Riposte Notions: "DMC: Devil May Cry"

"I don't always use swords, but when I do, I spawn them on my back using demon magic."
So, I've started playing DMC: Devil May Cry for a little bit, so I thought I'd give some thoughts on this little hack-and-slash. Catch my thoughts under the break!

It's good! Which I found surprising.

I think I'd built it up in my head as being not that good or maybe too easy, based on what other people have said. But as someone who usually doesn't play hack-and-slash games (case in point, I found it most similar to The Force Unleashed) and especially, as someone who has never played a Devil May Cry game, I really liked it! The gameplay is really fun. Racking up combos and being creative with your kills while watching that counter on the top right give you better and better scores gives me a really great feeling. The button combos, I find, seem a bit simple, but I think that's a good thing, since the challenge from the game mostly comes from tying together different combos, so separating them into shorter and smaller combos was a really smart design decision.

Speaking of the plot and characters, well... I dunno. I've been enjoying the story so far and the characters are fun. However, the game lays on the satire really heavily especially when it comes to criticizing American consumerism and materialism. The characters are kinda two-dimensional from what I've played of the game so far. I mean, the game's pretty cheesy and corny in a "mature" way ("mature" meaning that there's blood, swearing, and sex; in all cases, it handles it in a ham-fisted, immature, yet comical way). Yet, the characters always seem to be taking things way too seriously.

For this reason, I really like the main character, Dante. He's fun and he insults demons like it's nobody's business, plus he's really funny! He seems like the only person who realizes how ridiculous everything is and just rolls with it, having fun with all the weird crap that gets thrown his way. As a main character, he works. Everyone else, it's kinda iffy. I do like the angels-versus-demons plot.

In any case, I've been having a fun time with DMC. Watch out for a review sometime in the near future!