As in, to someone who never played the earlier games in the series; I've always liked character action games, but apart from Devil May Cry 4 I never got around playing the original games. Last week I bought the DMC HD collection after mulling about it for months and honestly, I'm surprised that the collection holds up so well for games from the early 2000's. Currently I'm fighting my way through DMC 3 SE, but after several hours of these games its almost staggering how different these titles are when compared to each other. And I'm still not sure how DMC 2 ever got greenlit...
But, Devil May Cry, is still a good game. Sure, modern character action games run circles around it 16 years later, but I'm surprised at how well it plays: the original release was in 2001. I've used my PS3 as a way to play some PS2 classics thanks to HD Collections, but the majority of those releases felt pretty stale and in some cases I had to force myself to complete these. Maybe it's because its a short game, but the game never dragged on and the controls are pretty responsive. Of course, its not as fluid combat wise, but this was the first time for Kamiya discovering the genre and we all know where he ended up. The only thing I didn't care for is the cramped area in which the game takes place. I understand why, new asset creation takes a while and this was an early PS2 title, but in this case it was a good thing the game isn't long. Also, in several aspects you still can discover the Resident Evil-roots of the game: every time using a relic prompted a "Item X seems to fit here. Do you want to use item X?" message like in the RE game when inserting items. Had a good time.
Well and then there's... Devil May Cry 2. I always hear about DMC 2 being this abomination, so I had this morbid curiousity to try it out, but damn, I never expected this. The first thing that popped into my mind after completing the first few levels of this game was "It's the Ninja Gaiden 3 of the DMC series!". What the hell happened here? Reading up on the game's development and seeing how Kamiya's team wasn't involved with this games makes sense because of the extreme drop in quality, but I don't understand Capcom. You have a great title debuting on PS2, you have a great team and you just drop an entirely different development team on the sequel? And to make matters worse, it seems the new team doesn't have a clue on what the original was about? I mean, look at how Dante is protrayed in this game: in the original he was confident, bit cocky and a chatterbox. In DMC 2 he doesn't talk much, is a jerk in regards to other people and well... a completely different character.
And don't get me started on the game itself. It's so bland. I mean I remember older GAF threads destroying this game and what not, but the thing is, it's not that bad. Don't get me wrong, its far from being good. But in the end, it's just there. And it all works, but there is no energy in this game. Combo's don't feel exciting, enemies aren't challenging and the design of the world is so uninspired. You just walk to the next room, kill some enemies, on to the next, another kill room and hey a boring boss. I really had to push myself in finishing this, because the end game was even worse. I mean, the main villain? What kind of a joke was that!? Ugh. And hey, the game is telling me I can challenge the Lucia campaign? Or play again in Dante's new atire by the brand Diesel? Wait what? Yeah no.
Currently I'm playing Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and man, again it's an entirely different just like the other two, but in this case it feels like a natural evolution from the original and not some weird regression like DMC 2. Young Dante luckily has more personality in the first five missions thank god, but the game itself and the mechanics are so much better and smooth; the combat is more fluid, its adding the things that I missed in the original. Also the addition of battle styles is fun, although I'm keeping to just Trickster right now.
Playing these back to back though, it really is surprising to see how Capcom tackled DMC as a franchise and how weirdly they were managing it back then. Or, well, after DMC 3 they still did so when looking at DMC 4 and DmC. They keep changing it and it doesn't give the franchise any stabillity. I mean, you always need to change up your franchises every now and then (cass in point, see the Resident Evil-series) but in this case its really bizarre.
But, Devil May Cry, is still a good game. Sure, modern character action games run circles around it 16 years later, but I'm surprised at how well it plays: the original release was in 2001. I've used my PS3 as a way to play some PS2 classics thanks to HD Collections, but the majority of those releases felt pretty stale and in some cases I had to force myself to complete these. Maybe it's because its a short game, but the game never dragged on and the controls are pretty responsive. Of course, its not as fluid combat wise, but this was the first time for Kamiya discovering the genre and we all know where he ended up. The only thing I didn't care for is the cramped area in which the game takes place. I understand why, new asset creation takes a while and this was an early PS2 title, but in this case it was a good thing the game isn't long. Also, in several aspects you still can discover the Resident Evil-roots of the game: every time using a relic prompted a "Item X seems to fit here. Do you want to use item X?" message like in the RE game when inserting items. Had a good time.
Well and then there's... Devil May Cry 2. I always hear about DMC 2 being this abomination, so I had this morbid curiousity to try it out, but damn, I never expected this. The first thing that popped into my mind after completing the first few levels of this game was "It's the Ninja Gaiden 3 of the DMC series!". What the hell happened here? Reading up on the game's development and seeing how Kamiya's team wasn't involved with this games makes sense because of the extreme drop in quality, but I don't understand Capcom. You have a great title debuting on PS2, you have a great team and you just drop an entirely different development team on the sequel? And to make matters worse, it seems the new team doesn't have a clue on what the original was about? I mean, look at how Dante is protrayed in this game: in the original he was confident, bit cocky and a chatterbox. In DMC 2 he doesn't talk much, is a jerk in regards to other people and well... a completely different character.
And don't get me started on the game itself. It's so bland. I mean I remember older GAF threads destroying this game and what not, but the thing is, it's not that bad. Don't get me wrong, its far from being good. But in the end, it's just there. And it all works, but there is no energy in this game. Combo's don't feel exciting, enemies aren't challenging and the design of the world is so uninspired. You just walk to the next room, kill some enemies, on to the next, another kill room and hey a boring boss. I really had to push myself in finishing this, because the end game was even worse. I mean, the main villain? What kind of a joke was that!? Ugh. And hey, the game is telling me I can challenge the Lucia campaign? Or play again in Dante's new atire by the brand Diesel? Wait what? Yeah no.
Currently I'm playing Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and man, again it's an entirely different just like the other two, but in this case it feels like a natural evolution from the original and not some weird regression like DMC 2. Young Dante luckily has more personality in the first five missions thank god, but the game itself and the mechanics are so much better and smooth; the combat is more fluid, its adding the things that I missed in the original. Also the addition of battle styles is fun, although I'm keeping to just Trickster right now.
Playing these back to back though, it really is surprising to see how Capcom tackled DMC as a franchise and how weirdly they were managing it back then. Or, well, after DMC 3 they still did so when looking at DMC 4 and DmC. They keep changing it and it doesn't give the franchise any stabillity. I mean, you always need to change up your franchises every now and then (cass in point, see the Resident Evil-series) but in this case its really bizarre.
