devil may cry

It’s disingenuous since I haven’t gone back to play it in a long time, but in my mind, Devil May Cry V feels like another Special Edition of Devil May Cry 4. I know it isn’t; It’s more refined than that PS3/360 era game. But – for better and worse — the feel and structure of the game felt deeply rooted in the past.  

I don’t like how Dante looks in Devil May Cry V. Nero, V and Lady were fine. Trish looked oddly out of place and along with the goofy looking Nico who continued to remind me that people’s teeth shouldn’t be that defined. I understand the desire to move beyond the anime-inspired art styles but I wasn’t keen on this realistic bent they took in this game.  

In the end, how Dante looks is a non-factor. How he, Nero, and V plays are what makes or breaks a game in this genre. Nero and Dante were stylistically familiar with tweaks and reintroductions to freshen things up. Like in DMC4, Dante was the more diverse and varied character. Nero wasn’t nearly as complex but they did give him swappable arms that enabled abilities beyond simply snatching enemies from a distance. I wished these arms were selectable like Dante’s array of arsenal though.  

V’s style of play was the intellectual highlight of the game. Beastmaster classes and characters have been in games like Final Fantasy and Diablo for ages, but I’ve never seen them in action games and I certainly haven’t seen a game execute on that idea so well. Capcom mapped the different beast summons to each button which resulted in V’s attacks functioning like Dante’s or Nero’s but at a distance from V himself. The closest analog I could think of is God of War’s Atreus where these proxies interweave in combat. I wish they could have an entire game dedicated to V where he captures/acquires different beasts.  

It’s been a long time since Devil May Cry 4. The franchise went on a bit of a tangent with DmC by Ninja Theory and Platinum Games put forth a few action bangers of their own with Bayonetta and Metal Gear Rising. That lineage of action games went places and I felt DMCV was a bit of regression in several key areas. The stylish act of beating on fodder was comparable to its contemporaries but it failed to match the spectacle and progression variety offered by them.  

DMC4 was criticized for recycling their boss fights and I cannot help but wonder why they found fighting Urizen over and over again would fly in DMCV. They may have cobbled some narrative reasons to justify it but it just hammers home the fact that this game isn’t very fun outside of its sole core competency; fighting low level monsters. 

Finally Capcom concocted a reason for Vergil to make an official return to the Devil May Cry universe. Vergil making an appearance in a DMC game is just as much of a surprise as Vegeta making an appearance in a Dragon Ball Z game. I wasn’t impressed with how his return was handled. It felt needlessly long winded and very much like Dragon Ball: inevitable.  

For fans of the series, Capcom delivering on Devil May Cry V’s combat was enough to win them over. I liked Devil May Cry’s combat but it takes more than just a flashy and stylish combat scenarios to keep me playing. I struggled to maintain pace with Devil May Cry V. It took me well over two weeks to complete this relatively short game. I never felt compelled to play multiple chapters in a row because I wasn’t interested in what was happening. The introduction of new foes early on would just be enough to keep me coming back the next day but rarely in a single sitting. I was happy to see Devil May Cry make its triumphant return but I would like to see Capcom take a massive step forward in the next installment. 

Verdict: 
It was okay 

Ratings Guide