Joystiq Hands-on: Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
by Jared Rea 
{ May 1st 2007 at 4:50PM }
Our nearly hour long play session with Devil May Cry 4 left us with more questions than answers, but not the typical ones. Even with the press materials in our hands, we weren't left wondering when it was coming out or what the connection between playable characters Nero and Dante was. Our questions were more troubling. Was all that outrage worth it? Do people really just love to complain? Was Dennis Dyack right all along?
Its predecessor, Devil May Cry 3, launched a year after Tecmo's Ninja Gaiden and right alongside Sony's God of War: two games that redefined how action games should play, much like how the original Devil May Cry did back in 2001. It's a series that had once set the bar and had since been demolished by time.
We're not going to attempt to intuit the future. The bar, as of today, remains unscathed.
Gallery: Devil May Cry 4 (PS3)
It isn't about looks. It isn't about the ridiculously trite circumstances involving the story and characters (Nero and Dante are the new Sora and Roxas). This is about style. It's about evolution. It's about progress in design when the rest of the field has left you in the dust. The aforementioned action titles reminded us why we enjoyed action games to begin with. That yes, it was okay to do nothing but mindlessly slay creatures as long as the encounters were epic, tough as nails and our moves were flashy as hell.
What Devil May Cry 4 lacks is proper flow and in the face of something like Ninja Gaiden it appears archaic at best. Nero isn't the most responsive guy in the world, turning would-be combo orgies into exercises of stop-and-go frustration. Techniques to artificially keep your combos going (the "snatch" hand and pistols) keep the pace at somewhere between molasses and your Sunday drive to Wal-Mart. Even after an "expert demonstration" and countless attempts to make it exciting ourselves, we were left with an empty impression.
And then we remember what Yousuke Hayashi, director of Ninja Gaiden Sigma said regarding the Devil May Cry series. That in an action game, it's about a battle to the death and the sense of accomplishment when defeating tough foes. That empty feeling we had was a severe lack of accomplishment. Even after slaughtering countless enemies and bosses that we were told "would most certainly kill us" (said producer Hiroyuki Kobayashi), we realized that nothing really put up a fight. They were simply put there for us to slap combos on.
Adrenaline should have been pumping through our veins so hard we'd be sore by morning, but we were blank. That was Devil May Cry 4 and it was completely uninteresting. Watching Nero hop around and slug out another canned attack is like watching Hulk Hogan go for "one more match." We aren't sold when we see him take a punch today, much like we're not sold on DMC4.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Interscription @ May 1st 2007 4:59PM
That's some seriously unfettered honesty there... nice job. Good luck with the fanboys.
Ihya @ May 1st 2007 5:08PM
I watched the video and felt very little nostalgia for the gameplay even after finishing and loving the first. Out evolved by GoW I'm afraid.
boojiboy7 @ May 1st 2007 5:08PM
Please tell me you are kidding about DMC3 being beaten by God of War and NG. Please.
kingofwale @ May 1st 2007 5:09PM
there should be TWICE amount of enemies on screen and they should be TWICE as intelligent.
Maybe Capcom's dumbing the AI to satisfy M$ fans? ;)
geves @ May 1st 2007 5:14PM
God your a fanboy and I hope your PS3 comes to life and breaks your femur in two.
No GoW didn't beat DMC. GoW is perhaps the most overrated game I've ever played in my life. More square, square, triangle?
I prefer Ninja Gaiden over DMC though, but probably because the original was my favorite game on the NES.
rfom @ May 1st 2007 5:45PM
I just wonder is Capcom is slipping up....I thought that after all the hype, Lost Planet was a pretty average shooter and Dead Rising was a good idea executed poorly...and now this. I know Monster Hunter seld well..but as RE4 was probably one of THE games of last gen I was looking forward to RE5 and now I am feeling a bit scared .
Vidikron @ May 1st 2007 5:16PM
I've never liked the series anyway. It needs to go away.
karmaghost @ May 1st 2007 5:23PM
OMG! Look at that crate-smashing action! I'm going to run out and buy a PS3 for that alone! CRATES!!
Daniel @ May 1st 2007 5:18PM
god your all a bunch of fan boys
God Of War did Out sale DMC3
ninja gaiden Did get a higer score from most of the Gameing web sites(and was better IMO)
DMC 4 looks great
but will the game play be able to keep up?!
