MadCap's Game Reviews - "Devil May Cry 3"

Guess what?! Devil May Cry 3:  Dante’s Awakening time! I recounted in my previous review that the Devil May Cry games are nonlinear, much like Peter Jackson’s stabs at film adaptations of Tolkien’s works and the Star Wars movies. Devil May Cry 3:  Dante’s Awakening is the earliest entry into the series by chronology, taking place before Dante’s battles against Mundus or Argosax (Paarthurnax? Ajax? Thumbtacks?) and going more into the story that was only hinted at in the first game - that of Dante and his older brother, Vergil.

Approached by a mysterious man by the name of Arkham, Dante is given an invitation sent by his brother, Vergil, who he apparently hasn’t seen in some time.  This invitation involves being attacked by several demons.  Dante, eating pizza at the time, attempts several times to get a slice while being assaulted, resulting in him deciding to kill some ass.  After kicking ass, he senses his brother atop a mystical tower that has risen itself in the middle of the city near Dante’s then-new shop and decides to march up there and kick Vergil’s smug ass.

Of course, it’s not as simple as all of that, it really turns out to be a nasty trap set by Vergil and Arkham to get a hold of Dante’s amulet (something players of the first game might remember) to open a gate to the underworld. And Vergil is not so much the bad guy as one might think...not the main one, at least. There actually aren’t a surprising amount of twists to be found within the story, being that we know what becomes of poor Vergil by the time of the first Devil May Cry, so this game pretty much serves as a fill-in to the gaps of what we know of how Dante became the solo demon hunter of the story.

I will say the feeling of the original Devil May Cry is back in this one.  The atmosphere of the Mallet Island’s claustrophobic corridors, dark tunnels, and demonically corrupted...well, corridors, is back in full force in and out of the Temen-ni-gru.  The whole game does feel more like the original and, after Devil May Cry 2, I find it really impossible to complain about this in the least.  Issues with the lack of poor lighting aside (seriously, Capcom? This is an HD remake, could you make some in-game brightness settings?), everything looks great and there are few to no areas where this interferes with the combat.

And the combat is made even more delicious with the variety of new weapons that Dante gets a hold of in this game, including a flail made from the soul of Cerberus (that’s right, the dog that guards the gates of Hell!), a pair of scimitars made from two gate guardians (proving that Drizzt Do’Urden is so cool that even Dante wants to rip him off), and an electric guitar that shoots lightning!  All of that, however, is just the melee weapons.  The guns, while being nice, don’t ever really get as much variety.  Beyond Dante’s signature handguns - “Ebony” and “Ivory”, for those of you not paying attention - the firearms are nice, but you’ll never have any real need of them.  Just upgrade the handguns and you’ll do just fine.  In fact, you won’t even need to carry a second firearm.

Dude, you're awesome, but PUT ON A SHIRT!

In a strange change from the previous two games, Dante can only carry two melee and two ranged weapons at a time and is only able to change them through the God of Time statues that can be found throughout the levels.  And while a button press to change weapons is a far more seamless and quick transfer than having to pause the game, go into the menu, and select the weapon you desire is nice, it just seems strange that - given the lack of basis in reality that seems to permeate Dante’s world - he would be restricted to just two weapons of each kind instead of being granted gracious amounts of hammerspace to store and pull his weapons from for use.

This game also introduces Styles of combat. Starting out you have Gunslinger and Swordmaster - which are pretty self explanatory - as well as Trickster (which emphasizes quick dodges of enemy attacks) and Royal Guard (which emphasizes reducing enemy damage and countering enemy attacks). You pick up two others over the course of the game by defeating boss monsters, Quicksilver and Doppleganger. I went with Quicksilver as soon as I got it because, while it is at the cost of your Devil Trigger energy, it slow time around you so that you move faster and enemies move slower. Go ahead and draw your own conclusions about that one.

