Devil May Cry 5 (2019)

*"I am the storm that is approaching; Provoking; Black clouds in isolation

I am reclaimer of my name

Born in flames; I have been blessed; My family crest is a demon of death!

Forsakened, I am awakened; A phoenix's ash in dark divine

Descending misery; Destiny chasing time"*

I got introduced to the Devil May Cry franchise during the PS2 era with Devil May Cry 3 which ended up being one of my favourites on the console. One of the prime reasons I upgraded my PC more than a decade ago was because I wanted to play Devil May Cry 4 - the other reason being Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. I love action-adventure games or hack and slash games where you are given control of an absolute beast wielding a variety of intriguing weapons slicing or demolishing enemies in a myriad of ways. Devil May Cry felt distinct because of the sheer COOL factor that the franchise has thoroughly incorporated into its being. Now, I'm one of those who didn't hate the Ninja Theory DMC reboot; the level design and art style stood out to me but the story/characters and repetitive wave-of-enemies gameplay segments kept it from being great. The fan outcry was massive and I'm ultimately glad because Capcom took the reigns again and came out with a proper sequel in Devil May Cry 5 which is probably the best in the franchise so far if my nostalgia for DMC 3 is not fogging up my judgement.

Story:

Probably my favourite in the franchise even though I do love DMC 3's sibling rivalry-focused overarching plot. What I loved about it was how the story managed to bring it all together for this latest outing. Pretty much all of the characters from previous games are in the campaign in some capacity including the anime-to my surprise since I have watched it - and while I wish some of the characters had more screentime or inclusion in the events of the game, I still welcomed this Avengers-style gathering of all of them. There are a couple of new characters: V, a mysterious poetry-loving gothic fella with demon magic; Nico Goldstein, a crazy humorous mechanic with an invincible van who is the adopted granddaughter of the creator of Dante's Ebony and Ivory and is the companion to Nero throughout his journey - enjoyed both of them. I also loved how the story was told in a non-linear fashion via multiple POVs to maximize crowd-pleasing moments and keep the mystery as mysterious as it can be even though it was obvious and I enjoyed being duped by rejecting it as a red-herring - props for the boldness.

My favourite thing was how things wrapped up; the badassery+uber coolness combined with weird wholesomeness was not what I expected and I welcomed it completely. There's also a decent recap for those who either have not played all of the games like me (DMC 1 and DMC 2) or are completely new to the franchise and I appreciated that even though I YouTubed a more detailed recap prior.

My main complaint with the story is that even though there are plenty of awesome cutscenes, the banter between characters that one would love to see - Dante, V, Nero - was thin. I would have loved it if the story was longer so more fun shenanigans could have been included. In general, I wanted more cutscenes and story segments for characters as a longer story would have benefited characters such as Trish and Lady too.

Gameplay:

Absolutely insane adrenaline-pumping hack and slash extravaganza. Just so GODDAMN FUN. There are four playable characters each with their distinct combat mechanics and all of them are exhilarating to take control of and slay hordes of demons. The depth and variety are insane - a ton of content. In order of my enjoyment: V, the new addition actually had the most different - and a welcome one - playstyle since it is range-based as you micromanage the three demons he can summon to attack the enemies while he only comes in to finish them off and I loved how this added a change of pace; Nero with his new arsenal of devil triggers courtesy of Nico added a plethora of variety while maintaining The Red Queen's rev mechanics making him more enjoyable than ever; Virgil, a close second has my favourite weapon - Yamato - and comes with two more and a bunch of abilities in the skill set including teleportation making him ridiculously OP, as the Alpha and the Omega should be, and sleek action gameplay doesn't get better than this; then there's Dante with an insane skill set, abilities, styles and weapons resulting in mind-numbing variations on how one can play as him and you truly feel unstoppable as the legendary Devil Hunter - Royal Guard is OP as fuck.

