Dante may have moved out of the spotlight, but the newest entry in the Devil May Cry series is still as sharp as ever.

The Devil May Cry series has always held a soft spot in my heart as one of my favorite gaming franchises thanks to the way it took the traditional hack n’ slash framework, and injected about 150 cc’s of style into it. No longer was I content with just finishing enemy after enemy off with repetitive ten hit combos. Now I had to get in three sword slashes, knock the enemy into the air, jump up after him, fill him with about four magazines of dual pistol lead, slam him to the ground, switch weapons, and turn my attention to how I will stylishly annihilate the other five monsters in the room. While they stumbled with the painfully mediocre Devil May Cry 2, Capcom came back and came back hard with Devil May Cry 3, which I personally consider to be one of the best action games of all time, along with God of War and Ninja Gaiden for the Xbox. Now with new and more powerful hardware and a new main character, does Devil May Cry 4 have what it takes to hang with the upper echelon of the action genre?

Not quite, but it is damn close.

Devil May Cry 4’s story is a bit of a departure from previous games in the franchise. Our favorite red coat wearing, dual pistol wielding, silver haired badass takes a back seat this time around to make room for a younger silver haired badass in Nero. The game kicks off with a ceremony put on by the Order of the Sword, a religious organization that worships Dante’s father, the Legendary Dark Knight, Sparda. The ceremony is rudely interrupted, however when the Son of Sparda himself crashes through a ceiling window and proceeds to shoot the leader of the Order of the Sword point blank in the head. Being a member of the Order of the Sword himself and being unaware of whom Dante actually is, Nero dropkicks Dante in the face, beginning a fight that has the two exchanging sword blows, bullets, and plenty of snappy insults. The battle ends inconclusively with Dante leaving to take care of other business and Nero setting out after him to finish their fight. But as you might expect, not everything is as it seems in the world of Devil May Cry, and as Nero continues on his journey he’ll begin to learn the truth regarding Dante, himself, and the Order of the Sword.

Meet Dante’s new toy, Lucifer

Like the other DMC games, the story of Devil May Cry 4 is fairly interesting with enough twists and turns to keep your attention until the climatic finale, but it’s the fast paced action oriented gameplay that makes this series such a classic, and Devil May Cry 4 does not disappoint in that regard. The biggest change in Devil May Cry 4’s gameplay is the addition of Nero as the main character who brings all kinds of new powers and abilities to the table. The first of which is his demonic right arm, the Devil Bringer. With a simple press of the B button, Nero will grab an opponent and perform some kind of throw, slam, or scripted action sequence depending on the type of enemy grabbed. It’s a pretty standard throwing system, but one that the Devil May Cry games have always lacked and so it’s a welcome addition to the combat system.

Much more interesting than that though is the ability to shoot out the ghostly arm of the Devil Bringer to snatch far away enemies and bring them within range of your sword. This opens up all kinds of combo opportunities that weren’t possible before due to the fact that the last hit of a combo usually would knock the enemy away and out of range of your sword. With the Devil Bringer though you can do a basic combo, snatch them back after the last hit, start up an air combo, cancel the combo with a throw, snatch them back again while still in the air, finish off the air combo by slamming the enemy back down to the ground, and if they’re still even alive after that (which is highly unlikely), you can snatch them back and start the whole thing over again. It’s an insanely fun system that somewhat makes up for the fact that Nero has a fairly limited variety of weapons.

Expect to fight some pretty impressive boss battles. Too bad you have to fight each about 3 times though.

While you do spend the majority of the game as Nero, a little more than halfway through the game you get the chance to play as Dante, who offers a nice throwback to the gameplay of Devil May Cry 3 by giving you access to a fairly large variety of guns, swords, special moves, and most importantly, styles. The Gunslinger, Sword Master, Trickster, and Royal Guard styles from Devil May Cry 3 all make a return in the Dante portions of the game, and best of all, you’re able to switch between all four on the fly with a simple press of the D-Pad. Unfortunately you lose the Devil Bringer, which may cause people to fumble a little with Dante when they first gain control of him due to the fact that the Devil Bringer is such an integral part of Nero’s gameplay. You’ll soon forget about the Devil Bringer though once you see the weapons that Dante finds along the way. Aside from a shotgun and gauntlets, which are somewhat staples of the series by now, you’ll also find a new sword and a new gun in Lucifer and Pandora.

