Post by angelzeromatt on Oct 23, 2008 22:57:45 GMT -5
Welcome to the Real World - Episode VII
Name: Devil May Cry 4
Console: Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (apparently)
While I would usually consider seven a lucky number, a popular belief, I would like everyone to know that Devil May Cry 4 being my 7th review is NOT meaning it is the lucky guy that gets the benefit of the doubt. Also, I know I promised to review the first Jak and Daxter game next, but seriously. If I'm in college, odds are I don't want to use my brain on adventure games like that for very long for the fear of feeling like a retard for not figuring out a simple answer to a seemingly complicated problem.
I digress, we'll move onto the actual review of the game.
Story: 7/10
So, basically, you start the game watching the main character Nero, played by Johnny Bosch-- one of my all-time favorite voice actors who was once the black power ranger who wasn't black and ad-libbed his part like a true thespian, unlike the other chimps-- dance around bad guy bags of what the heck with a blade for an arm while his love interest is singing some kind of church song. I always skip that scene because it reminds me how religion is usually built off of the death of others like in the Crusades and the Inquisition. Anyways, then he gets to the church just before she ends and decides to leave in the middle of the mass because, like me, he gets sleep when guys talk religion about a book written by men. Then Dante, the cocky narcissistic protagonist from the earlier games, comes in through the glass window above and shoots the holy guy's face off. YES!, I think to myself, that is exactly something I want to do to a priest when he's boring as hell with a sermon! Anyways, hell breaks loose and Johnny-- I mean, Nero, has to fight Dante, with Dante being shown as a sort of bad guy character (finally). Then the story progresses with Nero being sent to hunt down Dante and finding out some very unpleasant things about the people he works with. They're becoming 'angels' of some sort by becoming demons and are apparently trying to unleash hell so the main bad guy (voiced by Liam O'Brien, who was a horrible Archer in Fate/Stay Night by the way) can save everyone and become some kind of god worshipped by them. At which point, Nero's trapped in something that looks like a sphincter inside the guy and then you play as Dante going all the way back to where you came and fighting the same bosses for weapons that are actually not that useful at all. In the end, you finish with Nero kicking the ever-living daylights out of Liam O'Brien. Take that you wannabe bulyard! I wanted to be Archer!
As far as a Devil May Cry game goes, the story has a lot more to it than one would think. While being as short as usual, enough to fit into a Hollywood movie, it fills in a lot of interesting heart-tugging for Nero. May I note that Devil May Cry 4 is the first game to actually have a real established love connection going on that results in certain actions, unlike the first game where Dante saves a woman who betrays him countlessly just because he can't get over his Oedipus complex and seems to immediately forgive the girl for some unexplained reason. The DMC girl this time around shows absolutely no skin but her face and doesn't do any fighting, just singing and providing a cowardly way of stopping Nero from giving the finishing blow. This, to me, seems used many a time, but put into perspective of Devil May Cry 4, it makes it a little better than its predecessors because it gets more into the fact that people who are full demons don't have a heart and are stuck with what power they have usually. Half-demons with human blood have hearts that can, no doubt, make them go badass against the final boss and permit them to smear the guy into a pound of flesh.
Gameplay: 8/10
Imagine back to Devil May Cry 3. Now include Nero's Devil Bringer, a different kind of sword that can be revved up three slots for firey sword swings of slightly extra damage, and include Dante for a bit of play later on, and you have Devil May Cry 4. Not to say that's a bad thing. The battle mechanics that made sense are in tune quite well with the new movesets of a new character, and making it to where Dante can switch styles simply by pressing a direction on the D-pad is fine. BUT, that gets tossed out the window when timing for certain moves comes into play. The usual Stylish gauge comes into play when you have to use differing attacks and combos to make the gauge go up higher and higher. The downside to that is, with Nero's only sword, gun, and arm of let's beat everyone to ----, a lot of the moves you can use rely solely on timing of hitting certain buttons. Now, when you put that into a heavy combat situation with ten things with blade legs jumping in the air at you while the game will inevitably lag you a mere second, that doesn't flow well. Getting hit by the attack's aura makes you lose your style gauge almost completely unless you're good enough to have reached A, then you just get hit down to D. It's not a system to TV problem. It's the game's problem, that it can't register you're saying to dodge a bloody attack until a minute after the attack hits you, at which time you end up dodging into another attack and turning it into a clusterbum.
