Devil May Cry

Genre: Spectacle Fighter

Players: 1

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Review:

Devil May Cry is a Spectacle Fighter that’s quite possibly the earliest full realization of the genre. Onimusha: Warlords had elements of what would crystallize in Devil May Cry, but it was here that the formula would truly shine as its own separate entity for the first time. Originally conceived as a Resident Evil sequel, then a spin-off, then made an entirely separate thing when it became clear that the gameplay of this game didn’t really fit the Resident Evil universe, the first Devil May Cry still has some holdover elements from the Resident Evil series, but it is clearly its own thing, with a focus on fast-paced, stylish action, and with an outlandish plot about a half-demon named Dante slashing and blasting his way through a crumbling island’s castle to find the truth about a resurrected demon with ties to his father.

Devil May Cry was originally released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001, receiving a remaster on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012 that was later ported to other platforms as well, with the Nintendo Switch finally getting its own version in 2019. And I’m going to point out the huge, glaring issue right from the start – this game is absurdly, insultingly overpriced. At $20, this one game is the same price as all three Devil May Cry games released on the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 over half a decade ago, and I’ll just let you know right now, this version adds nothing to the game that wasn’t already in those versions, save for of course the Nintendo Switch’s ability to be played in portable mode. In short, if you have a Microsoft or Sony game system from the last few generations and don’t care about playing this game in portable mode, get one of those versions – there’s nothing this version adds for you except a higher price tag.

If the price tag didn’t scare you off, be aware also that while this game is a remaster of the PlayStation 2 classic, there are definitely elements that show their age here. Expected things like low-poly characters and environments and blurry textures are all par for the course for this sort of remaster, but surprisingly this game also features some extremely low-resolution video sequences and, surprisingly, some really blurry menu text. Honestly, that last one is the real head-scratcher here – surely it couldn’t have taken too much effort to clean up the menus to make them more legible, could it? At the very least I can credit the game for making some improvements over the original – in the actual gameplay itself, both the resolution and the framerates are much-improved over the original.

That said, the game’s stylish presentation of the modern, slick Dante getting into explosive fights with demonic creatures in crumbling Gothic architecture is still as fantastic as it ever was here, with music that shifts from creepy to fast-paced where appropriate. Also, the voice acting here is all pretty good (“I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with light” scene notwithstanding), but there was one oddity I noticed that I don’t recall being in the original game – he text that displays over the dialogue does not match, and is often poorly-translated. I don’t know if nostalgia is clouding my memory of the original, but either way it’s something I noticed this time.

As for the gameplay, what’s here is mostly good, even for such an early game in this emerging genre. The action is fast-paced, varied, and extremely satisfying, with players encouraged by the game to mix up their moves to keep their combos “stylish”. The controls can be a bit clunky (and unfortunately, you’re not able to customize the control setup here, beyond selecting one of two extremely-similar control schemes, with two alternate “easy mode” control schemes that are also extremely similar), but after some adjustment tearing through enemies in the game is a blast.

That said, some of those Resident Evil holdover mechanics don’t work all that well here. The fixed camera, for example, can make it hard to see enemies standing in the foreground or off-frame, can make it jarring when the perspective shifts, and can even make navigation difficult since the shifting camera can make it harder to picture the layout properly. What’s more, the often seemingly-random and nonsensical puzzles don’t really fit the fast-paced action at all, especially when you have switches and locked doors in early chapters of the game that won’t be accessible until later chapters, even though this isn’t really made clear to the player.

However, while time may have made these flaws more apparent, and the graphics have aged somewhat, Devil May Cry is still a really fun action-packed game that mostly withstands the test of time. Whether it’s worth the ridiculous levels of price-gouging, though… that’s another story.

tl;dr – Devil May Cry is a Spectacle Fighter, and probably the first one in the genre, originally released on the PlayStation 2 in 2001, following the sword- and gun-wielding half-demon Dante as he fights demons in a crumbling Gothic castle. This version is the port of the HD remaster first released on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in 2012, but where that collection gave players three games for $20, this game charges Switch owners the same price for just one, making it one of the more ridiculous examples of price-gouging on the Nintendo Switch. It’s a shame too, because even though some elements have aged poorly, this is still a fantastic game full of satisfying combat, but it’s hard to fully recommend at this price.

Grade: B-

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