- Pronouns
- he/him
Never have I ever played the DMC series. I have started playing DMC1 at one point, but never finished it. I have never played any of its sequels, either. Why? I don't really know. I like character action games a lot, even though I am not necessarily good at them. I played a ton of classic God of War. I played Bayonetta 1 and 2. Nier: Automata. Astral Chain. But somehow, I never played DMC. Until I recently decided to change that.
So far, I have played through 1-4, and will start with 5 fairly soon. I may or may not play the reboot in the future, depending on when it next goes on sale. For now, I give you my thoughts on DMC1-4. I am interested in reading your memories of and/or opinions on any of those games as well. On a last remark, I only played through the games on normal so far, and am not sure when/if I want to attempt to up the difficulty.
Without further ado…
DMC1 HD - The Prototype
Feels very different from the others, which is understandable given its development history. Pretty short, but definitely enjoyable. There are some difficulty spikes, but ultimately nothing too serious. I really liked the atmosphere, and especially some of the enemy designs — shout-out to Death Scissors. When I first played this many years ago, I tapped out at the second Nelo Angelo fight.
While it certainly is still enjoyable, the age of this game can definitely be felt. Platforming feels awkward, thanks to fixed camera and the resulting somewhat wonky depth perception. Roll/evade being only possible sideways took a lot of adapting on my end. The underwater section was difficult to control for me, and inverted camera controls only made matters worse. Otherwise it was a fun, cheesy game, with a couple of meme-worthy moments.
DMC2 HD - The Defect
Where do I start. Heihachi's reject brother is attempting to release the crazy sax demon and achieve ultimate power. Along the way, you get to fight presumably underpaid demonic underlings that refuse to attack you, and bosses that for some reason are incompetent to the point of not being able to do anything even remotely threatening if you keep your distance and just shoot at them with your trusty Handguns™. Those are, without exaggeration, some of the most poorly designed encounters I have ever witnessed across a myriad of video games.
What starts out as a somewhat shitty B-movie, where I thought I could find enjoyment in the silliness of it all, quickly devolves into an utterly soul-draining experience. You should know that I was dumb enough to play Lucia's campaign as well, but at the very least I now will never have to touch this game ever again. The nicest thing I can say is that the underwater section was better to deal with than the one in the original, and some of the underlying mechanics are improved and returning in DMC3 and onward.
DMC3 HD - The Real Shit
The prequel, and also the first game where I feel they really nailed the movement. Where DMC1 felt more stiff and somewhat limited with its overall mobility options, this one feels smoother. If DMC1 was cheesy in places, this one is extra cheesy all over.
Boss fights are very enjoyable. Where DMC2 had bosses that were ridiculously non-threatening, I feel like they tried to overcorrect here in some places. Cerberus for instance gave me a lot of trouble on my first encounter. Conversely though, the centipede boss was one of the weaker links, and felt like it would not have been out of place in DMC2. Vergil was a standout. At least in my case, I had to substantially rethink the way I approach combat for the second and third encounters. The second one felt impossible before I learned not to evade roll his attacks, but sidestep them instead. I hit a similar wall with the third one before I figured out Beowulf is the bane of his existence. The platforming sections still felt awkward, and I sucked at them. Trial of Skill gave me more trouble than I care to admit. And some of the puzzles were just balls. I hated those balls.
DMC4 SE - Exceeding Expectations
After how much I enjoyed DMC3, I wondered what the sequel would do to keep things from getting stale. The answer was Nero. Devil Breaker is a fun new tool, but the real star of the show is Red Queen. The exceed mechanic is extremely satisfying to pull off, even though I can not do it consistently for the life of me. The camera has been improved a lot, which makes the platforming sections less of a pain. Fuck that one section with the disappearing floor tiles you have to manage while Mephistos are trying to poke you to death in particular, though.
Somehow, DMC4 manages to feel like an evolution of DMC3, while offering a unique enough take on the formula to keep it from feeling too samey. I appreciate it trying new things. The forest area is something I did not expect to see in this game at all, for instance. But really, I can not stress how much I enjoyed Nero from a gameplay perspective. So much so, that during the mandatory switch to Dante for a chunk of the game, all I could think about was how I wanted to grab and faceplant this enemy in the floor with Devil Breaker, and how much I missed revving Red Queen. Admittedly, though, the one thing I missed the most mechanically when playing as Nero is Dante's dash when in Trickster style. Overall, I did end up liking this one even more than DMC3. Which has me especially excited for DMC5.
