Monday Impressions: DmC Devil May Cry

Now we've all heard about how this isn't a true Devil May Cry game or how Capcom made a mistake of outsourcing the development to Ninja Theory and how the new Dante looks like an emo mess. But answer me this, can you truly say that you agree with those statements? Is a game more about cosmetics than substance?

Developer: Ninja Theory Publisher: Capcom Release Date: January 15, 2013

This new iteration of Devil May Cry is a full on reboot of the series. Be that as it may, not a whole lot has changed. Dante may not be 80's pizza eating Ninja Turtles cool but is still the type of demon slaying badass as he was only a bit younger. He may have an emo look but Ninja Theory's portrayal of the new Dante is far from it. He's more of a bad mouthed angsty teen with a heart of gold.

The game runs on the Unreal Engine which still runs the curse of texture popping and frame drops. Still, the game looks great. The real world looks dull and grey as it should be since man-kind has been dumbed down by the bad guys while Limbo looks like a twisted version of it. Parts of buildings and roads burst out, floating in mid-air. Unknown black smudges that sometimes try to claw at you creep on the sides and corners of everything. I'd say Ninja Theory pulled off the exact kind of hell-on-Earth look that they were going for. Color tones are clear and prominent in every level. The real world is usually a dark grey and sometimes blue while Limbo is the exact opposite with bright vibrant colors.

What really hooked me on to this game was the combat. I love me some action games and I'm usually a fan of making your own combos. The older DMC games tickled my fancy and Bayonetta's combat system is one of the reasons why I love that game. The combat system in this new game is actually easier than previous DMCs. You can literally combo anything into anything. A one button launch is always ok in my book and switching between weapons are done by simple holding either the L2/LT or R2/RT buttons. Once you get newer weapons, you can switch to them on the fly via the D-pad. What I don't like about the combat is a lack of a controllable lock-on mechanic. You could me hitting one enemy but end up yanking or latching onto the wrong one mid battle which could mess up your style rank if you're going for that kind of stuff.

While all this talk about stylish combat is done against the regular goons, boss fights are another story. Boss fights are more about the visual aspect rather than combat finesse. Find the pattern, do damage, rinse and repeat. They do look hella fancy though and I'm sure some of them offer a better challenge on the higher difficulties.

Is it worth a try?

I have to admit, I wasn't negative about the visual changes that they made but I was still a bit skeptical about the gameplay itself as I was worried that it might fall to the modern game curse that it's all flash and no fun. After getting a taste of the combat when I tried the public demo, it convinced me that DmC Devil May Cry was going to be my first game purchase of 2013. I even ended up pre-ordering the game even though I wasn't really sold on the DLC bonuses that came with it. Though I have to say that I am diggin' the look of the Osiris bone skin and I do appreciate the orb magnet and the three free upgrade points.

I'll do a full playthrough of DmC Devil May Cry on a harder difficulty once I beat the game for the first time so that I have all the weapons and powers-ups. Had issues when I tried to upload videos of it the first time around, hopefully my second attempt will push through.