Devil May Cry A Casual Retrospective Part 4

Alright, where were we. After the massive nosedive in quality that was Devil May Cry 2, Devil May Cry 3 proved to be a great correction of where the team had gone wrong. Hideaki Itsuno had proven that he could make a great action game and Devil May Cry 3 would go on to be a success both critically and financially.

Though it wouldn’t sell as well as its predecessor, probably because said predecessor had turned people away from the series, it would sell well enough to warrant a sequel. Said sequel beginning development shortly after the third game was a proven success.

This sequel would be developed for the next generation of consoles at the time, the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. This marked the first time Devil May Cry would release on multiple platforms, which honestly makes sense.

Devil May Cry may have been a PlayStation exclusive, but that was when PlayStation was the best-selling, well, anything around the world. That wasn’t the case in 2008. The Xbox 360 was doing much better than the PS3, mainly due to the latter having a disastrous launch due to a lack of games and a high price point that had reached meme status. 599 US Dollars anyone?

Devil May Cry wasn’t the only series that went multi-plat this generation either. Final Fantasy also did this, which I remember pissed off a lot of Sony fanboys back in the day. Regardless of how people felt, Devil May Cry was going multiplatform and there was nothing they could do about it.

With the leap into a new generation of consoles, the team had a few goals in mind for the next entry in the series. The first was to introduce new gameplay elements, and the second was to make a game that would be accessible to newcomers to the series. The latter of which makes sense given they were releasing the game to a new platform whose player base had potentially never played a DMC game up to that point.

In order to meet these goals, the team would introduce a brand-new main character. Nero would be the new main protagonist with his own set of unique abilities. Not only providing a fresh new avenue for the story, but also potential new gameplay ideas with a fresh new set of abilities they could create.

Although the series wouldn’t leave Dante behind. He would still be included as a playable character alongside the newcomer. This was done to avoid a backlash similar to what Konami got with Raiden in Metal Gear Solid 2.

Things looking good so far, well if you’ve been following along with this retrospective, you know something had to go wrong at some point. In this specific case though it wasn’t due to behind-the-scenes shenanigans, it was all down to monetary issues.

In an interview with DSOgaming, Itsuno admitted that the team ran into budget problems midway through development. The game had a similar budget to Devil May Cry 3, but the more powerful hardware of the HD consoles meant that the money didn’t go nearly as far as it did on PS2.

All of this wasn’t revealed until many years after Devil May Cry 4 first released. In fact, that interview was from 2019, right before the fifth game was set to come out. But here’s the thing, the interview basically just confirmed what fans already knew about the game.

It was obvious even back then that the game had serious issues with development. Not just with money but with time too. Reuben Langdon the actor who voiced and did the motion capture for Dante would admit on Twitter, or X now, that the team had a tight development time and couldn’t implement a lot of their ideas.

Devil May Cry 4 didn’t have as rough a development as 2 did, but it wasn’t exactly smooth either, not helped the generational console leap. The transition to the HD console era was a rough one for a lot of Japanese developers as a lot of them struggled to get used to the technology. I don’t know if that was the case here, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was.

Thing is though, despite it having a less than ideal development, it still got good reviews and sold well. A lot of Devil May Cry fans also greatly enjoyed it with many calling it an “unfinished masterpiece”. Citing that the core gameplay is great, but the structure around the gameplay could have been a lot better.

They are not wrong. At the risk of spoiling this review, I came out of Devil May Cry 4 with very mixed opinions. There are things I absolutely loved about the game, but there are a lot of problems here that hold the game back from what it could be.

I should note that the version I’m reviewing is the 2014 Special Edition released on PS4 and Xbox One. This version comes with a few quality-of-life improvements, some additional costumes and new playable characters. As well as having all the exclusive content of the original PC release of the game like Turbo Mode.

I don’t know what the exact differences are between the original version and this, but the Special Edition is generally considered the better version. It’s also the one that’s more easily accessible, so I’m looking at that.

In the town of Fortuna there lies a religious sect known as the Order of the Sword. A congregation of followers devoted to the worship of Sparda. One member of the order is Nero, an angsty 20 something year old who was raised by the order after being orphaned, and who works for them as one of their top demon slayers.

During a ceremony, the head of the order is suddenly assassinated by Dante. Who literally drops out of nowhere and puts a bullet through evil pope’s head. Nero tries to fight Dante but it’s obvious he’s outclassed, and Dante soon makes his exit, with Nero following in hot pursuit.

But during his chase, Nero stumbles upon the true workings of the order. Turns out they’re secretly performing experiments on opening hell gates to the demon world, and several of its high-ranking members are turning themselves into demons. Including the head of the order who has sinister machinations of his own.