Seroth @ May 1st 2007 5:30PM
I can say that this blog post has disheartened me. I'm still looking forward to DMC4, 'cause I loved DMC3, and think it owns both God of War and Ninja Gaiden. But if DMC4 doesn't have that adrenaline-pumping action...then this isn't Devil May Cry! Perhaps this "even-numbered curse" will turn out to be true.
Meh, I'll have to play it myself before making any real judgment, though.
Striderhayasa @ May 1st 2007 5:32PM
Uh no, The original Devil May Cry is still better than God of War and Ninja Gaiden. Especially the ending. But the rest of the series is lackluster.
This DMC is yawn inducing so far. I haven't seen anything yet that says "you need next gen to play THIS DMC" For that matter, with games like God of War 2, Final Fantasy 12, even Super Paper Mario to an extent, I'm have to constantly ask myself is HiDef all there is to next gen gaming?
I saw nothing in that video that couldn't be done on PS2, Gamecube or Xbox except for maybe the resolution. Gameplay-wise (so-far at least)...it looks like the same last gen jargon.
Crono @ May 1st 2007 5:33PM
So you're saying it sucks, right?
Mr Khan @ May 1st 2007 5:33PM
So the consesus seems to be: "Great game, but nothing bar-setting or redefining?"
Still sounds like a buy...
wackychan @ May 1st 2007 5:33PM
@karmaghost
rofl
Kelvin @ May 1st 2007 5:49PM
Wow, brutal but honest. In fact its reasons like this I never liked the series in the begining, I much prefer ninja gaiden and God of war. Lets hope they can bring some real sense of "accomplishment" to the game in time.
oGMo @ May 1st 2007 5:49PM
I thought the pacing and flow were utterly screwed up since DMC1, when instead of a fluid game, you had your action broken up and fed to you piece-by-piece in "Missions". This totally killed the game for me. To hear that DMC4 lacks "proper flow" hardly suprises me.
Dante is cool, but I'll play him in Viewtiful Joe or Shin Megami Tensei 3. :)
Unit @ May 1st 2007 6:02PM
just as i figured and from what my friend saw and said about it at the capcom event, it's the same ol' button mashing game. The eneimes are cannon fodder and like he stated above, are only there to do fancy combos on. And whats up with the ai in these next-gen games? They tout them so much as saying how there so advanced yet were still playing games with the same dumb enemies and these are games from top developers!
MrSparkle @ May 1st 2007 6:07PM
This article kinda touched on that nagging doubt in the back of my head while I played DMC3: Special Edition weeks ago. In Ninja Gaiden, almost every enemy had the potential to kill you, but in DMC3, you just whack mindless drones with a sword and, though you look cool doing it, there isn't really any challenge to it. Even most of the boss fights didn't give me trouble except for the times I fought Vergil (until I figured out his pattern anyway). It seems that the only thing the difficulty level changed was the amount of hits it took to kill said enemies. Now if DMC4 had intelligent enemies that could use some of your own moves against you, I would go buy it immediately.
konajinx @ May 1st 2007 6:09PM
Hate to say it, but Bullet Witch was more original than this crapfest. Button mashing boredom at its finest. No wonder I lost interest after the very first one.
dave @ May 1st 2007 6:17PM
Looking at the start of that video. You sure its not harry potter you have there?
Aaron Walker @ May 1st 2007 6:35PM
I have the PS2 of DMC3 and never finished it. It does get repetitive and was only interesting for the about half a day as I realized it was going to be more of the same even after really wanting to give the game a chance at something different.
However, Dante is still the coolest character in video games and that "juggle" the enemies was just plain fun. Nobody delivers death to zombies, witches and the rest like Dante.
I'm waiting for the PSP version but, after watching the video, I may pop DMC3 just for the nostaglia.
I have no interest in DMC4 at this point.
The only reason I would buy this for the PSP is so I can have portable nostaglia hacking and slashing while wishing the game delivered more than cool moves.
Feanor @ May 1st 2007 6:35PM
Can't take this preview too seriously when God of War is held up as being miles ahead of DMC 3 - that's just laughable. Even Jaffe admitted the combat system in God of War wasn't a patch on what you could do in DMC 3.
Leshrac @ May 1st 2007 6:49PM
Now I'm really interested in trying it myself, as from what I can see, you guys are the only ones that kind of hated the demo. Nothing wrong with that at all, just interested to see why people were so divided on it. Destructoid, from the sound of it, nearly orgasmed when playing it, and other impressions from Kotaku to IGN to Gamespot seem anywhere from "I'm sold" to "it's solid", but nothing like "somewhere between molasses and your Sunday drive to Wal-Mart." Very interesting.
