Devil May Cry 3 came out at around the same time as Ninja Gaiden Black and God of War, and even though it's clearly the best of the three (and this is from someone who has played and enjoyed all three games, God of War less so) it is the one that is the most frequently forgotten. While Ninja Gaiden Black was championed as the Xbox's superior answer to the original Devil May Cry and God of War delivered a flashy, simple alternative to the other, harder games in the genre, Devil May Cry 3 was the game from a team who had two years earlier released Devil May Cry 2 which played like a textbook example on how to ruin a promising franchise. The fact that many players reportedly could not get past the second level was also a tad off-putting.
Yes, he is fighting with an electric guitar that summons demon bats from hell, why do you ask?
Yes, Devil May Cry 3 has an unreasonably high learning curve. Combos are almost entirely freeform and can even flow between multiple weapons, but are not interchangeable due to the fighting game esque number of enemy states and large focus on positioning, enemies attack you in droves and Dante can initially take only about three hits before dying. To make matters worse, the US release replaced the traditional checkpoint system with the first game's unforgiving Yellow Orbs (think continues, but incredibly rare, meaning that most of the time you die you are going to restart the level from the beginning) and, in response to complaints that the jump in difficulty from Hard to Dante Must Die was too high, moved every difficulty level up one tier (Normal became Easy, Hard became Normal) up to Hard, which became a new difficulty and removed the Easy mode, meaning that the only mode unlocked at the beginning was the Japanese Hard mode.
You are forced to learn how to play the game early, and this combined with the depth of the system makes combat incredibly satisfying, and the game rewards you for playing well. While you could theoretically spam certain techniques on the lower difficulties to get through the game, you would have to frequently revisit past areas to grind for Red Orbs (which serve as the game's currency) in order to sufficiently power up your character. Not only do you get a higher ranking for finishing missions quickly (which means taking advantage of the combo system to maximize damage), you are rewarded with Style Points for using varied techniques and more challenging combos. These points fill up your Style Meter which control both your damage and Red Orb multipliers, and factor into your ranking.
Devil May Cry 3 takes place some time before the original Devil May Cry (judging by Dante's odd fashion sense and cheesy, party-boy attitude I'd say during the mid-90's), and focuses on the sibling rivalry of Dante and Vergil, the twin sons of the legendary dark knight Sparda, who long ago saved both the human and demon worlds. The story, which was unobtrusive in the first and incomprehensible in the second, is actually one of the best parts of the game. Both Dante and Vergil are genuinely compelling characters, and the story is told through masterfully directed cutscenes from its
so-awesome-its-cheesy opening cutscene to it's bittersweet conclusion.
Dante has five ranged weapons, five melee weapons and six styles, all of which can be upgraded (styles take most of one playthrough to max out), and can mix and match two of each type of weapon and can combo between them. Furthermore there are four difficulty levels (five in the special edition) and the game takes about 20 hours to play through on one of them (and includes many secrets and hidden side quests), and you can keep all your upgrades when changing difficulties, which lends the game a real sense of progression. Your skills and your character's abilities increase in tandem, but, with the exception of the last (every hit kills, which means you can only take one hit but even bosses die from one shot with the pistol), each difficulty feels more challenging than the last. To have this much content is extremely rare, to keep such a level of intensity and variety throughout is unheard of.
Like the original, DMC3 progresses like a typical (if very combat heavy) survival horror game, but objectives are broken up into missions. These missions generally last no more than 40 minutes, and they keep the player constantly oriented and keep things moving along quickly, but are long enough so that they don't feel constricting. You are free to replay any mission in any difficulty at any time, either to improve your ranking or search for items and secret missions. These occasionally lead up to an end of mission boss battle, and most bosses are incredibly challenging and add a new weapon to the player's arsenal upon their defeat.
As you level up styles and upgrade weapons, Dante's abilities combat become more and more deadly and diverse.
The best part of the game, however, is not its size or its plot, but the simple fact that its just so much fun to play. The controls are intuitive and responsive, making all of those cool looking multi-weapon combos possible, the missions are just varied enough to keep things interesting throughout and each of the styles (even the unlockable ones, one of which allows a second player to join in briefly) feel sufficiently different enough to make them all worth using. The learning curve is justified with the richer experience that is only possible after climbing it, and things only get better as Dante gets more and more abilities.
One year after the release of Dante's Awakening, a special edition was released. This release reset the difficulty levels to their Japanese release counterparts (the US Hard mode was added as Very Hard mode), adds a new boss, gives the player a choice between the Japanese Gold Orb continue system and North American draconian Yellow Orb continue system, adds a survival mode, includes an option to make the game even faster and adds another playable character, Dante's twin brother Vergil, who has all four of his weapons equipped at once (three melee, one ranged) and uses a new style. Vergil plays significantly differently than Dante, and although he has less than half as many weapons and 1/6th as many styles, still offers an experience more diverse than controlling 90% of other video game characters, and diligent players will even unlock Nelo Angelo, the Devil May Cry 1 Vergil who has a different moveset. Somewhat disappointingly, Vergil has exactly the same objectives Dante does (and even fights a red cloaked version of himself, which fans have dubbed Vante) and the story is stripped away save from two interesting intro cutscenes, but his inclusion still adds a good 50 hours of content to an already huge game.
In the Divine Comedy, Virgil was a kind, reliable guide through the first two levels of the afterlife. This is not that Virgil.
If you're willing to put in the effort needed to play Devil May Cry 3, it's really a must-play. It's the best in the series (1 is amazing, but feels somewhat limited, 2 is uninspired, boring and nonsensical and 4, which plays very similarly to 3, suffers from insufferably repetitive level design which literally has you playing through the same levels in reverse order as Dante after playing through the bulk of the game as Nero), and offers an unmatched amount of worthwhile content, an admirable amount of secrets and unlockables and the best, deepest gameplay in the genre. It is, quite simply, a no-brainer.
Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition was also released on the PC, and works well with a gamepad, but note that it has high system requirements for any resolution above it's native 640X400 and is virtually unplayable with a keyboard. It was one of the first of a long line of very lazy Capcom ports, but with a good gamepad is an almost identical experience to the amazing PS2 original.
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Director of the Department of Orderly Disruptions
[Last edited by Snacko at 10-06-2009 07:46 AM]
