My first intention was to play DMC 5 (because I’m a sucker for newer games with good graphics), but my conscience didn’t let me miss out on the history, and I felt obligated to try at least DMC 3 and 4. From what I’ve heard, the 2nd installment isn’t regarded well so I didn’t feel guilty about giving it a pass. Also, as I discovered later, there are no recurring characters in DMC 4 from the 2nd game. The first DMC, however, was a groundbreaker, and still holds a good reputation among the fans of the series. I didn’t play it though because, again, I’m a sucker for newer games with good graphics (yeah yeah, sue me, whatever) and I didn’t think I could handle so much DMC. That last bit turned out to be true, since I feel a dire need to take a break from the series, having completed the 4th game just last night at 2 AM.
I did commit a small gamer’s sin and watched all cutscenes
of DMC 1 and 2 after I completed the third one, just to catch up on the story.
To be frank I was already feeling quite exhausted of dealing with so many
bosses when I finished the third part, but the excitement of trying out a new
game with better graphics got the better of me and I ended up playing the two
games back-to-back.
My first thought when playing DMC 3 was – Why do all these Capcom games have to be so dark and eery? The atmosphere in this game brought back memories of Resident Evil 4. Man, no game has ever got on my nerves as much as Resident Evil 4 did, and DMC 3 came really close. Dante’s over-the-top heroics and sassy dialogue helped cut some of the tension down, though, and perhaps that is why he is now one of my favourite video game characters. The heavy metal music playing in the background while he took on hordes of demons also helped ease up the atmosphere. Still, I had to take small breaks in between and play GTA V, just to see some sun and a brightly lit, colourful world.
I won’t reveal much of the story here, just a brief
introduction about Dante, the series’ main protagonist. He’s a demon hunter,
and part demon himself. Born as a twin from a union between a demon and a
human, his father is none other than the legendary demon Sparda, who sealed the
gate between the human world and the demon world long ago. The inspiration
behind the first 4 games in the series is that this gate is somehow opened and
demons begin overpowering the human world, and it falls on Dante to ward off
these demons and re-seal the gate.
Both DMC 3 and 4 follow the same pattern. The games are
divided into missions, and each mission follows a blueprint – you enter an
area, its entry and exit points are blocked until you defeat all the enemies
spawned within the area or solve a puzzle, then you enter another area. This
goes on until you reach the last area where there’s a boss waiting for you.
Defeat them and the mission is over. This scheme does sound repetitive, but it
is kept from getting monotonous by different types of demon enemies and
well-designed levels that sprinkle in a new flavour with every mission.
Throughout the third game, Dante keeps acquiring new weapons and unlockable
special moves which bring variety to his fighting style and keeps the game from
becoming a dull hack-and-slash affair where the player is mindlessly bashing
the same key over and over. No, you can try out new combinations of moves which
contribute to your style points. This becomes especially necessary in DMC 4 as
style points gain you Proud Souls, which can be used to buy new and more potent
moves.
One thing I had major issues with in both the games is the camera. There are areas where camera movement is blocked entirely, and the angle changes when you move further, much like the early Resident Evil games. Even in places where camera movement is allowed, it isn’t fast enough. This is extremely bothersome in boss fights where you need to have the enemy in your sights at all times. DMC 3 corrects this to some extent by auto-centering the camera on the enemy, but for some reason, DMC 4 doesn’t carry this feature forward very efffectively. Considering how quick some of the bosses are, having the camera centered on them can mean the difference between life and death. There were occasions when the enemy was completely off-camera, and I missed its attack and lost half my health because I literally didn’t see it coming.
That aside, the boss battles and even the smaller enemies,
for that matter, are designed well in terms of their weaknesses, especially in
DMC 3. Every now and then an enemy pops up that doesn’t die no matter how many
times you slash it. Then you realize maybe slashing is not the right thing to
do here, and it makes you rethink your strategy. Different ways to kill
different enemies, and the same goes for bosses too. You need to observe their
attack patterns and strike while they’re vulnerable. It’s all a matter of
finding their Achille’s Heel and attacking at the right time. Bosses also
change their attacks midway through the battle, so you’re constantly kept on
your toes. Patience, perseverance, grit, observation, reflexes – you name it;
every DMC boss demands more from you.
