I remember learning about Devil May Cry back when I only had a PS1 of my own and waiting for the next Resident Evil. Code Veronica X on PS2 was originally released with the demo disc of DMC and I’ve seen many a fan of RE later say that that demo disc was the best thing about their purchase. Originally planned as the next entry in Resident Evil franchise (you can even see Umbrella logo in some of the old concept art) and highly influenced by Onimusha and Hideki Kamiya’s love for over the top stylish action concepts, this hack and slash action title created something of a genre of it’s own, sometimes called “stylish action” or “character action”. And while it evolved so much with fans eagerly awaiting whatever next game PlatinumGames (comprised of a lot of old Capcom employees who worked on DMC) are going to release, it’s interesting to go to the beginning and see how the genre defining franchise evolved.
Devil May Cry HD Collection is an updated collection of the first 3 titles in the series and despite being released on PC and modern consoles just this year, it’s a re-release of the collection from a previous generation of consoles from 2012. And while I am glad to see the original 3 games playable on modern systems, I am quite disappointed at how basic the ports are. Games run with 1080p as a maximum allowed resolution, with little to no updates, no nicer ability of more recent DMC games to have progress and scores saved as a “Profile” save instead of separate save files, exactly as they were originally, and some people even report issues. Personally, I’ve had no issues with the games myself and this particular updated port of DMC 3 worked better than the old notoriously bad PC port of the game that originally shipped without any shader effects. The games are launched as separate .exe files from the original executable launcher, which feels awkward, but at least they do support modern xinput controllers out of the box (not sure if DirectInput controllers can have issues, however). As a piece of history, this Collection is a welcome addition to PC and modern consoles, even if it could’ve been much better. But what about the games themselves?
Devil May Cry is where everything started and while by today’s standards of the genre the game might feel a bit simplistic at times, it also arguably has most of the basic concepts nailed first try. You have a memorable location open for fun, if quite linear, exploration – a Spanish castle and several surrounding areas, all designed after a Capcom trip to Spain which provided a lot of assets for many future games of the studio. There are some occasional puzzles, there to mostly add variety and fun to the exploration and provide calm moments between fights. There is the famous stylish action, rating your ability to hit and juggle enemies in a most awesome way possible, but slightly less punishing than in later games. Mostly due to the fact that there are just 3 melee weapons to choose from, with rather slow in-menu switching (or, in case of 2 weapons, rather slow in-game switching) and not that many combo actions. And there’s a somewhat silly and simplistic story, which, yet, manages to tell just enough to both provide context, and hint at a more interesting backstory and world that you don’t see in the game.
It’s surprising how simple everything is, yet how well it all works. While I have played the game before, I haven’t completed it until now and I didn’t expect it to age this well. Granted, there are questionable design choices. Platforming, when needed, is quite horrible due to the fixed camera angles. Some enemies are ridiculously difficult because of their really cool visual style that makes them look so fluid it’s barely possible to read their moves. Voice acting is infamously silly, with the translation itself in general being at times not good and often not in line with later games. Also, the first person swimming sections are so clunky, it’s not surprising there are so few of them. But at the same time, what is there is still amazing and even, at times, more creative and clever than what we’ve seen in the series since then, especially some of the visual ideas.
Devil May Cry 2 should’ve been bigger and better than the first game. It was planned to be. It was designed to be. It has gigantic levels, it has more fluid animations, it has new gameplay features, it has 2 playable characters and it has Diesel Dante, ooooh yeeeeeah. So why is that the game is so hated? Well, because it turned out to be bad. Not just bad, but exhausting and almost completely devoid of any kind of fun. Gigantic levels are plain, boring, hard to navigate with no smart breadcrumbs and a horrendous camera tied to it all. Game just goes from level to level with no real rhyme or reason. Because the story is barely there, and what is there is terrible and often hard to follow. Two characters, despite having two separate paths through the story, don’t really help make anything more clear. Sure, you get more swimming sections with one of the character and they are somewhat less confusing than in the first game, and you do see a few more new enemies and levels. But despite the new animations and features, it’s all a bore to play. I’ve completed the game with not much of a difficulty (especially after the first game), yet could barely keep my Style rating up because fights are seemingly not designed for the stylish action. To the point where shooting enemies from a safe distance is usually the best option. Exciting enemies such as “Infested Tank” or “Some monkeys”. Or “one boss from the first game that appears for no reason whatsoever”.