There's a lot of variety to both the normal enemy encounters and boss fights which keeps things fresh and engaging. The level design was good as you traverse a variety of locations but it does falter in the second half where several of the missions all feature the same Qlipoth surroundings resulting in monotony. I wish there was another level or two in the same vein as the one you get with the crumbling infrastructure level for Dante as that would have mixed things up nicely. There's a ton of replayability in the game that can give you several more hours of intense FUN.

I did do a noob gamer move. Since I was so excited to finally start the game, I forgot to change the difficulty settings and only realized it about 4–5 missions in that I was playing on Human difficulty, which is the easy mode… no wonder it felt easy, but since I'm lazy and I was loving the game AND wanted to know how to story pans out, I decided to finish it on this difficulty and then replayed several of the missions with my man Virgil on Devil Hunter or normal difficulty which was also amazing. Yeah, yeah, I have blasphemed but I do plan on replaying the game whenever DMC 6 comes out because it's so damn great (gonna be a long while, though).

Graphics:

It's a visual treat. Rendered in the RE Engine - the game engine created for Resident Evil 7 -, it is a beautiful game through and through. The environments, the character models, the enemy models, the animations, the lighting, action and atmospheric effects, all of it is high quality. Moreover and the thing that made me the happiest gamer ever was the optimization on PC as even though I have a grandpa PC by today's standards, I was able to get silky smooth 60 FPS on 1080p resolution on most settings set to their highest only requiring reduction on some elements such as shadows. There is just something deeply satisfying about a well-polished PC experience because I've had plenty of bad experiences of good or great games marred by poor optimization or port jobs.

For reference, I have a GTX 970 with an i5 4590 and 8 Gb RAM.

Sound:

The game boasts a great soundtrack with plenty of tracks fitting the mood and tone of the locations and the characters alike. Now, of course, the best thing about the soundtrack of Devil May Cry is always the main themes/songs of characters that are blasted during combat and since DMC 5 had four, I was in heaven. V's Crimson Cloud was pretty good and Dante's Subhuman - admittedly -  didn't hook me at first but I certainly liked it after a while and it continues to grow on me more. Nero's Devil Trigger, though, was the second best and perfect for the character and I loved it. The masterpiece, however, belonged to the coolest antagonist in gaming, Virgil, in the form of Bury The Light by Casey Edwards and Victor Borba - absolutely phenomenal and I have been listening to it (and Devil Trigger) ever since I finished the game and even quoted the chorus at the top. Also, when the chorus hits when you're playing as Virgil and get S, SS or SSS rankings, it is pure bliss.

Overall:

As I was putting my thoughts and recalling my experience with the game, I have to say that while DMC 3 will always have a special place in my heart, DMC 5 is the best one. It's the strongest mix of story, variety and combat; massive props to Capcom and the team involved in creating this wonderful game. The sequel will be a while and I'll be ready when it comes out. The only worrying thing is that I do hope they don't go deeper into the Pay Wall or Pay-to-Win nonsense as there is some level of incorporation of those elements in this game but thankfully it didn't detract from the actual experience. Easily one of the best games in the genre and a must-play for any fan. It'll be hard to top this one as while I do love Bayonetta 1 and 2, DMC 5 takes back the crown. And if I were to rate it, I'd give it a 9.5/10.

Devil May Cry V Review

Im gonna start out with the good cause there ain't much the story is probably the best story in any Devil May Cry. The story is pretty much about Dante gets a request by a guy named V that a demon is rising and its Dantes reason for fighting Dante gather Lady and Trish to fight it V goes to bring Nero when they get there Dante Trish and Lady are all losing Nero wants to help Dante calls him deadweight and to leave Nero gets angry but V drags him out

