I couldn't find a proper review thread so forgive me if there already is one:
From the pompous show-offs at Capcom comes Devil May Cry 4, the final instalment in this stylish hack & slash series, (ignoring the new DMC by Ninja Theory here).
Set in the fictional town of Fortuna, you play as Nero; a white-haired devil hunter who wields a big sword, a big gun and wears a long coat. After rushing to an opera house in what can only be a typical morning of demon slaying, he meets his girlfriend and sits down to a boring sermon by the Pope as depicted by Hideaki Itsuno. The party then gets crashed by Dante; a white-haired devil hunter who wields a big sword, two big guns and wears a long coat... looks like Nero & Dante have the same stylist. After assassinating the Pope (which is ironic based on how the congregation dresses) Dante escapes and it’s up to Nero to track him down and bring him to justice.
From there the story goes through the usual clichés; love interest gets kidnapped, tension between protagonist & love interest’s brother, conspiracies afoot, good guys turn out to be bad guys, etc. Oh come on, that’s not a spoiler! If you couldn’t predict any of that stuff happening then you’ve obviously never seen more than two Hollywood films while half asleep. Anyway, the story is not what this game’s about. The cast is your usual array of stereotypical badarse characters (with the exception of said love interest) and the script seems to be made almost entirely of cheesy one-liners with lame voice acting to match. It’s pretty clear that DMC4 doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you. I’m going with Yahtzee’s label of a “spectacle fighter” (for lack of a better term) because the main focus of DMC4 lies in its aesthetic appeal.
Speaking of which, the game is extremely good looking. I got the PC version (finally) so I get the benefit of advanced HD graphics and I must say it is rather stunning in pretty much every aspect; character design, animations & motion capture, special effects, lighting, detailed environments, 3D modelling, high resolution textures and apparel physics such as hair & clothing. And on my sexy new 19” LCD I could see every minute detail crystal clearly. The cutscenes are quite spectacular and the motion capture & choreography is some of the best I’ve seen in a game. It should be able to run smoothly on any current rig; I managed to play it with all the settings cranked up to max without any problems. DMC4 is also DX10 compatible, but nobody cares anymore so forget I mentioned it. It’s just a shame the developers put so much effort into making the game look good because the rest of it seems pretty half-arsed.
While the optimization of the graphics for the PC is fairly noticeable the controls are an utter mess; did nobody tell these clueless dilts what a mouse is? The mouse is completely disabled for game control and there is no way to enable it – which removes one of the key advantages of playing on a PC in the first place. The default controls seem to have been mapped out by a sea urchin in a tumble dryer because they’re spread out all over the keyboard, requiring three hands and a nimble tongue to utilise properly. I had to re-assign everything in the options menu to make the game playable but all the tutorials were given using the default keys, which made things doubly frustrating. You won’t need the camera navigation buttons very much because most of the game takes place from a fixed camera perspective.
Listen game developers everywhere: fixed cameras are NOT COOL.
It’s especially frustrating during some rather obnoxious platforming sections that don’t let you see where you’re going half the time, resulting in far too many retries for my taste. I wonder why the developers even bothered to put platform puzzles in the game at all, since they’re all about as fluid & fun as going down a dry waterslide made of sandpaper, with laser beams. If I wanted a 3rd-person platformer I’d go play Prince of Persia.
Speaking of which, the level design in DMC4 takes inspiration from Warrior Within in that you’ll be trudging through the same areas over and over again trying to unlock the next area. Although it’s not always clear where you’re supposed to be going so you’ll occasionally find yourself wandering around for about half an hour in frustration trying to figure out what to do next. This is made even more monotonous when you switch over to Dante about halfway through the campaign and have to play through all the levels again in reverse order, complete with boss fights (I see what you did there Capcom, you lazy buggers). The puzzles are a bit lame too; there’s one particular puzzle about a third of the way through in which you have to punch around a big spiky dice in order to make a black & white depiction of yourself move along a colour coded path. This was a stupid idea to begin with and Dante thinks so too, but then towards the end they make you do the same bloody puzzle five times in a row! Who the hell thought this was a good idea? It’s not fun or challenging, it just adds artificial lengthening to an already pretty short game. The only way to make this puzzle slightly more bearable is to visualize the big punching dice as the level designer.
