DmC: Devil May Cry (PC) Review

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EDIT: With Capcom's move to add DRM to their old games, they have proven a will to ruin their old stuff, which I can not support. When the DRM (Enigma Protector) is triggering antiviruss all over the place because of it's relation to straight up MALWARE, I am calling it. Consider this game and any other Capcom game broken (0/10) until further notice.

I’m going to have to be honest here. I’m not showing up as a fan of the franchise. Yes, I was aware of it, but I did honestly didn’t care a hell of a lot about it when it originally launched on the PS2. This was at that time when I had migrated away from consoles entirely in favor of games my PC had to offer. The game just didn’t draw my attention.

So when this version came out, I didn’t have any expectations of it aside from what the trailers showed me. I knew it would be an action game and it would be a combat heavy title, but what really drew me in was the world. Watching the demonic influence mutate the land in real-time while fighting enemies, I was interested… and when I got a good deal, I picked the game up. Having finished it just about at the end of my Extra Life marathon, I was not disappointed.

Story: Meet Dante. He’s a young punk who doesn’t seem to have a direction in his life, choosing instead to live for the moment and the moment alone. He believes himself to be just another orphan in that world, but childhood disease robbed him of his youngest memories. But when you have decided “to Hell with the world” is your personal motto, you find little use for such nostalgia it seems.

Unfortunately for Dante, the world seems to remember him, as this past makes him the direct target of a powerful demon-king named Mundus who has been looking to murder him like he did his father back in those days… and today, his unholy army found him.

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And yet others have found him as well. There is force going by the name of “the order” who have gathered specifically to fight Mundus and they know more about who Dante is then Dante himself! To this end, they sent a young lady named Kat to help him escape…

From this point you will follow Dante as he finds the order and it’s enigmatic leader, discovers who he is, and joins them in their quest to take out Mundus. It is a simple story of revenge, but it is solid and leaves little to really question. In essence it works well to give a backdrop the the carnage you will create while playing.

But at the same time, being this simple leaves literally no twist and turns until the very end of the game, and even that twist is basically told to you half-way through the game by a character who doesn’t even know those people involved. That’s right. It’s literally so obvious unrelated guy you rescue in a pocket hell who has NEVER seen anyone involved knew it was coming.

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So in short, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the story, but it is a fairly barebones plot that is there to support the game much more then actually tell a tale.

6/10

Graphics: DmC is 3D action game from just a few short years ago. As such, it hasn’t exactly had much time to age yet. Everything looks crisp and clear, but there are a few issues starting to surface.

The best looking parts of this game are simply put the enemies you face. They absolutely still look great with attention to detail that has continued to shine through the years, ranging from the tiny statue-like cherubs, to the quasi-armored skeletons knights to even the chainsaw skeleton enemies that look like they would come home to their brother Doom’s Revenant after work. It has all held up exceptionally well so far. And then we get to the bosses for a REAL treat.

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There are six actual boss battles through the entire game and each one shows real personality and skill just in how they were crafted. In fact the only complaint I can offer about the bosses looks are the forth, and it wasn’t even her design. She was made to look like a woman trying to pass for “young and hot” when she clearly had work done even though it didn’t really work… and she looks brilliant for that effect. But there are things that are done with her that looked out of sort, particularly in polygon count that for the moment it’s going on, seems out of place. It may have been done to make it more disturbing, but… on a technical side it just looks wrong. And when you fight her, the end results for the fight are less then impressive visually (which is shocking because the one before her was THE highlight fight of the game in just about every sense of the word… a real tough act to follow).

The worlds themselves are no slouches either. In fact this would be the reason I wanted to play this title. As I noted in the opening of this review, I did not come here as a fan of the franchise. Rather, I came here to promises of fighting demonic forces in their version of the world morphing and mutating around my character. And this game did not disappoint. The ground drops out of nowhere, the world streches impossibly far, and buildings (or even just a few walls) jerk out of their place into a new location to try to impede your progress, and it looks absolutely fantastic doing so.

In fact there is only one place I could complain about the world and it’s early on. At that point, it looks like the entire world bounces with a weird shattered mirror effect and then it’s gone. Its not major by any means, but compared to how awesome Limbo behaves normally, it just seems off.

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The only other complaint I have, however is a lot more common. Specifically it’s with the cut-scenes. Don’t get me wrong they look great too, but they are (at least on my machine) a downgrade from the main game. Where the game is crisp and sharp running liquid smooth at 1080 resolution, it feels like the videos cut that resolution and at least compared to the game, is running at a much lower resolution, making it obvious you are no longer in an ingame engine. I believe this is because it’s pre-rendered videos from the 360/PS3 versions, but it’s definitely an argument for in-engine cut-scenes over pre-rendering. There is plenty of power to do so now, and because the system will dictate it’s quality as well, it will just age and blend better.

8/10

Sound: Sound is a lot more of a standard fair in this game then the graphics are. The music is not going to stand out long after you finish the game aside from noting combat is most often accompanied by heavy metal, which again fits exceptionally well, but wont really be remembered once the game was over.

Nor our sound effects going to wow either. Most of the weapons you get in the game sound good enough, but only about as you might expect. The exception to this is the last one you receive: a demon invented gun which fires remote explosives… but for all the power it has there is nothing that feels powerful in it. The explosions and firing itself both just sound weak and quiet, giving it a terrible feel.

