Devil May Cry HD Collection

Devil May Cry? More like Devils Making Zer0PM Cry: Ultimate Edition (Behold! The terrible jokes are back) and every single second of this glorious, painful classic was worth all of the tears (and the more occurring spouts of rage).  For those that have been living under a rock, 2018’s E3 and Gamescon has dropped the official gameplay trailers for Capcom’s next installment of the critically acclaimed stylish action series: Devil May Cry 5.  And what better way to prepare for demon-slaying than to go back to its roots with the Devil May… Look, just read the title and move on to the important bits!

  This HD Collection comes complete with the first three Devil May Cry games released. Before going to the pros, it is imperative to point out the cons to each of these games.  Keep in mind, these games are not remakes, they are remasters and the thing about remasters is that they basically translate to enhanced graphics and gameplay of the original works with little to no tampering to the mechanics.  What this means is that the games look better, the frame rate runs smoother, and has very few bugs (upside).  However, as mentioned that the mechanics for the most part were left unchanged, they have those frustrating camera angles that gives the player free roam on a set view…they just can’t change that view ever even as the scene changes the further the player progresses in each map.  This can be excruciatingly annoying, especially during boss battles as it can throw off the flow of anyone trying to beat down super hard monsters based on their fight patterns (and it doesn’t help that for nearly every boss fight, a single hit can be close to fatal – poor, paper-thin hero).  To be honest, even with the “enhancements” there is much from these classic games that truly “brings you back” in both good and bad ways as it truly tests the reflex control of players as well as their patience (lots of it).  The bad parts critiqued in the originals are not a discredit by any means to the creative and development team as this series will forever offer an exhilarating experience for old and new fans.  Ahead is a refresher of what each of their stories entail…

  Devil May Cry is the first of the games released in 2001, the time when a game like this and Onimusha became the nightmare for little girls (totally not speaking from personal experience), and set the standards of what is now called “stylish” games.  What defines a game as stylish? Well, how would one rate a white-haired, red trench coat-wearing badass shooting actual demons with handguns apparently hacked with enough ammo to put any military force out of commission dual with slashing with an improbably long and impossibly cool sword, which by the way stabbed the dude clean in the chest like a kebob, as said demons are sprouting out of the ceilings from their ominous portals of hell?  Yes.  At that point, the scale of awesomeness is broken.  Moving forward with the plot, the player controls the gunslinging, sword-swinging, rambunctious hero Dante, a half-demon (cause why not?), half-human hybrid fighting against the forces of darkness after hired by the mysterious Trish who bares an uncanny resemblance to his dead mother.  After struggling with what appears to be an Oedipus-complex, Dante agrees to this enigmatic woman’s request (right after she throws a motorcycle at him and wrecks his shop) and travels to an island in the middle of effin’ nowhere where he must explore an eerie castle (of course) in pursuit of destroying the ultimate evil – all within the time span of returning back to said decimated shop and finally give it an effin’ name before dinner gets cold (hint: he ends up calling it the game title).  Playing through the game, the atmosphere of the castle Dante explores sets the tone: dark, creepy, and ready for some serious stuff to go down.  The fights keep the players on their toes and that is not only due to the monsters they raise their sword too, but as mentioned before the camera angles that constantly change – a feature beyond manual control unfortunately.  This game is certainly the hardest but it will forever hold a special place in the hearts of DMC veterans as the original stylish game.

  Devil May Cry 2 takes place years after the events of the first game which zeroes in on a plot that has basically nothing to do with its predecessor.  Dante comes across an evil relic in a museum he breaks into to help out another chick that recruits him into fighting another mega boss threatening to drown the world in chaos.  Nothing new but still badass. Judging by said the new female companion’s accent, the game takes place in France, traversing between some abandoned village on the mountainside which immediately gets bombed down by demons not long after Dante’s arrival to an equally abandoned sky scraping city which also gets reduced to smithereens once the hero beats down the boss before the eldritch abomination decides to invite him over to its hellish pad for one final standoff.  Capcom might as well rename this one Europe May Cry because whatever is left of it will certainly shed some tears in the form of rubble as soon as the hero places a steel-toed boot on its asphalt.  This one received the least favorable reviews out of the three for its poor story direction that held almost no correlation to the other storylines and incredibly short gameplay.  Hopefully with the release of the fifth installation, it will somewhat make sense but until then the only thing worth praising is the fluid combat style and character design of the iconic hero.

  Devil May Cry 3 is not a sequel but a prequel to the first game taking place during the time Dante’s twin brother was alive and lucid and not some sort of mind-slave to some jerkoff demon in which the said demon serves as a final boss (it should be noted that Bayonetta’s final boss bears an eerie resemblance in appearance and combat – nice nod, Capcom).  Apparently both brothers are on opposite sides of the forces of good and evil as Virgil, the blue trench coat-wearing, katana-wielding twin (that’s what he’ll be referred as from now on) summons a giant tower out of nowhere which apparently to Dante was an invitation to climb said incredibly evil-looking, demon-infested  structure (to the top) for a family reunion that pits them to a duel, presumably to the death, for a necklace that served as a memento to their deceased mother as it holds the key to unlocking a dastardly ploy to submerge the world in total darkness (bear in mind, it was night when the setting took place so that seems rather redundant in the literal sense).  In this one, Dante’s female companion rides a decked out motorcycle with enough firearms to give the hero a run for his money and a personality that screams “daddy issues”.  Out of the three games, this one was certainly the easiest and offered a cleaner combat style especially when traversing through each of the maps.  This and the assortment of unique weapons Dante collects throughout the game which he obtains after defeating some fairly entertaining bosses (cause defeat equals friendship), the combat offers a variety of different fighting styles to change it up for the player to upkeep and improve their level of badassity without losing its luster lacking in the first two games.

  Each game has their charms but the common factor is their ability to reel players in with their cool and slick combat system that makes anyone want to just sit in front of their television for hours sending demons back to the pits of hell in style.  Additional treats the players may find throughout each of the series is the questionably and conveniently placed motorcycles that seem to make an appearance in some form or another in the stylish slash-and-shoot series.  And now with the latest DMC gameplay trailer released during Gamescon, the player can now use a god damn motorcycle as a weapon!! A WEAPON!!! How cool is that?!  So if that gets anyone hyped, pre-order Devil May Cry 5 today and prepare yourselves with the HD Collection until its launch in March 2019.  Until then, devil-slayers, remember to stay… Kinda Geeky.