Why you'll love New Dante, whether you want to or not
Devil May Cry's number-less revival was supposed to be terrible - a western studio handling a resolutely Japanese genre with a detestably youthful pretty-boy protagonist and a combo system which looked suspect at best. But bad news, internet: DMC is good, the combo system is solid, and you'll like New Dante, whether you want to or not.
First, Emo Dante isn't emo in the least. Like Dante Classic, New Dante is raw rockstar sex appeal in tight trousers, who swaggers around, cracks jokes - funny ones, this time, thanks to Ninja Theory's talented writers - and carries himself like he's invincible because he almost is. He's young - nineteen-ish, maybe, but who cares? - and well on his way to becoming the Dante you know and love, right down to the way he begins DMC shirtless and, er, pants-less.
DMC wants to make some new friends and that means doing a few things the best of the best will hate. Forget Devil May Cry 4; the real Devil May Cry 3 sequel was Bayonetta, and nobody bought the bloody thing. Hideki Kamiya's Devil May Cry follow-up proved a point - limitless depth is worthless if only one percent of players can explore it - so Ninja Theory has turned the volume down on Devil May Cry's cruellest tricks and making a game new players can enjoy and older players can still explore, even on its more limited terms.
DMC was never going to compete with Bayonetta. Hideki Kamiya is a genius and Bayonetta is Kamiya in his craziest cut-off-an-ear-and-howl-at-the-moon-like-a-dog moment. Bayonetta's combo system was so expansive Kamiya's own QA team didn't have the manpower to test the thousands of possibilities; it was so big, they didn't even know what they had made. Platinum gave Bayonetta's players a toolbox with no idea what the community would make of it, even to the point of letting the odd glitched combo or two shatter the game's balance, but DMC's systems are deliberately clearer, and more in keeping with the template established in the very first Devil May Cry.
It's simpler than Bayonetta, but DMC is never as dim-witted as God of War or Heavenly Sword or even Ninja Gaiden 3. Every combo has a reason to exist and every weapon is useful for a very specific purpose. Dante carries his Ebony and Ivory pistols, his Rebellion sword, a demon weapon, and an angel weapon. Your Left Trigger activates angel mode and Right Trigger activates demon mode and the three modes can be switched at any point, mid-combo or otherwise.
As your combo's rank increases from D to A to SSS the music intensifies - the guitar kicks in, then the drums, then the vocals. Combo-chasing isn't just about big scores; it's about screaming music giving you feedback every time you get that little bit better. Only the the best players care about that letter in the corner of the screen, but by tying that letter to the music Ninja Theory has made it worth chasing that SSS for even the least capable players. Fight well and you'll look /and sound/ like a badass.
We didn't have time or skill enough to test the seriously high-end DMC3 techniques, but Ninja Theory went into its new DMC with the intention of making it easier to look good. Stepping off of enemies appears to be out in favour of a super-simplified infinite launcher, activated by hitting X (on a 360 controller) with an Angel weapon equipped. You can chase an enemy high into the sky with repeated stabs at LT+X, and the hangtime on every launcher is greatly extended, so any lofted enemy is an easy ticket into the sky.
In the air with Osiris, Y is a regular strike and B is a rake that'll lift grounded enemies up to your height. On the ground, Osiris can be charged or used like Nero's claw to draw yourself towards enemies, and like all the weapons in the demo it'll combo with a basic Y, Y, Y, Y on the ground or Y, Y > Y for a harder finish. B is a whirling vertical windmill attack, purpose-built for juggling.
Those first three hits of the Y, Y, Y, Y combo and first two hits of the Y, Y > Y combo can be performed with any weapon before you switch to a Demon or Angel weapon for the final blow. Dante's first Demon weapon, Arbiter, is a heavyweight axe with a long lag time on startup, but by landing your first three hits with Rebellion then switching to Arbiter you'll end the combo off with an instant axe finisher.
Arbiter's Y attack combos up to three hits with Y, Y, Y, or Y, Y > Y and it's B attack is a massive one-hit earth-shaker that sends a ranged shockwave forwards. In the air Arbiter can be thrown with Y, while B is another earth-shaker, only without the shockwave. Like Osiris it can be used like Nero's claw, this time drawing enemies closer to you rather than reeling you towards them.
The ranged claw grabs of the Demon and Angel weapons work regardless of the weapon you've equipped in the slots, and are used in combat and for navigating levels. Dante can leap towards higher platforms with an Angel grab or pull platforms towards him with an Demon grab. Ninja Theory's levels are a mixed bag of punch-ups, platforming sections, and chases where you'll use those grabs to tear through the rapidly changing spaces, but DMC isn't a big, dumb Heavenly Sword or a desperate-for-attention Ninja Gaiden 3. DMC might be good enough to do in 2012 what its namesake did back in 2001.
Think of DMC the same way you think of Street Fighter IV. The complexity of Third Strike killed Street Fighter for the best part of a decade but SFIV brought fighting games back to basics and revived the genre in the process. DMC is that - an open door to new players without being quite the slap in the face the hardcore players expected.
At worst DMC is a thoroughly modern callback to the original Devil May Cry, and at best it's gateway drug that might just revive the entire genre. Either way it's probably time to stop with the death threats and give the Brits a chance; they might actually know what they're doing.
Source:computerandvideogames
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