Devil May Cry 4

Jamie66 · Posted: Wed Mar 05, 2008 11:20 am Post subject: Devil May Cry 4

Welcome back everyone to another one of my (hopefully) good reviews, now for those who like to take a squiz at my reviews or maybe have read most of them before you may have noticed my reviews coming up much more slowly then they used too, just to fill you guys all in I'm really having my balls broken at school (Eric Cartmen) Year 11 is hard let me tell you that. But as they say all work and no plays makes someone a dull boy and that aint me, I still have been playing my 360 just not as often as I should be but before I get into my latest review let me just say I have bought The Darkness and Burnout Paradise since my last review so I'm looking forward to them and Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is preordered...but anyway enough chit chat let's get into the game you opened this review to check out, Devil May Cry 4. This was my first excursion into the DMC series so I have no bias towards this being a great game or a crappy game, frankly I aint going to blow my wad either way, but if I like it I'm going to let you know so let's get into it.

The game starts off with the ever present figure of the DMC series Dante "Killing" what looks to be an innocent leader of an order, so basically he killed the Pope like figure of this towns church. You take control of a demon armed hero named Nero, now for me this didn't mean a big deal on who I played as since this was my first dip in the DMC pool but I will go further into this later on. Anyways the storyline is your basic hunt for Dante to get revenge for the murder, but it turns out the order was much more sinister then first thought and the man you thought was dead....was never really dead in the first place as hell breaks loose...literally. Through it all your classic love story arc is thrown over this storyline also, honestly I found this storyline to be quite interesting at the start I didn't have much interest but once they threw in a few twists here and a few turns there it's quite nicely implicated into the game, the love story I found was done nicely even though I'm never really into those sort of things in games but when something is done just right it clicks and DMC4 hits the nail on the head.

Now although the instruction manual didn't have any colour inside it, as I go off track a little you would think any game let alone a top high quality name such as Devil May Cry and a publisher like Capcom would be able to put some vibrant into their manuals. I think this should be in all game manuals, a little colour actually shows you have put effort into this game and you believe in it, if there is some reason some games don't do this please let me know otherwise it really gets on my nerves. Anyway back on track, the menus in the game are nice and the HUD I think is done really well it fits in allot of information into such a tiny portion of the screen which is nice and it doesn't make it so tiny that it's hard to understand. Along with that the sound within the game is top class, in all cut scenes the games dialog and sound between characters is awesome and even though both Nero and Dante have their own corny lines each, they are actually quite fun and had me laughing on numerous occasions, so it's corny but have some fun. The music in battles is a punk/rock type of feel to it and I must say it's strange to start off with but it does fit nicely, the credits also have an AMAZING song in it honestly it had me really into the final scene between the Nero and Kyrie (His love interest).

Overall the game play is done very well, the fact you can keep combos going is very very cool and the fact I got a SSS combo in my first play through of the story mode makes it even better. The dynamic of being able to use Nero’s devil bringer arm as its own weapon is a great idea and it's quite a nice change between Nero and Dante to have their own subtle difference and it makes it easier to see which one you prefer to use. Nero also has his own special sword that has it's own rev up meter, incase you're confused it's basically has a handle like a motorbikes handle you can rev it up to give it extra power and more array of moves to use in combos, it's not really needed because I hardly ever used it but still nice to have something unique that actually pulls off what it's trying to accomplish. As for Dante, who you eventually get to use he has the ability to change from 4 different styles instantly within combat such as Royal Guard, Trickster, Gun Slinger and Sword Master which again is a nice innovation. I personally preferred playing as Dante since he really did fit the way I played DMC4 much more then Nero did, but everyone will have their own favourite. Now since I'm onto Dante and Nero, let's get into my main gripe of Devil May Cry 4 and the main reason why this game didn't get as high a score as it should have.

In Devil May Cry 4 there are 20 missions, about 13 of these you play as Nero and about 7 as Dante, which might not be exact but hear my point. Now I bet you're all going, "Well at least you get to play as both in different levels", WRONG. Every mission you play as Dante is just backtracking through the first 9 or so missions you have completed with Nero; you go through the exact same paths, fight the exact same battles and even face the exact same bosses in boss battles. Now if there was something I love din DMC4 it was the boss battles, brilliant creativity in the boss battles and in the creatures in general just as you think there won't be any new demons or monsters to fight...out comes a new one. But the boss battles all be them as good as any part of the game, some of them get very repetitive as you face the first 4 or 5 bosses about 3 times each in total throughout the game. Now I understand they wanted you to face the demons as both characters and the third time was for the puzzle challenge, but honestly fighting the same monsters this many times over and the fact about 40% of the game is backtracking through already played through paths and levels really got on my nerves. Sure it was still fun but honestly something new could have been done here, so basically the biggest problem in DMC4 is backtracking.

Devil May Cry 4 took me about 12 hours to complete and that unlocked allot of bonus material, but also every different level of difficulty you beat will unlock a new difficulty which I believe there are 6 different levels to play through story mode with, along with more bonus material you certainly get your moneys worth. Overall Devil May Cry 4 has brought me over from the darkside to be a fan of the series and it really was a great game, at the start it was iffy in my opinion but it picked up solidly throughout my time playing it, picture it was a set of escalators, you start at the bottom and slowly but surely wound up at the top and that is what DMC4 is like, that's not a bad thing it's a good thing pacing is done well within the game.

So honestly if you are a fan of the series or you're looking for a good pickup over these last few dry months for 360, pick this one up you won't be disappointed. Well there's my review hope you all enjoyed it and hopefully some of you read it (Joke), my next review will be of Burnout Paradise but I don't expect that to be up anytime soon, so until then enjoy your life and comment on Devil May Cry 4 below.

Peace.

Story : 8.6
Presentation : 9.7
Sound : 8.8
Game Play : 8.2
Lasting Appeal : 9.1

Overall : 44.4/50

SeRial123 · Posted: Thu Mar 06, 2008 5:19 am Post subject:

I agree. Devil May Cry 4 had good potential. It felt like a bit of a throwback, or something like that, to the first Devil May Cry. But, then the backtracking started. And holy god, I hated that stupid dice board game thing. But a side from a few camera issues and some of the voice acting got on my nerves after a while, I would say Devil May Cry 4 is solid. It's not great, it's not bad.
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