Cool but Deficient…

DmC is the reboot of the Devil May Cry series by Ninja Theory. It is intended to direct a franchise in a new direction and gain a broader audience. I had no cons about the ideas behind the revitalizing of the series & its mythos, but merely with the execution of the ideas.

PRESENTATION: Very Good. The artistic story telling is fantastic in the game, as well as the in game text to amplify some action scenes. Menu has framerate issues but well laid out and simple to see.

GRAPHICS: Good. Environment immerses the player into it and framerate is fluid to follow the action. The game overuses the orange / red color palette as well as the green / blue one which tends to saturate the world you are in after a couple of hours into the game.

SOUND: Very Good. The soundtrack in the game is great and it delivers the theme of the game quite nicely. The voice acting is well done too, you can tell the brothers apart when they speak but also sense their relation…Mundus also delivered an impact performance. Sound effects are also very good but at times overwhelmed by the soundtrack.

GAMEPLAY: Good. Heavily hindered by the level design, the gameplay mechanics are seamless, very well rounded and easy to implement. The amount of combos stretches as far as your imagination can, switching between Devil & Angel weapons is fast and fluid and the controls are quick and responsive. The pacing of the game is questionable for an action game, specially for one with such a deep combo system. The camera is good and user controlled for the most part and even pauses enemies from attacking you if they are off screen. The Devil Trigger suspends enemies into the air this time around while you inflict damage. As usual some health regenerates and there is increased damage.

LEVEL DESIGN: Poor. This is where all the bad spots of the game came back to. The traversal through the game is mainly compromised by jumping.

EVERYWHERE. It became tedious after seeing how much it consisted to go through a level, and it broke the pacing of the game considerably, since some areas there was just too much of it. Overall Limbo is designed somewhere out of the Deconstructivism movement, where things are broken parts of themselves and the pieces make up an ugly whole. The best level design for me was the Disco level, and something I'd revisit, weird boss and all. The environments turn dull towards the end, slowing the adventure down. One of the Boss fights implements the platforming quite well, and that probably was as far as it should have been taken to make up the level design.

STORY: Good. The new direction that they deviated the original storyline from was well implemented. Dante and Vergil being sons of a Demon & Angel, some type of anomaly that can extinguish evil is a believable storyline to start from. The explaining of their origin was engaging as well. The middle and ends of the plotline of the game however, are not.

BEASTIARY: Very Poor. The enemies in DmC are not much for variety. Apparently anywhere you go in Limbo the demons are pretty much the same. They have different types of the same enemies, where ones are vulnerable to either Angel or Demon weapons. Overall you will face upgraded versions of the same enemies throughout the game. One in particular should have been a boss because he was really cool to face, and his upgraded versions, since the 5 & a half boss fights in the 20 level game are deficient for an action game. They are mostly large, blob like figures instead of the fearsome creatures prevalent in games of this genre. They are quite the mixed bag & the fights consist of yes heavy PLATFORMING.

DIFFICULTY: Easy. Accurate. I played the game on the Nephilim ( Hard ) difficulty and I barely died, ever. The game difficulty seems just about right so anyone can just pick this up and kick ass. Be aware that restarting a checkpoint counts as a death in the game ( what? ) and the autosave feature will NOT hold on to your items if you've used them and then died (or restarted).

LASTING APPEAL: Players of the previous games will most likely not favor this game too much. The story mode may be good for one play through, but the excessive platforming may anger God of War veterans as well as the lack of boss fights. Also being a short adventure ( +/- 8 hours ) and the lack of the Vergil DLC at launch to extend it, sadly is not enough to warrant a full retail purchase ( like I did ). I'd recommend holding off for God of War Ascension instead. I rate it a 7.5 / 10.0