I've been primarily against this game from moment one, but as more was released, at the very least, I became open to seeing what was on the plate before spitting on it and sending it back.
Now I've tried the appetizer. A.K.A the demo, for those not following the analogy. Here's what I thought.
Looking at it from a gameplay perspective:
The game plays like a pretty solid action game, though the holding of the triggers to switch between styles is annoying, and the shoulder mounted roll buttons feel unnatural. The lack of dedicated lock on button is also sorely missed. Despite my annoyances, the combat is still strong enough to stand on it's own as an action title. The platforming is nice, though nothing to scream home about. The sections where the world tries to kill you have no sense of urgency, though. At no point did I feel I had to hurry to avoid dying. This held true in combat as well. Even on the harder difficulties, the demo holds little challenge, and enemies move like trained circus animals, making them ridiculously easy to avoid and toy with. The new Dante of DmC doesn't move as slowly as I thought he would, but still feels a bit slower than the games of old, which is slightly disappointing.
As a successor to the Devil May Cry franchise, however, the gameplay feels somewhat... lacking. Now, I understand that this is but a demo, so at some point I'll have to get hands on the full moveset before I let this be set in stone for me, but between the (currently) small movelist, slower paced combat, easier enemies and an overall feeling of a lack of gameplay fluidity, the game doesn't seem to be holding up. This goes double if your natural instinct is to try and play as if this was DMC (capital M for differentiation) and not this newer, but unfortunately not better edition. The playstyles simply don't mesh beyond triangle to slash and square to shoot.
And from an aesthetic/overall feel standpoint:
The game doesn't much remind me of a DMC game, but whatever feel the game is trying to achieve that isn't a DMC game, it's doing well. Everything about the in game world seems well thought out and planned to match the overall grungy, dirty feel of the game, which is good. The menus and little touches to the HUD and score meter portrayed as smudges and splashes are somewhat nice, alongside the sickly color scheme of the whole game. The game has moments of extremely minor slowdown during shifts in viewpoint during a cutscene, which, while not a huge issue, is somewhat marring.
New Dante himself feels like a cocky little snot, but he also seems somewhat insecure, as if he's trying hard to be this extra tough guy, since he doesn't know what the hell he is, which I imagine was the intention, if this is in fact an origin and coming of age story. It's not my favorite portrayal of that character type, and I definitely don't like it as a portrayal of Dante, but that's more due to enjoying Dante circa 3 and 4 so much. His old school unabashed cheesiness went over better with me than this new false confidence tough guy.
I sincerely dislike the way the demons are portrayed, however. Visually, they are a stunning, grotesque sight, which is totally cool. But they speak as if simple, crude humans. Now I don't mind the simple, or the crude. It's the human that I mind. I would assume there are demon language versions of the insults slung back and forth between the boss character and Dante, but instead, she resorts to simple human swearwords. I think that would have been much cooler if Ninja Theory had created a demon vernacular with demon swear words to be used in an equally crude fashion instead, separating the rock bottom demons from the top rank, cool as a cucumber demon lords.
I also really just don't like the battle music.
I do, however, hope they expand significantly on the back story, or at the very least, the story is paced far better than it is in the demo. Because the whole thing seems like an aimless mess that's attempting to be a sharp and gritty analogy for the world we live in. And failing in most senses, coming across more as snooty and overbearing. Anvilicious, even.
And that's pretty unfortunate, considering the overall idea of the reboot is to try and establish it as a serious work of art as opposed to a cheesy fun video game.
The most unfortunate part of the whole thing is that it's attempting to carry the Devil May Cry name without any of the Devil May Cry soul. That really brings the whole shebang down for me.
All in all, I doubt very highly I'll be purchasing this alternate Devil may Cry. If someone were to pick it up for me, I'd probably give it a go, but I don't believe it's worth my money.
(That was the most unbiased version of this demo review I could give. My inner fanboy screams with tightly bridled hatred and longing for vengeance against the fiends who have ruined my beloved series... But that's not important at the moment.)
Yep.
