Devil May Cry V Xbox One Review

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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

Capcom thinks 60 FPS is tiring for the eyes

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capcomlogoDmC is not going to run at 60 frames per second and Capcom is doing everything in their power to downplay that fact.

Capcom are digging deep into the bottom of the barrel for this one. They’re claiming:

action games that run at 60 frames per second can have a tiring effect on players’ eyes after a long time because the frames themselves “almost shake or flash”. Because of this, “adjusting the speed is almost necessary”.

Let’s ignore the fact that some of the top selling first person shooters employ 60 FPS and focus on Capcom’s own line up including Street Fighter IV and Marvel vs Capcom 3. Are they trying to claim that 30 FPS could work with those? If they are saying that this tiring effect only affects action games like Devil May Cry, what about all those 60 FPS instalments that they released earlier?

I just hope, for their sake, that DmC turns out to be a good game regardless of framerate. I also hope they don’t do any more interviews because the more they talk about this framerate issue, the more ridiculous their answers seem to be.

Captivate 2012 Trailers

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Another year, another Captivate event held by Capcom. This year’s event held very few surprises. A new Darkstalkers game wasn’t announced and we certainly didn’t see anything Mega Man related.

Capcom did shed more light on their upcoming Resident Evil and Devil May Cry games with a couple of showy trailers.

Resident Evil 6

The reveal Wesker Jr. and the confirmation of Sherry Birkin were nice little surprises, but for anxious fans, the new release date of October 2, 2012.

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