Devil May Cry Series

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Here's something that they definitely need to do if they make another proper DMC game: bring back the elemental weapons, and do Devil Trigger just like how the first game did it. I have a theory that the first game was kind of rushed, since there are only 2 main melee weapons (all of the swords have the exact same move set, hence I only count them collectively as one weapon), a sword of your choosing (mostly Alastor), and the gauntlets (Ifrit). Alastor has lightning and Ifrit has fire. What I love is how when you Devil Trigger in this game, Dante uses the aura of whichever of these weapons he's carrying (you can only DT with Alator and Ifrit in this game, for whatever reason). This also extends to your projectiles, which will be covered in lightning or fire aura depending on what weapon you are currently wielding while in the DT state. And, I love how certain enemies and bosses are more susceptible to certain elements, like for example how Frosts are weak to Ifrit's fire, whereas Marionettes and Fetishes take more damage from Alastor's electricity. Combine this with the fact that DT lasts longer and deals out more damage in this game than in any of the other games, and DMC1 is really the only game in the series to get the DT mechanic right, IMO. I just wish there were more elements/weapons and enemies/susceptibilities to explore this concept with further.

And yes, I know that DMC3 also had elemental weapons, but it did absolutely nothing with the concept, and DT feels disappointingly underpowered in that game (as well as DMC4) IMO.

[gunswordfist]

Yes, I loved the elemental DTs! I had no clue some enemies had weaknesses to them though. Anyway, I always missed that mechanic.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I went through missions 9-11 today. I never realized that the first fight with Griffon is optional, but it's true, it can be completely skipped. That said, I wouldn't feel right doing that, so I completed the fight, anyways, and this was the first significantly challenging thing that I did on Hard mode in this game. On Normal difficulty you could take a few direct hits from him if you were sloppy and just tank them while spamming the grenade gun on him. On this difficulty a few hits from him is all that it takes to kill you, so you really have very little room for error. It took quite a few tries for me until I completely got his pattern down, but once I got it the boss wasn't too bad. My only major gripe is that if you find yourself in the corner of the arena, you'll totally be screwed by the camera which usually lets Griffon get off-screen and unlike normal enemies he can still attack you from off-screen. As for the second fight with Nelo Angelo, though, it wasn't so bad on this difficulty thanks to the use of the Inferno strategy with Ifrit. That attack does massive damage to him AND stuns him up for you to get a nice combo in on him as well. After that just keep your distance and get some light hits on him until you build up your DT gauge again and repeat the process until he's dead. He goes down really fast this way on Normal and Hard difficulty (though I hear that he is much harder on DMD mode).

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, here's the only reason to own DMC3 for the PC: http://m.neogaf.com/showthread.php?t=825049

I kind of wish that Capcom added that option in for the HD Collection port.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

This video does a good job of explaining the finer intricacies of DMC3 and 4's gameplay: http://youtu.be/ZPqrXC5hpSQ

I especially love how he compares the Devil Bringer to QTEs, and why the DB is just a much better gameplay mechanic.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I've been getting back into DMC4, recently. It feels a bit convoluted at times coming off of a game like Bayonetta which has deep combat mechanics but is really simple to play. What I mean is that inputs in DMC are naturally more complex. Still, it's complex in a good way, but it's one of those games that I really have to get used to again.

Meanwhile, I popped DMC3 back in as well, but I only had a short hiatus from this game. I'm about half-way through Heaven or Hell mode as Dante. However, I decided to go back to my Vergil file and continue playing as him. I decided to skip Hard mode and go straight for Very Hard mode since, aside from maxing out his health bar and DT gauge, I've got all of his techniques maxed out. He's actually almost a really overpowered character once you discover that you can map the shoot button to the left trigger since he doesn't have any weapon fun switches to take up that slot. Then you can just hold the trigger and spam summoned swords, which will damage and stun most enemies that even get close to you, and rake you in a ton of stylish points in the process when you combine it with combos. When you use it on bosses in addition to combos, you end up whittling away their health really fast. You should have seen how much damage I could put on Cerberus at once when I did that in combination with jump-canceling with Yamato. Overall, aside from the lack of a double-jump, Vergil is a really fun character to play as.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, I was watching some of TS17's commentary (and the guy knows his shit), and he was saying how DMC4 would have been better if Capcom had just stuck with their vision of a full Nero campaign, having Dante be a playable character that you unlock akin to Vergil in DMC3, and just let people play as him in Nero's stages (which the game basically does, albeit in reverse, so it just feels like padding). Thinking about it, I tend to agree. As fun as Dante's combat is in the game, the enemies feel more like they were designed for Nero (especially the enemies that are harder to stun without grabs). Forcing players to switch between them mid-game is just too jarring since they control so differently.

While I prefer Dante to Nero as a character, I do feel that DMC4 would have been better off if it was focused on Nero the whole way through. Dante would still be fun as an unlockable character, and it would have been nice to have more levels as Nero, and less jarring to switch between them.

[Rynnec]

I can kinda agree to that. Especially if Dante still gets his own cutscenes and has a Nero boss fight, something that DMC3 dropped the ball on with Vergil.

