Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening

"Capcom has renewed my faith in DMC with the best action game this generation!"

The original Devil May Cry was a landmark action game. It was the first game that showed 3D 3rd person action games could play like the classic 2D games. Tight control, pattern based bosses, and a high learning curve with an unrelenting difficulty. In a time of games that were far too easy and lasted only 5 hours, Devil May Cry stood head and shoulders above the rest as being an addictive, over the top, difficult, just plain stylish game that was remarkably fun to play. It is one of my favorite games this generation of hardware, and maybe ever.

Then Devil May Cry 2 was released 2 years later. And DMC fans like myself were bitterly disappointed. Who was this mute clown who looked like Dante but had none of the cheesy coolness of Dante in DMC? Why the heck did they change the functionality and utility of sword combos? How come you the dual pistols wouldn't fire as fast as you hit the button, like DMC1? How come the bosses were ridiculously simple and could be killed just by taping down the shoot button and walking away for a half an hour? How come you couldn't level up the Dante poser with new moves? How come it was just so damn easy? DMC2 was a soulless mess, looking aesthetically like DMC, but the gameplay didn't live up to the high watermark set by the original.

Which bring us to Devil May Cry 3. Capcom listened to the fans (or the sales?) and went back to the drawing board for DMC3. Dante is back with a vengeance, smug, louder, and just plain cooler than before. Capcom, you've utterly redeemed yourself from the last travesty and made a game that surpasses the original and could be considered the best 3D action game on the market today.

Graphics: 9/10
Overall, this is one of the best looking games I've seen on the PS2. The only real negative I can think of is the fact that the game does have quite a a bit of jagged edges marring the general look of the game (as opposed to the smoothness of say, God of War and Ninja Gaiden), but the animations are very high quality; the motions are smooth, and it looks very fluid. The cutscenes are on another level, as far as choreography goes. The action in them can be ridiculously over the top, but it matches Dante's personality. Some people might find him too arrogant and brash, but I liked him right off the bat (probably to make up for the fact that he had absolutely NO character in DMC2). Also of note is that the characters' faces are animated well, and you can see the emotion they're experiencing just by looking at their face, which is impressive indeed. The weapon motion blur also looks very nice, with flame and wind tracers highlighting Dante's flame & wind swords (imagine that!). I also particularly like the particle system: seeing a flurry of electric bats and monsters that die in a storm of sand is nice to see in motion.

Sound & Music: 9/10
The sound design seems consistent with the game as a whole. While you explore the demon tower, some ambient music plays, but once enemies show up (which is often), one of the two battle themes pop up. They're both quite good and fit the onscreen action well, but it's true that only two themes will wear on you after a while. The nice thing though is that every boss has their own theme music. Many times, this will have a theme from DMC1 remixed into it (like the Doppelganger's theme). Dante's duels with his twin brother have fantastic pieces associated with them. The final boss also has a fantastic symphonic theme. I really enjoyed the main theme as well ("Devils Never Cry") which is played during the staff roll. The voice acting is for the most part pretty good as well. Some cheesy lines here and there, but really, it fits the overall tone of the game. Dante's brother sounds a little off though. I know he supposed to be the calm collected brother, but his delivery goes way beyond deadpan usually, although he has some good performances here and there. The sound effects are crisp and clear, and have distinctive impact sounds for the different weapons. The guns have a good sound to them as well, especially the pistols and shotgun.

Gameplay: 9/10
Pros:
First of all, this game is incredible to watch. It reminds me of the first time I saw the original Devil May Cry in action. Everything is so fluid, attacks chain into each other. It's not uncommon to see Dante uppercut an opponent into the air, juggle him with bullets, hop into the air, hit him with his sword 4-5 times, shoot the guy some more, and then do a final cut to send him sprawling. Another great thing is that most of Dante's moves can be interrupted as well, so if you want to do a different move than how a combo normally ends, you can! Want to take evasive action because you're about to be hit from behind? No problem!

An awesome new improvement to DMC and action games in general is u[b[changing weapons on the fly]b]u. DMC purists and Ninja Gaiden fans will note that in those games you have access to all of your weapons all the time. The problem is that you have to select them from a menu, which not only breaks the flow of the action but means that there's no possible way to chain them together. Not so in Devil May Cry 3! Here, Dante can choose 2 guns and 2 melee weapons he wants to bring. During the game, you can change to the unequipped gun with L2 or unequipped melee weapon with R2. This opens the door for some insane and awesome looking combos. You can juggle a guy with your sword, pin him with bullets from your pistols, break out your nunchaku and strike him mercilessly before he lands while finally send him to the other side of the screen with a shotgun blast. The process is seamless, and more importantly opens up a new variety and strategy for combat. There are 5 guns in the game, and 5 Devil Arms (melee weapons) that can all be upgraded to become more powerful. Everyone will have their favorite weapon combinations, and all weapons are great in their own right. Combining 4 distinct weapons that can be changed on the fly and utilized in the same combo is yet another way the Devil May Cry series has enhanced the genre. Another great thing is that the weapons seem to have a personality, which is one of the aesthetic draws to DMC3 (much like the original). It's not just "generic sword A" (like in DMC2) there's a fire and wind sword containing the spirit of two brothers (Agni & Rudra), Ice nunchaku with THREE sticks (Cerberus), and even a demonic bat summoning electric guitar! This streamlining of gameplay was even extended to the item screen, where with the touch of a button, you can jump in the item screen, use a healing item, and be immediately back into the action (as opposed to going through 2 or 3 different menus by hitting start).