Lucifer is a personal favorite of mine as it takes the form of two sword sheaths bound together by a skull that hold an unlimited number of explosive blades that Dante can throw out rapidly in all directions. The coolest part about this weapon though is that the swords don’t explode on impact. They linger inside enemies until Dante stylishly takes out a rose and throws it, cueing all of the swords to explode simultaneously, causing every enemy with a sword stuck in them to go flying.

Nero’s Devil Bringer is definitely a welcome addition to the combat system.

Pandora is equally impressive as it is a crossbow, a machine gun, a rocket launcher, a laser canon, and a single manned battle station all in one. It sounds crazy, but somehow the creators over at Capcom managed to stuff five awesome weapons into one little transforming box.

Those of you that played Devil May Cry 3 probably remember it as being extremely punishing and almost unfairly difficult even at the beginning levels and on the easiest difficulty. Personally, I loved the challenge of DMC3, but obviously Capcom viewed it as a problem and made the starting two difficulties of DMC4 almost a cakewalk for any experienced player. Once you beat the game though you unlock the Son of Sparda difficulty, which is about the level of difficulty that DMC3 was on its normal setting. Beat that mode and you unlock the ridiculously difficult Dante Must Die mode and the just plain ridiculous Heaven or Hell mode where everything, including you, dies from just one hit. Only the truly masochistic will manage to try and beat Dante Must Die mode to unlock Hell or Hell mode where the enemies are as strong as they are in Son of Sparda mode, but you die in one hit.

Of course, not everything is heavenly in Devil May Cry 4. While Nero is a great character, and the Devil Bringer is a fantastic addition to the combat system, I still wish that I could’ve had some more play time with Dante since his arsenal of weapons and the flexibility he has to switch between both them and his styles on the fly made for some really intense and spectacular looking combat sequences. Even after you beat the game, the game still doesn’t let you choose to play as Dante through Nero’s portions and vice versa. A part of that is probably due to the fact that Nero’s Devil Bringer is essential in some levels since he uses it as somewhat of a grappling hook to reach places Dante could never reach. Still though, it would’ve been nice for the developers to find some way around this and give the players the choice of who they want to use in their successive playthroughs.

The other big problem with the game is one that the DMC series is no stranger to, and that is the copious amount of backtracking you’ll be faced with. You’ll find a locked door, go through an entire level’s worth of fighting and boss battling until you find the one-time use item or key you’re looking for, and then spend the majority of the next level traveling backwards until you can get back to the locked door so you can then repeat the process. To make matters worse, almost all of Dante’s missions are essentially the same levels that you went through with Nero, only in reverse. You’ll travel through the same locations, fight with many of the same enemies, and battle with the exact same bosses who don’t even really alter their tactics. It’s simply poor level design and I really hope that future games in the franchise can work on this issue.

Speaking of poor level design, I have a personal grudge against whoever it was who designed Mission 19 and thought it was a good idea to leave it up to luck to decide whether or not you progress and fight one of the game’s bosses for a third time, or you fight in a potentially tough battle with no chance of recovering health unless you land on a specific space. I honestly wanted to punish the game the same way it punished me by lowering its score to the 70’s just because of that one level, but luckily I eventually managed to calm down and recover my rationality.

I got my money on Nero.

Other than those gripes and my own personal vendetta against Mr. Mission 19 designer, there is really not much else negative for me to say about Devil May Cry 4. The combat system is still one of the best and most satisfying out there, rivaled only by Ninja Gaiden and God of War, the graphics and cutscenes are jaw droppingly beautiful, the voice acting is probably the best its ever been in the series with one of my own personal favorite voice actors, Johnny Yong Bosch, doing the voice of Nero, and the story is engaging all throughout the twelve hour long adventure. It may not be quite as good as DMC3 in my book, but it’s definitely worth a buy for fans of the series and newcomers alike.

Highs
Absolutely stunning visuals. Especially during cutscenes; fantastic voice acting; lengthy adventure that warrants multiple playthroughs due to unlockable difficulties; Devil Bringer arm brings a whole new dimension to an already stellar combat system; Despite having a new main character, DMC4 maintains all of the style that the series has been known and renowned for; Better managed difficulty curve.

Lows
Not enough Dante with no unlockable feature that lets you use him during Nero’s levels; Lots and lots of backtracking and fighting the same bosses over and over; Boring puzzles; Mission 19.

Final Verdict
A wholly satisfying and worthy entry into the Devil May Cry franchise that adds several new dynamics to the formula without messing too much with what made the series what it is today. Until Ninja Gaiden 2 comes out, this is definitely the best pure action game you’ll find on the 360 or PS3

88%

Originally from GWN