As things begin to unravel, Kyrie a fellow member of the order whose family took Nero in and whom Nero has a thing for, is kidnapped forcing Nero to mount a rescue attempt. But just what is the order planning, and what exactly does Dante have to do with this?

Well the answers to those questions are not exactly interesting. The order is simply trying to take over the world with a big demon statue, and Dante is simply involved because the order is using Vergil’s sword Yamato to open the hell gates and he wants it back. I know I ruined the mystery there but trust me there isn’t much to spoil here.

Devil May Cry 4’s story is an afterthought. There are some interesting ideas here, but most of them fall flat or are poorly developed. At its core it’s a simple story of an evil cult trying to take over the world and our plucky heroes going out to stop them. At the very least it’s easy to follow and not too convoluted, but ultimately doesn’t leave much of an impression.

One of the reasons for this is the lack of personal stakes. Devil May Cry 3’s plot wasn’t all that interesting either, it was just about an evil guy trying to use a big ass tower to become a god, but what made the story so engaging was the personal connections between the character. You had the rivalry between Dante and Vergil, and the antagonistic father daughter relationship of Lady and Arkham.

This not only created personal stakes for the characters it also created an interesting theme of family and how the people closest to you can hurt you the most. Ok it wasn’t exactly super deep, but there was more going on beneath the big spectacle and over the top action sequences.

We don’t get anything like that in Devil May Cry 4. Nero comes the closest to it. He’s a member of the order, he was adopted into as a child and works for them, and he even has a rivalry with one of the Orders top knights. There is something interesting to build on here, but they never do.

There isn’t a scene where he questions his faith or comes to the realisation that what he believed in was all one big lie, he just kind of keeps going without much reaction to what’s going on. The only time he does seem to care is when Kyrie gets kidnapped. Which isn’t a bad motivation, but it’s a very basic one. Hell it’s not that far off from a Mario game’s plot.

You ever play Final Fantasy X? Well in that game there’s a character called Wakka who starts out as a super religious member of the party, but as the game progresses, he slowly realises that the church he belongs to is corrupt and he starts to have a crisis of faith.

That’s what they should have done with Nero. Instead, they portray him from the outset as a rebellious man who doesn’t really care about the order or their beliefs. The only thing he does care about is Kyrie, so when the truth about the order’s true goals come out there isn’t much they can do with him because he didn’t give a shit in the first place.

And if that’s the case then the personal stakes should come from his relationship with Kyrie. So, is that done well at least? Eh, kind of. I do at least buy that the two care about each other, and I find them likable enough to want to see them get together in the end, but it’s not especially deep. It’s like a Disney Channel kind of romance, they look cute and are likable enough but there isn’t much to them beyond that.

And Dante?  He has nothing to do with anything other than the order using Yamato and him wanting it back. And no, it’s never explained how they got it. They just do for some reason.

So Dante is just doing his typical Dante thing, but there’s no personal stakes for him to ground his story or make it interesting so it all just comes across as fluff. Honestly, Dante’s appearance in the story hinders the story more than it helps. Not only does he not really have much to do with the main plot, but having to come up with a campaign for him also gets in the way of them developing Nero as a character.

Which is a bit of a problem considering this game was his introduction to the series and they needed to put him over to the audience. It’s funny, people generally dig Nero a lot more now thanks to Devil May Cry 5, but I remember the initial reaction to him was a lot more mixed. Some loved him while others found him to be annoying.

I personally liked Nero well enough. His angrier, more angst driven attitude might not be to everyone’s taste, but it works well and serves as a nice contrast to Dante’s goofier more carefree attitude.

It isn’t a personality that’s easy to do. It can be easy to go too far with this kind of character and make them so obnoxious they become irritating, but they found a good balance with Nero. Giving his rebellious nature without going too extreme that he becomes an edge lord. I want you to remember that statement it’ll be important in the next part.

My only issue with Nero is we never learn his backstory. We don’t know where he came from, why the order took him in or why he has demonic powers. There are hints that he might be Vergil’s son, but nothing is ever elaborated on in this game. it’s obvious they were setting up for a sequel that would go into more detail about. Which they did, but that’s for another review.

Another issue I have with the story is the villains suck. The main villain Sanctus is so boring, just a typical power mad cult leader with a god complex. He has no charisma whatsoever, no interesting banter between the heroes, he’s just an evil pope, that’s it.

Most of the other side characters aren’t much to write about either. Credo is set up as Nero’s main rival but he’s just the typical stoic warrior type with not much to make him stand out. Vergil he most certainly isn’t.

