A Review of the Story

[Railazel]

I had just finished watching a walkthrough of the game. After months of waiting, I was excited to finally get the chance to relieve my doubts of the game and experience a fresh new take on one of my favorite franchises. With that said, I shall be straight forward expressing my disappointment. While the story was interesting, the writing failed me. It wasn't bad, just not what I expected. Maybe my hopes were too high and I overestimated how good the story would be with NT at the helm of it. All I know is that after going through all 20 missions, I felt unsatisfied.

Of course, I can't say this without giving it some praise. NT did choose a great setup for the reboot. The universe was interesting to experience; the changes in past character designs were wonderful to see; and Limbo was just an amazing sight to see. The amount of emotion each character portrayed was great. I would like to say that switching to Unreal and mocapping in Avatar's studio were great moves on NT's part.

However, the writing was... less than spectacular. Characterization was a little inconsistent at the times and there were moments where the script did more harm to the characters than good. There were also some aspects of the universe that only made me ask questions that were left unanswered, hoping that a sequel might answer them (which would be about three years of waiting). Furthermore, it didn't feel like there was enough development for each of the character; not enough for me to warm up to and understand them. Considering that Heavenly Sword and Enslaved were literary marvels (in the gaming world), DmC definitely didn't live up to NT's reputation.

I would go into more detail about this but I don't want to spoil anything for those who haven't played the game or watched the walkthroughs. I would like to conclude by saying that the story doesn't make the game worth the buy. However, if you want a visual masterpiece and some good action, this is definitely a good game to get. I would rate this a 5.75/10.

 

[majeh116]

Completely agree on all accounts you don't really give a damn about any of the characters beyond Dante and Vergil at the end since everyone else gets so little screen time you don't get to establish a connection with the character.

 

[Dante47]

Hmm, that's a bit sad to hear.
I hope they step it up a bit in terms of storytelling if there will be a DmC2.
I would certainly have no problems with more cutscenes in-between the gameplay.

 

[MultiBro]

Nothing bad about Ninja Theory but I think the fact should be known that NT didn't write the story for their previous games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved. They hired writers that had to scrap the script for both games. NT did the story themselfs in DmC.

 

[Nekodark]

For me I think the story in this game is more coherent then the originals since I hardly even care for the story anymore and just play the originals for the fun, I find myself getting into finding out about the story even more in DmC while still having fun with the fighting..I do not mind cut scenes with that tells the story

 

[Wolf]

I haven't had the chance to watch a walkthrough of the new game, but I've been looking forward to it for a while so I'm sure I'll get around to that soon.

Honestly... It's really no surprise that there isn't much of a story (seeing as previous DMC titles were focused mostly on action anyway), so I will be checking it out for the awesome gameplay. Thanks for taking the time to review the plot and whatnot.

 

[wwinterj]

My only issue was Mundus. I remember in Devil May Cry you couldn't wait to face him and that boss battle was one of the best in the series. In this game however facing Mundus and the boss fight was both weak and I found myself not caring at all that I beat him or was going to face him. Not sure if it was because of the boss fight itself, the fact Mundus just stays in his tower all the game or maybe both but it was not done well at all.

 

[HaNGMaN]

My only issue was Mundus. I remember in Devil May Cry you couldn't wait to face him and that boss battle was one of the best in the series. In this game however facing Mundus and the boss fight was both weak and I found myself not caring at all that I beat him or was going to face him. Not sure if it was because of the boss fight itself, the fact Mundus just stays in his tower all the game or maybe both but it was not done well at all.

I think the fact that Mundus was underwhelming was, in a way on purpose? This is a reboot, an origin story sort of. When it comes to the origin, I think the burning question was "How do Dante and Virgil come to hate each other?!" rather than "Hey that guy that killed Dante's parents, why u so mad?" I mean yes he is the primary villain, but he is not the villain that will carry the series through any possible sequels, whereas Virgil is. Just my thoughts.

As for the storytelling, like I said this is an origins tale. Dante is young, possibly younger than DMC3, so expect the arrogance and vulgarity that comes with the majority of teenagers at that age. We won't get an award winning script that involves maturity until DmC2 most likely, if they make the premise years later, hell even a year that gives him time to mature.

 

[darkmanifest]

You describe very well how I felt about the story. It had a lot of potential, especially with the excellent figure animation and the talent of the actors, and it just kind of squandered it. There's ideas presented in the dialogue that aren't explored (like the consequences of Dante and Kat putting citizens in danger when trying to survive in Limbo, or the philosophical clash between social anarchy and order, or between society's outcasts and society's elite), and missed opportunities for character interaction to properly set up the emotion in the climax (though Kat tells Dante about her past in a pretty touching aside where her voice actress shined, Vergil never gets any moments like that, and the final confrontation with Mundus is really uninspired.) I was looking forward to the story most of all, though, so like you, my expectations might have been too high.