Speaking of Vergil, I wouldn't have minded him being playable too, if only as a non-canon bonus character. Same goes for Trish.

[gunswordfist]

yes, vergil and trish need to be playable again.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I can kinda agree to that. Especially if Dante still gets his own cutscenes and has a Nero boss fight, something that DMC3 dropped the ball on with Vergil.

Speaking of Vergil, I wouldn't have minded him being playable too, if only as a non-canon bonus character. Same goes for Trish.

If they could expand Trish's move set instead of using her shallow one from DMC2, I'd be all for it. The DMC series could really do with a kick-ass female character.

I'd kill for Vergil to be playable in DMC4; hell, I'd even sink so low as to pay for him as a DLC character, but I suppose that I should be grateful that DMC4, as it is, was one of the last Capcom games to refrain from shady DLC practices, though mostly only because it was still a relatively new concept for console games, at the time.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

So, we got an announcement for DMC4 Special Edition a while back, which for what it's worth I would probably buy if I had a PS4 and it had enough new content in it (if it had a playable Vergil, it'd be worth buying at full price for that alone), but the announcement also got me disappointed in seeing how Capcom is just content with recycling DMC games at this point, rather than genuinely making a new game in the classic series.

However, the announcement made me want to reflect on the series' roots for some reason, so I went back to DMC1 and have been replaying it a bit at a time over the past few days. In truth, it's a great game that is really different in both intent and gameplay than what the series became after it. The original game was never really about racking up huge combos or being stylish, and people seem to forget that. For one thing, the move-set, while advanced for its time, is very limited and constrained compared to the later games in the series, as well as many other modern action games. However, the design is far more ingenious, with each and every single move and ability having a more significant purpose. Likewise, there aren't that many enemy types or bosses, but the ones that are there are incredibly interesting in design, and aside from the first NG game, they put pretty much any other game to shame with how much more shallow the enemies feel, including later DMC games, and even Bayonetta and NG2, IMO.

That said, while I can understand why many people would say that this was their favorite DMC game and prefer it to any of the sequels, I strongly disagree with the people who claim that the series only went downhill after this. Yes, DMC2 is the most forgettable action game ever to come out of a high-profile franchise, and I'll grant that the focus of DMC3 and 4 is entirely different from the intent of the original game, but that doesn't mean that they are nothing more than glorified combo demos, as some people seem to claim. The enemies aren't quite as interesting or deep as in the first game, and since there are much more moves and abilities, the balance isn't such that every single one of them is particularly useful in certain given situations, but that doesn't mean that the combat is worse for it. Rather, much like the first game it rewards experimentation, and despite not being quite as well-balanced, every attack still builds up your style meter, which in and of itself is a feature that was pretty haphazardly slapped on in the first game, but is done much better in the sequels. Also, it's all the more fun to find maneuvers and strategies that work in the sequels, if only because there are so many more possibilities. The enemies and bosses are also still better than what some DMC1 purists give them credit for, so while not nearly as well-designed on an individual basis, they are still fun to fight and not nearly that shallow.

Additionally, people kind of overrate some aspects of DMC1, namely how you can critical each enemy, which is cool in concept, but rarely worth the trouble considering how the overpowered Grenade Launcher can really trivialize a lot of situations, and in general there are a lot of ways to exploit enemy encounters and not have to utilize the clever strategies that you could choose to use in the game, which somewhat negates from the otherwise brilliant design. Still, the game is definitely one of the top games in the genre that it helped define, and while it would be easy for any bloke of a modern gamer to look back at it and say that it wasn't much due to a cheesy story with bad voice acting and what would initially seem like sub-par mechanics and gameplay to the untrained hands and eyes, a lot of people seem to forget that literally EVERY SINGLE GAME in this genre, whether great or mediocre, took inspiration from the mechanics and design that this game defined. For its time it was revolutionary among action games, and for those who've played more than just a few levels of it, they can appreciate how it still offers a more unique and intuitive design than even most modern action games. Just because it doesn't throw it in your face like current games do doesn't mean that the nuances and flashes of brilliance aren't there.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

http://youtu.be/DSQAHLPAsqk

Skip to the last 10 seconds of that video.

I would seriously buy a PS4 just for that one feature alone. No, I'm not joking.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

....And then I realize that this news is actually pretty old. Well, it's news to me at least.

I get why some people are pissed off at Capcom rehashing the same games (literally) and milking them out rather than making a new game, but honestly since I've pretty much given up on a new DMC game ever coming out, I'm just super excited at the prospect of Vergil being a playable character in DMC4, since it was super disappointing not to include him after how great he was in DMC3 Special Edition, though that's assuming that they give him much of the same move set that he had in that game.

[gunswordfist]

and hopefully some new moves.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Also, while we're at it, let's give Nero some new weapons. There's no reason why he shouldn't also have alternate Devil Arms and Guns to switch between.

Oh, and make Nero's sections playable with Dante and vice versa, and all lay ale by Vergil, in addition to giving Vergil his own solo campaign. That last one is a tall order, I know, but it doesn't have to be long. A good 2 to 3 hour expansion would suffice.

And one much more minor note, please add some additional background info on Nero into the story. At least flesh him out a little, rather than making him feel like a Dante clone.