Devil May Cry 4 Review
Game Review | February 4, 2010 5:07 am
Devil May Cry 4 was released February 5th, 2008 so as you can see I'm about 2 years too late , but after playing Bayonetta I couldn't help but want to continue playing action type games and what better way to keep the feeling than by playing a game by the same man who created Bayonetta, Hideki Kamiya, and I sort of spent 100 hours getting all the achievements ... so my review will be made.
Dante is back ... sort of ... This is Devil May Cry 4, the next installment in the DMC franchise and the first one to the newest gen consoles , according to the Devil May Cry timeline this game takes place after the third and first game and leads into the second , why Hideki Kamiya or Capcom did it this way is beyond me , but that's for anyone who really cares about the entire Devil May Cry series.
"I dont think it's fair Dante has two guns against a handicapped guy"
In this game you primarily play as Nero, a young teen who somehow has a demon arm known as the Devil Bringer, why he does was never revealed. The story begins with Nero fighting his way to church where he goes to listen to Kyrie sing , a girl whom Nero obviously loves. After the song, Kyrie sits next to Nero receiving a present from him and the High Priest known as "His Holiness" takes the stage and rants about faith in their god Sparda, Nero grows bored and decides to leave until his arm begins to glow which indicates a threat nearby. Crashing through the rooftops is none other than the legendary devil hunter himself, Dante who shoots the Priest point blank. You fight with Dante only for him to escape, the Holy Knights notice your combat skills and gives you orders to track down Dante ... and that's where the horrible journey begins. At least I can understand Devil May Cry 4's story much more than I did Bayonetta
The combat is very balanced, you have Nero who is a beginner friendly character with simple movesets, set weapons and a cheap demonic arm that can easily be abused in all your fights and then you have Dante who has 3 sets of guns and 3 sets of swords and five "types" that determine what certain movesets do, so Dante is basically the guy for the crazy advanced players of the game. Aside from Dante's type Royal Guard there is no real blocking to the game , only a roll to evade attacks or simply jumping away which leaves you open for many attacks. Your moves also depend on the different skills you have purchased, to purchase these skills you have to obtain proud souls from enemies you killed. In combat you have a Stylish Bar which starts from a D rank to a SSS rank, the stylish bar determines the amount of points you get from killing an enemy and the amount of proud souls you get after killing said enemies and to raise your stylish bar you must perform different moves on the enemy and strong ones too without getting hit if you want to maintain your style. On the plus side you gain a Power Up move later in the game known as your "Devil Trigger" which enhances the strength of your attacks and slowly regenerates your health. After playing on the hardest difficulty, Dante Must Die, you can basically predict all of the enemies attacks, its just a matter of you pressing the right buttons at the right time.
"I'd like to see if Shoryu-ken can take down this beast"
The miscellaneous extras of the game are Secret Missions and The Bloody Palace. Secret Missions have you perform crazy tasks and reward you with an increase in total health, these Secret Missions are scattered throughout the game and certain ones can only be done as Nero or as Dante. The Bloody Palace is unlocked after beating the second hardest difficulty, the Bloody Palace is a survival mode that pits you against 101 stages of enemies, every 20 stages you fight one of the bosses from the game and on stage 101 you fight the Legendary Devil Hunter himself Dante. In the beginning of the Bloody Palace you are given a time limit and not only do you have to kill the enemies, but you have to kill them fast , killing them raises your time but if you take too long it won't balance out well for you. You can't use any items as well so any damage you take can only be healed by rare random health drops from the enemy. Its a fun mode however if your an inexperienced player you will probably loathe the Bloody Palace.
The graphics were pretty good considering it was released in 2008, sure it wasn't as flashy as Bayonetta was but it still met the requirements of a new gen game. Comparing the cinematics and the actual gameplay, the only real difference is the character's face, Nero or Dante ... whomever your using, there's no detail to the characters face when during gameplay but aside from that everything in the cinematics looks about the same when you played in the actual area. The environment was like one big field, you play as Nero and travel to the end only to swap as Dante and back track to the beginning , if your wondering why you'll just have to play to find out.
"Pandora ... it only does everything ..."
The music is very fitting for an action game however very limited. The battle music was always some type of old school metal, however it never changes when your fighting regular enemies in the level before the boss, if your playing as Nero you'll hear his theme "The Time Has Come" and if you play as Dante you always hear "Blackened Angel", to some it may be alright as the music is just downright awesome to kill to, but to most it becomes very repetitive and you'll find yourself plugging in your mp3 so you can change it up a bit.
Achievement Wise, this game obviously has a reputation as one of the hardest to hit 1000 points in so expect mayhem ... and majority of the time you'll be loading up different YouTube videos for references ... without them there's simply no hope for you. You have the Secret Missions you must complete which are like I said, crazy tasks on their own. Not only do you have to beat EVERY difficulty in the game, which is six, for the first four you have to S rank every mission, S ranking missions depend on the time it takes you to complete it, the amount of stylish points you have and the orbs you collects from destructible objects in the level and if you use an item or die, you have no hope of S ranking ... now think about it, the hardest difficulty Dante Must Die ... you have own face without dying to S rank it. You have the Bloody Palace which you must not only beat , but you must beat it with an S rank ... which actually isn't hard , as long as you don't use a super character then your guaranteed an S rank if you finish it.
Overall i give the game a 8/10, it's VERY fun, one of the better hack-and-slash games out, most people would probably give it a lower score due to its insane achievements but I for one am giving an 8 because it was a good story, it had romance to it which I like, Bloody Palace was so much fun, the only downside is it could have been a bit longer and maybe give us more of a background on Nero without having to look it up online.
Rating: 8.0 of 10
Reviewed: Devil May Cry® 4
Keywords: None
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