If you like challenging games, Devil May Cry 3 is for you. While it seems overwhelming at first, you'll eventually notice that every enemy warns you before they do specific attacks. Once you learn this, you'll be impressed at how stylish you can become by evading their attacks since you knew it was coming. Bosses are an awful lot of fun, with the almost every boss being different from the last. The bosses too follow patterns and have different warning signs for their different attacks. Again, it bear mentioning that the duels you will have against Dante's brother can be absolutely jaw-dropping to watch, once you know how to play the game and know how to play it stylishly. Dante Must Die! mode in this game is again the incredibly hard, almost masochistic difficulty of DMC3. Beating this means you are a GREAT DMC player, but there's still a lot to do and learn even after you've "finished" the game. A special note is that I much preferred DMD mode in DMC3 compared to DMC1. The strategy for it in DMC1 was one dimensional. There was only one viable strategy to complete DMD in the first game. Thanks to the multiple fighting styles and weapon combinations of DMC3, there are many many ways to tackle DMD this time around, although admittedly some ways are more difficult than others.

Devil May Cry 3's "main gameplay system" (as if it wasn't a fantastic game to begin with) is the fighting styles system. Ultimately, you'll be able to use 6 different fighting styles. There's a dedicated "Style" button on the controller, which changes function depending on what style you've selected. Are you a Gunslinger? You'll be able to fire Dante's two pistols in different directions, as well as ricochet your rifle bullet off walls into enemies and do all sorts of neat tricks with your guns. Are you a Swordmaster? You'll be able to do air slash combos with your sword and unlock the full damaging potential of your other melee weapons. Trickster? You can pull off invincible dashes to get in and out of trouble, air dash, run off walls, and even teleport! Royal Guard? You can parry enemy attacks to build up power, and then release it back into them for an obscene amount of damage. Quicksilver allows you slow down time, and Doppelganger allows you to have a clone of Dante fight by your side for double the damage!

I was actually also impressed by the game's story. Unlike DMC2 which was a total mess and had no sense of narrative whatsoever and DMC1 which had a sparse plot that was good enough for the time, DMC3 has a focused narrative about Dante trying to stop his evil twin Vergil from opening the door to the demon world and reclaiming their father's demonic power. It's a story about family and what drives people apart and is surpisingly good for a game of this type, perhaps surpassed only by God of War.

It should be noted that unlike even the amazing Devil May Cry and Ninja Gaiden, DMC3 stays true to the spirit of the game the entire time. There's no stupid underwater levels that contain very little of the game's strength (the combat), or a rail shooter for a boss sequence (like DMC1). There's only one boss fight of the game where you're slightly limited on your options (your Devil Trigger and Fighting style is disabled), but the game still plays normally with the added bonus of a cooperative play enabled boss fight, so it's not a terrible hindrance.

Finally, it bears mentioning that Devil May Cry 3 has an unofficial b[Cooperative mode!]b. If you can finish the game on Dante Must Die! mode (the hardest difficulty), you unlock the Super Dante costume, which grants you infinite Devil Trigger (note that you can also unlock Super Dante with a code, in case you don't want to suffer through DMD) . If you combine this with Doppelganger style, Dante's clone lasts forever. If a 2nd player hits the start button, they control the clone! Is it implemented as well as a fully fledged coop mode? Of course not. Is it an awesome extra to have and potentially be a lot of fun? Oh hell yes. I can picture wreaking havoc on Dante Must Die! with a buddy right now...

Cons:
I wanted to give the gameplay a perfect 10/10. In my eyes, it may as well be. But there are some issues that need to be brought to people's attention. Firstly, the difficulty may be too much for some people. What they should do is RENT the game and see if they can handle it. But they should at least play it, because a game of this caliber deserves to at least be tried.

Also, the continue system, while being more "hardcore" is really pretty stupid. You have to buy your continues from the statue, otherwise every time you die you start the level over from the very beginning. Cash you waste on buying continues is cash you could use on buying new special moves or healing items. It's a really counter-intuitive design decision to make a game with strictly pattern based bosses that you can only try a limited number of times. It discourages experimentation and frankly has no place in a game like this.

Like many games of this type, the camera can become a problem at times, not allowing you a good view of Enigmas sniping you and so forth.

Also, I wish the game would let you map one function to two different buttons. One of Dante's guns, Artemis, is rendered practically useless on the default control scheme (since its strength lies in charging it to full power while you use your melee attacks to stun the enemy). It's incredibly difficult to hold the circle button while you're ramming on triangle. This would have been made much easier had I been able to map shoot & style to the shoulder button and gotten rid of some of the useless functions, like the Map screen button.

My last gameplay complaint is that the Devil Trigger system is once again generic. It just makes Dante stronger, faster, and regen health. Different Devil Arms do have hidden effects that the game never bother to tell you about though (DT Agni & Rudra increases your defense, and DT Nevan makes your health regenerate even faster than normal DT). In DMC1, Dante had special moves (that were incredibly powerful) that could ONLY be activated in DT mode. In DMC3, only the weapon Nevan differentiates itself by having Devil Trigger only moves, both of which are unsurprisingly from Devil May Cry 1.

Overall: 9.5/10
Devil May Cry 3 is my new favorite action game and quite possibly my favorite action game of this generation. It was an incredibly rewarding experience to battle through the game and conquer it on its highest level of difficulty, Dante Must Die! mode. Even now after 65 hours of playing, I still want to plug the disc in and see what other kinds of sick combos I can come up with. This is a game where your battle tactics and how you play the game are limited by your imagination. Dante's been on vacation for the last four years, but this game is a hell of a way to make up for lost time.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/25/05