A month passes Nero has a new mechanical arm later you find out his demon arm got cut off by an unknown man. Gonna spoil the story but basically Urizen is a demon king V being a new character knows who it is and is after him later you find out but it was obvious as the game went on Urizen is Vergil V is also Vergil his human side with the Yamato Vergil split his Demon side and his human side saying his human side always kept him away from his full power later you find Dante towards the end Dante fights Urizen vergils demon form Urizen eats this fruit from this Demon tree called Quilopth giving him more power Dante still defears him V and Nero comes V says he wants to finish it but this was all his plan for his demon side to eat the fruit and merge his demon side and human side again to become his self again being more powerful all this way to fight Dante to end there rivalry once and for all. Vergil tells Dante to find him when he gets his strength Neros confused whats going on he wants to help Dante says no it aint his fight Nero gets angry thinking Dante thinks hes weak but Dante than reveals Vergils Neros father which i saw coming but he doesnt want Nero to kill his own father Dante than finds Vergil fights Vergil They say they wanna end this they charge about to kill eachother than a Demon pops out seperating them holding them back they show how that happens Nero gets angry learning Vergils his father he wants to find them and stop them hes walking up and he starts remembering how he was powerless in the events of DMC4 how he was all alone but now he has a family and he doesnt want to be weak anymore he awakens his full demon powers becoming a devil than back to him stopping Dante and Vergil Nero wants them to stop trying to kill eachother he doesnt want them to die so he fights vergil his father saying if he wins Dante and Vergil stop the rivalry Nero wins but Dante and Vergil have to stop the Quilopth roots from opening the demon world so they stay behind or get trapped i dont know pretty much it the ends wasnt satifying

Theres 3 characters you play as through the story they all have different styles of play Nero has mechanical arms you buy or find in the missions to use each have different ablities and stuff. V is a new character he summons stuff he doesnt attack he has like DMC 1 summons which is cool he has a little griffon bird which is a throwback to DMC 1 the griffon boss he has a panther which again another throwback to DMC1 and he has a big summon called Nightmare which might be the blob thing in DMC1 to im not sure. but V stays back mostly using his creatures to attack his creatures can get knocked out and you save to wait for them to come back this can mess up your dodge abilty you cant dodge back if the griffon is dead you cant dodge to the side if your panthers dead V also has a devil trigger which he summons nightmare abd he gets white hair obvious stuff taken from DMC Reboot Dante devil trigger gives him white hair in that game V also can take out enemies only when his summons do a lot of damage and the enemies glow white

Dante playstyle is DMC4 Dante 4 Styles Gunslinger Swordman Royal Guard Trickster Dante has a bunch of weapons to use and a devil trigger

Theres new characters obviously V which wasnt that interesting all he did was read books and quote them theres Nico a new girl whos a mechanic to make Nero arms shes cool shes your shop in the game to buy stuff you also call her on pay phones and she literally can get to you no matter where your at you can call her in hell and she comes some how with her indestructible truck its pretty funny Trish and Lady are in the game doing nothing as always cool to see them though

The Bad

Guys know i hate talking bad about games i try to find the good things i hated RE2 simply cause its a remake if it wasnt a remake i would have liked it but i told you when i played DMC V im being honest about it i don't care were getting one since 2008 if theres something off im gonna let it be known and guys i fucking hate this game

Lets talk about the gameplay cause yeah its Devil May Cry and it may look like its the same but when you play it you realize its not when you get to Dante thats were all the problems start showing the fucking camera is awful i hasnt had a problem with the camera in any DMC but this damn game that camera is a piece of shit you cant see shit your doing combos and camera fucking swings around fucking you over screwing your combos up or the camera is way to damn close so you cant see around you or a boss is so big you cant see half its body cause camera is close as hell . The lock on is fucking terrible and you have to lock to do certain attacks but when you lock on it locks to the wrong enemy won't lock on to who you want locks on to something all the way across the fucking room really frustrating when your trying to keep your style going and you lock on to the wrong thing or the camera just ruins your momentum

