Devil May Cry 4

O combate é profundo e variado, os inimigos comuns e os bosses muitíssimo bem projetados e o Dante tá na sua melhor versão - até aqui. Me impressionou como o jogo ainda é lindo depois de 13 anos.

Mas tem lá seus problemas: a segunda metade é um espelho da primeira. E pior, o jogador é obrigado a batalhar os mesmos bosses MAIS DUAS vezes e o único inédito é, com folga, o pior do jogo.

Entre problemas menores, a história é meio desconectada do universo da série, a trilha-sonora é esquecível e a Kyrie... bem, é a Kyrie.

The achievements of DMC4 have been pretty thoroughly undercut by 5 turning it into the awkward middle child, and the fact that so many newcomers are starting with 5 certainly doesn't help (nothing inherently wrong with that). More pressingly though, the functional shortcomings of the game have weighed heavily on its reputation as well. The most damning of these criticisms being that the game is outright unfinished, but don't be mislead by that. What that statement ultimately amounts to is that Dante's levels are Nero's levels in reverse, though the enemy variety is more aggressive to better suit Dante's higher caliber of play. It's not like you're just tracing Nero's steps backwards either, so it's more that the level environments are being reused than the levels themselves. What's less forgivably incomplete though is the story, which stagnates into 'Dante does Dante things' and 'Nero cares about Kyrie' during the latter half. At the very least this problem is one of the reasons why 4 has the most entertaining cutscenes (or at least tied with 3), since Dante is constantly in his element.

With all these drawbacks in mind, DMC4 still deserves a place on the pedestal with 3 and 5 for all that it uniquely succeeds in over its peers. 4's combat system heavily improves upon 3's blueprint. Nero's toolset puts him somewhere between trickster and swordmaster so that approaching enemies and racking up style isn't an issue. Style switching was also first implemented in 4, turning Dante into the exhilarating aneurysm he was always meant to be. It's seriously overwhelming picking up Dante for the first time in 4, and somehow there's still another playable character that's even more apeshit (Vergil mode is so much fun I didn't even mind playing through the same levels again). The HUD is also the best it's ever looked and probably ever will look.

But 4's greatest achievement is its setting, Fortuna. The gothic gamut has shifted from the "ebony" that entrenched 1-3 to "ivory". Ornate fountains, cylindrical cathedrals, stained glass, pearly stone arches, and ribbed vaults mark the architecture of the city, finally capturing that wicked-holy aesthetic that DMC has dabbled in, but never gone all the way with. There's even sprawling jungles out of nowhere (that somehow don't look terrible) and glaciated castle exteriors for a touch of variety.

The dice minigame and having to fight every boss (except the best one) three times is unforgivable though.

First, gameplay seems fine. Graphics obviously get improved although it doesn't have this darker atmosphere of previous games. It's just the matter of preference, obviously, but I prefer less "colorful" and more "bleaker" world in DMC franchise.
Story was often cheesy AF. That might be ok if they didn't ruined old characters... Seriously, they've made Trish and Lady as "walking boobs" with shallow personalities. It's sad. Very sad. Half of the game is just cheap, shameless fanservice. If someone puts Your favorite characters from previous games only to make them "shake their boobs" then You know there's something wrong with the game. They were just there, but do not contribute anything to the story. Moreover, they show absolute lacking in regards of characters development. I dare to say that this was even character regresion. Dante is sometimes just too cheesy. It just goes slighlty into auto parody.
As for main love-story... meh. Kyrie was just sort of "nice person" who was just smiling or making scared faces. She was just definition of characterless person. And Nero happened to be in love with her. Why? What was their backstory? How they met? When Nero fell in love with her? We don't know. It was just decided at the beginning without any explanations. Nero was more developed character, of course, as he was main protagonist. Yet, his motives to fighting "for the right cause" were rather unknown. What was his motivation? Why he joined this holy army? It's just sloppy character development.
I wouldn't say the story was strong point of DMC1 (not to mention DMC2). It was rather "modest". There's no denying DMC4 has more developed storytelling. Yet, it doesn't mean the story is made properly as it could be made. DMC1 has it's tremendous atmosphere which is the biggest advantage of this installment. DMC2 is still... whatever, don't even bother to compare. It's still the worst part of the series :) DMC3 has much more outdated graphics and You can say the world is not as much "open" as in DMC4, but still excels in every other aspects in the franchise.

Overall, I would put DMC4 somewhere around DMC1 level. It's very inconsistent when it comes to certain aspects - some are clearly step-ups, but some are quite downfalls. It's like taking 2 steps forward in some aspects and 3 steps backwards in others. I have mixed feelings about this game.

The game opens with Nero watching love interest Kyrie's opera performance at the church. The series' leading character Dante suddenly breaks through the ceiling and assassinates the High Priest of the Order of the Sword.

You take control of Nero and your first task is to battle Dante. Both Dante and Nero look and dress very similar, so it's a very confusing start to the game - during cut-scenes and the opening gameplay. Although Dante is a powerful swordsman, he plays a passive aggressive style which allows you to follow the tutorial to learn the controls.

You move with the left thumb-stick, jump with A, shoot with X, sword attack with Y. B uses Nero's Devil Bringer (a cursed hand) which allows him to grab from range. Outside battle, this is used as a grappling hook in specific areas. You can lock on an enemy with RB, which allows you to dodge sideways with A.

