May Cry series, changing both the world and gameplay mechanics. This review will judge the 2015 remastered version, DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition, on its own merits.
DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition’s gameplay is made up of two parts, combat and platforming. Combat is obviously the focus here, as with any Devil May Cry game. This game’s version of Dante can run, jump, shoot, dodge, and use his variety of weapons. Dante is also now able to lock on to enemies in this remastered version. Dante starts with a limited moveset and only one weapon, but over time the player will use skill points to acquire new moves and Dante will find new weapons during the game’s story. Dante’s moves combo together with ease and the games scoring system encourages using a variety of moves. Unfortunately everything else about the game doesn’t mix with what Dante can do very well. DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition is an insanely easy game. Even on the highest possible difficulty the game lets the player choose on the first playthrough, the reviewer beat the game comfortably with hardly any trouble. The enemy designs are also incredibly underwhelming. Throughout the game the majority of enemies fought can barely even try to hurt the player and are easily defeated with hardly any thought from the player. Other enemies infrequently use highly telegraphed attacks with large periods of time between them where they can be hit. These types of enemies are also often combined with having certain weak points that are the only places where they can be damaged, or they require Dante to use the correct color of weapon to effectively damage them, which doesn’t fit very well with the style of game and how it promotes a using variety of attacks. There are also some enemies that mimic Dante’s style of fighting, which generally just involve more waiting than usual for them to be damageable. Boss fights are arguably even less interesting, with extremely telegraphed attacks generally just boiling down to dealing a certain amount of damage to play a cutscene or do a scripted gameplay sequence three times. There are more difficult modes beyond the ones that the game gives you at the start, but they don’t fix the design on the game. Instead they just alter the balance between Dante and the enemies health points and damage as well as somewhat altering the behavior of the enemies. There are also platforming sections which essentially function as filler. Dante runs, at an awkwardly slow pace that makes spamming moves that move him forward faster, in generally straight paths with obvious objectives. There are also times where Dante has to interact with the environment, which generally just boils down to recognizing the color of the interact-able object and clicking the button associated with that button. The controls are generally fine, but has very limited remapping.
DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition remasters the 2013 original for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 1080p 60 FPS. Most of the game’s unique look is achieved through a variety of visual effects and vibrant colors. However, underneath these effects and colors are generally low quality geometry with generally flat environments, though the textures are rather high quality. There are a few exceptions, mainly in boss battles, where this not not exactly the case, though. To the games credit, there is a large variety of unique locations that the game takes place in. Sometimes there are some minor graphical glitches, but they are usually gone the moment after the player notices them. The reviewer also experienced some rare screen tearing on the Xbox One version.
The sound in DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition is not particularly great. The music isn’t annoying, but there was nothing good enough for the reviewer to give it special attention. Sound effects are perfectly good, though. Voice acting is present too, with mixed quality. Oddly, the side characters had the best acting, with some of the main cast featuring some awkward performances. Overall, sound is not a highlight of DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition.
The plot of DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition is not particularly great either, but thankfully it is mostly skippable. The only time where the plot really intrudes on the gameplay are the rare sections where the player is forced to walk. The writing is overall rather mediocre, with often unnatural dialogue, events that don’t make much sense, and an overall message that falls flat due to the poor writing. The world is not particularly interesting either, with the rebooted characters being rather bland and unlikable.
The value of DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition will depend on the players. Players who only plan to play the games main campaign should look for a decently discounted copy due to the games already lower than full price. However, the game is worth its slightly under full price for players who plan to take on every challenge, collect everything, and also play the included Vergil’s Downfall (the included DLC campaign with obviously much lower production value and extremely exploitable mechanics that is overall probably not quite worth the time it takes to play).
Overall the reviewer would give the game a 7.0 out of 10.
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