The combat on the other hand isn’t too bad, having lots of cannon fodder enemies to dispatch creatively and plenty of boss fights. The goal of this game isn’t to simply kill all your enemies but you have to look good doing it. DMC4 implements a stylish meter; the more combos you perform in quick succession without taking damage the higher the meter will rise. At the end of each level you’re graded on your performance which is based upon your completion time, how many secrets you found and how much of a show-off you can be with a sword. Combat controls are pretty straightforward; there’s a mêlée button for performing sword combos, a pistol button for whittling enemies’ health down from a distance like a sissy and a special attack button depending on which character you play. It’s a bit hard at first to memorize all the sword combos, but you do eventually get the hang of it. And in case you can’t it is still entirely possible to button-mash your way through each fight, although the game will call you a spastic if you do so.
You’ll experience two different combat styles in DMC4. As Nero you’ll have three main combat implements: the Red Queen sword which you can rev up like a motorcycle to deal more damage and perform some pretty cool combos, the Blue Rose dual-shot revolver that can be charged up for extra damage and Nero’s demonic arm which he can use to perform various grappling manoeuvres. Nero may seem like a bit of a badarse at first but he’s nothing compared to Dante; donning a long red coat, dual-wielding black & silver handguns and being virtually indestructible... maybe it’s a Japanese thing. Unlike Nero’s 3-piece arsenal Dante has got so many toys up his rolled up sleeves that he rivals Ezio Auditore in redundancy; he’s got a big sword, two handguns, a sawn-off shotgun, a pair of spiky gloves & boots and something called “Lucifer”. And on top of all that he’s got something called “Pandora”, which is essentially 666 different weapons in one convenient little briefcase (at least that’s what the description says anyway). In addition to his ridiculous amount of arms Dante has four fighting styles that can be switched mid-combat; Trickster, Swordmaster, Royal Guard and Gunslinger. Swordmaster just allows you to twirl your sword cowboy-style and I couldn’t figure out what Trickster & Royal Guard were for so I mainly stuck with Gunslinger for the duration of gameplay because... well, gunkata is cool. There are a decent number of enemies & bosses that have their own particular attack styles, but the battle strategy for each is relatively similar. And the single techno/rock combat track that plays throughout each and every battle does start to get a little irritating after a while. Overall though the combat is quite entertaining.
The core gameplay however has no correlation to plot progression and merely serves to cartwheel the player from one cutscene to the next, and while some of them are pretty spectacular to watch some player interaction could’ve made them a little more engaging. The cutscenes themselves are overly stylized with a lot of over acting from characters that makes The Boondock Saints II look un-camp. Story relevant characters never appear during gameplay outside of boss fights, which makes me feel detached from the game world and that the plot is happening alongside my actions rather than as a consequence of them. And whenever a cutscene does start the characters seem to appear out of thin air – especially in one moment on a snowy bridge when Lady Gaga shows up out of nowhere. However there is a certain absurd ironic humour to be had in the way the characters casually swagger about spouting cheesy dialogue with the depth of a teaspoon, and at least the cutscenes are skippable. Like I said, it’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously (or seriously at all – this is Capcom after all).
So in short: Fantastic visuals (on every level), entertaining combat and passable cutscenes, but obnoxious level design, horrid keyboard-bound controls and annoying platform & puzzle sections. Devil May Cry 4 is really an average game, the good and the bad in equal proportions. Despite all the negative things I said about it I found it entertaining enough to play through to the end, and it’s really one of those games that once you start playing it’s very hard to stop (unless you get stuck), and there is a bit of replay value. However it has not convinced me to play other DMC games because it’ll probably just be more of the same. DMC4 is definitely worth a look but I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it right away, unless you have too much disposable income. Like I did.
