DmC – Devil May Cry PC Review

The most controversial game of the year, and its only February!

I’ve always been partial to the Devil May cry series, hell I even enjoyed number 2, which is something not everyone can say about the series, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear that after the very successful  Devil May Cry 4, that Capcom decided to release a Reboot of the series, and to outsource the game as well, something they seem to be doing a lot recently, with mixed results, this time the ball is thrown into the court of English development studio Ninja Theory, who made their name from Enslaved and the PS3 release title Heavenly sword, both games earning a modest following and the studio some hefty respect, what surprised most people about Capcom’s choice of developer was probably that Ninja Theory only have 3 games under their belts (4 if you include kung fu chaos though it was released under a different name), not only that but it is the studio’s first PC release as well.

DmC is a full reboot of the series from the story to the design of the character, Dante has had his wardrobe change and now looks like he wouldn’t be out of place in 80’s punk band then Slaying demons, other slight changes have come about such as Dante’s mother now being an Angel instead of a Human, making both Dante and twin brother Virgil Nephilim. Though apart from this the story remains mostly faithful to the one that has been told before, other slight differences such as dante’s hair color and attitude have also been changed, much to the fans original back lash. This design change was something that Capcom felt was needed and pushed the studio to do. This game though is more story driven than games of past and it shows that the game has been passed to another company, the usual over the top fight scenes are not nearly as impressive as previous versions of the games, and are few and far between, if you’re a fan of the showy kills of previous games, the kills after a tough boss battle will leave you feeling lack luster at best, but saying that the story moves are a decent pace, and never gets too boring, though in some parts of the story gets a little too dark and grim for my tastes and pushes the reboot from what it was before, to a much darker place in the story, there are also flash back sequences for unlocking dantes memory, though I find these sections quite boring and drag on after the 3^rd time you see them, this isn’t helped by the overly long worm hole you see that tends to outstay its welcome again. The game still has the same items floating around the place and secret missions to find, though this time these come with the extra challenge of finding a key hidden somewhere in the level, along with Lost Souls and other red orbs, finding all will leave you with a SSS rank at the end of a mission as well as boosting the amount of upgrade points you have to spend on abilities for your many weapons.

Though as with all Devil May cry games the gameplay is what people are interested in, and this is where the game both excels at, but also fails a little too, with 8 different weapons to choose from, you can perform many different moves, and easily pull off very flashy and impressive moves as well, the weapons available are found, dante’s faithful sword rebellion and pistols Ebony and Ivory are stills standard, as you progress you find more weapons that can open different doors/walls as well as two grappling hook type weapons, that you use to traverse the world with, though this gets very tedious as it does little to make the game anymore a platformer than it already is and only serves to cause these sections to become very slow especially if you mess up a jump. But apart from this, the game plays well and if you enjoy hack and slash games, you will still enjoy the game, it has combo’s and a style meter that you have to rack up to get points, if you get hit you will lose a large chuck of your style meter similar to the older games, though this time around it is a much more simple to gain the SSS rank in battle, in some cases you only have to switch between weapons once if you know how, it doesn’t stop the combat from being enjoyable though and it has enough variety in the weapons too.

Though the most surprising part of all this is the fact this is Ninja theorys first PC port, and the game from that is outstanding, the game really benefits from the higher resolution and 60fps that comes with a PC port, improving the already impressive graphics from the console version, it runs well on older hardware as well as looking very good on higher end cards, after playing this game I don’t understand why Ninja Theory didn’t try porting some of their older games onto PC as well as Enslaved would of benefitted just as much as DmC with the addition.

After all the controversy of this game, the early complaints were not very founded, though some legitimate ones are shown true when playing the game, but as with most fan complaints, it doesn’t take much from the core experience to enjoy this game still.

Disclaimer:All scores given within our reviews are based on the artist’s personal opinion; this should in no way impede your decision to purchase the game.