The DMC3 review was so long it needed to be split into two posts so WordPress could handle it. Brilliant! I’m posting part 2 first so that if you read from top (latest) to bottom (oldest), this part is below part 1.
2,500 words is far too long for anyone to waffle on about anything…
The enemies you project all this violence toward hark back to the original, where they all had distinct looks, or peculiar traits that made each one different to fight. For example the bread and butter Hell: Pride are slow and cumbersome, but have a deadly sand projectile move if you give them enough time to muster it, whereas the Hell: Lusts are speedy and agile, always lunging backwards before attacking with their large reaping hooks. Hell: Wraths are another example of the assortment, immune to sword attacks; they carry the hearts of larger demons on their backs that explode when shot. Anyone familiar with the rules of Chess will know what kind of thing to expect from the statues modelled on those infamous pieces. The Pawns, while weak, can over power you with sheer numbers, the Rooks attack in straight horizontal or vertical lines, Bishops have nasty fire attacks that spray diagonally. Destroy the King, perform Check Mate, and they all fall, the game is yours.Charging up
This level of creativity also carries over to the bosses. From the first you encounter, the Hell Vanguard with his ability to teleport around the map and carve you up with his glowing magical scythe, up until the last, not one of them is filler. Initially feeling like tests of patience and stamina, the battles can drag on with you doing miniscule damage to them, but only until you have discovered and exploited their weak spot, their Achilles heel. Often requiring you to put Dante in a highly exposed, dangerous position, but offering incredible damage returns, hacking away at their vulnerability is a first-rate example of the risk/reward mechanic. Each Boss character bestows a new weapon or ability upon you, for example defeating Cerberus, the three headed guardian that has control over ice, rewards you with a set of three pronged ice nunchucks. Upon perishing, the electrically charged opera singer Nevan rewards you with the aforementioned “electric” guitar/scythe. Defeating your shadow late in the game unlocks a novel, yet ultimately confusing two player mode.
Visually, the game impresses on many levels, one area in particular is the lighting, which also plays an integral part in a Boss confrontation late in the game. Another area is the spot effects. As you fire your handguns the empty bullet casings fall to the floor, bouncing with an element of realistic randomness. Swiping away at an enemy with Beowulf’s Ifrit inspired Gauntlets leaves a trail of light, and causes sparks of energy snaking through the air. These may sound trivial and non-essential, but the amount of character they add to the game is immeasurable. The same engine is used to not only power the game itself, but also the cut-scenes where the plot is unravelled, which helps keep the two areas together, and not have you fall asleep while the next section loads.Love the charged Shotgun visuals
Although the story of one man’s quest to prevent an apocalyptic outcome is slightly clichéd and has been seen hundreds of times before, it neatly punctuates the hardcore fighting action, and provides ample motivation for the characters in the next scene. Starting off in the grimy office of Dante’s demon killing agency, the game then progresses through darkened rubble strewn streets, a dusty, quaint bar and a nightclub decked out in flashy neon, all just the right size for the hordes of enemies that appear, intent on impeding your progress. Then it is onto where the majority of the game takes place; The Temen-Ni-Gru tower. Created as a door between Earth and Hell, it was sealed off and buried deep underground two thousand years ago by Sparda in an act of selflessness for mankind, an act of rebellion against the inhabitants of Hell. Now it has been erected again by one of Sparda’s offspring no less, and atop the tower stand Vergil and Arkham, trying to decipher the code that will unlock the door to Hell.
The traditional and effective Devil May Cry scheme of having fixed cameras returns, but some rooms do offer a slight element of control on the right analogue stick for navigation reasons. The environments drip with personality and individuality, some rooms ornate and luxurious, some functional and bare, some dark, dank and dirty, all perfectly suited to the purpose of their existence. Later on in the game, familiar rooms will lead to unfamiliar locations, when the core of the tower rises, and the ability to rotate the centre of the tower combine to not only enable the designers to re-use old rooms, but also enhance the players knowledge of his surroundings. Maybe re-use is too harsh a phrase, as the majority of rooms visited after said event have been cruelly cut in two, or are in an unrecognisable state of disrepair. While some may see it as a way of re-using earlier backgrounds, I found it to be a major architectural miracle. These rooms and corridors that played such an essential and coherent role on your first trek through them are now just as important and pivotal after they have been rotated, raised, lowered or decimated and crucially, still make both logical and logistic sense.I love this game so much
Also making a welcome return is the Hellish music style. When exploring, the audio is quiet and brooding; deep organ melodies are being played in an undisclosed far away location, echoing through the corridors and bouncing off the walls. However as soon as your exits become blocked off by eerie red barriers and enemies shift into your dimension, the game steps up the pace and launches the series trademark of heavy industrial beats, screaming vocals and electric guitars turned up to eleven. Then, when the last blow is struck the barriers disappear, and the music is gone, making you wonder if it was created by the adrenaline rush of combat. The loosely termed “puzzles” are simply a matter of taking a mysterious artefact from one place to another in order to open the path to the next mysterious artefact, but anything more complicated would detract from the straightforward and honest nature of the game. While the obscene difficulty of the game has been criticised, it is merely a matter of learning the enemy’s personalities and fighting styles, and deciding which weapons to use accordingly.
Devil May Cry 3 is the epitome of the hack and slash genre. With style and substance it stands head and shoulders over the rest of the genre with the cocky attitude that no-one will ever better it. Accomplished, polished and complete, for fans of the genre it will provide the ultimate roller-coaster ride of thrills, spills, action, revenge, betrayal, deception and, the defining element of the series, family values. Devil May Cry 3 takes everything good from the original game, and its sequel, refines and repositions them, whilst adding new elements that fit in the series schematic like pieces of a puzzle. Capcom outshone themselves in creating or recreating everything at its most fundamental, basic level, then building on them with a diverse range of conflicting characters, deep and satisfying combat with imaginative weapons and over the top manoeuvres, inspirational and challenging set pieces and that familiar, overbearing Devil May Cry style and flavour. There is only one word to truly sum this game up. And that word is “Complete”. [10]
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