From the pompous show-offs at Capcom comes Devil May Cry 4, the final instalment in this stylish hack & slash series, (ignoring the new DMC by Ninja Theory here).
Set in the fictional town of Fortuna, you play as Nero; a white-haired devil hunter who wields a big sword, a big gun and wears a long coat. After rushing to an opera house in what can only be a typical morning of demon slaying, he meets his girlfriend and sits down to a boring sermon by the Pope as depicted by Hideaki Itsuno. The party then gets crashed by Dante; a white-haired devil hunter who wields a big sword, two big guns and wears a long coat... looks like Nero & Dante have the same stylist. After assassinating the Pope (which is ironic based on how the congregation dresses) Dante escapes and it’s up to Nero to track him down and bring him to justice.
From there the story goes through the usual clichés; love interest gets kidnapped, tension between protagonist & love interest’s brother, conspiracies afoot, good guys turn out to be bad guys, etc. Oh come on, that’s not a spoiler! If you couldn’t predict any of that stuff happening then you’ve obviously never seen more than two Hollywood films while half asleep. Anyway, the story is not what this game’s about. The cast is your usual array of stereotypical badarse characters (with the exception of said love interest) and the script seems to be made almost entirely of cheesy one-liners with lame voice acting to match. It’s pretty clear that DMC4 doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you. I’m going with Yahtzee’s label of a “spectacle fighter” (for lack of a better term) because the main focus of DMC4 lies in its aesthetic appeal.
Speaking of which, the game is extremely good looking. I got the PC version (finally) so I get the benefit of advanced HD graphics and I must say it is rather stunning in pretty much every aspect; character design, animations & motion capture, special effects, lighting, detailed environments, 3D modelling, high resolution textures and apparel physics such as hair & clothing. And on my sexy new 19” LCD I could see every minute detail crystal clearly. The cutscenes are quite spectacular and the motion capture & choreography is some of the best I’ve seen in a game. It should be able to run smoothly on any current rig; I managed to play it with all the settings cranked up to max without any problems. DMC4 is also DX10 compatible, but nobody cares anymore so forget I mentioned it. It’s just a shame the developers put so much effort into making the game look good because the rest of it seems pretty half-arsed.
While the optimization of the graphics for the PC is fairly noticeable the controls are an utter mess; did nobody tell these clueless dilts what a mouse is? The mouse is completely disabled for game control and there is no way to enable it – which removes one of the key advantages of playing on a PC in the first place. The default controls seem to have been mapped out by a sea urchin in a tumble dryer because they’re spread out all over the keyboard, requiring three hands and a nimble tongue to utilise properly. I had to re-assign everything in the options menu to make the game playable but all the tutorials were given using the default keys, which made things doubly frustrating. You won’t need the camera navigation buttons very much because most of the game takes place from a fixed camera perspective.
Listen game developers everywhere: fixed cameras are NOT COOL.
It’s especially frustrating during some rather obnoxious platforming sections that don’t let you see where you’re going half the time, resulting in far too many retries for my taste. I wonder why the developers even bothered to put platform puzzles in the game at all, since they’re all about as fluid & fun as going down a dry waterslide made of sandpaper, with laser beams. If I wanted a 3rd-person platformer I’d go play Prince of Persia.
Speaking of which, the level design in DMC4 takes inspiration from Warrior Within in that you’ll be trudging through the same areas over and over again trying to unlock the next area. Although it’s not always clear where you’re supposed to be going so you’ll occasionally find yourself wandering around for about half an hour in frustration trying to figure out what to do next. This is made even more monotonous when you switch over to Dante about halfway through the campaign and have to play through all the levels again in reverse order, complete with boss fights (I see what you did there Capcom, you lazy buggers). The puzzles are a bit lame too; there’s one particular puzzle about a third of the way through in which you have to punch around a big spiky dice in order to make a black & white depiction of yourself move along a colour coded path. This was a stupid idea to begin with and Dante thinks so too, but then towards the end they make you do the same bloody puzzle five times in a row! Who the hell thought this was a good idea? It’s not fun or challenging, it just adds artificial lengthening to an already pretty short game. The only way to make this puzzle slightly more bearable is to visualize the big punching dice as the level designer.