To be continued…
So far, I have played through 1-4, and will start with 5 fairly soon. I may or may not play the reboot in the future, depending on when it next goes on sale. For now, I give you my thoughts on DMC1-4. I am interested in reading your memories of and/or opinions on any of those games as well. On a last remark, I only played through the games on normal so far, and am not sure when/if I want to attempt to up the difficulty.
Without further ado…
DMC1 HD - The Prototype
Feels very different from the others, which is understandable given its development history. Pretty short, but definitely enjoyable. There are some difficulty spikes, but ultimately nothing too serious. I really liked the atmosphere, and especially some of the enemy designs — shout-out to Death Scissors. When I first played this many years ago, I tapped out at the second Nelo Angelo fight.
While it certainly is still enjoyable, the age of this game can definitely be felt. Platforming feels awkward, thanks to fixed camera and the resulting somewhat wonky depth perception. Roll/evade being only possible sideways took a lot of adapting on my end. The underwater section was difficult to control for me, and inverted camera controls only made matters worse. Otherwise it was a fun, cheesy game, with a couple of meme-worthy moments.
DMC2 HD - The Defect
Where do I start. Heihachi's reject brother is attempting to release the crazy sax demon and achieve ultimate power. Along the way, you get to fight presumably underpaid demonic underlings that refuse to attack you, and bosses that for some reason are incompetent to the point of not being able to do anything even remotely threatening if you keep your distance and just shoot at them with your trusty Handguns™. Those are, without exaggeration, some of the most poorly designed encounters I have ever witnessed across a myriad of video games.
What starts out as a somewhat shitty B-movie, where I thought I could find enjoyment in the silliness of it all, quickly devolves into an utterly soul-draining experience. You should know that I was dumb enough to play Lucia's campaign as well, but at the very least I now will never have to touch this game ever again. The nicest thing I can say is that the underwater section was better to deal with than the one in the original, and some of the underlying mechanics are improved and returning in DMC3 and onward.
DMC3 HD - The Real Shit
The prequel, and also the first game where I feel they really nailed the movement. Where DMC1 felt more stiff and somewhat limited with its overall mobility options, this one feels smoother. If DMC1 was cheesy in places, this one is extra cheesy all over.
Boss fights are very enjoyable. Where DMC2 had bosses that were ridiculously non-threatening, I feel like they tried to overcorrect here in some places. Cerberus for instance gave me a lot of trouble on my first encounter. Conversely though, the centipede boss was one of the weaker links, and felt like it would not have been out of place in DMC2. Vergil was a standout. At least in my case, I had to substantially rethink the way I approach combat for the second and third encounters. The second one felt impossible before I learned not to evade roll his attacks, but sidestep them instead. I hit a similar wall with the third one before I figured out Beowulf is the bane of his existence. The platforming sections still felt awkward, and I sucked at them. Trial of Skill gave me more trouble than I care to admit. And some of the puzzles were just balls. I hated those balls.
DMC4 SE - Exceeding Expectations
After how much I enjoyed DMC3, I wondered what the sequel would do to keep things from getting stale. The answer was Nero. Devil Breaker is a fun new tool, but the real star of the show is Red Queen. The exceed mechanic is extremely satisfying to pull off, even though I can not do it consistently for the life of me. The camera has been improved a lot, which makes the platforming sections less of a pain. Fuck that one section with the disappearing floor tiles you have to manage while Mephistos are trying to poke you to death in particular, though.
Somehow, DMC4 manages to feel like an evolution of DMC3, while offering a unique enough take on the formula to keep it from feeling too samey. I appreciate it trying new things. The forest area is something I did not expect to see in this game at all, for instance. But really, I can not stress how much I enjoyed Nero from a gameplay perspective. So much so, that during the mandatory switch to Dante for a chunk of the game, all I could think about was how I wanted to grab and faceplant this enemy in the floor with Devil Breaker, and how much I missed revving Red Queen. Admittedly, though, the one thing I missed the most mechanically when playing as Nero is Dante's dash when in Trickster style. Overall, I did end up liking this one even more than DMC3. Which has me especially excited for DMC5.
To be continued…
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