-Leshrac
http://alinktothefuture.com
Kennie @ May 1st 2007 6:55PM
Seriously, is that how little console graphics have changed since the '90s? Sure, the lighting is sweet, but the rest reminds me of when I used to play Resident Evil back on the PSOne like seven or so years ago, and how that game looked.
Don't get me wrong, plenty of games out there look stunning, almost photo realistic, but this seriously looks as if it has been brought back from the '90s to scare us. Anyone getting what I'm trying to say here? :S
Hiroken @ May 1st 2007 7:45PM
I'm surprised everyone is so quick to jump on the gavel here, as it were, without asking the question that comes first to my mind: Is this the final build? One can infer from the article that it is, seeing as how it says "Devil May Cry 4" and not the "demo" or anything like that--but the fact remains that this game isn't due out for a while and as such it may not be done yet.
I know that in many demos, the main character is overpowered, the AI is dumbed down, or there are simply less enemies. This is done so the reviewer or whoever can see more of the game with less frustration. Could that be the case here? If this game is done, why isn't it on shelves?
While I agree the video wasn't enthralling,(and clearly underwent significant editing), and I think that yes, Joystiq could be right in this case: As of today, the game probably does not bring the bar up.
However, I don't think we should be so apt to write it off this quickly. Joystiq isn't--their words are AS OF TODAY. You can bet someone there will give the retail version a go.
I'm willing to give DMC4 a good run because of the incredible games DMC1 and 3 were.
~Hiro
realstar @ May 1st 2007 8:05PM
I am personally really looking forward to NinjaGaiden Sigma but I think DMC4 will be a good title too. Tecmo just makes games that have an incredible feel to them and not many can match that. I have been playing Rygar for PS2 and it's an incredibly satisfying game too.
Unit @ May 1st 2007 8:16PM
@#25,it's not that im writing it off so quickly. It just saddens me a little that this is the forth iteration of the game on a powerful next-gen platform and it plays,moves and looks just like the first game(of course with better gfx's). They say you play as a new character yet he's an exact twin of dante, right down to his addittude. And like some one stated above, what are they doing in this game that can't be done on the previous gen of systems(again besides higher gfx's)? Capcom is getting real lazy.....
Chesspain @ May 1st 2007 9:00PM
God of War- Fun, fun, fun, yet simplistic gameplay. Unique platforming and puzzles. Great story. Bad-ass boss fights.
Ninja Gaiden- More technical, harder to master. Decent story, boss fights not as fun, but hard as hell. Lots of great weapons.
Devil May Cry- Each hit seems more satisfying, more fun with guns. Different styles of play for the character. Guns, swords, trickster.
asdfffdsa @ May 1st 2007 9:17PM
If you thought DMC3 was easy or unchallenging, then you obviously weren't playing it on a hard enough difficulty. My room mate plays this game for obscene amounts of time, and he still gets his ass kicked. It took him several weeks to beat the last boss.
Now if you were to play the game on a lower difficulty--one that didn't challenge you, then (obviously) you would find it boring.
The same goes for DMC4. That's why they have something called a "difficulty mode". I guess joystiq has never heard of these...? *rollseyes*
Ryoga Vee @ May 1st 2007 9:26PM
Wow, After all the hype that they said the PS3 could do. They cant even write a decent amount of code to stop the sword from clipping into the cape. Once again, I'm not impressed.
Is this really the best PS3 can do?
gregory mitchell @ May 1st 2007 9:28PM
Let me start by saying That From the ground up NINJA GAIDEN is how a game should be done. Enticing story great weapons. VERY fluid movement. Just plain smooth overall. Now capcom for some reason cant ever get that aspect to work for them. RE. Worst character movement ever. DMC always had an artifical jerky feel to them. Dont get me wrong i love the moves but even the flip jumps seem clumsy. DMC always sent mindless drones after you that left you wondering. Why the Hell are marionettes trying to kill me. Unlike In Ninja Gaiden where if you dont watch yo back A nameless ninja can take your head off in one swipe. If it was too hard they even did you the favor of making the black edition. That staff made the difference. NG Rules
JJ @ May 1st 2007 9:38PM
Ryoga DMC4 is no longer JUST a PS3 title man, its a multiplat title!
