Devil May Cry 4

Anyone who’s owned a PS2 in his/her life would have played or at least heard of the Devil May Cry series. You know, the one where you play as the half-human son of a demon who has a heart of gold and enough funky moves up his sleeve to give both Rajnikant and Mithun a serious complex.

Anyway, besides over-the-top cinematics, the game’s also well-known for its steep difficulty level, endless barrage of boss fights, and painful amounts of backtracking. Now, none of the above can upset or faze fans of the series, but newcomers may want to pay attention to them before diving into the game. But developer Capcom has tweaked the difficulty level for this game considerably, so even newcomers can jump right in and enjoy it. I’m not saying that this game’s a complete cakewalk, but unless you’re picking up the controller for the first time, there’s nothing you can’t handle.

As far as gameplay is concerned, most of you already know that series veteran Dante has been replaced by Nero, who essentially has the same basic attacks: shooting and slashing. How you chain these attacks to achieve mindblowing combos is up to you and your skill level. The more insane combos you pull off in a level, the more orbs and souls you earn, allowing you to purchase newer items and upgrades for your existing weapons.

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New to this series is the inclusion of Nero’s Devil Arm, called the Devil Bringer, that acts both as a grappling mechanic as well as a melee weapon. Getting to know how to use this in conjunction with your existing arsenal is crucial to survival, especially during boss fights. Speaking of boss fights, you’ll have quite a few to take down in this game; in fact, nearly every level culminates in a boss fight (more on that in a bit). As always, finding a soft spot and hammering away at it is the key to taking these behemoths down. At lower difficulty levels most of these bosses can be tackled in the very first attempt itself, proving once again that Devil May Cry 4 has been made keeping newcomers in mind (suck on that, Ninja Gaiden).

One mind-blowing aspect of this game is its highly stylized cut scenes that can easily rival a Final Fantasy movie. Over the top, stylish and mega-awesome are some of the ways one can describe the beauty that comprise DMC’s cinematics. And the story’s pretty awesome as well, with tons of twists and emo moments sprinkled along the way.

Visually the game is phenomenal, running at a constant 60 FPS, and it doesn’t even break a sweat during intense showdowns against tons of enemies or gigantic bosses. Dante, Nero and all the game’s pivotal characters have been created brilliantly, and level design is as gothic and awe-inspiring as ever. Voice acting is pretty cheesy, bordering on embarrassing… but yeah, you expect this sort of stuff from a Devil May Cry game, so no surprises there.

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And here’s where all the good stuff ends…

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About halfway through the game you finally get to play as Dante. Exciting it may sound, but this is actually when the game starts to slip downhill. For starters, the sudden switch from Nero to Dante can be a bit disorienting. For some reason, Dante just doesn’t seem as powerful as he was in previous games. Sure he can juggle through four distinct styles (Royal Guard, Trickster, Sword Master and Gunslinger) on the fly, but it all feels a bit weak without his ginormous arsenal from DMC 3.

Once you get past that, you’ll have to backtrack like crazy, during which you’ll fight the very same bosses you fought while you were playing as Nero. Now I know boss repetition is a staple mechanic in most DMC games, but it seems really stupid and pointless to buttonmash your way through the same boss fight… thrice!

Towards the end of the game you get the feeling that Capcom somehow lost steam and put in the stuff they did just to piss people off or to see how patient you are. Still, it seems a cheap way of prolonging the game. By the time you reach the final boss fight you’ll be so harrowed (unless you’re a so called ‘hardcore’ fan), that you’ll definitely not feel like replaying it for a while. And since the game doesn’t have any multiplayer to begin with, you’re not really looking at a lot of replayability over here.

Don’t get me wrong, Devil May Cry 4 is an awesome game, but it’s plagued by certain factors that just cannot be overlooked in this day and age. If you’re a hardcore fan, you probably already own the game. But if you’re contemplating picking this bad boy up, I’d recommend that you wait till the price drops, or rent it, before shelling out 2500-3000 big ones.