Written by James Pikover
Wednesday, 05 March 2008

It’s hard imagine a game being so good that you’ll want to play it over and over again, but so bad that it’s painful to do anything other than play it. That’s what Devil May Cry 4 is, the utter worst of the best.

Since there are undoubtedly many people who haven’t played any of the Devil May Cry games because of its previous PlayStation exclusivity, many are trying it for the first time. For those readers, don’t be confused about the story…you don’t need to have played the previous games for it to make sense. It honestly has no backstory, so don’t try to figure it out.

Bearing in mind that the story only makes sense from what happens during the game’s period of time, it’s perfectly legitimate. Nero, a very powerful ‘kid’ with demonic powers centered in his right arm, somehow works for a mysterious cult called The Order. While about to leave a sermon due to sheer boredom, Dante, DMC’s standard hero, son of the cult’s demon-god Sparda and general badass, falls through the roof and shoots the cults leader in the head, making brain soup.

After a brief skirmish with Dante to learn the controls, he escapes and you’re tasked with finding him. The journey leads you around the land where instead of finding him, you stumble upon exactly what you weren’t meant to find about The Order, becoming more powerful along the way.

The standard list of twists and turns means nothing is really a surprise, and the almost excessive cinematics are wonderful. They tell the story excellently and look marvelous, though as expected the dialog is filled with brash one-liners and chest-banging manliness, not to mention just bad writing. Suffice to say the voice acting is done well, as though the actors didn’t notice that their dialog belonged in a C-grade mid afternoon soap opera.

Cinematics weren’t the only stunningly beautiful textures we got to see. The entire game ran off a marvelous engine, giving the world lush life. With the exception of heavily shadowed areas, which just looked awful, the game is on par with CGI movies.

DMC4 plays just as good as it looks, if not better. Fans of the previous titles or similar games like Ninja Gaiden will adore the hack-and-slash fast paced heavy hitting gameplay. Expect to go up against unfair odds constantly and learning all the moves you can. You will need them.

Getting used to the fighting scheme will take some time, but once you do it really makes the game go from average to great. If Capcom was going for anything, it was graphics and gameplay, because both are spectacular. Nothing is more fun than cleaning a room littered with baddies with non-stop attacks and watching all the carnage unfold before your very eyes.

All that greatness gets taken down a notch from some pretty poor camera work, sadly. While most of the game allows for free-range camera control with the right analog stick, all the functions are done with the face buttons, meaning utilizing the camera most of the time is impossible. More often then not, when you need to move it, you can’t anyways because it’s locked.

The camera is horrid. It has no flow whatsoever and will abruptly change scenes without caring about the player’s controls. Expect to be annoyed plenty by it, especially if you like looking for secrets.You would think that they could have learned by now.

The other thing that may throw some players off is the switch between playing as Nero and Dante. Their fighting styles are incredibly different, with Nero relying on different sword combinations and his Devil Bringer arm, used to grab and throw enemies, while Dante switches fighting styles and weapons with the touch of a button. The difference is either Nero with using lots of button combinations or Dante using different forms with the same combinations.

That is, however, how it will seem from the start. The combat system is so deep that even after learning some of the combo’s, you’ll think you can do it all and suddenly other moves pop up. With different combinations using your sword, gun, devil bringer, devil trigger and rev gauge, a booster to Nero’s sword. That means of the already long list of combinations available, mixing all these together makes Nero not only super powerful, but more than anything Dante can muster.

If those commands escape you, there is a setting to make combo’s go automatically, so long as you push the right buttons. It does cheapen the game, but for anyone looking to learn all the great moves it is something worth trying out.

This also means switching between Dante and Nero is annoying at best. Skilled players are given a worse character with more customization, while less skilled players get a more powerful character with more customization. It’s hard to say whether this is a good or bad thing because it depends solely on how good you are. The first run through I thought Dante was the better character, but on a harder difficulty I realized Nero is, if used properly, much stronger, even if Dante’s attitude kicks Nero’s immature ass.

No matter what anyone thinks of the rest of the game, combat is exceptional, without a doubt. The only problem is that occasionally fights will take place in enclosed areas where the camera is poorly placed and there is simply little to do save for stupidly smash buttons in hopes of hitting the enemy. That, however, is a rarity; most of the camera issues come from everything else.

Yet these glaringly obvious blunders beg the question: why? Devil May Cry 4 could have been an excellent game. Excellent in every way, earning amazing marks from everyone, but instead it’s here with an utter lack of polish in everything but the fighting. Still, the fighting makes it all worth coming back to time and time again, so there’s no reason why we can keep on hitting the restart button.

Gameplay: 9.0
Graphics: 9.5
Audio: 9.0
Lasting Appeal: 9.0
Overall: 7.7