Speaking of breaking flow, whose idea was it to suddenly switch from Nero to Dante and not have the decency to put the weak enemies in front of you first. No, you get Dante and new controls and styles, things you may be unfamiliar with if you're a newcomer to the series, and you're given a new, hard enemy to fight, and then thrown at some other medium-difficulty enemies, too. What's up with that? I was all for Dante being a bad guy, but fighting him is also a pain in the ass, even on the Human difficulty, which is the easiest level of play.
I can safely say the only levels I like are the Nero levels and being able to slam every enemy into walls and floors or shoot them into the air and then unleashing a blazing sword of fury onto their confused heads while they try to find out what day it is.
Music/Sound: 4/10
I can't say anything on here I haven't said in the other reviews of DMC games. The music is a bit less horror, considering the setting isn't the same one place like the other games. Still, the music is very substandard, but at least it settles into ambiance category. Just that it could be more impressive like the Half-Life 2 music, except without the music being ended abruptly anytime you get to a checkpoint before the song's over (which annoys me to no end when I'm enjoying the music). Still, DMC 4 gets an extra point for Nero's battle theme having a singer who actually takes the time to make sure people understand what he's saying while he sings. There's too much unintelligible scream-punk in DMC 4, so at least Nero's battles can be sung along to while you murder things mercilessly. Though, still, the style gap of the music is painstakingly annoying.
As far as acting goes, the only bright spot of the game is the inclusion of the famous Johnny Bosch in both motion capture and voice for the role of Nero. Keeping the Dante guy from the third game was a good idea, too, but the rest of the cast seems just a bit short on the good side. They may act well, but the voices sometimes seem to not fit the roles, nor do the character portrayals fit their styles.
Presentation: 3/10
While giving us more than one locale for the game to go through, in the end, you revisit the levels all over again as Dante to go right back where you came. Not only that, but the staircase of dice game you have to go through as Nero in the end is unbelievably stupid because most of the time, the dice roll comes down to either luck or if you're so bored and/or annoyed that you try to bring it down to timing and finding a pattern in how the dice turns on its sides before you hit it and inevitably get the number that was on top of the dice when you hit it. While DMC 4 provides a lot of fun graphics, detail, and quick-strike gameplay, the fact that it improves only slightly from the previous installment is like the overglaring fact that Smash Bros Brawl is just like Melee, except with the added final smash and different characters. There's really not that much different except good characters are replaced with even more obscure ones. Though, back to DMC 4, being forced to play Dante is what I detested most about the game. Also, the game is quite short, seeming to try and justify the shortness by having four difficulties and some Bloody Palace bit that's rather annoying.
Overall: 7.5/10
I can't give this game a good score, even if I enjoy playing through the Nero levels and hearing Johnny Bosch as a character he seems to have inevitably been typecasted as ever since his run as Ichigo Kurosaki. While Nero is a character I enjoy playing as and dealing with, enjoying his "Slam dunk"ing enemies, he still hasn't departed from the pitfall of "punk protagonist" that Devil May Cry always comes up with. The start of the game being a hunt for Dante the evil antagonist was fun until the point when you find out he isn't actually the bad guy, which turned me off somewhat because I wanted him to die permanently in some way. I am sick and tired of him being impaled by swords and smiling as he pulls it from his body. How many times does it have to happen until the creators realize 'This joke is getting old'?
So, yes, Devil May Cry 4 has good gameplay because it's almost exactly the same as the third installment save Nero's badass arm. Story is slightly better, but compared to the other DMC games, it's a giant leap. Other than that, you should only get this game if you're a die-hard DMC or Johnny Bosch fan, the latter of which is where I fall. That makes the second boss fight against the giant toad an irony from one who remembers that he was once the Frog Ranger and how he openly detested it.