The only villain I actually thought was entertaining was the orders scientist Agnus. He’s got a fun personality that goes from conniving genius to stuttering coward in an instant. He’s a fun bad guy and he plays the mad scientist archetype well.

There’re also characters in the story that don’t do much of anything. Kyrie doesn’t do much other than be the damsel in distress, Lady appears twice just to give Dante a mission and there’s a new character named Gloria who just ends up being Trish in disguise, and Trish doesn’t do much once her identity is revealed.

And I just realised that this applies mainly to the female cast. That’s a shame, I liked Lady a lot in the last game, but she doesn’t do much here. I would have liked to have seen more of her. Same with Trish, it’s her first major appearance since the first game and she spends most of it in disguise and then just does clean up. It’s a good thing the Special Edition gave them a campaign because their main story appearance leaves a lot to be desired.

Look, Devil May Cry isn’t a series you play for the story. Even 3, which had the best story in the series so far, had its fair share of issues. And if you look into the lore of the series, it’s some of the goofiest shit you will ever read. The plot clearly isn’t a priority for this series.

But even with the low expectations I had, this was still a weak story. At least the first game did a lot of establishing work with the world and Dante’s backstory. This game can’t even do that for Nero despite this being his grand debut.

They could have done a lot more here. It’s not a terrible story. It’s not like there’s any bad or preachy messages, and it still had some fun moments here and there, but it’s a very underwhelming narrative.

I will say that the story is at least presented well. It has a lot of the same action sequences we saw in Devil May Cry 3. Mainly because the same guy who directed the cutscenes in that game, Yuji Shimomura, returned to do them here.

So at the very least the story is still visually entertaining. The cutscenes keep the very over the top and campy tone, but that’s what we love about this series. It’s a fun roller coaster ride that never pretends to be anything else.

The acting is also very well done. Reuben Langdon returns to voice and do the motion capture for Dante and he’s as good as was in 3. He does sound a bit older and gruffer, but that makes sense since this is an older version of Dante. He manages to give Dante a lot of the same energy he did in the last game, but his interactions with Nero give him more of an older brother vibe.

Speaking of Nero, he’s performed by Johnny Yong Bosch, who you may know from Trigun, Bleach, Power Rangers and for being the current voice actor of Broly in Dragon Ball. He’s had a lot of voice over work over the years.

Bosch is great at playing these kinds of angry young characters, there’s a reason he replaced Vic Mignogna as Broly after, well if you know you know, so it’s no surprise he plays Nero very well. Managing to capture his rebellious assholish personality, but adding a layer of likability and charm that makes it fun to watch. Again, that will be important for next time.

And thanks to his work on Power Rangers, he’s able to do the motion capture very well. I do find it funny this is the second Power Rangers actor they’ve gotten for the series so far though. Wonder if that’ll be a recurring thing going forward.

The visual presentation in general is top notch. The graphics look pretty damn good for the time. It came out fairly early in the seventh console generation and looks better than a lot of games that came out near the end of it.

The character models are a clear step up from the last game. There’s a lot more detail on them, especially in the facial animations, and considering they already looked good before that’s saying something. The seventh generation was an era where everything became a lot clearer visually, and going from DMC 3 to 4 is a prime example of that.

The backgrounds are also a big step up from the last game. Aside from the added detail that’s expected, the environments are a lot more varied. You’ve got Fortuna, which is heavily inspired by Vatican City, there’s an abandoned church on a frozen mountain, and a dense jungle area among others.

The added variety not only makes for a nice change of pace, but also means we get much brighter and colourful locales. It keeps a lot of the gothic overtones from past games, it just mixes them up a bit more. I will say there aren’t as many strange or surreal areas in this game, and I do think the levels in the 3 were more memorable, but everything here still looks really nice.

The music is pretty good too, though it isn’t quite as good as the last game. it still has a lot of ambient music when exploring, and hard rock for combat which both sound nice, but I found the battle themes in 3 to be a bit more memorable.

That said, the sound design is excellent. I haven’t talked about sound effects in my reviews before, but I really should. Good sound design can really make or break a game in terms of how satisfying it is to play. I remember playing Virtua Fighter 5 many years ago and not being able to get into it because the sound design wasn’t as punchy as Tekken. Petty reasoning? perhaps, but that’s honestly how I felt.

Devil May Cry doesn’t have this issue. Every sword slash, dodge and gunshot all have a nice satisfying punch to them. Even the act of picking up orbs has a satisfying sound to it. Just makes the act of playing the game feel that much better.

And trust me, playing the game is already an incredible experience on a pure mechanical level. Devil May Cry 4 is one of the best hack and slash action games I’ve ever played. Were it not for one fatal flaw it would be the absolute best.

