Devil May Cry 4 review

Though it’s clearly signposted when the changes happen, it’s a little annoying when you reach the outset of a Dante level just as you’re getting access to some of Nero’s cooler abilities. Also, playing Dante (unless you have Trickster at level three) is a lot more challenging than playing with Nero, as you’ll find yourself a lot further from enemies with the only means of bridging the gap being a Stinger attack – which knocks the opponent away, making combos harder. The learning curve is steeper again if you try to mix up the styles to score bigger combos, especially Royal Guard. This style seems suicidal until you sit down and work out the timing of every enemy. If you have the patience for that, it becomes a stylish combo-producing machine.

There’s a great deal of replayability in DMC4. For each successive playthrough, depending on the difficulty, you unlock extra modes, such as Legendary Dark Knight and the Bloody Palace survival mode, as well as the ridiculously hard Heaven or Hell Mode, where everything – you and monsters alike – dies in one hit. The only issue is that it can be repetitive – you’re doing what you’ve already done, just against larger, tougher and more numerous bad guys. There’s not much more beyond that – the gameplay stays the same (regardless of the character changes) for the whole experience, only changing the vistas and introducing more enemies as you go. If the absolute stupidity of what DMC4 does, from the weapons, to the acrobatics, to the comicallyover-the-top and macho posturing of the cutscenes doesn’t appeal to you – if you’re the kind of person who tuts and rolls their eyes at sheer dumb melodrama – then steer well clear.

DMC4 is a quirky game – one that has few other titles to compare it to. For the most part, the delivery of console titles of this breed to the PC has been so shabby (Resident Evil 4, anyone?) that ports of this quality are a shock. Thanks to a little diligence on Capcom’s part, DMC4 has turned out spectacularly. It looks as slick and a little sharper than the console version, it plays identically, and the PC-exclusive Legendary mode features more enemies on-screen than the 360 could manage. It’s visceral, silly fun, as you’d expect. We encourage newbies to the series and those who swore off it after the twaddle-tastic port of DMC3 to pick this title up and wring it dry. There’s enough of the cathartic, gut-strewn combat to work out any frustrations you might have, and there’s 12 solid hours of enjoyment at the very least – and a great deal more if you want to hone yourself to the fine and speedy digital dexterity that’s required to beat Bloody Palace mode.

So, DMC4 is a good port of an excellent game. While slightly linear, obviously console-led, and a little repetitive, if you suspend your disbelief and let the game take you on a ride, you’ll find your pulse pounding like a kettle drum. Any game that brings out an involuntary air-punching “YEAH!” into the middle of a quiet day at the office has to be doing something very right. Devil May Cry 4 comes highly recommended to anybody who wants to play an action game and not some namby-pamby talkathon. Yeah, RPGs. Feel the burn.

Jul 8, 2008