Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening

"Dante has awakened the gamer's adrenaline in this frenetic action game"

Capcom raised the bar for action games with the release of the original Devil May Cry. I, personally, didn't much like the original game because of the very high difficulty and the obnoxious personality of Dante. Even though I didn't like the game, I admit that Capcom had something going for it. The controls were fluid so that switching from melee to gun was as simple as pressing a button, and the use of both was vital to winning the game. Even though, in all technicalities, it was a button masher, it didn't feel like one because of the cat-like reflexes and concentration needed to play. Devil May Cry 2 came out to a decent commercial success, and mediocre reviews, perhaps hurting the success of Devil May Cry 3. Now I come to Devil May Cry 3, a game that plays very similar to the original, but improves upon it in mostly every way.

The Good
+ Good, strong character and story development
+ Great visuals
+ Variety of weapons to use
+ The on-the-edge-of-your-seat gameplay
+ The new styles to upgrade

The Bad
- Playing whole levels over when you lose to a boss
- The high difficulty
- The female character, Lady, aka Mary
- The camera

The Obnoxious
? Why does Dante shout “Woohoo!” in so many scenes? It's annoying.

Story – 9/10

Somehow, Capcom took an obnoxious leading character, Dante, from the original game and made him likeable in the third game. Of course, this game takes place before the original game, so Dante is younger, and his attitude is more believable. Good move on Capcom's part. His attitude and dialogue did grate on me a little at the beginning of the game, but I grew to accept Dante's character, and grew to enjoy the game much more because of it. He's an impatient, cocky adolescent who boasts to all of the boss villains he meets, no matter how much bigger than him they are, that he is going to kick their butt. Of course, this makes them quite angry, but, eventually, young Dante proves his mouth, er, worth. He even grows as a character throughout the game, which makes the game that much more compelling to continue playing and see where the story takes you.

The story isn't much more than the usual: the villains wants to open the gates to hell so he can become uber-powerful and rule the world, or something like that. What makes the story so compelling are the characters in the story. The story begins, telling you that Dante's father, Sparda, sealed the demons off from the human world. You know, the usual kind of thing. And it doesn't take a rocket scientist to tell you that someone will break his seal. In this case, it's Dante's twin brother, Vergil, a much quieter, more power-hungry version of his brother, who wants to break the seal and take his father's power. He is accompanied by Arkham, a creepy looking man who seems to have some knowledge of breaking the seals. You may be able to guess what happens to Arkham, but whether or not you do, it doesn't only happen to advance the story, but also because that's how the characters are. There, I said it without ruining anything. A rogue character is also in on the fun, Mary, or who Dante calls Lady, but she's my least favorite character. I don't understand her decisions to blast away at Dante, even when it's clear that he's not trying to kill her. Nonetheless, she does help push the story forward, and even provide Dante with some funny lines. And with the many cutscenes, Dante is given plenty of time to speak.

There's a lot more story here than you may think. At the beginning and end of each level there is usually a cutscene, either showing Dante's progress or the progress of Vergil and Arkham. Also Dante often has a conversation with the boss at the end of the level before he begins the fight, usually ending with him angering them in some way or another. Capcom builds the characters very well in this game, without having more cutscenes than necessary. Games are meant for entertainment, and everything about the cutscenes provide entertainment. A classic scene occurs before the start of the eighth level, where Dante runs down a tower, shooting up the flying monsters awaiting him, having the time of his life. Before he hits the bottom, a surprise awaits him, but I won't ruin that for you. As much as you'll enjoy the story, I know you came for the gameplay.

Gameplay – 8/10

I do enjoy a good challenge in a game, but Capcom always has a habit of overdoing it, and I think that's puts a dent in my enjoyment of the game. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to play, but sometimes the frustration hampers the fun. Usually the levels aren't what make this game difficult. Defeating the regular enemies is fun, and a good challenge, but they're not so difficult that you will die and play the level again and again on their account. The first couple of levels throw only regular enemies at you, having you play in one small area with no true boss fights. Then you get to the third level and meet the game's first boss. If you read other reviews, and even the FAQs, you will learn that, yes, this boss is tough, especially this early in the game. You don't have too much health, and unless you play levels over and over again, you won't have your weapons or styles upgraded very much. Not only that, but losing to the boss makes you play the level over again, the whole level. This was certainly a poor choice on Capcom's part. When you have to play a whole level over again, it takes longer to generate strategies against a boss because you're not fighting the boss right after you lose to him. Also, it makes the gamer more frustrated, thus, making it that much harder to concentrate. There was no boss that I defeated on the first try, and only one that took me two tries, the rest took much longer. I spent hours on single levels, just trying to figure out how to defeat the boss—all of this on normal, mind you. If Capcom put a save point right before the bosses, it would have made things much less frustrating. Still, there's good reason to play this game.