And that takes us to the voice acting, which is actually pretty good overall. Everyone delivers their lines fittingly for there rather varied characters. From the business man/demon boss Mundus to the calculating but dedicated Virgil to even the wise-ass main hero to be Dante, everyone fits their roll perfectly. That is not to say they are perfect, but there is little to complain about here.

I would say the stars here though are Mundus and Dante. Mundus is absolutely perfect in a mobster kind of way, and yet he downplays this aggression in a down to earth and direct tone, lending a confidence to his words that, yes, he is willing, able, and going to do every vile and violent act he threatens Dante with as he has done them many times to many others.

Dante, on the other hand, is a complete and absolute wise-ass who really doesn’t give one rat’s ass what anyone thinks of him. He smirks a shit-eating grin, knocks cans of soda out of people’s hands (for their own good, as you will understand at that moment), and is quick witted with the one-liners and zingers he flings at just about everyone, and yet when given a reason to care, his heart is in the right place… and the voice actor absolutely captures this personality perfectly throughout the game.

For these two alone, the voice acting is carried, and rightly so as they are in the majority of the cut-scenes, making them legitimately entertaining.

7/10

Gameplay: This game is a straight up action/combo-fighter. As such, the major thing it does is to pit you in arenas with a bunch of monsters and make you duke it out with them using a combination of close and long range weapons. And these battles are generally every bit as smooth and satisfying as you should expect them.

You will find yourself bouncing through enemies and six simultaneous weapons and hooks with ease between taste and need (some enemies can only be hurt with certain ones), either beating them to death yourself, throwing them off platforms, or even into things like demon trains to finish the job. The possibilities and enjoyment are fairly endless, but variety is both the spice of life and a key to help you succeed. Every battle is rated for style and you will find more variety you can master without taking damage, the higher this rating and points you get as a bonus. These in turn will let you buy extra abilities with each of these weapons, further increasing what you can do in the next battle. It is a very rewarding cycle.

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Sadly, however, there are a few times where the game does drop the ball here, and they are almost always end-stage fights. There are only six bosses in the entire game, so many levels end with one of these mob fights in a room designed to make that particular encounter uniquely tough without introducing you to any new enemies. The result of this is a frustrating last round that can make you dread the next level for what it can do even worse next time. Thankfully the game has done it’s worst here before you are half-way through with one such circular room relying on random luck about what parts of the room itself will hurt you while fighting two of the newest big-bad, leading to a lot smoother sailing from that point on.

Additionally, I do need to note in the very last few levels there is one type of enemy you will face off with that changes the game up entirely as they can and will parry almost all of your own attacks, occasionally (if it’s a projectile) back at you. They are not particularly hard as they themselves are fairly easy to dodge, but it does lead to a war of contrition and the one time combat in this game not only stops being fun, but is an outright bore until you finally sigh, use the “easy button” you have called Devil trigger, and just wail on them until they die. Thankfully this enemy shows up so little you can probably count them on one hand.

And we should also talk about Devil Trigger, as once you have this, there is really no reason anything can do more then inconvenience you. You have a meter under your health that you need to fill by doing damage and collecting purple skulls until you get past a threshold point to use it. Once in use, you are constantly gaining health and unless you are dealing with an actual boss, they are up in the air and helpless while you pummel them with extra-hard-hitting attacks until you either turn it off to conserve trigger for later, or run out. Let me make this clear: while trigger is running the ONLY things even able to move are boss encounters.

But the combat while most of the game, isn’t all of it. There is also a focus on the limbo-world itself as you will have times when under the control of a demon, the very level becomes your opponent and leads to escape sequences that frankly were my favorite part of the game. What start off as cool, but easy “avoid the falling floor” or “get out before the walls squish you” become ramped up “what the hell is going on and look quickly for what you have to do next” and incredibly fun in the hectic over-the-top of it all as the literal entire city comes apart at the seams in a bid to kill you before any monsters can. It’s insane, it’s intense, and it’s simply amazing.

8/10

Bugs: I had absolutely no issues playing this game from start to finish. However, will say right now I played the entire game on an Xbox 360 controller, and I would recommend you do the same. Yes the game works with a keyboard and mouse, but the fact that your mouse does zero aiming makes this a very confusing choice to make right off the bat. And add to it that you will be swapping three different selections of weapons on the fly, and you may be putting yourself at a fairly big disadvantage for this title by not using some kind of controller.

Overall: DmC is a game that sets out to do a few things, and does those things very well. As such you can expect a really good action game to pummel your way through and have a blast doing. You won’t get a lot out of the story and there is a stumbling block or two along the way, but if you are a fan of action brawlers, you will enjoy your adventure with Dante.

Score:

8/10

System Requirements:

  • Intel Core 2 Duo @2.4 Ghz or AMD Athalon X2 @2.8 GHz
  • 2 GB RAM 
  • NVidia GeForce 8800 GTS or AMD Radeon HD3850
  • 9 GB hard drive
  • Windows XP, Vista, 7, or 8

System Specs:

  • AMD FX 8350 (8 cores) running at 4 Ghz
  • 16 GB RAM
  • NVidia GeForce 960 GTX with 4 GB VRAM
  • Windows 10

Source: Steam

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