On the same note as the combat, it is definitely much improved over its immediate predecessor, if only because the enemies actually do something.  That being said, they do many somethings and most of them involve turning Dante into a snarky red stain on the cement.  The difficulty is amped here even on the “normal” setting, but after having played all three of the original Devil May Cry trilogy back to back over the course of these reviews, I didn’t really have a problem with it until the final boss fight with Arkham.  Once you get down enemy attack patterns, particularly those of the bosses, they’re ridiculously easy to put away.  Not to say you shouldn’t pack a few Vital Stars away, just in case, but the point still stands.

The items in this game are once more a grind to get a hold of, I already mentioned the price of the item going up every time you purchase one.  I mentioned it in Devil May Cry 2, and while it was stupid here...no, it’s stupid here, too.  Insane, in fact.  I got through all but the last six or seven missions with absolutely no upgrades to anything, so I just have to ask what the point is.  Why are they there? Besides turning your attack buttons into a “kill things faster” button?  The visceral action is one thing, and I can totally understand that given the feel that these games are going for, but the pricing on them is ridiculous.  Why so much for so little payoff?  I’m not watching a Uwe Boll movie, Capcom (and let me stop before he gets the idea to make this into another terrible video game movie).

Double Jackpot!

The story is also a good one, even for a prequel.  Indeed, especially for a prequel.  Capcom could have very easily gotten lazy here and done a great deal of fanservice in place of anything of substance, but they surprisingly didn’t.  We get more on the backstory of brother against brother, Vergil and Dante.  Whereas Dante is cocky, arrogant, and loud mouthed, Vergil is very cold, calculating, and a disciplined warrior.  We see that they’ve clashed and do clash quite a few times throughout the game (Vergil even at one point impaling Dante through the chest...twice), in the end they are able to come together against the real Big Bad and finish him off.  

Alas, however, Vergil remains within the Demon World after all is said and done, refusing to leave the home of their father...and meeting a terrible fate because of it.  But he gives Dante Force Edge before falling to his supposed death.  Given their earlier interactions, the fact that Dante is so broken up about this (even crying, to female side character Mary’s notice), shows there are much deeper tones to the brother’s relationship.  They clearly care about each other, even so vastly different and conflicting as they are.  Dante’s flashbacks in Devil May Cry make all the more sense, and have all the more potency now, because the players know and better understand that relationship now.  Indeed, I will say that Devil May Cry 3 does that, if nothing else, very well.

Beyond the themes of brotherhood and family, though (which are thick within this game), the game itself is well placed as a prequel - allowing it to both show us a younger, less experienced and worn Dante as seen in the first two games, but to also serve as a sort of self-parody of those games.  To give a good example of this, in the first game Dante receives the Alastor sword by being rammed through the chest with it and being dragged all the way up and down the length of the blade (don’t read too much into that), and it’s played completely seriously.  Flashback to Devil May Cry 3 and we have a scene where Dante is shot repeatedly in the face by Mary only for it to have no effect, and clearly being played for the comedy of it.  

You know what they say...home is where you hang your enemy's head...

And there are other bits as well, showcasing where the franchise isn’t afraid to take the piss out of itself, such as the very first fight, where a cutscene has Dante clearly showing more interest in the pizza he’s trying to eat than in the demons that are attacking him, or a later scene where Dante rides up the side of Temen-ni-gru and proceeds to not only spit right in the face of physics (nothing new for him, I assure you), but to take down several demons with his motorcycle!  Surprisingly, while this is very funny and indeed a deconstruction of Dante's behavior and antics in the other two games, it doesn’t keep him from being just plain awesome. I frankly don’t know how he does it.

With the trilogy complete, and Dante’s story...mostly told, I’m going to move on for a time.  Don’t worry, Devil May Cry 4 will be coming at some point, and it wouldn’t be right of me to ignore the much maligned reboot of the series, but those will come at another time.  For now...set your sights on brighter horizons and more friendly faces, Madmen! Next time we meet, it will be a very different game brought before you from dear old me…

Devil May Cry 3 is now available from Capcom.  The Devil May Cry HD Collection is available on Playstation and Xbox 360.

This review is based on the Xbox 360 version.

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