#he try to orb me but he cannot because I only know dodge & gun

[klimp42]

Devil May Cry V Review: A Pizza Style Boys End

Well after 11 long years here we are, a sequel to probably one of my favorite franchise in history, Devil May Cry V and what a fantastic sequel it is. Now unlike my last review, the iron for this one is still warm. I know it's been a month but hear me out here, I want to be able to spoil some stuff and not feel to bad since, hey its been a month since the game came out, but if you still haven’t played DMCV then watch out we got some spoilers up ahead.

Alright so before we go into talking about all the things this game did right and wrong, I should probably give some backstory to this almost 20 year old franchise whose last canon game came out 11 years ago, I know another “DMC” came out since then but we don’t talk about DMC Devil May Cry. So Devil May Cry for those who don’t know is the story of one of the sons of the legendary Dark Knight Sparda, whose Sparda? The biggest baddest demon who decided that demons being dicks on Earth isn’t cool, betrayed his kind and fight them back to hell and sealed them in it using his amazing power. For the next 2000 years, he acted as Earth’s guardian and then eventually he met either the most smoking hot or most powerful or both, girl ever named Eva. He married her and had twin sons named Dante and Vergil. Now demons aren't a big fan of Sparda because of the whole betrayal and locking them into hell thing, and no one hates him more then his old boss, the demon king Mundus. So one day Sparda dies, don’t ask how its never been fully explained he just died, and Mundus sees this as the perfect opportunity for some revenge and sends a bunch of demons to kill Sparda’s family, but those demons suck and only succeeded in killing Eva.

So after all that and to speed this up to talking about the actual game, Dante and Vergil leave their destroyed home and go about following two paths, Vergil stylishly lusting for power and Dante being a stylish gun for hire, and eventually a demon hunter. Backstory aside all you really need to remember is style means everything, Sparda was the coolest, Dante and Vergil have two different ideas on how to live life.

Alright so moving on to DMCV, let's finally talk about what I feel is a perfect end to the story of Dante and Vergil. DMCV takes place about ten years after the events of DMC4 and involves Dante getting a job by mysterious new guy going by “V”, V wants Dante to go kick the ass of this new demon named Urizen who is causing all sorts of havoc in Red Grave City, where he has raised this giant demonic plant called a Qliphoth which if it isn’t stopped will lead to the end of the world. So Dante, his friends Lady and Trish, go to Red Grave City, into the Qliphoth to stop Urizen, but he starts taking a long time so V gets nervous and decides to go pick up Nero, one of the main characters of DMC4, who just a few days ago had gotten his arm ripped off, it was a demonic one that had Vergil’s sword in it. I know that sounds insane, but if I explained everything in this game series we would be here for a forty more pages, so let's just move on, things are crazy and V tells Nero that the demon who took his arm is Urizen and the Dante needs his help. Fast forward a few hours, Dante is losing his fight to Urizen, Trish and lady are knocked out, V can’t do shit since all he can do is hobble on his cane and let his demon buddies do his work for him, so Nero tries to help and also doesn’t question why this demon looks nothing like the human shaped figure that took his arm, he loses, Dante loses and things go south really fast. In the end, Nero leaves to train for a month to try and actually beat Urizen, V stays behind to try and slow down the Qliphoth’s spread and Dante is assumed to be dead.

Well now that all that back story has been dealt with, let's move on to gameplay, setting and the fantastic soundtrack. So while not being the first DMC game that you can play more than one character, it is the first base release game that you play as multiply characters, Nero, V and Dante, who spoilers is still totally fine and alive. Each character plays completely differently, making it so that depending on who you are playing in the level offers a completely different experience. Nero controls similar to his DMC 4 counterpart, he has the Red Queen that can be revved up to do longer and fire infused attacks, he also has his Blue Rose which can be charged to do explosive shot. The difference of DMC V Nero and DMC4 Nero, is that he no longer has his Devil Bringer, his arm that was taken, instead he has a bunch of different prosthetics he can call upon called Devil Breakers, offering different abilities like a big electric hand, a rocket fist, the ability to stop time, one that lets you go wild with big crazy attacks and a few others. Other than that, he has the same combos and movement and if you liked playing as Nero in DMC4 you’ll love it here, especially after you beat the game which is the only thing I won’t fully spoil, just know you can do some cool stuff.