But we’ll get to that in due course. For now, let’s talk about what’s so good about it. On the surface Devil May Cry 4 is more of the same. It doesn’t try to reinvent the formula, instead it takes what was already there and refines it.

In short, it’s Devil May Cry 3 but better. The combat is just as deep and complex as it’s always been, but the overall control and game feel are just that little bit tighter. I already liked the way Devil May Cry 3 felt, so having a more refined version of that is like adding ice cream to apple pie. You just make it sweeter.

The same basic principles of Devil May Cry’s combat apply here. This is still a game where it’s less about killing enemies in the most practical ways possible, and more about doing it in the most stylish ways possible. But the thing I noticed in this game was killing enemies stylishly was the most practical option.

Think about it, if you’re doing overly long combos to an enemy then they can’t fight back can they. Often the most efficient way to dodge enemies is through the various mobility options which often involves deftly jumping out of the way. They reward you for playing stylishly, by making it the best way to play through the game. it isn’t just something to make you look cool, it’s the most efficient way to get through it.

The same style ranking system introduced in Devil May Cry 3 returns here. You get a meter that builds and when fully charged increases the ranking, while getting hit decreases it. Getting higher rankings is as satisfying as it was in 3, but this time the ranking system felt way more lenient.

The timing for keeping a combo going is much longer here. I could kill an enemy, need to walk a few feet to the next one, see the combo gauge vanish, but then hit the enemy and the combo kept going. Aside from when I took a hit, I didn’t have to worry much about losing my combo.

I was actually able to get pretty consistently high rankings here. I don’t know if it’s that I’ve gotten better at these games or if it is just that lenient, but I was seeing consistent A and B rankings, even an occasional SS rank. Considering how I could only get C ranks in Devil May Cry 1, this ranking system felt way better.

Another reason for that could be the difficulty. It’s noticeably scaled back compared to Devil May Cry 3. It still offers a pretty decent challenge, but it’s nowhere near as bullshit as Devil May Cry 3 could get. Which is a good thing considering that game was notorious for its difficulty.

The enemy variety is still strong, with each enemy having their own unique patterns and methods for taking them down. It helps keep the combat fresh, especially since they still introduce new enemy types late into the game, and each one provided their own challenge that never got too annoying.

For the most part anyway. There were some enemies that did grate on me. The cloaked enemies like Mephisto were particularly annoying. You can’t hit them while they are cloaked, you need to wear them down with gunfire first. That was just tedious.

There’s also this one enemy called a Blitz that you have to do something similar with, only they’re more aggressive and significantly more aggravating. They have electrical shield that takes forever to get rid of, and even when you do get rid of it it’ll come back right before you kill them.

You don’t even kill them; you just wait around in their second phase for them to kill themselves. I think even the designers knew they sucked because there’s only two of them in the entire campaign. What a total waste this guy was.

Aside from those two, I found the enemies fun to fight. Same goes for the bosses. These guys were great challenges but weren’t nearly as much of a pain in the ass as the ones from 3. With the exception of the rematch against Dante. That one was a bit of a difficulty spike and not that much fun. Preferred the Vergil fights as far as rival battles go.

Speaking of Dante, let’s talk about our two playable characters. That was the big selling point of this game after all, having two playable characters with their own playstyles. How do they fare?

Well Dante plays pretty much exactly like he did in the first game. same combo’s, same styles, he can switch between different weapons, he still has his Devil Trigger, and he can still taunt people like the lovable jackass he is. If you played the previous games, you should be able to pick Dante up no problem.

In terms of his weapons, it’s a little toned down compared to last time. He only has 3 Devil Arms and 3 guns, less than before but it’s understandable given we have an entirely new character to work with in Nero.

As for the weapons themselves, you’ve got the Rebellion, pistols and shotgun from previous games and they work the same here. There’s also Gilgamesh, which is essentially just Beowolf from 3 under a different name. Kind of lame since this kind of gauntlet weapon has appeared 3 times now, but if it works it works.

Then there’s Lucifer which lets you create exploding swords that float in the air. Never cared for this one personally, just wasn’t much fun to use. And finally we have Pandora, a demonic suitcase that acts as a rocket launcher, machine gun, laser cannon, and floating tank all in one. it is absolutely insane, and I love it.

The weapon selection here is solid, and the best part is you don’t need to equip any of them. You have all of them equipped at once. All you need to do is swap between them with the trigger buttons.

Massively convenient having access to all of them at once. Although since I didn’t use Lucifer I did have to quickly sap that out when I was done with Gilgamesh. Wish I could have taken that out, but I’ll take having everything over swapping them out mid mission like the last game.

