Devil May Cry 4: Collector's Edition

Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom Production Studio 1
Genre: Action
Released: February 5, 2008
Platforms: Playstation 3, XBox 360, PC

Reviewer: Dan

Here's a random rumor that I heard waaaay back in the day. Apparently when Capcom was making either Resident Evil 2 or 3 for the first Playstation, they fell in love with one of the characters they were planning on using as a villian for one of those games (I can't quite remember which one). They loved him so much that they decided to take him out of the Resident Evil game and decided to give him his very own video game. So if the rumors were true, Dante, the son of the legendary Sparda, was given his own franchise, Devil May Cry. It's had its downsides (DMC 2 and the first version of DMC 3), but mostly the game series has been about it's successes (DMC 1 and the Special Edition of DMC 3). So is Devil May Cry 4 a success? You bet your ass it is.

DMC 4 is full of all new characters with a few familiar faces sprinkled in there. In this one, you don't actually start out playing as Dante. In fact, for the majority of the game, you play as another half human, half demon by the name of Nero. Nero is young and arrogant, much like Dante was in DMC 3 (which was a prequel to DMC 1, in case you have lived under the gaming equivilent of a rock for the past decade). Nero is part of a group of swordsmen meant to protect an almost cult-like religion who worships not God, but Sparda himself. The story is pretty darn good and has a few big twists and surprises that leave you wanting to spend all night playing it. Just to whet your appetite, within the first 5 minutes of the game, there's a twist that will make you go "Wait, WUT?!"

Some of the cutscenes in DMC 4 are pretty lenghty, but they do a good job at keeping you interested. Even though there are over 120 minutes worth of cutscenes, they don't seem to slow down the action too much. Plus, just hit start to skip them if you don't care.

The gameplay in this one is pretty much exactly like the previous 3 DMC's (I'm just assuming it's the same as 2 since it doesn't exist to me), so you'll be in familiar territory if you get the PS3 version of the game. Capcom really didn't innovate much with the gameplay, but I say why try and fix what isn't broken. I mean, Mario still jumps on the heads of Goombas. And guess when Sonic the Hedgehog games started to suck; right about the time he stopped running from left to right on your TV. Yeah, it would have been nice to see something a little bit different, but I'm OK with it. We know Capcom can innovate (compare all other Resident Evils to Resident Evil 4), but I think it was a good decision to leave this one alone, as far as gameplay is concerned.

Besides the lack of gameplay innovation, there were a few other things that went into the negative category for me. For one, Nero does not carry any other weapons besides his sword and revolver. I liked how in DMC 1 and 3 (don't know about 2, but you already know that) I could switch weapons to better deal with a given situation. I guess this one is more about which combo fits in a given situation, which makes it a bit taxing on your memory, but it at least looks impressive when you pull things off. Nero does, however, have an advantage over Dante in the fact that he has a demonic arm with some pretty neat powers. The thing I like about this arm the most is that Capcom decided to create unique animations for nearly every enemy in the game, including bosses. It's probably the best animations I've seen of a video game character totally pwning some dude.

I also feel I should comment on the size of the game. No, I'm not talking about the epic scenery or gigantic bosses you must battle. No, I'm talking about the 4.9 GB of hard drive space required to play this game on your PS3. You're basically screwed if you have a 20 gig since that's 25% of your hard drive space. The install for this takes a fairly long time, but it does go the extra mile for you by providing the backgound story of the previous 3 DMCs while you stare at the painfully slow status bar.

While most of the game is a hell of a lot of fun (except for some frustrating puzzles that made me want to break my SIXAXIS), the real fun for me started when I got to play as Dante again. They didn't make many changes for him from DMC 3. He still has the 4 different fighting styles and he can actually get new weapons, some of which are incredibly fun to use. Weapons, fortunatley (or however, depending on the type of gamer you are), requrie an awful lot of time and effort to fully unlock their potential. The same goes for your different abilities. I'm sure you CAN unlock all of your abilities one time through the game, but good luck with that. Chances are, you'll have to play numerous times to unlock everything, which really adds to the replay value quite nicely.

Surprisingly enough, there is actually an online element to this game. No, you can't swordfight with dudes across the world (although that does sound like it would be a whole lot of fun for about 10 minutes), but what you can do is share your Accomplishments. That's right. DMC 4 has Accomplishments. What's an Accomplishment? Well, I'll tell you. When you perform a certain feat in the game, you'll get a little message saying that you did something special. You can then see all of your friend's accomplishments and see who has the most. Gee, accomplishments sound really familiar. Yeah, I know. I can't knock them too much. It does add replay value, but there is one huge problem with the online rankings. The huge problem is that it's a worldwide ranking, which means the crazy people in Japan that have been playing the game constantly while gamers state-side have taken up the first several thousand positions in the rankings. I guess I have some work to do.

The Collector's edition of the game seems to be a decent enough upgrade over the regular version of the game. It comes in a really neat metal case, much like the version of Final Fantasy XII I bought. This edition also comes with two DVDs. One is a standard bonus content DVD containing a behind the scenes look into the developent and a soundtrack. The other DVD actually makes the Collector's Ediion worth the extra $20. It's Volume One of the Devil May Cry anime, which retails for about $20, so you can think of it as you're getting a really cool case and a soundtrack for free when you upgrade.

Final Verdict

I could go on and on about this game, but really all I need to say is that this is a fantastic addition to the Devil May Cry series. Yes, it is the same old, same old from Capcom. They didn't really toss in too many new tricks, but that still doesn't take away from the fact that this is a great hack 'n slash game that is a must-have for PS3. There are a few downsides to the game, which is preventing it from getting a perfect score from me, but it's still good enough to be a 9 out of 10 in my book.

Final Trailer