You need to chain Sword, Gun and Grab moves into a combo to attack with more style, but actual defined combos are lacking - so I found myself pressing different buttons just to mix things up, rather than for creating great combos. During battles you'll hear industrial music but this soon grows tiresome since it's the same song again and again.

The game very much reminds me very much of Bayonetta. Gothic architecture, hack & slash game-play, and over-the-top action. It has a very arcade-feel to it; very much like a Sega game.

The gameplay sees you go from room to room, usually exterminating the enemies within to proceed to the next area. There are areas where the door opens up by solving a 'puzzle' but this is usually simplistic like hitting a switch or moving an object to a specific location. The camera can be troublesome since it is usually locked like the old Resident Evil games, so you move off the screen and are now running at a completely different angle. Some rooms allow you to pan the camera using the right analogue stick, but this feels very arbitrary when you can do this.

The thing that was a huge annoyance is that there's lots of disruptions. Each area is small, and going through a door pauses to load. The action is further interrupted with lots of cut-scenes. I thought this would ease off as you progress through the game, but it's consistent throughout. It's even more frustrating when you go through doors (wait to load), move forward two steps, watch cut-scene. Why doesn't it just go straight to the cut-scene when you reach the door?

There's plenty of destructible scenery which gives you red orbs to collect which are also dropped from enemies. At the end of the level, you are given a rank which determines how many Proud Souls you are awarded. These can be spent to unlock new moves. The cool thing about this unlock system is that you can get a refund on moves if you decide you don't like them. With the red orbs, you can purchase disposable items like health restoration and revives. With each one you purchase, they become progressively more expensive which penalises less-skilled players, so I found this a bit of a strange mechanic.

The game consists of 20 chapters which usually last between 10 and 25 minutes. There's only three themed areas, and once you see all the locations by chapter 13, you will switch to Dante and have to essentially work backwards through the levels again. His levels aren't direct copies though, but rather remixed with new and stronger enemies, although you will meet most of the same bosses again. During the penultimate level when you take control of Nero once more; you have to battle some bosses a third time!

Dante has multiple fighting styles which are changed with the D-Pad. This switches out the ability that is mapped to the B button (which was Nero's Death Bringer attack). Dante also has a couple of different guns he can switch between. The lack of Death Bringer makes playing as Dante feel a lot more difficult since you can't pull enemies towards you, or pluck them out of the sky or ground if they are flying, or underground-based enemies respectively.

Overall, I felt Devil May Cry 4 is a decent game, but it has its limitations and doesn't really excel in any way. Other hack-and-slash games have had a better combo system, better stories and have had less repetition in stage design.

I remember when the demo for this first game out. At the time I wasn't the hugest DMC fan but had played and beaten the first 3 games. Then during one of my Summer breaks I rented this game from Blockbuster with one of my friends when I was in high school. To be honest DMC 4 was a bit of a dissapointment. Mainly because 3 was one of the best games ever made and it would be hard to live up to those high standards, but also because 4 did some weird things. I think the glaring thing that people dislike about this is the fact that you basically backtrack for the entire 2nd half of the game and go through the same areas again. So you play as a new character for half this game who really has little to do with Dante and who has different abilities. The story is typical DMC, Demons and evil forces and all that. The villain in this game is actually kind of lame and generic, I mean compared to the other DMC bosses who were complete badasses like Virgil and Mundus. The story of this is still just okay, its not great but competent and at least nowhere near as bad as 2s. The gameplay itself is also decent, its not as fun as 3 but it plays and controls well, you get some new abilities to play around with and the combat flows pretty smooth. The boss fights are pretty average, many of them aren't really much of a challenge aside from 2 or 3 and later in the game you actually re-fight the same bosses with a few new moves. Again the fights aren't bad but compared to how great 3's bosses were it was a step down.

Now atmosphere and setting is very important to the DMC universe and probably my favorite part of the DMC series. And to be honest that is probably the best executed part of this game. Sure the game does go a little downhill after the starting village and church but it does have a variety of settings. Now the thing that drags this game down a lot is the 2nd half which is just 100% padding. You play as Dante which is cool since this is DMC after all and you need to play as Dante, but the problem is you go through the same areas and fight many of the same bosses. Sure the game becomes more badass and comedic when Dante comes into the picture but I just didn't enjoy going through the same areas and fighting bosses I just beat earlier. Then you get to the final boss who is just lame for many reasons and just felt generic. So you have a decent first half where you play as someone who isn't Dante and has a bland personality, then in the 2nd half you play as Dante but go through tedium redoing the same areas and bosses so you can't really win either way. The game had potential and could have been way better had Dante's segment included new areas and bosses and the story had been a bit less generic and given more relevance to Dante. Plus this is sort of a prequel as it takes place before the 2nd game so it sort of has an odd place in the franchise. Yeah its a competent enough hack n slash but the Devil May Cry franchise just has such high standards that at best it is a average DMC game.

No game encapsulates my ethos of 'design over mechanics' quite like this. Despite a strong start with the traits expected of DMC in a decent new character and an amazing new look, DMC4 is bogged down by a confusing story with too much downtime, annoying puzzles, repetitive enemy design and general lack of ingenuity and balance that makes 3 so great. And this is all before you have to travel through the entire game backwards as Dante. All up, you will end up fighting most bosses in the game three times, making a campaign where if it wasn't for the raw gameplay it would considered absolute dogshit anywhere else.