tatsumarublack
Legendary Dark Knight
Okay. It's actually quite alot, I'll try not to go toooo long. One of the things leading up to this games release that I was concerned about and even voiced it on my channel, was that alot of what was revealed with Dante was kept to a minimum in regards to his styles. I was afraid that due to not receiving much information on what had changed with the styles, that we were getting basically the same thing from DMC4. That intuition was revealed to be true when finally having full access to the game. On the surface, nothing has changed with the styles. We still have the same moveset with little addition, with the exception being swordmaster and gunslinger due to them having new ranged and melee weapons. So since I led with the styles, I'll breakdown a bit of what I perceive is wrong with each of them.
Trickster. Trickster received the least amount of love in DMC5, and is actually nerfed from DMC4. The ground dashes are slower and have more recovery time that can't be cancelled out of quickly unless you do another dash, but thats still rather slow. Compared to DMC3's upgraded up to 3 ground dashes in quick succession, or DMC4's ability to cancel ground dash quickly into a guard or DT'd infinite quick dashes its very disappointing. Skystar has also been severely nerfed as it has lots of recovery time that can only be cancelled quickly by a jumpcancel or a gun/sword move. This may not seem so bad until you try doing little quirky things such as skystar into air guard. In DMC4 it's possible to do this and use the invincibility frames from skystar to setup a perfect block with RG, in DMC5 it's possible but with severe lagtime and no use as you will not be able to attain a perfect block due to the recovery time. DT'ed air trick has been nerfed, and doesn't travel nearly the distance as it used to in DMC4. Enemy run is still as useless as it was in DMC4. Awesome old moves such as Wall run continue to be missing for whatever odd decisions and there are NO new moves for Trickster at all. Trickster also has the least to gain by upgrading it. In fact, it's "coveted" level 4 upgrade is simply ground trick....and thats it. That's terrible.
Gunslinger. Gunslinger is the next style that really didn't receive alot of love, unless you are using the Faust hat or the Kalinna Ann. Those are "new weapons" (Of course Kalinna Ann was in DMC3, but it wasn't in DMC4). Ebony and Ivory in gunslinger are just as weak as if they weren't in the style. Auto-charged shots is an ok idea, but since they are essentially useless especially compared to Nero's Blue Rose it's rather pointless and no good. I understand the idea behind their implementation of Twosome Time, shoot button controlling one gun and the style button controlling the other...but the execution is horrendous and it's no wonder nobody really uses it in gameplay. Besides auto-charged shot, Ebony and Ivory received nothing new in terms of moves. Nothing. The shotgun received a tiny bit more love than EnI as it got one new move, that being the slide into a shotgun fire...but thats essentially it. Fireworks knocks enemies back and while this makes sense to a degree, it would've been great to add exceptions like DMC4 did. For ex, if a enemy has armor in DMC4 the knockback is negated and you can combo them like you were using rainstorm. If an enemy has armor like the knights in DMC5 and you use fireworks or a shot from the shotty, they still go flying back, unless they're a very large enemy. Another exception should be made for when enemies are DT'ed as well. They should have more resistance to being knocked back by shotgun shots just like they have resistance to being launched by your weapons. Imo, even with the new sliding shot move with the Shotty, it still lacks innovation and freshness. I can't really complain about the Faust hat or Kalinna Ann as they are fine to me.
Royal Guard. Royal Guard is a hit and a miss. I'm not too fond of the idea that its been made a lot easier to use and is way more forgiving than DMC3 and DMC4, but I understand the reasoning behind it and I'm fine with it. That said, jump guard and jump release in this game are mediocre to borderline bad. Due to the floatiness of the guard and the weirdness of the way the camera works, there's been way too many times where I've missed a perfect jump guard or a jump air release and I'm puzzled. There's also moments where I've hit my air jump release and it does it but the damage isn't applied due to what I suppose is Dante not truly hitting the hitbox of a particular enemy. Roll guarding is basically nonexistant and terrible. If you want to know what this is, it's basically using the invincibility frames from a roll and cancelling it with a guard to setup perfect blocks. Cancelling guard from a roll in DMC5 is one of the ugliest things I've seen lol. Using Royal Guard to cancel moves has also taken a huge stepback as its nowhere near as fluid as in previous games and the recovery time is huge. I do however like the new addition of the Royal Revenge counter move....however even with this, I still crave more from this style.
