Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 to 20 Hours

The Bottom Line:

"Surprisingly good"

Let me preface this review by saying that I'm a huge DMC fan. My first DMC was DMC 3, the hard edition. The intense combat and (seemingly) impossible boss battles immediately hooked me, as I love challenging games instead of the hand-holders that permeate the gaming industry today. When I first started seeing videos of this game, I was fairly disappointed... I liked the classic dante with white hair and chill attitude. This guy seemed like a punk.

DMC 4 was, for me, an all time low for the series. It felt like a rail-gun game, where you simply go from one area to the next. The story and characters were abysmal, and I hated playing as nero so much that I switched to dante and replayed all the levels.

This game has a LOT more heart than DMC 4. By heart, I mean you can tell that the developers cared what they were doing with this game. The story is great (if a bit cliche), the characters have VERY well drawn facial expressions (I love watching virgil), but Dante's attitude is just plain wrong. He goes from "I don't give a **** to "let's kill all demons" during the course of one mission. He acts so naive that it's embarassing. I can accept that he's young... but it just doesn't feel like Dante. I thoroughly enjoyed the cutscenes... I found myself replaying them if I missed parts, or just to watch how the characters acted. Virgil acts properly manipulative and cunning, as he always has been.

The combat is about the same as DMC 3... except a lot easier. A LOT easier. I'm playing through on nephalim and I don't believe I have come close to death once, as opposed to the restart mission-fest that was DMC 3. However, the combat is quite fun, and the new weapons are very, very fun. In DMC I hated most of the weapons, preferring to stick to good ole ebony and ivory and rebellion. Not the case here. The scythe is very quick and fluid, great for mowing down a lot of targets, and the axe is my personal favorite. You can literally feel the power when you're smashing down tough enemies. Ebony and Ivory feels a bit weak in comparison... generating even less style points than they did in DMC 3.

Which brings me to the style system.... FAR, FAR easier than it was in DMC3. In the very first mission I achieved SS at one point, while in DMC it took me a long time to get that good. This is mainly because the enemies are so easy to avoid, and it's tough to take damage unless you just get sloppy. The system still works properly, awarding you when you mix up different techniques, and taking away a lot of points when you get hit.

The most annoying thing so far is the platforming. There's quite a bit of it... and Dante is a pretty poor jumper. He can jump vertically fairly well, but when trying to jump across small pits, it can be quite annoying. Luckily falling only takes one health bar, but I would prefer it if he could leap like the nephalim he is, and not like a teenager. If he has the strength to launch himself and enemies into the air, why is he such a terrible jumper? A LOT more work could have been done on the jumping on this game... it's kind of sad when you wish that the jumping was more like mario 64.

Most of the points i'm taking off are for out of character Dante, lack of difficulty and poor platforming. However, the fun (if easy) combat, fun story, and addictive gameplay more than makeup for it. If you're an action fan, give it a shot, if you're a DMC fan, I would definitely buy it.