You know what else that applies to, the styles. Devil May Cry 4 was the game that introduced the ability to swap between styles on the fly. Just press a button on the d-pad and you can go from Trickster to Sword Master or from Royal Guard to Gun Slinger.

This is so much better. One of my main complaints with the style system in 3 was not being able to swap between styles during gameplay, you could only do it between missions. You never had access to your full kit because of this, and it made it too easy to stick to one style you were used to and not experiment with any of the others.

But now, now you have access to your entire repertoire of options. So you have no excuse not to try out the others. I still mainly stuck to Sword Master and Trickster, but I did finally get to try the others and they were great. Royal Guard was great for more aggressive enemies, and while I didn’t really use Gun Slinger much it’s great for crowd control against weaker enemies.

The ability to swap between styles alone makes Dante a much more enjoyable character to play. This change felt so natural that fans would mod Devil May Cry 3 to have this feature, and later ports of 3 on the Nintendo Switch would include it as well. It’s so good they retroactively added it to a previous game. It’s like the Spin Dash of Devil May Cry.

In terms of which styles you have access to, all of the base styles from DMC 3 are here but none of the unlockable ones. Makes sense considering those were meant to be a bit gimmickier and having free access to them would be a little overpowered. Although there is a new style you unlock near the end of the game that makes up for this, but I’ll let you discover what that is on your own.

Dante is a lot of fun in this game, partly because he’s almost identical to how he was in 3 but with more stuff added. But for as fun as Dante is, I actually like playing as Nero more.

As far as the basic controls go Nero and Dante are pretty much identical. All the motions used for Dante apply to Nero and they share some similar traits like both have a launcher and both have a move that advances towards enemies, both of which are performed with the exact same inputs. And yes, both have taunts. Because it isn’t Devil May Cry if you can’t mock your enemies.

So you shouldn’t have too much issue jumping from one character to the other. Though there are different properties both have that make each distinct. Dante seems to require a bit more finesse with his combat while Nero is more direct and blunt with his attacks. A good example would be both their combo B, Dante swings his sword around him and does a multi-hit sword flurry, while Nero just slams his sword into the ground over and over.

Nero, as a result, is a bit easier to play than Dante. He has a game plan that is a bit easier to grasp and has tools naturally that Dante only gets through his styles. Nero can perform an air combo through basic attacks while Dante can only do that through Sword Master for example.

The biggest difference between the two are their arsenals. Nero doesn’t have multiple weapons like Dante, he only has his sword, Red Queen, and his gun, Blue Rose. While this may seem disappointing at first glance, both weapons have their own unique properties that make them fun to use.

Blue Rose can’t be rapid fired like Ebony and Ivory, but it has a charge shot. Hold the fire button down for a short time and you can fire a more powerful shot. It has a few levels of charge too, with the maximum level shot doing loads of damage but taking a long time to charge up which leaves you vulnerable.

You can still just rapidly fire the gun, but to get the most out of it you need to learn how to effectively use the charge shot. Once you do it’s an incredibly fun weapon to use. Kind of reminds me of Mega Man’s Buster, and anything that reminds me of the Blue Bomber is ok in my book.

Then there’s the Red Queen. This is Nero’s big ass anime sword, and like any good big ass anime sword it has something weird about it. in this case it’s a motorbike handle that he can use to rev the sword up like an engine. Ok it’s not as impractical as the Gun Blade, but it’s still pretty damn weird.

In terms of gameplay applications, this allows you to rev up the blade. Revving it up enough will build up a stock in Nero’s Excel meter, which is spent to boost the power of his attacks. The true power of this ability comes in an upgrade which lets you immediately get an Excel stock by pressing the rev button just after an attack.

You have you to be very exact with the timing to get this right, but if you get it down it boosts the strength of your combos significantly. I never really figured this out. I could do it a few times, but not on a consistent basis.

Being able to rev the blade up outside of combo’s does at least allow less skilled players to use some of the more powerful boosted moves. It’s a mechanic that’s really there for those looking to master the combat, but nothing required to beat the game.

Which is fine. I know some may disagree, but I don’t think a game should force you to use a mechanic to see the end of it. It should always push you to get good at the basics, but how deep you go into the mechanics should be entirely up to the player. That’s the whole thing with player expression, it’s about giving players the freedom to play a game how they want.

Some players won’t or can’t use certain mechanics very well. So, it’s important to have mechanics that are useful, thereby rewarding the players who take the time to learn them, but not making them required for completion so that the players who find them tricky can still get through the game and see the end.

