Devil May Cry Review

How would you react to a mysterious man in a red coat killing the major religious figure in your city? If you’re Nero, you’d start kicking ass (apparently). Even with his right arm being injured from a previous demonic attack and, Nero is willing to fight off the assailant with only his twin barrelled revolver Blue Rose and his customised blade, the Red Queen. Considering his opponent however, Nero may need bigger weapons.

This opening sets up the narrative well and introduces Nero in a way that reduces the pain felt from not playing as Dante. Don’t worry though. Dante is still in the game, but he seems to be the same individual that fell from the ceiling and is causing a fair bit of commotion. After 3 games though, Dante couldn’t possibly be the bad guy. He’s been the laid back demon slayer that has saved humanity on numerous occasions. There must be a rational reason for his actions, right?

You will be left satisfied after every action, as Capcom have refined the combat to be as kinaesthetically pleasing as possible. Due to the timing nature of your combos, the weight of every attack is felt and the impact made onto objects and enemies alike can be felt through your monitor. As you gain Proud Souls, he amount of customisation subsequently increases, as your abilities and combos can be acquired in any order to suit your play style. This allows for more variety and can result in multiple playthroughs to see how different your play style could be effected by a different skill, or from having a different skill set altogether. Proud souls are rewarded in greater quantities based on the grades achieved per level, giving players an incentive to beat each stage efficiently. The more Proud souls you gain, the more of a badass you can become.

Repetition does not factor into this game. The variety of enemy types have differing weaknesses that must be exploited to further your progression and the rate in which you encounter these enemies is controlled to the point where you're wondering what else they have available to bring you pain. My worries about Dante's sections feeling repetitive was demolished after his first chapter. Nero and Dante are inherently different in terms of their abilities and their arsenal, so facing an enemy in the wrong mindset could cause you some difficulties.

For those unaware, Devil May Cry 4 (DMC4) was originally a PlayStation 3 (PS3) and an Xbox 360 title that was ported to PC 5 months afterwards. This can sometimes cause glaring issues and may ultimately result in the game's downfall on the platform. In spite of this common problem, Capcom have converted DMC4 to the PC flawlessly and have in some areas improved the game past the console versions. With a good enough PC, over 60 FPS (Frames Per Second) can be achieved easily and the graphical fidelity is beyond magnificent. DirectX 10 was included to the PC version as well, providing scenery and textures that put the PS3 and Xbox variants to shame. A stress test system has been added as well to help users alter their game settings to accommodate their computer hardware. This is extremely beneficial for players and more PC games should have this feature. Using a controller is strongly advised however. Using a keyboard (while still being viable) does not convey the same levels of feedback and finesse that a controller can provide.

Nothing makes you pumped like a good soundtrack, so it helps that the playlist that accompanies you throughout DMC4 complements the atmosphere created by the mass amounts of bloodshed. One of my favourite tracks happens to kick in when Nero engages an enemy. 'The Time Has Come' will play a lot at the early levels, due to Nero having to kick many asses, and you will have the pleasure of trying to get the guitar rift out of your head. Fans of the original game may also recognise Dante's battle theme. This is due to 'Lock and Load' being a remix of Dante's original character theme from the first game, which was a thoughtful Easter egg from Capcom. For those with a distaste for metal, the soundtrack may not be to your liking. For everyone else though, this is one of the best soundtracks from this genre of music and there's no denying the songs presented in this instalment are greatly improved from the franchise's previous works.

A single playthrough will satisfy anyone’s demon slaying fix, but for those who want to bring the entire demon world to its knees there will be a few more options available to you after you reach the game's conclusion. You can choose to play levels crammed with as many bad guys as physically possible, allowing you to hack and slash their demonic goo all over town until your combo score explodes with awesomeness! An increased difficulty mode has been added as well, allowing players to experience the true plight of the war against demons.

The greatest aspect of playing after a finished playthrough however is that your upgrades carry over, so you can unleash your demonic arsenal on whoever is foolish enough to label you as a mere human. It's hard to match the levels of excitement that clearing an entire corridor of bad guys delivers and seeing the combo score jump between S and SS will make you seek out the nearest back of enemies to increase your score further. I found that getting an SSS rating was impossible for me, but the gameplay just drove me to repeatedly swing my blade wildly in the hopes that I would become epic. I never succeeded, but I still tried and trying is half the battle.

There's also a tab to let you view your system details, where you can view your Graphics card, your processor, your RAM, current resolution, current NVIDIA driver version and your operating system. It also gives you a quick rundown of what hardware you need to benefit from the software, and informs you of whether you meet the requirements.

DMC4 is a technical marvel and a great swansong for Capcom's involvement in the DMC series. You cannot fault the controls and the graphics are some of the best I've seen on PC to date (excluding modifications). The protagonist's personalities compelled me to play for over 20 hours, which is amazing considering it's a single player experience. Playing through DMC4 made me realise why I loved the original game, back when I played it in 2001 and you can see that the 7 year difference between the first game and DMC4 were not wasted.

Thomas Clarke