Now if I was to do this right, I would start talking about V, but I want to keep the speed of similar characters going so let's talking about the pizza loving devil hunter Dante. Like Nero, Dante is very similar to his DMC4 counterpart, honestly his is the exact same if it wasn’t for the fact his sword changes three times and he gets Sin Devil Trigger. I know you might he saying why spoil this and not Nero, well this was in the trailers and Nero’s thing wasn’t. Seriously it's the same bread and butter Dante had in DMC4, you can switch between his four styles of Trickster, a dashing and teleporting style, Swordmaster, a style that increase the moveset of your devil arms, Gunslinger, a style that lets you do crazy gun tricks, and Royal Guard, a hard style to master but it lets you guard attacks and turn them back on your enemies. He has his main sword Rebellion, which becomes his main sword Devil Sword Dante, he has his guns Ebony and Ivory and Coyote-A and gains more throughout the course of the story as he beats bosses. You have your devil trigger that lets you regain health and do more damage, and through the story you get Sin Devil Trigger that lets you do insane damage but you cannot heal. Listen, if you like Dante and like playing as him, you will love him in this, he controls well and its stylish as hell.

Alright so it's time for the boy I skipped, V, and the reason for that is because he is the newest character and controls completely different from every other DMC character you have been able to play as. V doesn’t actually fight, he kills demons, but he does not fight, his boys Griffin, Shadow and Nightmare fight for him, demon summons who share appearances and names with enemies from the first Devil May Cry. As V you just stand back and let your demons fight for you and when they drop the enemies health you rush in and kill them with you cane. It is this exact gameplay that has people split, unlike Dante and Nero, you are not in the action, you are off in the distance hitting buttons for combos that you don’t have full control for. Personally, I feel that once you get more used to it that it's not so bad, you have certain moves that allow you to keep control of where Griffin and Shadow are and if things get to hectic or those bastards just won’t listen to you you can spend devil trigger to make them to increase damage and fight by themselves. You also can use devil trigger to summon Nightmare and have him just fall onto the battlefield and fuck things up for you and you can also get an ability that lets you jump up and control him. So while V is the most hands off character and some people are not fans of that, I love and will always protect my hands off emo son.

The last few things to talk about in DMCV, like always style is a factor in fights and the more varied and different your attacks are leads to higher style points and taunting the enemies gives you a ton of style points, which while before was just so you felt cool, with the games new multiplayer elements in which in certain missions you play alongside other players, now other people can know if you are super cool. However unlike previous DMC games, there are no items to be used, no holy waters or stars to heal you or refill your devil trigger meter, however to balance this enemies drop more orbs that fulfil this function and you can find orb packs to break that heal you or refill your devil trigger.

The setting of this game is much less varied compared to previous canon title DMC4, which I feel is better for it, since you have a coherent theme to the whole story. Your setting is the streets, buildings and sewers of Red Grave City, the destroyed areas around the Qliphoth,and the inside of the Qliphoth itself. Personally, I feel like this gives the game a more end of the world feel, as you see drained corpses of the people of Red Grave City and places that looked lived in just a month ago, I know that other DMC games have let you go through cities, but in those the cities where always just abandoned since they couldn’t really have a bunch of corpses on screen while you were styling on demons.

Alright so one of the things I couldn’t wait to talk about, the soundtrack, which is just great. Listen, if you like any of the other DMC soundtracks you will love this game and if you like rock and roll you will love this games soundtrack. Hell, even if you don’t like rock after a while of playing this game you will grow to love it. The soundtrack is also tied to you style meter so as you do better the song gets better while you are fighting by adding more bass, chorus, and increasing the volume, all building up to a full song to match how cool you look as you dodge, taunt and style on these demons. To get a taste of what it will be like when you go full style god,  lookup Devil Trigger, Crimson Cloud and Subhuman, those three songs play while you kick ass as Nero, Dante and V and makes you feel so bad ass when you are taunting and beating down demons. Also the songs during the boss fights are also amazing, seriously the way that DMC incorporates music as you fight is masterful and makes you seem cool as hell.

Now I know I have been singing this games praises, but it is not perfect, its close though damn close. One big detractor that might affect you is the voice acting, it’s great sometimes and others it is just a little of sync to what the character is saying and the story, while great, does have a few moments that are weird like how because Nero says quit it, Dante and a newly refreshed Vergil go alright and stop their fight to the death and instead decide to jump into hell and stop and kill the Qliphoth.

So yeah those are my only complaints, I said it was close to perfect and I mean it. This game is the Devil May Cry that we have deserved since DMC4, it controls well, looks beautiful and gives a final send-off to Dante and Vergil, leaving the stage for future games to focus on Nero and Nico and even new casts of characters. Honestly if you enjoyed old DMC games, even DMC Devil May Cry, pick this game up as you need to play it. If you have never played a DMC game before, play the free demo and see if its your speed and if it is, then dive on it and be the stylish demon hunter you were meant to be.

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