Devil May Cry reaches its fourth installment, seems like yesterday that a canceled Resident Evil 4 project was shut down and then revitalized as a new series. And a series that worked great. Many Resident Evil gameplay fragments remain intact or toned down. Devil May Cry is the first game to grace the HD generation and ends up being a success.
This new entry presents a new main character, called Nero, but don't worry because soon enough the series' long known protagonist will make his presence known. It all begins when Nero is heading to the opera house to watch the presentation of his friend, a girl named Kyrie. It all goes wrong when Dante break through the ceiling of the place and assassinates the high priest of the Order of the Sword, a group of knights who worship Sparda. Sparda was a demon who helped the humans by going against his own kind, the demons. The Order instantly rushes to stop Dante but the efforts were in vain, it's time for Nero to go ahead and face the threat. The first fight you have, which serves more as a tutorial of how the game works and showcase of commands, is against the very Dante, of course nothing will happen to both characters as you'll will eventually control Dante later in the game and Nero will be your character from that moment on. The story will unfold quite nicely with the help of several cinematic scenes along the game.
Some things are easily noted, like how both playable characters look alike, they both have blond-white hair, similar clothing, similar face expressions, it's like they could be brothers or father and son. Their personalities stand out too, they always face things with an air of irony and in a scornful manner against other demons, every time with a clever line ready to be uttered. They are very funny too, especially later in the game when Dante joins in and starts appearing more. It's also interesting to note how much the game keeps the drama at limited doses, the characters go through the game and at almost nowhere during the playthrough is implied a situation of underpower, other games tend to leave you with a character that faces many difficulties during the game, things that would makes us doubt if he's really up for the task, especially the very beginning, creating a feeling of overpower for the bad guys, and helping the experience in which you really feel like you're up against a respectable threat. Of course the game still has its moments like that, but they really kept at a minimum. An action game with a clear focus on action indeed.
This is an action game by heart, and as you advance you basically will need to deal with two kinds of situations, they are hordes of enemies and puzzles. The actual puzzles are overly simplistic and won't offer much in terms of brain-crashing difficulty. The enemies on the other hand will give you a hard time, in most battles encountered you will be unable to flee or ignore your foes, simply because the room or space will be sealed and you'll only get out either dead or victorious, since dead won't help much it's better to focus and win the fight, especially because you won't always have a checkpoint right before the room you were in. To fight you have melee attacks and gun shots, as well as many combos relying on button press timing. For Nero you still have a very useful technique, it's his own demonic hand which can hold enemies and throw them away inflicting good amount of damage, it's especially useful in bosses; it can also serve as a hook and pull enemies closer to you. It's safe to say that his hand will come in handy.
The bosses were all nicely thought-out, they have attacks which most are perfectly skippable, but will require certain attention and memorization of the enemies' movements and patterns. The real difficulty is get to know the enemy, come up with a strategy, and execute it without many flaws. You'll fight quite a few of them. With every fight you come up against, a fast-paced adrenaline rushing music will come along too, and serves as background to effects of swords, punches and enemies in the fighting area. Again the sound is very limited and is only fully unleashed at battles, good to keep one of the Resident Evil remnants up and running, the macabre atmosphere.
With a single player campaign of somewhere around 10 hours, and with a game broken into chapters, totaling 20 of them, you get a game that's brief but intense. The chapters will last roughly 20 minutes each, some more, some less. You'll play through 3 main locations and they require minor back-tracking. The locations are amazingly designed, a notable mention goes to the enormous church surrounded by snow, the inside transmits a feeling of emptiness that's surely something, the path for getting there is already haunting with a blizzard falling and making the viewing difficult, you'll practically fell the cold from the cozy embrace of your couch.
During the play-through you'll find many key items which will give you certain powers, these powers can help you in battle but it's not their main function, they will mainly help you advance through the game. For fights you still can get improvements but you're gonna have to buy new techniques and attacks, be for melee, the gun or any other techniques, including combos. The currency for exchange are proud souls and red orbs, they buy abilities and items respectively. Actually, the orbs are found in several colors and each has its own purpose. Another thing worth mentioning is that they managed to find a way to keep the player paying attention to the credits, or something like it.
Devil May Cry is a fine action game, it serves you with good action from start to finish. The campaign is short but it shouldn't be any longer, it is filled with intense fights with an appealing fighting system. The graphics show a style of their own and end up being very detailed and beautiful. The soundtrack and sound effects do their job just fine. The characters are memorable, and even though the game itself lacks moments which could be described as truly memorable, the game as a whole is great and solid from the beginning to the very end.