What Are You Currently Playing? 5.05: You Are (Not) A Gamer

[Jay L. Corbell]

Tell me about it, it took the four of us around an hour and twenty minutes just to beat that damn Jet Set Radio traffic challenge map on hard difficulty...

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I'm up to mission 20 on Devil May Cry. It looks like this game just pulled an inverted castle on me, a la SOTN, lol.

Anyways, I always used to think that it was DMC4 that shamelessly recycled a majority of its bosses to have you fight them 3 times each throughout the course of the game instead of just twice like the standard action game, but here's the first DMC pulling that trick from the get-go.

To be fair, I think that the first DMC has MUCH better boss fights than DMC4, so I don't mind having to fight the same bosses over again, but it does feel a tad repetitive having to fight each of them 3 times over the course of such a short game. Though, to be fair, its only short because it doesn't contain so much shameless padding, which I found that DMC4 used too much of (mission 19 from that game being the worst offender doing that).

Anwyays, I can tell that I'm already getting close to the end of this game, so I'll probably end up beating it either by tonight or tomorrow. After that, I may just force myself to play through DMC2 just so that I can say I did it and then move onto DMC3, which is the game that I've been eagerly awaiting to play the most.

[Foggle]

Play DMC 3 on Gold with Turbo Mode enabled. Makes it a million times better, trust me.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Alright, I just beat Devil May Cry. Overall it was a great game that's well worthy of the praise that it gets. Even if its the first 3D hack n' slash game, it still feels more advanced in so many ways than even some of the most modern hack n' slash titles that I've tried. I do have to say, though, that while I heard that the original DMC was fairly challenging from the get-go, I didn't find it to be that bad at all. Maybe its because I already played DMC4. I stopped about half-way through may play-through of Dante Must Die mode in that game, and not because I was having a difficult time with it (it actually wasn't really that hard), but more so because I was kind of getting bored with the game at that point. But, since I had quite a bit of practice with that game, and since the series hasn't really changed its "core" mechanics since DMC1, I suppose it was easy for me to get into this game (especially with the controller set-up being modified to emulate that of the DMC sequels), and I didn't really have much of a learning curve to go through, which made this game play pretty easy for the most part. At the end of the game where I got my total stats, it said that I had used a total of 5 retries throughout the entire game, so I guess that means that I only died a total of 5 times which seems about right. Of course, I'm sure that hard mode and DMD mode would offer up more of a challenge.

Also, the game was a bit shorter than I expected, taking me just over 6 hours on my first run through it (and I usually end up taking my time on any game that I play the first time through). Though, as I've said before, this game also doesn't have the shameless padding that DMC4 is ridden with (which is twice as long as this game). Either way, this game is good enough to warrant replaying it on higher difficulty settings, but for the time being I'm going to move onto the other games in this collection before coming back to this one.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Play DMC 3 on Gold with Turbo Mode enabled. Makes it a million times better, trust me.

You expect me to shame myself and my love of challenging games with unlimited continues. You don't know me at all, Foggle.

[Foggle]

I like a challenge too, but Yellow mode isn't much fun on your first run; it's better saved for subsequent playthroughs (if played at all). Meanwhile, Turbo makes the game harder in a way that adds to my enjoyment instead of diminishing it.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

A friend I had from high school played the original version of DMC3 released in North America in which Hard mode was the default difficulty setting and there was no Gold Mode available, and he ended up beating the game, with some obvious frustration, but it became is favorite action game in the end. I don't mind dying a lot and having limited continues. You can still save your progress in-between levels, and replaying sections of the game over is how you end up getting good at it in the first place.

[Foggle]

I just don't find dying three times on a boss and then having to replay the entire level leading up to it again much fun. It's not like Gold mode even holds your hand at all; you get maybe three gold orbs across the entire campaign, and some are hidden. You'll still have to replay up to 10 minutes of a level each time you die in Gold mode anyway, it just makes things less frustrating overall. But if you want to play Yellow mode on Hard difficulty with Turbo disabled (it wasn't in the original release) on your first run, be my guest.

[Spark Of Spirit]

You should have three lives and then when you lose them it deletes your save and sends you back to level 1.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've been playing DMC2....Now I know where Hayashi got his inspiration of making an action game (in which you only have to press one button to win) from.

I just don't find dying three times on a boss and then having to replay the entire level leading up to it again much fun. It's not like Gold mode even holds your hand at all; you get maybe three gold orbs across the entire campaign, and some are hidden. You'll still have to replay up to 10 minutes of a level each time you die in Gold mode anyway, it just makes things less frustrating overall. But if you want to play Yellow mode on Hard difficulty with Turbo disabled (it wasn't in the original release) on your first run, be my guest.

OK! 

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

No, but seriously, who's bright idea was it to take away all of the challenge and deep combat from the original DMC, and replace it with enemies that basically just encourage you to ditch your sword and shoot them repeatedly? Shooting enemies locks most of them in stun frames and often-times takes them down quicker than your sword (since you'd actually have to bother taking the time to run to them with that, not that they'd put up a serious fight once you got to them). Hell, apparently the developers were well aware of this and very proud of this mechanic, as they made a whole level based around just shooting tanks and helicopters over and over again.