Name: Devil May Cry 4
Console: Xbox 360, Playstation 3 (apparently)
While I would usually consider seven a lucky number, a popular belief, I would like everyone to know that Devil May Cry 4 being my 7th review is NOT meaning it is the lucky guy that gets the benefit of the doubt. Also, I know I promised to review the first Jak and Daxter game next, but seriously. If I'm in college, odds are I don't want to use my brain on adventure games like that for very long for the fear of feeling like a retard for not figuring out a simple answer to a seemingly complicated problem.
I digress, we'll move onto the actual review of the game.
Story: 7/10
So, basically, you start the game watching the main character Nero, played by Johnny Bosch-- one of my all-time favorite voice actors who was once the black power ranger who wasn't black and ad-libbed his part like a true thespian, unlike the other chimps-- dance around bad guy bags of what the heck with a blade for an arm while his love interest is singing some kind of church song. I always skip that scene because it reminds me how religion is usually built off of the death of others like in the Crusades and the Inquisition. Anyways, then he gets to the church just before she ends and decides to leave in the middle of the mass because, like me, he gets sleep when guys talk religion about a book written by men. Then Dante, the cocky narcissistic protagonist from the earlier games, comes in through the glass window above and shoots the holy guy's face off. YES!, I think to myself, that is exactly something I want to do to a priest when he's boring as hell with a sermon! Anyways, hell breaks loose and Johnny-- I mean, Nero, has to fight Dante, with Dante being shown as a sort of bad guy character (finally). Then the story progresses with Nero being sent to hunt down Dante and finding out some very unpleasant things about the people he works with. They're becoming 'angels' of some sort by becoming demons and are apparently trying to unleash hell so the main bad guy (voiced by Liam O'Brien, who was a horrible Archer in Fate/Stay Night by the way) can save everyone and become some kind of god worshipped by them. At which point, Nero's trapped in something that looks like a sphincter inside the guy and then you play as Dante going all the way back to where you came and fighting the same bosses for weapons that are actually not that useful at all. In the end, you finish with Nero kicking the ever-living daylights out of Liam O'Brien. Take that you wannabe bulyard! I wanted to be Archer!
As far as a Devil May Cry game goes, the story has a lot more to it than one would think. While being as short as usual, enough to fit into a Hollywood movie, it fills in a lot of interesting heart-tugging for Nero. May I note that Devil May Cry 4 is the first game to actually have a real established love connection going on that results in certain actions, unlike the first game where Dante saves a woman who betrays him countlessly just because he can't get over his Oedipus complex and seems to immediately forgive the girl for some unexplained reason. The DMC girl this time around shows absolutely no skin but her face and doesn't do any fighting, just singing and providing a cowardly way of stopping Nero from giving the finishing blow. This, to me, seems used many a time, but put into perspective of Devil May Cry 4, it makes it a little better than its predecessors because it gets more into the fact that people who are full demons don't have a heart and are stuck with what power they have usually. Half-demons with human blood have hearts that can, no doubt, make them go badass against the final boss and permit them to smear the guy into a pound of flesh.
Gameplay: 8/10
Imagine back to Devil May Cry 3. Now include Nero's Devil Bringer, a different kind of sword that can be revved up three slots for firey sword swings of slightly extra damage, and include Dante for a bit of play later on, and you have Devil May Cry 4. Not to say that's a bad thing. The battle mechanics that made sense are in tune quite well with the new movesets of a new character, and making it to where Dante can switch styles simply by pressing a direction on the D-pad is fine. BUT, that gets tossed out the window when timing for certain moves comes into play. The usual Stylish gauge comes into play when you have to use differing attacks and combos to make the gauge go up higher and higher. The downside to that is, with Nero's only sword, gun, and arm of let's beat everyone to ----, a lot of the moves you can use rely solely on timing of hitting certain buttons. Now, when you put that into a heavy combat situation with ten things with blade legs jumping in the air at you while the game will inevitably lag you a mere second, that doesn't flow well. Getting hit by the attack's aura makes you lose your style gauge almost completely unless you're good enough to have reached A, then you just get hit down to D. It's not a system to TV problem. It's the game's problem, that it can't register you're saying to dodge a bloody attack until a minute after the attack hits you, at which time you end up dodging into another attack and turning it into a clusterbum.
