Devil May Cry is a series PlayStation fans hold dear to their hearts as it helped kick start the PS2 and sell many consoles. It was something to brag about, a game that had the action that was only seen in a 2D platformer for slashers and now it's in full 3D with a new character and an attitude. Thankfully, if this is your first DMC outing there's a whole movie explaining the events of the first 4 games, and somehow leaving the Ninja Theory DMC reboot completely out of the fold.
You play as three different characters, Nero, Dante, and V who are hellbent on stopping a demon king from unleashing hell on Earth. Sounds pretty generic, but it's a solid continuation of the story from a game that's over 10 years old. It picks up after the events of DMC4 and has a few plot twists that are just decent enough to keep you hooked. However, the story is kind of slow going and it's not as meaty as games that are currently out, but it's more for DMC fans really, but as a standalone game it makes no sense. You really have to understand and know the events from previous games to really care as they are not explained.
DMC has always been famous for its thrilling fast-paced combat and Stylish scoring system and they are in full effect here. Each character plays differently with Dante having the most robust and deep combat system. He can switch between four styles like before Gunslinger, Trickster, Swordmaster, and Royal Guard and these four styles must be switched up to keep the style gauge going up. Each style has different attacks and a special attack such as the Trickster style lets Dante dart around and dodge, Royal Guard allows him to block, and Gunslinger unleashes a ton of bullets. My favorite weapon is the new Cavaliere that is basically a motorcycle split in half, yeah a motorcycle. It's a heavy weapon that's super slow, but incredibly powerful. I do have to mention that his weirdest weapon is Dr. Faust which is a cowboy hat that he throws that uses up red orbs, but gives red orbs in return if the enemy is hit.
V is definitely different from the other two as he never directly attacks enemies. His three shadow creatures do as he has a bird for projectiles, a Jaguar for melee, and his Devil Trigger is a big creature called Nightmare. V can stand off in the distance attack with the shadows while he reads from the poem Dante's Inferno and charges his devil gauge which allows him to summon Nightmare. The creatures can't do a final blow on the enemies so V has to charge in and take the final hit. His levels are honestly easy as if you stay back far enough enemies will leave V alone and his creatures only get knocked out for a bit and can be revived faster if you stand by them.
Nero is probably my least favorite character to play as since his combat is really dumbed down and his Devil Breaker arms feel pretty much useless. They give you a slight edge, but they break so quickly and you run out so quickly that you are reduced to his revolver and sword so I easily felt overwhelmed by enemies and couldn't do crazy combos like with Dante or even V. I died more using Nero because I felt he just lacked something that the other two had.
Outside of combat, there's nothing else to do outside of collecting orbs, buying skills, and items and then replaying again with your newfound abilities to get them all. The environments get repetitive and get rather dull towards the end as you are mostly spending time in a creature "tree" called Qliphoth and it's just endless hallways of red and black and blood and weird tree stuff. There's not much to look at here and I would like to have seen more varied levels like in previous games. The game is also rather short ending with 20 missions at about 8 hours. The game isn't nearly as difficult as previous games, but it can get hard and you need to remember boss patterns and master the dodge button to get good scores in each level.
Overall, DMC5 delivers exactly as expected - great combat and interesting characters even if V has no background and is rather dull, but I loved seeing these guys on screen and I only have to scold that weird Michael Jackson dance scene towards the end of the game...yeah it was pretty cringy. There's no ultrawide support on PC despite the RE Engine supporting it, and there are many bugs still present as I frequently crashed towards the end of the game, but it looks damn good and the voice acting is really great as well. DMC5 is a fantastic action game and fans will love what it has to offer outside of Nero's lacking combat and the dull repetitive environments.