Devil May Cry 4 does this very well. There’s a lot of depth to the combat mechanics, but how deep you go into them is entirely up to you. Nero is a more beginner friendly character, but there is still depth to his gameplay for veterans.

But aside from his weapons, there is one other thing Nero has in his arsenal. That would be his demonically powered right arm the Devil Bringer. This lets him do one of two things. The first is grab enemies and slam them around, and the other is to use it as a grappling hook. Either pulling enemies towards him, or pulling himself towards heavier enemies.

The Devil Bringer is insanely fun. Using it as a grappling hook is a very effective way to keep combo’s going, or to provide added mobility with certain enemies. And grabbing enemies and slamming them around is just so fun in how primal it is.

The grab is easily the best part of playing as Nero. It’s such a simple thing, but it’s so visceral in how it feels that it’s always satisfying. Especially when wearing down a boss and just beating the ever-loving crap out of them.

But there’s more to the Devil Bringer than that. You can also use it to counter certain attacks. Granted which attacks you can counter aren’t made clear. There’s nothing to indicate an attack can be countered or anything. Some are kind of obvious, but you’ll have to experiment to find the attacks you can counter.

I didn’t even know about the counter until way late into the game, and I only found out because I had to look it up. Why? Because it’s required to beat the final boss. And as far as I’m aware none of the tutorials teach you about the counter. Thanks for not telling me about something I needed to finish the game Capcom, appreciate it.

The counter itself isn’t a bad mechanic. It’s a good addition to Nero’s kit, I just wish it told you about it earlier, and did a better job conveying which attacks could be countered.

It’s the one lone dark spot-on Nero’s gameplay. Which is fantastic. I like playing as Nero a lot. The Devil Bringer alone is one of the most enjoyable mechanics I’ve seen in an action game like this. I like the finesse with Dante, but I prefer the feeling of beating the ever-loving shit out of people I get with Nero.

Even Nero’s Devil Trigger is better. He doesn’t get a full demon transformation, instead he gets this disembodied that fights alongside him. I kind of get Jojo vibes from it, which might be intentional considering Capcom are massive fans of the manga. And if you thought the grabs were great before, Devil Trigger makes them even better. He even does Zangief’s Final Atomic Buster with it, it’s awesome.   

So yeah, to the surprise of nobody, the combats great. It has a ton of options to style on your foes, great enemy variety to keep things fresh, it’s fast paced with everything running at a smooth 60 fps, and the two new characters offer their own unique ways to play that add a ton of variety to it.

It’s one of the best combat systems in any game I’ve played. Is it perfect? No, nothing ever is, but it comes pretty damn close to it. It’s not a major evolution of the series combat like 3 was, it’s a refinement of it. And on those terms, it succeeds with flying colours. Keeping what worked previously and tightening up the things that were lacking.

But it isn’t just the combat system that saw these refinements. The games upgrade system saw some updates as well. In previous games you used Red Orbs to buy both combat upgrades and items. Now they’re purely used to buy items like healing stars or items that upgrade your health and magic.

Combat upgrades are now purchased by the new currency, Proud Souls. Unlike Red Orbs though, you can’t find these within the levels themselves, you can only get them by completing missions. With higher rankings giving you a higher pay out like they did with Red Orbs in previous games.

I was initially worried about this. Collecting Red Orbs within the levels was a good way to circumnavigate having to get a high ranking to get all the upgrades. It meant even less skilled players could at least afford some of them. Adding a new currency only obtained through the ranking system made it feel like less skilled players were going to have to grind to get any of them.

Turns out those fears were unfounded because the end level rankings are now way more lenient. Before the end level rankings were determined by how fast you finished a level, your overall style score, how many Red Orbs you collected, and how much damage you took.

Now it no longer ranks you on how much damage you take. This alone makes it much easier to get a high ranking, but that’s not all. The speed and style score requirements are now a lot less strict. Although funnily enough the Red Orb requirement is made a little stricter. You’re going to have to search for hidden Red Orb caches if you want a high rank now. Guess they had to balance it somehow.

This all makes it far easier to get higher rankings, and the payouts themselves are pretty generous already. So you should have no issue getting enough Proud Souls to get the upgrades you need. You will still need to put some effort in, but that makes for a good incentive to get better at it.

The actual way you upgrade has also been expanded. Before you could only upgrade your weapons one at a time, but now you can choose to unlock individual moves in whatever order you want. You also do not need to get the double jump dozens of times, thank god.

Although, like in the previous games, purchasing upgrades will cause the other upgrades to increase in price. So you will prioritise moves you really want to get. Though if you want, you can reset your Proud Souls to repurchase everything, if you feel like there’s a move you want but can’t afford it.