Capcom gives you a lot to look forward to while playing the game. You collect red orbs, which you can use to purchase upgrades for weapons, or purchase those hard to find healing items, which are often vital during boss fights. Upgrading guns doesn't give you new moves, but does make them stronger. For melee weapons, you purchase new moves for the weapon, and many of these moves are vital to winning the game, such as the double jump move. Devil May Cry 3 has five melee and five ranged weapons. Each weapon is different and useful in its own way. For melee, you have the staple sword, the Rebellion; the three-way nunchukus, Cerberus; the two swords, Agni and Rudra; the guitar, Nevan; and the gauntlets, Beowulf. The only weapon here that I found practically useless was the guitar, which had only one good move in which Dante has a jam session and damages all nearby enemies. The guitar is too slow for boss fights, though. The guns you get are everyone's favorite two pistols, Ebony and Ivory; a shotgun; the multi-lock crossbow, Artemis; the sniper rifle (no, you don't get to use the scope), Spiral; and the rocket launcher, Kalina Ann. Ebony and Ivory is always useful, as it's quick to use and allows you to float in the air, but the crossbow, Artemis, is too slow for my tastes. Everything else, though, had a good use, made more interesting with the many styles Dante can use and upgrade.

Something new to the series are the styles that Dante can fight in. There's the Trickster style, allowing Dante to more easily avoid damage; the Swordmaster style, giving Dante more ways to slice and dice his foes; the Gunslinger, giving Dante some more creative ways to use his ranged weapons; and Royal Guard, finally giving Dante a chance to block some attacks. All of the styles are worth trying out, though in my opinion, the Trickster style is the most useful, especially in boss fights. But these styles are yours to experiment with. Upgrading all of these styles just adds to the addictiveness of this game.

What makes the Devil May Cry games so darned addictive is the thrill they give you as you play them. There's never a dull moment, nor can you ever hope to rest your thumbs mid-battle. The game keeps your eyes alert and your mind focused, always watching for an enemy attack that might land on you, or for an opportunity for you to land an attack on an enemy. There's a certain high, a rush I get as I play these games, that very few games can match. Losing to a boss is frustrating, sure, but defeating him is pure joy. Capcom has placed pure kinetic, frenetic energy into their games, and I thank them for it. If there's anything I recommend this game for, it's that adrenaline rush of playing it.

Visuals – 9/10

Just like the original Devil May Cry, DMC 3's visuals are very impressive. Character animations are dead-on, bringing life to everything from the weakest of enemies to the largest of bosses. I admit, enemy animation here isn't as impressive as it was for the original DMC, but that's probably because in this game, none of the enemies move around quite as much as in the original, and there is less variety among enemy models. DMC 3 has no enemy quite as impressive looking as DMC's vicious panther foes, and no bosses as impressive looking as DMC's Nightmare. Still, the visuals better DMC 2, and many other games that have come out lately. The game keeps the camera close enough to the action, and enemies give cues as to when they will attack—an important thing to watch out for. This is unlike Sony's other action game that came out around the same time, God of War, whose camera zooms out too far, making the enemies look small (thus masking the lack of detail given each enemy) and making it difficult to tell when an enemy was attacking. Still, in DMC 3, the camera is the game's biggest problem, visually.

The camera is the game's biggest frustration after the high difficulty. The camera is not much different from what it was in the original DMC, but it is slightly improved. It is still mostly static, and allows enemies to attack off screen. The biggest complaint you may have, though, will be getting a good angle to jump on some platforms. Really, though, a good camera is about impossible to create, and the camera, while not good, might just be as good as it'll get. I really think a company that creates great camera technology would make a lot of money though...

Sound – 10/10

The sound here does everything the sound should do. It pumps the gamer's adrenaline and immerses the gamer into Dante's world more fully. Sound is important in so many aspects of the game. Enemies, both bosses and regular baddies, give audio cues (as well as the visual cues) to signal that they are about to attack. Sometimes this is crucial because the enemy may be off-screen, so the game does give fair warning. In one boss fight in particular, you fight two enemies, with one of them remaining off-screen while you fight the other, so without the audio clues, he would skewer you unfairly. The game's soundtrack is fine, playing heavy metal during the action scenes. Usually heavy metal in games brings a cheesiness factor into play (I'm thinking Kingdom Under Fire), but Capcom does a good job of making the music fit without being cheesy. The most impressive aspect of the sound, though, has to be the voice acting. There's very strong voice acting in the characters of Dante, Vergil, and Arkham—and I will strongly emphasize the great voice acting for the character of Vergil. All of the voices fit the characters well and help to enhance their already strong character development.

Longevity – 10/10

With the high difficulty even on normal, you'll probably spend a lot of time making it through just one play through of the game. I might suggest the easy difficulty for those of you new to the series, or who found the first game very difficult. Even those not new to the series will find quite a challenge here. What lengthens the game is the fact you will probably play many of the levels over and over again until you finally beat the boss of that level. This could be a turn off to many of you, since the bosses start out difficult and don't get any easier throughout the game. For those masochistic, die-hard fans of the game, there are several difficulties to play after normal, such as hard, and about two more difficulty levels after that. There's a lot to offer here, even if you just want to play through the game once, you'll find it to be a good length for an action game.

Devil May Cry 3 is one of the more impressive action games to come out lately. It's fluid controls, sharp visuals, high difficulty, and immersive characters help make it stand out amongst the very large crowd of action games. The other game that came out at about the same time, God of War, got more hype and more attention than DMC 3. But don't let God of War's hype make you overlook DMC 3, which is a superior game in all aspects to the subpar 2005 Game of the Year winner. It's always nice to play a game like DMC 3 when so many games on the market lose their energy and lack a challenge. It is certainly worth playing, especially now that a special edition with a lowered difficulty is out. Though if you want to truly test yourself, play the non-special edition, if you feel up to the challenge.

Score – 9/10

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 01/04/07