Speaking of breaking flow, whose idea was it to suddenly switch from Nero to Dante and not have the decency to put the weak enemies in front of you first. No, you get Dante and new controls and styles, things you may be unfamiliar with if you're a newcomer to the series, and you're given a new, hard enemy to fight, and then thrown at some other medium-difficulty enemies, too. What's up with that? I was all for Dante being a bad guy, but fighting him is also a pain in the ass, even on the Human difficulty, which is the easiest level of play.
I can safely say the only levels I like are the Nero levels and being able to slam every enemy into walls and floors or shoot them into the air and then unleashing a blazing sword of fury onto their confused heads while they try to find out what day it is.
Music/Sound: 4/10
I can't say anything on here I haven't said in the other reviews of DMC games. The music is a bit less horror, considering the setting isn't the same one place like the other games. Still, the music is very substandard, but at least it settles into ambiance category. Just that it could be more impressive like the Half-Life 2 music, except without the music being ended abruptly anytime you get to a checkpoint before the song's over (which annoys me to no end when I'm enjoying the music). Still, DMC 4 gets an extra point for Nero's battle theme having a singer who actually takes the time to make sure people understand what he's saying while he sings. There's too much unintelligible scream-punk in DMC 4, so at least Nero's battles can be sung along to while you murder things mercilessly. Though, still, the style gap of the music is painstakingly annoying.
As far as acting goes, the only bright spot of the game is the inclusion of the famous Johnny Bosch in both motion capture and voice for the role of Nero. Keeping the Dante guy from the third game was a good idea, too, but the rest of the cast seems just a bit short on the good side. They may act well, but the voices sometimes seem to not fit the roles, nor do the character portrayals fit their styles.
Presentation: 3/10
While giving us more than one locale for the game to go through, in the end, you revisit the levels all over again as Dante to go right back where you came. Not only that, but the staircase of dice game you have to go through as Nero in the end is unbelievably stupid because most of the time, the dice roll comes down to either luck or if you're so bored and/or annoyed that you try to bring it down to timing and finding a pattern in how the dice turns on its sides before you hit it and inevitably get the number that was on top of the dice when you hit it. While DMC 4 provides a lot of fun graphics, detail, and quick-strike gameplay, the fact that it improves only slightly from the previous installment is like the overglaring fact that Smash Bros Brawl is just like Melee, except with the added final smash and different characters. There's really not that much different except good characters are replaced with even more obscure ones. Though, back to DMC 4, being forced to play Dante is what I detested most about the game. Also, the game is quite short, seeming to try and justify the shortness by having four difficulties and some Bloody Palace bit that's rather annoying.
Overall: 7.5/10
I can't give this game a good score, even if I enjoy playing through the Nero levels and hearing Johnny Bosch as a character he seems to have inevitably been typecasted as ever since his run as Ichigo Kurosaki. While Nero is a character I enjoy playing as and dealing with, enjoying his "Slam dunk"ing enemies, he still hasn't departed from the pitfall of "punk protagonist" that Devil May Cry always comes up with. The start of the game being a hunt for Dante the evil antagonist was fun until the point when you find out he isn't actually the bad guy, which turned me off somewhat because I wanted him to die permanently in some way. I am sick and tired of him being impaled by swords and smiling as he pulls it from his body. How many times does it have to happen until the creators realize 'This joke is getting old'?
So, yes, Devil May Cry 4 has good gameplay because it's almost exactly the same as the third installment save Nero's badass arm. Story is slightly better, but compared to the other DMC games, it's a giant leap. Other than that, you should only get this game if you're a die-hard DMC or Johnny Bosch fan, the latter of which is where I fall. That makes the second boss fight against the giant toad an irony from one who remembers that he was once the Frog Ranger and how he openly detested it.