Although if you want, you can use an auto upgrade system that will unlock moves automatically once you can afford them. With different options to prioritise certain types of skills. It’s not something I used, but it’s a good option for those who just want to get to the action faster.

It’s a good upgrade system. it’s balanced enough so you can’t just get everything without putting in the work, but lenient enough where you can still get plenty of skills to expand you combat repertoire.

Then there’s the health and magic upgrades. These work similarly to how they did in the last game. You can find them in the levels themselves, through Combat Adjudicators, or by finding them via completing Secret Missions hidden throughout the game.

The latter of which is much easier to find and better telegraphed than they’ve ever been before. I was actually able to find the majority of these without needing to consult a guide. Doing them was a different story, but I found them. And because Red Orbs are now solely used for items, that made it easier to stockpile on health and magic upgrades.

Combined with the lower difficulty, this makes Devil May Cry 4 the most accessible Devil May Cry to date. Though if you want a heftier challenge, you have multiple different options ranging from the fair to the masochistic. It’s got all of it’s bases covered there.

I’ve been blowing a lot of smoke up this game’s ass, and there’s a damn good reason for that. Devil May Cry 4 is a great action game. It nails all of the things an action game needs to, the combat is exciting with tons of depth, the difficulty provides a good challenge without it being too difficult it becomes overly frustrating, and it’s visually great with tons of flash and style.

By all observable metrics it’s a great game, except for one thing. It’s time to address that one fatal flaw I mentioned earlier. Let’s talk about the game’s level design.

Before we get into the problems though, I will praise it for doing one thing right. it cuts down on a lot of the platforming and puzzles. They are both still there, but there aren’t a lot of them this time around, and what is here is so easy you’ll breeze through them with no issues. The platforming still sucks, but at least it’s not as prevalent.

So that’s great. It shows that they are putting more emphasis on the action, which is the series strongest point. The problem is that the level design itself is incredibly mediocre.

I’ve certainly seen worse in this series, Devil May Cry 2 is still the king of shitty level design, but it’s all just very uninspired overall. I do like the added variety in locations you visit, but you lose a lot of the cohesiveness you had in the older games.

And because the game takes place across multiple different areas, the backtracking feels a lot less justifiable. Devil May Cry is no stranger to backtracking. All the previous games had it to some degree. You would often have to explore areas to find items to let you explore further into the game. this was due to the series having its roots in survival horror.

But that made sense because those took place within a single location, and the backtracking was a way to expand on it and provide more opportunities for the player to explore them. The same principal applies to 4’s levels in theory, but because they’re so much smaller, it just feels like the backtracking there just to pad the game out.

That’s on top of the levels outright wasting your time. There are so many moments in these levels that just go on for too long. There’s a section where you have to move on these disappearing platforms where you have to wait around for the next ones to show up.

There are these block pushing sections where you need to push these spinners around akin to a block pushing puzzle. The most basic and tedious puzzles there are. In one instance you have to push it down a long hallway and back again, only to then run back down the same hallway to get another spinner you just freed from a barrier. That’s not fun or challenging, it’s just annoying.

The worst part was this weird boardgame section you play as Nero. It reminds me of the boardgame level in Gunstar Heroes, except that one had a variety of different challenges and bosses to play through that kept things interesting. Here it’s just, one space has you fight enemies, one space rain orbs down, one moves you forward, and one does nothing at all.

It’s so boring, and the fact that it’s all down to random chance means you could be stuck on it for a while. I know you can manipulate the dice, but I didn’t find that out until after I finished the game.

But you know what the worst thing about the boardgame is, you have to play it twice. Once near the beginning of the game, and then at the very end of the game during the final boss rush. Which brings me to the big gaping problem these levels have, the repetition.

I’ll admit, when you first go through these levels, they aren’t that bad. There’s a lot of time wasting and backtracking is annoying, but nothing is too egregious when you play through them for the first time. It’s on going back through the levels where the issues start to wear on you.

Too bad then that the game forces you to replay the levels twice. The way the game is structured is you start off as Nero going through the levels normally, then about halfway through the game you switch to Dante who runs back through the levels in reverse order.

This is really where the games budget issues start to rear their ugly head. Reuben Langdon would opine on Twitter that the original plan was to give Dante his own unique levels, but they didn’t have the money and time to do it. You can see what could be a remnant of this in one of Dante’s cutscenes, which is in an area that never appears during gameplay and doesn’t fit with the rest of the game.

They do add some additional gimmicks to try to obfuscate the fact that these are just retreads, but they do little to help. Most of the new gimmicks aren’t even that interesting, one of them is just running through the level while your health slowly depletes. Sounds intense, but they put health drops everywhere, and by this point your health will have increased to the point where this little more than a minor inconvenience.