In all seriousness, I had to stop playing this game after mission 5 because my thumb got too sore and there's no way I can continue until I give it at least a day to rest. I actually had to finish up the helicopter boss fight by alternating to my index finger. Its OK, though, as its not like the fight actually required me to move that much except for that one annoying part where you have to upscale a building as a fire is rising from beneath (which actually caused me to die once because I missed a jump thanks to a bad camera and was basically stuck in the flames until I died). After that I made sure to save my devil trigger so that I could just fly up to the top and wouldn't have to deal with this game's shit camera to platform my way up there manually.

[Spark Of Spirit]

DMC2 was originally not a DMC game. It's a lot like Silent Hill 4 in that it was meant to be a completely different IP that was shoveled into a popular IP because of an unforeseen spike in popularity (seriously, DMC1 was HUGE) and they wanted to cash in ASAP.

It almost killed the series, too.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Too bad it wasn't a game that was being designed as a very good one from the get-go. the XBOX Ninja Gaiden game originally wasn't meant to be an NG game, itself (I think you could tell from how little resemblance in bares to the classic 2D NG games), but the difference there is that the decision was made earlier on in the game's development by Tecmo to make it into a Ninja Gaiden game for marketing purposes, but even then the game still spend years in development as Itagaki wouldn't release it until he made it as good of an action game as he could. And thus we got a great 3D NG game, but on top of that he made it even better anyways with the re-release, Ninja Gaiden Black.

Whether DMC2 was originally another IP or not, its clear that the developers were not putting a lot of effort into this game. Maybe it was rushed out the door, the gameplay here feels bland and boring, not unpolished. It feels like the devs for this game were just making it for their paycheck, and didn't really care whether it was actually any fun to play or not. Thank god the series redeemed itself (and even improved itself from the original, many would say), with DMC3, as it would be a shame to let such a potentially awesome IP go to waste after just DMC1 followed by one shitty sequel.

[Foggle]

they made a whole level based around just shooting tanks and helicopters over and over again.

Aw, you missed one of the funniest (and saddest) parts of the whole game. If you run up to the tanks, you can just stand still and melee them over and over until they die because they literally can't attack you when you're that close.

In all seriousness, I had to stop playing this game after mission 5 because my thumb got too sore and there's no way I can continue until I give it at least a day to rest. I actually had to finish up the helicopter boss fight by alternating to my index finger.

Same thing happened to me, man. DMC 2 sucks.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Aw, you missed one of the funniest (and saddest) parts of the whole game. If you run up to the tanks, you can just stand still and melee them over and over until they die because they literally can't attack you when you're that close.

Actually, when I tried that I ended up getting hit by one of the other tanks. Even when I was standing on a specific side of a tank that should have been obscured from the other ones, their shells still went through the tank and hit me anyways, which is just really fucked up. I could also get hit in mid-air, but it was pretty infrequent. What I found worked to hilarious effect was if I stood on top of a tank, double-jumped, and then fired my guns (since Dante shoots directly downwards after a double jump). It was hilarious because I was essentially bouncing up and down off of each tank and shooting it repeatedly while it couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Same thing happened to me, man. DMC 2 sucks.

Man, the sad thing is that I think that the developers for this game were actually legitimately proud of that helicopter fight. I mean, they actually had you fight the damn thing 3 times....IN THE SAME FUCKING LEVEL! I mean, damn, at least DMC1 and 4 only recycled the same boss once per every few missions. I guess they thought that they'd save you the trouble in DMC2 and just make you fight a boss 3 times in just one level and get it over with....well, hopefully that fight is over with.

Also, not that it matters, but as shitty and barely present as this game's story is, what fucking purpose did going into a city and fighting military vehicles have to the story? I mean, the first few missions had me in and old town of some sort and also running through some underground ruins. Then all of a sudden out of absolutely nowhere I'm on city streets fighting dogs, a giant gorilla, tanks, and apparently the world's most fortified helicopter (I mean, GOOD GOD can that thing take a lot of lead before it finally goes down). They should have at least had the courtesy to give you the grenade launcher from DMC1 before putting you into that fight.

Oh yeah, and one more annoyance I encountered is when I was fighting said gorilla. I basically just whittled down his health over a period of time by....you guessed it, shooting him repeatedly (my thumb was already starting to get sore by that point in the level, and I hadn't even gotten to the tanks yet), then when he was almost dead, he actually managed to grab me, mostly because  I was just standing in the same spot not even trying to move except for when he jumped in the air to try and land on me, since I didn't actually figure that the AI for this thing was smart enough to actually try and do anything else. But I thought to myself, "whatever, I'll just take some damage and finish him off." But then the fucker throws me into the previous room in which there is a temporary pause for the game to load the new area, so when I get back to where I was, the damn thing has full health again, and I have to fight it all over again....and then I realized that I wasn't even locked in that area in the first place and I could've just skipped the fight entirely (its probably my fault to expect that this game even had any consistency in its design to begin with). So in short, I basically fought that damn gorilla with an over-sized health-bar twice for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Man, fuck this game.