The combat on the other hand isn’t too bad, having lots of cannon fodder enemies to dispatch creatively and plenty of boss fights. The goal of this game isn’t to simply kill all your enemies but you have to look good doing it. DMC4 implements a stylish meter; the more combos you perform in quick succession without taking damage the higher the meter will rise. At the end of each level you’re graded on your performance which is based upon your completion time, how many secrets you found and how much of a show-off you can be with a sword. Combat controls are pretty straightforward; there’s a mêlée button for performing sword combos, a pistol button for whittling enemies’ health down from a distance like a sissy and a special attack button depending on which character you play. It’s a bit hard at first to memorize all the sword combos, but you do eventually get the hang of it. And in case you can’t it is still entirely possible to button-mash your way through each fight, although the game will call you a spastic if you do so.
You’ll experience two different combat styles in DMC4. As Nero you’ll have three main combat implements: the Red Queen sword which you can rev up like a motorcycle to deal more damage and perform some pretty cool combos, the Blue Rose dual-shot revolver that can be charged up for extra damage and Nero’s demonic arm which he can use to perform various grappling manoeuvres. Nero may seem like a bit of a badarse at first but he’s nothing compared to Dante; donning a long red coat, dual-wielding black & silver handguns and being virtually indestructible... maybe it’s a Japanese thing. Unlike Nero’s 3-piece arsenal Dante has got so many toys up his rolled up sleeves that he rivals Ezio Auditore in redundancy; he’s got a big sword, two handguns, a sawn-off shotgun, a pair of spiky gloves & boots and something called “Lucifer”. And on top of all that he’s got something called “Pandora”, which is essentially 666 different weapons in one convenient little briefcase (at least that’s what the description says anyway). In addition to his ridiculous amount of arms Dante has four fighting styles that can be switched mid-combat; Trickster, Swordmaster, Royal Guard and Gunslinger. Swordmaster just allows you to twirl your sword cowboy-style and I couldn’t figure out what Trickster & Royal Guard were for so I mainly stuck with Gunslinger for the duration of gameplay because... well, gunkata is cool. There are a decent number of enemies & bosses that have their own particular attack styles, but the battle strategy for each is relatively similar. And the single techno/rock combat track that plays throughout each and every battle does start to get a little irritating after a while. Overall though the combat is quite entertaining.
The core gameplay however has no correlation to plot progression and merely serves to cartwheel the player from one cutscene to the next, and while some of them are pretty spectacular to watch some player interaction could’ve made them a little more engaging. The cutscenes themselves are overly stylized with a lot of over acting from characters that makes The Boondock Saints II look un-camp. Story relevant characters never appear during gameplay outside of boss fights, which makes me feel detached from the game world and that the plot is happening alongside my actions rather than as a consequence of them. And whenever a cutscene does start the characters seem to appear out of thin air – especially in one moment on a snowy bridge when Lady Gaga shows up out of nowhere. However there is a certain absurd ironic humour to be had in the way the characters casually swagger about spouting cheesy dialogue with the depth of a teaspoon, and at least the cutscenes are skippable. Like I said, it’s a game that doesn’t take itself too seriously (or seriously at all – this is Capcom after all).
So in short: Fantastic visuals (on every level), entertaining combat and passable cutscenes, but obnoxious level design, horrid keyboard-bound controls and annoying platform & puzzle sections. Devil May Cry 4 is really an average game, the good and the bad in equal proportions. Despite all the negative things I said about it I found it entertaining enough to play through to the end, and it’s really one of those games that once you start playing it’s very hard to stop (unless you get stuck), and there is a bit of replay value. However it has not convinced me to play other DMC games because it’ll probably just be more of the same. DMC4 is definitely worth a look but I wouldn’t recommend purchasing it right away, unless you have too much disposable income. Like I did.
