i don’t really play hack and slash games. the last time i played a hack and slash was, in fact (according to wikipedia’s hack and slash game list) never. when it comes to devil may cry though i figured i had to play it at some point. not only do i know way too many people who like it but it is also on wikipedia’s “List of video games considered the best” list, so i’m basically obligated to play it. so i bought the game (along with 2 and 3 and 4) and played it and somehow finished it. anyways it’s review time
i’d say that the biggest selling point of this game is the gameplay, more specifically the combat. this game is genuinely just fun. like usually i don’t enjoy games with real time combat because i’m bad at them and because in the ones i’ve played the combat is usually pretty boring but in this game it’s just different. basically you’ve got guns and you’ve got swords and you have two buttons for each (technically three if you count that the gun can use two buttons but they do the same things either way). all of the button inputs for special abilities and stuff are just combinations of different weapons and devil trigger and stuff so it’s not very hard to learn or anything. even though the combat is simple the game is still reasonably difficult and the bosses all have like weak points and you can come up with strategies to beat them and it’s overall just very fun.
speaking of the difficulty, this game is kind of weird when it comes to that. since it’s a 20 year old game there are a couple of very very steep difficulty spikes, the first one being at like the third mission lmao. after every difficulty spike you start getting the hang of the game and then another one comes like an hour or two later and you just give up for the day and try again the next day and beat it instantly because you just had to calm down or smth. some boss fights are pretty easy to exploit though (tip for nelo angelo: just spam attack him and you can win all his fights relatively easily lmao) which i guess is good for people like me who are bad at video games. this is kind of a bad thinf though when it comes to the final boss who i found to be pretty easy after rhe first stage. i feel like a final boss should be hard so that you get satisfaction from beating it but he literally just moves platforms which is very avoidable. i also gotta point out that the game has a lot of difficulty levels that you unlock by beatinf the game which apparently makes stuff way harder but i didn’t play those. anyways overall the games difficulty is pretty inconistent but it’s not like it’s so hard that people who are bad at video games like me can’t beat the game. also if you want challenge you can just like try to beat the game a couple times.
(pro tip: get air hike for better movement stuff and also air raid for good damage on boss. especially air raid because cheap)
so far i’ve mostly just praised the game but there are definitely some bad parts to the gameplay. like the underwater controls. i’ll just briefly sum up the bad parts: 1. you are stuck in first person while underwater. 2. you have to press a button to swim forwards. 3. the joystick is inverted vertically for some reason???? but the d-pad isn’t????? it’s very dumb. 4. you have to fight enemies underwater with these controls. it’s not like they’ll make you kill yourself or anything though since you’re only underwater like thrice in the game.
another bad part is the camera. basically it’s just on fixed positions but the fixed positions are really bad positions and half of the time you can’t see the enemies you’re fighting, let alone the bosses. the only segments in the game where you can rotate the camera is during the underwater segments so the camera is basically always bad. by the end you’ll probably have gotten atleast somewhat used to it but it’ll still be a pain in the ass.
ok last negative before we go to the story segment is kind of a negative. basically dmc1 just really needs a tutorial. the controls can be found relatively easily and the other things like rolling and stuff can be a bit harder to find but still reasonably easy if you just look through the menus. i did just find out that you can supposedly parry in this game. i did not know that. they also never explain how the devil trigger works so you kind of have to figure that out yourself. anyways next category
i think thw strongest point of the game’s story is the characters and even they are pretty bland. you’ve got dante who just wants revenge on mundus for killing his mother and brother. trish is just random woman who makes dante go to the island (kind of heavy spoilers)
who turns out to be like a follower of mundus.
there are like barely any characters in the game beyond trish and dante though so that’s about all i can say.
the story itself is kind of weird though. dante works at shop then trish shows up and says ”go to island and kill guy who killed your mom” and he agrees to do it so he goes there and trish just jumps away and dante does not react at all. then barely anything happens until (basically the entire end-game)
he kills this mirror guy for the third time and apparently it’s his brother but he doesn’t really seem to care all that much and then he goes and kills a puddle of slime and goes to the underworld and kills another puddle of slime and then trish appears again and tries to kill him and she almost dies but dante saves her because she looks like his mom????? anyways then he finds mundus and trish tries to save him but doesn’t really help all that much and dante kills mundus and proclaims that he should have been the one to fill trish’s dark soul with liiight and gives her his most valued possesion that he got from his mom (he probablt just couldnt tell the difference between her and his mom) anyways then he runs away because the island is collapsing and mundus returns and then trish returns and trish gives him like lightning powwrs and he kills mundus and says “let’s rock” and they fly away in an airplane. and rhen the game ends.
it’s really dumb.
both thw writing and the voice acting in this game is just god-awful. (this is the prime example, it does have some very implied spoilers though.) there are some scenes where they clearly try to go wirh somethinf kind of emotional but i just end up laughing my ass off every time. this might be my least favorite and favorite part of the game simultaneously tbh
ok. the ui. now, there are a lot games with great and wonderful and stylish and well-made and beautiful and persona user interfaces. this game is not one of them. i mean it looks fine, i understand what’s happeninf on screen and stuff and it fits the vibe of the game i guess but it’s just kind of “meh”. the font is hard to read and the interface just looks bland overall. of course i am comparing it to a lot of other games here but i really hope the games after this have better user interfaces because this one really just isn’t that good.
most of the music is just pretty standard background music but the battle music is actually pretty good. i don’t love this kind of music but the music is still enjoyable while playing and stuff. i’d say that most songs on the ost are better than the ui. there’s not really that much more to say here.
graphics-wise, the game looks fine for it’s time. it’s not outstanding but it looks pretty good with the hd remaster. the real like cg cutscenes that appear like two times are actually like dogshit though. not only can you not see what the fuck is happening but the aspect ratio just like completely changes and it just looks very dated. ok that’s the graphics
credits are kind of funny because trish and dante are just in the bacjground punching and kicking the entire time.