It would have been fun if I had to battle each boss only
once. I could even bear battling one boss twice. But as the games near
completion, they force you to go through these same bosses again. Not only does
this smell of a lack of imagination, but it also feels like a forced attempt to
beef up the last few levels of the game. There’s a mission in DMC 3 in which
you have to battle at least 5 bosses again in order to proceed. It’s like a
recap of sorts, except that you aren’t really interested in a recap at that
point and just want to fight the final boss. This is even more frustrating in
DMC 4 because you fight each boss thrice in that game. They were able to
squeeze so much repetitiveness in since DMC 4’s main story has two playable
characters – Nero and Dante. You fight all the bosses as Nero first, then you
have to backtrack through all the levels as Dante and go through all the boss
battles again, in the exact same places as Nero fought them. Then there’s
the so-called recap level which makes you fight all the bosses again. So it
becomes quite frustrating in DMC 4 towards the end. The only saving grace in
this game is the different fighting styles and mechanics of Nero and Dante, so
regardless of fighting the same boss again, there’s still some freshness since you
are fighting them in a different way.
It’s not over until it’s over – this adage fits perfectly for both DMC 3 and 4. [Mild spoilers ahead] In its last few missions, the game tricked me multiple times into thinking that it was about to end. What else would you think after defeating the main antagonist in an intense battle which is by far the hardest of the game? I conveniently assumed the same in DMC 3 and used all my special items to deal extra damage to the enemy. But as it turned out, it wasn’t the last battle and I still had one more boss to contend with. I was left with almost nothing in my inventory, one last battle (hopefully), and a boss that could make short work of me in a matter of seconds. At this time I was reminded of Sekiro and that battle with [Spoilers for Sekiro ahead] the Guardian Ape. If I hadn’t modded the game and had sincerely defeated the Ape in the first round, I don’t think I would have had it in me to go for it again after he’s resurrected. Sekiro was so frustrating and unforgiving with its boss battles. This post is not about Sekiro, though - I have ranted about it here instead, go read. [Spoilers end]
So yeah, DMC 3 - one last battle and a merciless enemy. I
worked at it for an hour every day for 3-4 days, then I gave up and repeatedly
tried to convince myself that it’s the last battle and I’ve reached the last
level so in a sense I’ve completed the game but…I couldn’t. So I picked it up
again and on one fateful afternoon, I finally managed to win. To this day I
don’t know how I did it. If someone were to ask me for help defeating that boss
I would not be able to do it again. I seriously don’t know how it
happened, everything just went right. Maybe it was the universe making me press
the right button at precisely the right time, maybe I was possessed by some pro
gamer’s spirit or something, I don’t know man. It still doesn’t feel like
something I did on my own without any mods or cheats, but it feels immensely
satisfying.
The same thing happens at the end of DMC 4 as well. You defeat someone thinking it’s the last boss, but – plot twist – it’s not, and now you have to deal with someone more powerful. This happens so many times at the end that even the game is forced to acknowledge it - at one point, Dante says something like, “This guy (the antagonist) just doesn’t let go”, and I went, “Yeah, neither does this game.”
One thing that deserves mention here is the design of the
gigantic Saviour boss at the end of DMC 4. It’s beautiful, if something like
that can be said about a villain. It’s grand, to begin with, larger than life.
Quite literally, too, and the way it floats and towers over the city stands out
from the rest of the game mainly because the atmosphere is not as dark as the
rest of the game. The overall color scheme of this colossal being is also
starkly different from all the other enemies I have encountered in the DMC
games. It looks majestic, and battling it gives off God-of-War-2-esque vibes.
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| DMC 4 - Saviour Image taken from https://comicvine.gamespot.com/forums/battles-7/giant-beebo-cw-vs-the-savior-dmc4-2016901/?page=1 |
As much as I want to play DMC 5 now (because, for the umpteenth time, I am a sucker for newer games with good graphics), I also don’t want it to burn me out on the DMC universe. Already exhausted from battling so many bosses, I think I will play a more casual and brighter game before jumping back onto the DMC bandwagon and finishing off the journey. I guess it will help DMC 5 bring a fresh perspective as far as demon-slaying and boss-battling goes.
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