Thoughts About Devil May Cry 4

I should start out by saying that I am a huge fan of the Devil May Cry series. I remember rushing home to play the first one the day it came out, and even forgiving the game makers for bomb that was Devil May Cry 2 (I even bought and playing through it regardless of it’s complete lack of plot), and being swept away by the genius the was the series prequel, Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening. All of this to say that I wanted to like the forth installment, I really wanted to.

What the game did right.

The designers were on point with the overall look and feel of the game. The controls were tight, the digital Gothic environments beautiful, and at points breath taking. The bosses were grandiose, tough and and left me satisfied when I beat them. But most importantly, the character of Dante was on point. Capcom seems to have completely erased the battled hardened, cold-hearted Dante of Devil May Cry 2. This Dante is a grown up version of himself from Devil May Cry 3, completely with snappy attitude and a personality that oozes charm.

What the game did wrong.

The game took a chance by introducing a new character (Nero) into the game and forcing you to play though the first half with him. Normally, this is a non-issue, after all this worked magic on Call of Duty 4, but they’ve created Dante to be such a personality in the game, it almost felt like a bait and switch. Compare it to going to Disney World and instead of meeting Mickey Mouse, it’s Chuck-E-Cheese shaking hands. It just isn’t the same. About halfway through the game, the control switched from the new character to Dante, and you’re controlling him pretty much until right up to the end. The only downside here is that his levels and challenges consist of backtracking everything you went thought with the new character, only backward. From the point you control Dante, you’re doing everything that you already did all over again. All the same puzzles, all the same enemies, the same bosses. (Yawn).

After the 12 hours it took me to complete the game, I would defiantly say that I enjoyed it more than I was annoyed by it, but I just really wanted to like it more than I did. This could be a situation where my expectations where too high. My final score will be a 6.5/10.