So its not "is this all the PS3 can do" its more "Is this all capcom can do?"
Kinda like the lame duck that was Lost planet...this game is gonna need a bit more
Ken @ May 1st 2007 10:16PM
Ahh... now all the Sony fanboys come out saying: "I never liked the series in the first place." But before going to the Xbox, all you guys said was "DMC is going to be better than anything the 360 can offer! I can't wait to play this game!" Now it's "Meh. It looks alright... I'll probably pick it up... in between my blu-ray purchases."
C'mon, man up Sony fanboys, just admit you're peeved that it's going multiplatform. It's not the game you don't like, you just don't like the fact that it's on another system as well.
It's okay, we wont point and laugh too long.
perfectchaos @ May 1st 2007 10:23PM
uh no mr. kahn, the consensus seems to be: BOOOOORRRRIIINGGGGGGG
which isn't surprising really...a lot of next-gen sequels so far have just been the same old games with shinier graphics. not like that'll stop it from selling oodles of copies anyway.
Bender @ May 1st 2007 11:59PM
I've played this DMC4 preview on a PS3 demo kiosk at the Bic Camera store in my town (in Japan). This kiosk has Virtual Tennis, DMC4 and Motorstorm, depending on when I happen to turn up (it may have a lot more games, or perhaps I can choose which game to play, but since I don't read Japanese i can't figure it out).
These games are boring and DMC4 is no exception. It looks pretty good in hi-def (running at 720p), but it's the same jump and slash gameplay as it's always been - and I skipped DMC 2 and 3! It should be noted that I played it about 6 weeks ago, so things may have changed.
I was hoping, like many people are, that some new elements would freshen up the series, but as already mentioned, God of War and Ninja Gaiden have overtaken this worn-out formula.
samfish @ May 2nd 2007 1:02AM
Is that the guy who does Ichigo's voice on Bleach?
fester @ May 2nd 2007 5:57AM
"'ve never liked the series anyway. It needs to go away"
Agreed, it always seemed to me like a "poster boy" for angsty teens (male and female) who cared little about thoughtful content but cared a lot about "cool" moments and repetitive action. It does have "style" sure and that's what attracts those types, style over content as they say.
However, cos it's Capcom (my favourite developer) I will cut them some slack and say it's the BEST in it's genre, it's just it's genre is so incredibly dull for anyone who has been playing games since the 80's.
Resident Evil 5 is what we want Cappy, stop arseing about with this stylistic brag fodder.
And it's nothing to do with me being Anti PORT, I'm an Xbox360 owner and welcome the game as it will please many players, it's just not for me and is way overhyped (just like Metal Gear Solid 4).
Phillip @ May 3rd 2007 9:43AM
GoW is awsome
NG is awsome
DMC is awsome
The only big flaw with DMC is they are trying to please both NOOB gamers and pro gamers alike. This only brought the entertainment level to a new low...
We need TOUGHER not friendlier. Don't skip the bosses, don't skip the mobs, FORCE A FIGHT! Make the fights worth while. Better AI, more enemy skills. Let some units fight with air combos. We don't need more dumb bosses u can just escape and shoot. Give em devil bringer if u have to. NEED HARDER GAME!
LongshotX @ May 2nd 2007 10:10AM
Too Human will destroy them all and forever redefine Action games.
cory @ May 2nd 2007 12:37PM
look i have both dmc3 and gow2
both great games
but IMO with all of the games out there
its hard to make a good action game with
newer stuff that we nether haven't played or seen
with that being said dmc3 and gow2 were just
like the originals with add-ons when it comes to the game play aspect
don't fix it if its not broken
cuteunit @ May 2nd 2007 3:38PM
I told you! Way back when joystiq first showed previews, I told everybody that this game looked more like the craptasm that was DMC2, missing the adrenaline and challenge of 1 and 3. Capcom DOES NOT KNOW THEIR OWN MATERIALS and they need to STOP giving ther projects to differrent teams! Just like when they released DMC3:Special edition and in doing so they reduced the difficulty of the game. PUNISHINGLY HARD IS WHAT MAKES ACTION GAMES SATISFYING!
Goddamnit if I don't want to throw my controller to the floor and bellow a primal howl of triumph from the diaphragm after I beat the boss then the game has failed me. DMC1 did that. DMC3 did that ( particularly on very hard mode). God of war 1 didnt do that, but it was fun in other ways.. dmc 2 just failed on all accounts.