The bosses are freaking trash besides 3 theres a Dante boss thats great Vergil final fight is good and a boss Nero fight at the beginning thats good but all these dumb ass bosses do in the game is teleport across the room throw projectiles you get close AOE attack thats were they attack a big area you have to get back they teleport again rinse and and repeat so you have to constantly chase the fucker down which slows the combat down makes it boring as shit im telling you all the bosses pretty much do it its not fun its slow boring and uninspiring DMC bosses are supposed to be fast pace bosses supposed to be in your face you constantly testing your reactions reacting quickly but these you have to be patient patient in action game what hell shit is that i streamed the whole game i asked my friend to watch the boss im fighting he saw how annoying that shit was teleport projectile dodge it teleport projectile dodge it hit him teleport same fucking shit that dumb ass camera didnt help either so damn bad swinging around cant see the boss cause hes so tall i swear man and like trying to get the style up on the bosses aint fun at all cause they just teleport away leaving you to chase them which sucks they give you a hint like when you die it says be patient and wait for an opening patient and wait in an action game makes no sense

The gameplay is more slower there is a slow ass dodge takes like a second or 2 theres slow recovery theres more weight to attacks the jump is floaty and slow the old Dmc's had a quick small jump felt more faster felt better this game like isnt responsive moves wont come out some times i can pop an old Dmc have no damn problem executing stuff

Another problem they give you revives a ton of them you turn the game on they give you a revive you die you can use them which was in the old dmcs but whats new is if you have no gold orbs you can spend red orbs to revive which instantly made me think the games dumbed down i never use items in DMC's ever because skill and avoiding everything and combos was always fun cause the old DMC's actually worked DMCV dont maybe i should have just used the revives to save me from being frustrated course i didnt

The music is terrible not one track besides Neros theme is good 150+ tracks i think all not memorable a lot of tracks dont fit Dantes theme is awful

Cutscenes Devil May Cry known for having awesome action scenes not this one none memorable they use a lot of slow motion but not the kind of slow motion where theres cool shit happening like the opening was nero in a car nico driving car flips over Nero jumps out shooting stuff in slow motion its all in slow motion its boring compared to DMC4 increcible opening the characters Nero acts like Nero but not as cool as DMC4 he did a lot of cool shit in 4 not much in this one Dante pretty much the same Dante felt more serious less goofy and funny i know hes old but he was old in DMC4 he was still funny and dumb he had a michael jackson thing that was pretty funny in V but his lines and stuff werent anything funny or memorable the cool cutscenes came at the end the game prety much locations are really bad they all looked the same there were two cool areas in the beginning than you went through boring areas such as a sewer a subway than when you went into the roots of a tree the areas all looked the same

Final Thoughs

Devil May Cry V was incredibly frustrating like dumb frustrarting though because nothing works its either the cameras garbage or the lock on sucks the bosses are just a mess and not fun to fight Devil May Cry again all about doing well being fast paced testing your reactions doing sweet ass combos on enemies and bosses and feeling really good about it but it wasnt fun in this game i found like bosses to get the combo rating up you just parry attacks don't even have to do a lot of combos which should'nt be the case than even when you got something good going they teleport away breaking your flow and momentum slowing stuff down making you wait it sucks i really wanted to like the game i kept constantly telling myself maybe i just got to adjust but fighting the camera and lock on i kind of snapped i got so pissed and guys i never got pissed at any game like this in a long time watch my stream when i get to Dantes part i really start getting pissed off and at that point i just wanted to be done with it didnt give a shit about it anymore final fight with Vergil was good but at that point i just didnt care nothing was saving the game at that point but im officially done with capcom its over not buying anything else from them i might try and get DMC4 special edition in the future but thats it im still pissed thinking about DMCV i which it didnt happen cause i got to count this entry and it sucks its funny that fight with Vergil at the end was reminscient of the Vergil fight in DMC reboot but i swear that Vergil fight in DMC was way better i remember really liking it so my score for this game is no score its fucking terrible and it goes in my awful as shit game category a long with Lightning Returns and Syndicate