DmC Devil May Cry

The platforming segments are visually surreal as well as challenging from the gameplay perspective

Nachiket: When has frustratingly difficult boss encounters been a sole benchmark for excellence? What matters the most is the sheer imagination, scope, and set pieces involved in these boss fights. Why do you need to humour your masochistic tendencies when you have crazy, over-the-top villains taking you on in genuinely inspired fight sequences?

Brilliant encounters such as the battle with the wacked-out boss Bob Barbas showcases the game's creativity in capturing the media mogul's web of deceit and misinformation in a psychedelic digital arena replete with a faux live TV feed parodying the sensationalist news channels of the world. Then you have the encounter with Lilith, where music becomes an integral part of the boss segment, even as it has a profound bearing on the gameplay and level design. While the reboot lacks in unreasonably difficult bosses, is made up with superlative creativity and design. I believe that's the best kind of trade-off one could ask for. Unless, of course, you happen to be a fanboy.

Ram: Yeah, yeah. Go on. Insult me. But you know I'm right. Even if you ignore the emo looks, lame japes and the linear plot, the core of the DmC experience, the gameplay, just isn't as great as it could have been. To put it bluntly, the reboot's gameplay isn't much more than a mixed soup of the original franchise's gameplay elements. It brings nothing new to the table except a new way to switch equipped weapons and the two styles during combat, besides the angel and demon push/pull mechanic. The platforming segments are good, but there are too many of them. Also, there's a surprising lack of puzzles, which are replaced by quite a lot of secret missions. The melee combat is good, but the ranged weapons are a disappointment. Frankly, the guns are useless and you find no reason to use them, except to lengthen your combos.

Nachiket: What was that again, fanboy? I strongly disagree with you painting the lack of puzzles in the reboot in a negative light. I believe Ninja Theory essentially fixed the most annoying aspect of DMC3 by eschewing tedious puzzles altogether. These wanton monotonous interludes only served to break the pacing of what's essentially a fast-paced hack-and-slash button masher. The inclusion of secret missions, on the other hand, is a great nod to the original franchise's masocore roots with deviously difficult challenges. Since these secret missions are optional, they don't impose upon the reflex-impaired gamers among us. For someone who bitches about the lack of difficulty, it's rich of you to complain about the sublime difficulty of these challenges.

The transitions from Limbo to the real world and back keeps things interesting

I also don't understand why it's such a bad idea to borrow the best elements from the previous games. I mean, this is a reboot of the same franchise, so you might as well turn it into a "Best of" compilation of sorts by cherry-picking the most loved gameplay and design elements from the entire series.

More importantly, it's severely myopic of you to say that the reboot has no gameplay innovation. In my humble opinion, the angel and demon weapon class bifurcation is a radically game-changing addition. This adds a whole new gameplay dimension by classifying weapons as those imbued with either strong but slow demonic or fast but weaker angelic attacks assigned to either of the index triggers. This angel and demon business isn't just cosmetic: these powers must be chosen to tackle the appropriate enemy type, thereby bringing an additional layer of strategy to the mix. Slower, heavier demonic weapons such as the Arbiter axe or the Eryx gauntlets are crucial to break open enemy armour, whereas the faster angelic weapons are required when speed and reach is more important. Certain elemental enemies use ice and fire against you, which in turn can only be defeated by using angelic and demonic powers, respectively. DmC also borrows grappling elements from the last game, with the angelic grapple launching you towards enemies, whereas the demonic one tends to pull enemies towards you, and is also instrumental in stunning or stripping foes of their shields.

Ram: Call me a fanboy again!

Nachiket: Fan...

Shunal: This is when I begged Ram to put the fire hydrant down.

Wow, that was entertaining! While both of these FANBOYS have raised some great points, none hit the spot. As a long time fan of the series, though, I say the new DmC is a great game that falls short. Ninja Theory would have been much better off by ditching the Devil May Cry moniker and making this a completely new IP. The new Dante is a rather bad shadow of the older one, and while the levels and visual design are great, the boss fights do end up rather lacking. Every single boss ends up feeling like a cakewalk, even on the higher difficulties. The fighting system, while great, ends up being hamstrung by the inclusion of Angel/Demon affinity enemies.

Getting higher score multipliers is rather easy

A game like DmC should be all about letting you go wild with whatever combos you may like, and when enemies like those pop up, all they do is force you to use only two out of the total five melee weapons you have. The weapon design feels downright uninspired too, especially compared to DMC3. Weapons either fit the mould of being fast but low on damage, or slow but high on damage. What happened to weapons like Nevan or Cerberus from DMC3? I also liked how the Devil Trigger in this game is so useless and unnoticeable that either of these idiots forgot to mention it.

By no means is DmC a bad game. It just fails to live up to the expectations that come with the Devil May Cry name. The game does many things right and the higher difficulties do prove that, but some things end up feeling out of place. The Mundus fight, for instance, feels a lot like it came straight out of a God of War game, minus the spectacle. But there was no way Capcom could make everyone happy. Old-school fans would end up feeling alienated no matter what, and we have to admit the old Dante’s time has passed. For better or worse, we only have this new Dante. He takes a little getting used to, but the game ends on a great note, and I'll be looking forward to Ninja Theory's next.