Sigh, capcom you fail..
Becky @ May 2nd 2007 4:00PM
On the positive side the game does look nice and the combos do look satisfying... they should just be done on enemies that might actually make you satisfied to have defeated them. Like DMC2 I think they're focusing on how this looks, not how it plays.
Becky @ May 2nd 2007 4:02PM
One thing you can't say though is that god of war's combat was better than DMC's. It was at least better than dmc2's one-button mashcrap, but 1 and particularly Dmc3 blow GOW's combat out of the water. God of war was just square square triangle, square square triangle, Magic, square square triangle.
Joey @ May 7th 2007 7:16PM
Good, I hope the game sucks and no one buys it. Capcom wants to go multi-platform to make more money and ends up with none: that be cool. Capcom sucks anyway.
I think Ninja Gaiden will destroy it even if its a update to older game on Xbox.
waffleaviary @ May 10th 2007 6:18PM
I suppose we talk about it because it's fun, BUT...I have a hard time bashing any game that isn't even completed yet!
His Dire Enmity @ May 4th 2007 4:51PM
I thought I was going to be a fanboy of the series until DMC2 came around. The third installment brought me back to the game. Regardless of the continued bashing of this incomplete game, I'm still going to pick it up.
God of War was very entertaining, but I'm not going to compare it to Devil May Cry. The reason being 'cause GoW and DMC clearly have different styles. I wouldn't call GoW more evolved though. Both games have their own lack of difficulty, such as the one button presses of GoW and the attack spamming of DMC. I can't comment on Ninja Gaiden because I haven't played it, but I will eventually.
I don't see the 4th installment being anything like DMC2 though. Talk about a crappy game... No story (basically), no difficulty, and severely lacking combat. For difficulty purposes in DMC4, just do what others have already suggested; Play a harder mode.
Now about being peeved about the multi-platform. I'm a Sony fanboy and I could care less. Multi-platforming is done a lot, from Xbox to Playstation and vice versa. It's to be expected. If it'll expose the series to more people, good. I think it's a great series (except 2) that everyone should at least play one. With that being said, I can't wait for DMC4... regardless of the negativity it's getting -- And yes, I've seen gameplay videos. Looks great to me.
ftrunks @ May 8th 2007 3:15AM
Hmm…I’ve kinda lost faith in most of you so called gamers, you guys either don’t know how to play DMC games or are just xbox fan boys or PS3 fan boys pissed at DMC4 being multiplatform.
DMC has always been the superior action game to grace us in the last years. Yes even better than GOW (Please) and NG (Considering they took a lot of ideas from DMC).
I would consider myself as a decent DMC gamer, I’ve played all 3 (1 & 3 on DMD mode) as would consider DMC to be the best action games to date. You simply can’t touch the Gameplay, it’s the best the series, but saying that DMC has always had the overall strong points a good game should have…….the only gripe I’ve found about it is some find it too hard.
Having played DMC4 at TGS last year I can honestly say even on the 5 min demo, I don’t know what these guys were smoking when they previewed the game. The game plays very similar to the DMC’s but Nero’s moves and combos are far from the same.
He is a very different character to play as compared to Dante. Nero’s devil bringer arm and also the fact he has one gun makes it pretty obvious he would be. The difficulty was not as hard as DMC3 (Normal - US Version), but still challenging enough.
All his bad press and comments is really stupid and having been a faithful DMC fan I had to say my 2 cents. But please let’s wait for the final game to make any end judgements.
jeremy @ May 20th 2007 11:06PM
i've seen a lot of good points made, and yeah dmc is a game that is mainly made for fanboys like me. i meen i love ninja gaiden just as much as i love dmc. god of war needs some work though. between dmc and ng, both games have something that i love, with ng there are the super moves and nimpo and the difficult enemies with varying moves. with dmc there is the fast paced gameplay, fun to f**k with enemies and the devil trigger, which could be a bigger factor in the game besides adding more power to attacks, and the gripping stoy-line. now i'm not a fan of god of war but i will continue to play the game just to finish the story, because the gameplay feels dry and the story is only good the first time through. sorry fanboys..... i still can't wait to play dmc4, fanboy 4 life!(for dmc and ng)
Eman @ Jun 14th 2007 5:59PM
Your blind following of this guys article is ridiculous. This game looks amazingly fun....maybe this guy shouldnt have previewed it. If your a fan of DMC you're going to love this game