But I have to give the game some credit – it did evolve some of the basic ideas in cool ways. Dante (and Lucia, second playable character) get a lot of really cool tricks like running on walls, doing flips and just feeling a bit more agile and cooooool. It doesn’t save the game, because nothing can, and even makes some things worse, but they tried and these attempts did not go unnoticed in future games. It is also curious to see that among this mess of a “story” there are hints of ideas that would be reused almost verbatim in Resident Evil 5, Chaos Legion. And it’s also cool how the game did try to show some more of this world Dante lives in – the city you run around reminded me somewhat of Bayonetta. Except Bayonetta was better in every way, of course.
Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening, Special Edition is where the series came together. It’s a prequel to the entire series, which means a return to what made the original game good, but is also important because the story is finally important as well. I mean, it’s still somewhat silly, but instead of basic characters and silly lines of DMC or whatever the hell DMC2 was we get interesting characters with character growth and unique personalities. With dialogue that entertains and cutscenes that feel so over the top and awesome that you’ll get goosebumps even if you’ve seen them many times before. The game is wonderfully paced, combat perfected to have the ability to switch between a set of two melee and two ranged weapons on the fly (though the new weapon gets selected as soon as the ongoing combo ends, not immediately), there are additional ranks to the Style ranking and ranking itself has a visible meter now, so you can learn how to be better. There are many new distinct weapons, varied and fun (but very challenging) bosses, easier to understand secrets system and a really fun interconnected world that often can be backtracked on desire. There’s also a really nice system to check on your overall progress and switch the difficulty mode on the fly or play bonus modes.
All that said, damn the game is hard. Even if you are good with more modern stylish action titles, you will have trouble on Normal in this game. Despite the fact that originally (pre-Special Edition on PS2) Normal mode was even harder. Luckily, you can unlock Easy mode by dying, then learning the entire game on Easy (unlocking things there) and then going through it on Normal with all the things unlocked. But I still wish the game was a bit more forgiving with either an easier to pull off block/parry or easier to understand dodging when fighting some enemies or bosses. Game feels a bit inconsistent due to this, though, with a lot of its parts feeling just challenging enough, only for some next boss fight to be ridiculous on your first go. Or going through a rather tough level only to fight a very easy boss. It is also a real shame that despite the fact that the unlockable Virgil mode got a new proper story cutscene, it’s the only unique thing about it and the rest of the game is exactly the same (though playing as Vergil is very different).
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition was actually planned to be released shortly after the original release of the game back in 2008 but was only released 7 years later. And it’s quite a curious update. DMC 4 itself is both an amazing improvement over 3 and also a bit of a letdown. On one hand, the new main character Nero is incredibly fun to play, much easier to master for newer players, but still fun to play for the experienced and also removing a lot of the little annoyances playing as Dante has, like making it easier to get to enemies (or enemies to you), easier to juggle them and being able to focus on just one main set of abilities. Then again, when you switch to Dante midway through, playing as him is more fun than in previous games as well, with refined Style switching, fun to use weapons and some nice tweaks. And in the SE you can also play as Lady/Trish and as DMC3 Vergil, all of whom have very distinct and really cool playstyles. They even get the new opening and ending cutscenes, though, sadly, just as with DMC 3: SE, the rest of the missions proceed as they did in the main game. Also annoyingly and also just as with DMC 3: SE, you need to start with each of these characters from the beginning instead of being able to just jump into any level. At least, this time it’s a proper Profile save and all the unlocked modes and abilities/completed secret missions are saved for all characters.
Now, this wouldn’t have been much of an issue if not for the fact that DMC 4 suffers specifically from the level design and a set of rather unfun missions. Several, maybe even most of them, are very fun, even if they lack that exciting “hub” feel of DMC1 and especially 3. But then, most of the second half of the game is just going through the same levels and same boss fights again, but with a new character (in case of Virgil, not even a new character), with one level even been reused twice. After which you have an extremely boring level with yet another re-fight with all bosses and after that a really frustrating final boss fight. It’s like the developers really wanted to revisit ideas from DMC 2, but do them justice. And while they do make a lot of it work, perhaps they shouldn’t have done that. It is also kind of surprising how some of the plot points and visual decisions in the game parallel Bayonetta that would release a year later. A curious coincidence.
Devil May Cry still rocks. While the HD Collection could’ve been much better and DMC 2 is really not worth any time spent on it, it’s still a fun way to return to the amazing series that started a new action genre. And DMC 4 SE, while having a lot of unfun levels and frustrating parts, is still an exciting game to play with lots of content and a cool way to get into the whole stylish action genre. I was glad to revisit it, despite spending a lot of time on the original game many years ago, and it did age well. Here’s hoping DMC 5 will be even better.