Devil King is a nice game by Capcom.
Devil King is not a copycat of DW, it has its own unique gameplay after all. The story background is set in old Japan, when the land is divided by many forces. Your mission is to play as a general in one force against the others to unify the whole land. There are many characters under different forces for you to choose. Each character has their unique weapon, skills, storyline and ending.
The gameplay is similar to DW that you need to cut through horde of enemies in your way to conquer the land. However, the battle system is a bit different that each character has at least 4-5 special attack skills on top of the “super musou attack”. In some stages your character can ride horse. Each stage is specially designed to face with certain opponent, and when you met the winning condition you takeover the land. There are altogether less than 20 stages so you can actually complete the game pretty fast.
This game also offers a lot of items which give different bonus to your character when equipped. Some items come with level, in order to max out all item, you need to play in the hardest mode in order to get the best items. You need to do the same for the best weapon. This has increased the replay value of the game. When you beat the game using different characters, you unlock some other playable characters as well. I have heard that the Japanese version has offered more playable characters than the US version.
This game has a nice graphic and the music and sound are great as well. I got no complaint on that. Although the story is a bit short but due to the amount of the playable characters, it is fair enough so that people will not get boring easily. But I have to say that if you want to fully max out everything including all your characters level, weapon level & all the items, then you probably have to play the game on hard mode over and over again like me which at the end can be quite boring.
Overall, Devil King is still a good game to play and I am looking forward for its second installment. If you like action game like DW & Samurai Warrior, you should like this game as well. If you are not sure about this game, then try to rent it first.