I finished the game on Devil Hunter a day ago and I'm now on Sons of Sparda. Unfortunately, I was not all that impressed by DMC 5 as a complete package.
The story was needlessly complicated by jumping around the timeline and was poorly paced. It didn't feel like Nero did anything to earn that DT, and when I got to the end I wasn't even sure what the characters even accomplished. The dialogue felt odd/unnatural at times, and it was especially noticeable with Nico in the beginning and I can't tell if it was intentional or not. "He likes to kill demon things.... That's why I built him that well-functioning arm." Who talks like this?
I still feel like DMC 3 is the only game in the main series to tell a decent story. There weren't many characters, but they all played their part well. I understand DMC 5 was meant to be a bit fanservicey since the last entry in the series was released over a decade ago, but characters like Trish and Lady had no real place in the game's plot.
The music seems mostly forgettable this time around. Maybe it's just not to my taste. Devil Trigger is fine, but I didn't like the remix used for the final boss.
As expected, the combat mechanics carry this game. It uses DMC 4 as a base, and builds upon it. I like how you can parry pretty much anything in this game now with your own attack. Jump cancels seem pretty easy to do now, which I don't see as a bad thing.
Nero unexpectedly has all of his old abilities intact once he gets his DT. You can even use the devil bringer to snatch your enemies, though I'm not sure if it's functionally different to the wire snatch. It did make me realize just how unreasonable the default control scheme is for this character though, as there are now 4 buttons that a player could potentially hold all at the same time (Charging your gun/That one sword move that requires you to hold the button/Holding on to an enemy with the Devil Bringer/Charging a Devil Breaker), in addition to the lock-on button. I was able to work around this with a PS4 controller with paddles and Steam Input's ability to turn a button into a toggle. I'm still not really liking the breakers that much overall, as there are only a few that I actually enjoy using(Overture/Punchline/Buster, but this one's sort of redundant in post-game).
Dante is as flexible as ever, but I wonder if the devs could have streamlined the control scheme somehow. It just feels like too much busy work when you have to tap the d-pad an insane number of times to do basic things like dash towards an enemy then use a swordmaster move. As with Nero, I was able to come up with my on streamlining solution so I could, for example, hold a button to activate Royal Guard, then release it to go back to Trickster. Speaking of Royal Guard, I love how a just release feels now. Solid feedback on a counter attack like that is extremely satisfying and it was the reason I loved playing Mystic Knight in Dragon's Dogma.
I don't have much to say about V, as I've realized that I don't enjoy playing him very much due to the indirect nature of his attacks. Switching to him after the early Nero missions killed my momentum on the second playthrough.
I've also experienced a number of crashes on the PC version of the game, which was unexpected coming from RE7, MHW and RE2. Then there's also that bug that locks up gamepad input if you touch the keyboard or mouse.
At this point, I may just drop this game until the bloody palace is released so I can just enjoy Nero/Dante without the time wasting level traversal and V.