Swordmaster. Swordmaster received the most love due to it having the best melee weapons selection that Dante has had since DMC3. There's really not too much I can find wrong here. I would say that I'm not too fond of the way they implemented real impact, but besides that I like the Balrog alot. And Dante's swordmanship probably could use some updating as he still uses the exact same moves from DMC4 even Dance Macabre is copied and pasted. I would've liked to see a bit more extension to his sword basic combos much like what Nero received. Maybe having Sparda be slightly more weighty, but packing more of a punch with damage would be a good idea. Also giving it, it's own combos to differentiate it from the Rebellion...and some new style moves as well. I love what they did with the Cerberus, so no complaints there. Cavalier is ok, I'm not too much of a fan since it's extremely slow but it has moves that I do like to use when I'm playing.
Sidenotes on Dante. For whatever reason we're still missing wildstomp which could've been a cool addition to gunslinger. Free ride, which could've been a cool addition to Trickster if they wanted to do that. Pole play, which could've been a cool addition to trickster as well instead of a mini gimmick move with Cerberus in Swordmaster. Free ride, which would've been a great thing for Dante to do and given him an answer to Nero's cool rocket arm skateboarding. It's disappointing. I feel like after 11 years, we deserved more than what we got.
Nero. Overall Nero is in tip top form. They really went all out to make sure he was alot more indepth than he was in DMC4 and I commend them for that. My only gripes with him is that I wish he had at least one more ranged and melee weapon to switch between, and I also believe that they should've given you the ability to switch between devil breakers instead of using them up just to switch to another. I thought we might get that, after the ending of the game where Nico hands Nero the "prototype" but that ended up just being a glove pretty much and nothing more. I understand it brings a certain amount of strategy to figuring out which ones you want to use for each encounter, but at least make it a reward for beating DMD or something so that players can go crazy switching between their favorite breakers without having to spend them and go through the breaker animation every time.
V. I actually like V, which surprised me. I just wish they would've given him more to work with. It's pretty difficult to make playing with V look stylish and he basically boils down to finding interesting ways to juggle with Shadow and Griffon, since he has little moves to actually jump cancel with.
Level Design. Alot of people are praising this game because of its beautiful graphics and gameplay. It is beautiful, and that's not really something that can be disputed. But, we were in the demonic tree way too much. We fought Urizen way too many times. The best designed stage imo, is the demo / mission 2 stage and its no wonder they chose that one to use as a demo because of it. I think maybe mission 12 with Dante is probably the next best one.
Storywise. It's ok. To me they basically ripped DMC3's story and added Nero. Instead of Arkham however, in his place you have V who is the guy that uses demonic magic and entices Dante into a rumble with his brother who has erected a large object in the middle of town that threatens the world in pursuit of power. He also pretends to be a weak frail person V / Jester / Arkham until he reaches his goal and becomes a baddy that you fight against. Resurrected Vergil / Imperfect Sparda Arkham
Content. Overall I think this game is lacking in this regard. You have very little reward for beating each difficulty besides access to DT for Nero, achievements/trophies, and Super Dante / Nero / V. In DMC3 you are given a costume for every single difficulty except for maybe easy iirc. And yeah, some of the costumes are basic as in shirtless dante, or coatless dmc1 dante...but it was still something. They could've easily done the same in this game. Such as giving us hoodie Nero...(making Nero keep his hood on even if he gets hit), or coatless DMC5 Dante...which would be very easy to do. Seeing DMC3 Dante rendered with these beautiful graphics, or DMC4 Dante, DMC4 Nero...it would be amazing. Hopefully we get these, plus Turbo mode and other incentives for continuing to play the game in the inevitable DLC / Special Edition that is coming.
Anyways, I could go on, but for now I'll keep it there. Overall I do like the game. I do think it's better than DMC4 overall, with a 8/10 grading for it. I just expect way more, especially since this is 11 years in the making.