 

[ROCKMAN X]

Hey i already have a made a thread about the story http://devilmaycry.org/community/threads/isnt-the-story-kinda-sappy.13814/page-2#post-426582

be sure to leave a reply ^_^

My only issue was Mundus. I remember in Devil May Cry you couldn't wait to face him and that boss battle was one of the best in the series. In this game however facing Mundus and the boss fight was both weak and I found myself not caring at all that I beat him or was going to face him. Not sure if it was because of the boss fight itself, the fact Mundus just stays in his tower all the game or maybe both but it was not done well at all.

You can't really complain here the Mundus battle in DMC 1 was just way too Epic... it was like one of the best Boss battle Ever in VG history

DmC is trying something new so i think they forgot to focus on Mundus battle or the Last boss

 

[majeh116]

Nothing bad about Ninja Theory but I think the fact should be known that NT didn't write the story for their previous games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved. They hired writers that had to scrap the script for both games. NT did the story themselfs in DmC.

I also wish to point out that those same writers supervised the script for the new DmC and helped with it.

 

[MultiBro]

I also wish to point out that those same writers supervised the script for the new DmC and helped with it.

Gonna need a source on that.

 

[majeh116]

Gonna need a source on that.

skip to about 1:45 where it says story supervisor Alex Garland (the guy who as you probably know wrote the previous two game stories) however if you don't think the credits count as a source I can send you another source if you want.

 

[MultiBro]

skip to about 1:45 where it says story supervisor Alex Garland (the guy who as you probably know wrote the previous two game stories) however if you don't think the credits count as a source I can send you another source if you want.

The credits are enough, still. Being a story supervisor isn't the same as actually writing the story. Though that is a bit nitpicking.

And correction, Alex Garland wrote the story of Enslaved, not Heavenly Sword.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2007/09/rhianna-pratchett-talks-heavenly-sword-sony-and-andy-serkis/

 

[majeh116]

The credits are enough, still. Being a story supervisor isn't the same as actually writing the story. Though that is a bit nitpicking.

And correction, Alex Garland wrote the story of Enslaved, not Heavenly Sword.

http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2007/09/rhianna-pratchett-talks-heavenly-sword-sony-and-andy-serkis/

Ah my bad thought he wrote both thanks for correcting me there.

 

[8BitHero]

Pretty much mostly agree. Especially with Nekodark. Easily one of the strongest story driven titles in the series and was pretty well written. Dante was easily the most fleshed out character. Then followed by Vergil and Kat. Not to mention it had incredible voice acting and performances. Some really intense scenes like "The Trade".

Some of the bad points. Mundus. Awesome voice acting and not as generic (or as I like to call it) "Eggman guy" with the goal to take over the world. Controlling the world through debt is as interesting idea but....also seemed pointless. Like it really wasn't effecting the world. The guy who ripped out your mothers hard and tortured your dad also runs the world...eh. That was cool...but he just wasn't doing anything. Plus his final boss was something you'd find in Spyro the Dragon or Sonic the Hedgehog.

The ending with Vergil, while I don't think was a bad direction, it was pretty sudden. Instead of them slowly working towards the goal and then realise the difference they do all of that in a single cutscene. Within that one cutscene they go from brother saviours to Vergil being the final boss.

I guess since they set the universe NT can now work on adding more to it. I love forward to DmC2.

 

[Loopy]

I really liked the story and what the actors did with the characters, but I would have liked more scenes and more character exploration from side characters; Phineas for example could have done with 1 or 2 more scenes, maybe explain a bit more about how he knew Sparda and what he did to be punished.

Controlling the world through debt is as interesting idea but....also seemed pointless. Like it really wasn't effecting the world. The guy who ripped out your mothers hard and tortured your dad also runs the world...eh. That was cool...but he just wasn't doing anything.

Got to agree, while I thought Mundus was a cool character, I wish there had been more of him to make me feel he was a super threat. Sure, I think it is quite scary that one guy could control everything behind the scenes, but I wish he had left his tower a bit; maybe on the raid of The Order?
I also would have liked to see more scenes of him with Lilith that didn't involve sex, just to see how they interacted. She seemed more into him than he was to her. Plus, I think I know Lilith more as a character than Mundus.
The bit that stood out with me for Mundus was when he was questioning Dante why he killed his child. I just thought that was an interesting thing for a villain to do; almost humansed him (but he is a demon).

 

[Aretha]

In my opinion the story was neither exceptional nor badly written, as some think. There are definitely some parts of the story that could have used a bit more of an explanation. For example, I do wonder why neither Dante nor Vergil think about rescuing their father if he's still alive. Or what the angels were doing while Mundus took over the world. But that's a bit nitpicky because in the end it isn't really that relevant to the story.

However, what's important is that I cared about these characters, so I think NT accomplished what they set out to do. And here's to hoping there will be a DmC2 one day.

 

[majeh116]

Can someone explain to me what the inner world thingy was in Dante? I never quite got it

 

[Loopy]

Can someone explain to me what the inner world thingy was in Dante? I never quite got it

I'll have a guess. Something to do with recovering the other side of his powers that were repressed in his body and mind. That was represented by the chained statue. It had something to do with Eva.
Plus, wasn't it mentioned that Sparda wiped Dante's memory of what he was. So I guess Eva was giving him his memory and power back by having Dante remember using blue roses a trigger.