Game #951: DmC - Devil May Cry Definitive Edition

  I just love dying on these lonely hills.

 And today's hill is DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition, hated by fans, adored by little ol' me. I stand by what I wrote 5 years ago, so I'll write a few comments about things I still liked and about the new changes.

 Firstly, I forgot how much I liked the game's plot and characters. Yeah, I went there. Dante(Or Donte, as I call him affectionally) starts out like a jerk, but by the end of the game develops into a good-natured jerk. I loved Kat and her relationship with the brothers, and I also loved the relationship between Donte and Vergil, to the point that I think I prefer these versions to the mainstream ones. I know, I know, but I felt like these characters were interesting and their personalities went beyond 'look how cool/badass I am'. I also liked the plot itself, it's a pretty generic dystopian plot, but I think they executed it well. On the other hand some of the dialogue can be downright cringy with how hard it tries to be edgy. That said, I think the dialogue lands well most of the time, but when it doesn't... oh boy. Another thing of note, this rerelease updated the ending a bit, making it a bit... cuter, which I liked more than the original ending.

 There were a few new additions to the gameplay, but most of them are optional. You can lock on to enemies, my biggest gripe from the original and... I failed to take into account that holding down a button to lock onto an enemy might not work so well when switching weapons is done by holding down other buttons.... but they took it into account, and you can make the lock-on work either by tapping R1 or by holding it down. Neat. Bloody Palace was added for both Dante and Vergil, you can play in Turbo mode, which makes the game 20% faster, and you can also activate a few modifiers, mostly making the game tougher. But the best part about this rerelease? 60 glorious FPS. It might not look 'better', but it sure as hell runs much better.

 I run into a weird bug one time when I got 'stuck' with Angelic weapons, meaning, the game was behaving as if I was holding down L2, and nothing I did could swap back my weapons. I quitted the special mission and it fixed itself.

 I wanted to play this game's DLC, but as per usual, I'm firmly against DLC... thankfully, this rerelease includes Vergil's Downfall, a 6-mission expansion to the original game. Vergil play very differently, and he gets his own story. Most cutscenes are told via poorly animated hand-drawn art, but it's not too bad. I didn't like playing as Vergil as much as I did in the original DMC 3 or as much as Donte, he feels more limited, but I appreciated having a brand new set of tools to mess around with.

 I wouldn't go as far as to say that this rerelease is leagues above the original, it really isn't, but I think that I appreciate the game a lot more than I once did, which is funny considering I was one of the few that actually liked it way back when. I love the characters, I like how they executed the story and I think there's merit in its very simple but fun combat. Regardless, I think this is a great game and loved every bit I spent replaying it, and while the new ending only adds a few seconds worth of scenes... I think it makes it superior to the original.

 9.0