They do at least cut out some of the more egregious sections. That’s appreciated, but considering those sections were clearly made with Nero in mind, so it just makes it look like a quick and dirty reuse of assets.

It isn’t just the levels get reused either. The game also makes you refight the bosses 3 times. Once as Nero, once as Dante and another time as Nero during the final boss rush. They don’t change the fights in any way either. They are the same fights all 3 times.

Is it so much to ask for them to have new attacks to shake things up. I can understand it for the Dante run because he has a different playstyle, but why do it again as Nero? I already did them twice, why have me do it again? You were already strapped for money and time; you can cut out the boss rush. We wouldn’t miss it.

The entire second half of the game feels like a chore because you’re going through the same shit you’ve already gone through. Sure, it’s as a different character, but that just makes it worse. Because the levels aren’t designed around the character’s unique traits that just makes the levels feel flat and boring.

I was completely spent by the end of the campaign. I was enjoying the combat, but the repetition and weaker level design completely wore me out. Which is a shame because it adversely affected my enjoyment of the other campaigns.

The Special Edition of Devil May Cry 4 comes with two additional campaigns. One where you play as Vergil and one where you play as Lady and Trish. Both of these are nice additions. Vergil played almost identically to how he did in 3, but with a new focus mechanic that increases as you carefully time your strikes and increases your damage. Vergil rewards more precise play. Which makes it feel more like playing as Vergil, so mission accomplished.

Lady is a more projectile focused character. She’s lacking in terms of hand-to-hand moves, but her ranged game is nuts. Like Nero she can charge her guns up to deal more damage, but she has more guns on top of that. Her rocket launcher is slow as hell to charge up, but when it does, it blows everything away.

Her combo game relies on these charge shots. The best way to play as her is to keep away and gun them down from a distance, while using the bayonet to deal with enemies up close. I didn’t think I was going to like Lady at first, but once I got used to how she played, I really enjoyed her.

And then there’s Trish. Jesus Christ Trish. This woman’s combo game is insane. She can kick down a stream of lightning that keeps enemies in place, she can swing her sword around like a vortex and still use other combos on top of that, she can fire a big fuck off laser that just annihilate everyone. She fights like someone hurt her and she wants to hurt people back.

Trish is insanely good in this game. Though I would say I find her the least interesting of the three new characters. I find Vergil and Lady more engaging because their playstyles are very different, while Trish is a bit more straightforward. Still all three are excellent additions that give you more ways to play the game.

The problem is both campaigns have you play through the same levels you played in the main campaign. And you still have to do everything twice over like a Ghost’s and Goblins game. Yeah, no, that’s not going to happen. I like playing as the new characters, but it isn’t worth going through these levels again.

Fortunately, if you want to play as these characters without going through these levels then you can always hit up the Bloody Palace mode. I didn’t really give this a go in the last two games, but I tried it here and my god is it a lot of fun. It’s a simple enemy gauntlet where you fight wave after wave of enemies and try to survive as long as possible.

It’s a great way for you to enjoy the combat without having to deal with any of the bullshit in the main campaign. That doesn’t excuse them for those flaws, but at least they provided a work around.

Devil May Cry 4 is a weird one for me. I love the gameplay, the simple act of playing it is one of the most enjoyable experiences I’ve had with an action game. But it’s let down by its poor level design, and a repetitive campaign that wears out its welcome.

I can absolutely see why fans call it an unfinished masterpiece. Because from a pure gameplay standpoint it is a masterpiece, but it’s obvious that it needed a bigger budget to be the truly great game it wanted to be. As is it misses the mark unfortunately.

That said, this is still a good game that I can recommend to action game fans. I would even say that if you were looking to get into Devil May Cry then this would be a good place to start due to how accessible it is. You won’t know what’s going on in the story, but you don’t play this for the story.

Devil May Cry 4 clearly had something going for it. A potential that it never quite met. But hey that’s what sequels are for. If they could build on what they had established here with a bigger budget, then we could have the greatest action game of all time.

But that sequel would not be made for a long time. Devil May Cry 4 sold decently, but lower than what Capcom was hoping for. They then decided that if Devil May Cry was going to reach a new audience, they would need to do something drastic. They would need to do a reboot.

I mean that doesn’t sound like a bad idea. I mean what are they going to do, completely change the tone and vibe of the series in an ill-fated attempt to court a western audience and piss off the entire fan base in the process. Yeah, tune in next time where we cover DMC: Devil May Cry, the doomed reboot that everyone hated. This should be fun.