I assume that most people who read this review have already played at least 1 of the other game's in the series, because if you haven't you wont understand a lot of this game.
Devil May Cry, a series known worldwide for many reason's, its hard as nails difficulty, the stylish protaganist Dante, the uber enemies, and with the third game in the series being one of the best selling games on PS2/PC, naturally everyone couldn't wait for DMC4.
Unforunantly the game dosn't do itself any favours. Instead of our usual kickass hero Dante, we are given a new cocky kid called Nero. With half of Dante's power and coolness, it's hard to like Nero. A watered down version of Dante isn't what the fan's wanted. Nero is no where near as cool or fun to play as Dante. There are many difference's between the two. First of all, instead of Style's, Nero has a feature called the 'Devil Bringer', an extendable powerful arm which was caused by a demon attack before the events of this game. The arm is fun to use at the beginning, there's nothing like picking up a boss and beating the hell outta him to satisfy your reason for buying the game, but like most good things, it becomes repetitive. The arm has only two uses, Combat and Platforming. If your not using it to fight, your using it to either reach something in the distance or to grab onto a ledge, which for all the fuss made about the arm, is rather dissapointing. Also new features with Nero include his sword The Red Queen, which has a built in engine (yes that's right), this is used by pressing in the correct button and reving the engine, which powers up the sword, resulting in better combo's and more powerful attacks. Whilst trying to bring something new to the series, this fails miserably bad, as the sword itself is heavily underpowered and the Rev Function is too hard for even the most hardended DMC vetran's to use effectivly.
The moment every fan was waiting for does eventually come true whenever you take control of Dante about half way through the game, and brings some much needed life into the game, with all the orignal moves of the old games with some new moves brought in. Unfortunantly as much as we'd love this game to be about Dante, the story is basically split 70/30 in Nero's favour, which is harsh on the older Devil May Cry fan's but hopefully this shall be fixed in future installments.
As usual, the game has it's hard as nail's difficulties in place, but thankfully the game dosn't make it impossible for beginner's. The game starts with two difficulties, Human and Devil Hunter, and also has an option called Automatic in which difficult combos are done by simply pressing one button. The game's fun is in finding out it's mass of combo's so the Automatic option is only for beginner's, but when the harder mode's are unlocked. many a gamer will be lured into using this option.
And now for the analysis of the graphics, sound, and controls. The graphics are extremely good, probably some of the best out there at the moment, with everything being extremley well details, the character design alone deserves a mention. The music in the background follows the series tradition of not being exactly the best and plays in an infinite loop. Whilst not being the best music ever, it certanily isn't the worst. But the controls are a stand out point for that as everything moves so smoothly that you will be delighted at pulling off an extremly hard combo against an enemy.
A lot of review's out there will say that both the story and the voice acting are for a Devil May Cry game of low quality, but i believe otherwise. Whilst at some moments during the game, you will ask yourself, 'what does that mean' or 'why did he have to say that' but soon after you will see an amazing part in the story or hear an extremley good piece of voice acting that erases the bad memories. As the story from the very beginning includes spoilers, i can't go into too much details, but all i can say is that the story isn't very well polished, but is certainly interesting enough to justify the buying of the game.
Replayablitiy was always one of the reasons DMC shone, it always had something to get gamer's coming back for more and this game is perhaps the best out of them all. Artwork, Movie Theater, loads of new difficulties, Bloody Palace mode, and Achievements make this one of the longest PS3 Action titles out there.
Overall, a proud entry into the DMC series, rated higher than DMC1 and DMC2, but below DMC3.
