Devil's Third
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 The Wii U's saving grace? Barely! This game is anything but, especially after 7 years of development.
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"There are a few things that are certain to this world: love, death, and Devil's Third being one of the most negatively reviewed games Nintendo's ever published. It came at a time where the Wii U was gasping for air. It was buggy; ran like piss; it had troubled development. Mix 'em all together and what do you get? A 3.5 from IGN!"
— Scott the Woz
Devil's Third is a 2015 action-adventure video game developed by Valhalla Game Studios and published by Nintendo for the Wii U, and Nexon for Microsoft Windows as Devil's Third Online.
Plot
The game's backstory is predicated on the Kessler disorder hypothesis. Debris from a a satellite explosion in orbit causes a chain reaction of collisions, resulting in the decimation of almost all satellites, both regular civilian and military. The disaster throws the balance of the world's military forces into chaos, leading to global strife and a surge in terrorism. During this pandemonium, a Soviet general, Isaac Kumano, decides to create a terrorist organization in order to rebel against the world and eliminate anyone they deem a target to their so-called "peace". Ivan, a former terrorist, busts out of prison and is hired by the president to work with the US army and kill all of his ex-comrades and take down Issac.
Why It's a Devil
- The game was stuck in development hell for years. First it was to be published by Microsoft and intended to be an Xbox 360 exclusive but was rejected for not utilizing the Kinect, next THQ picked the publishing rights for a multiplatform release, but eventually went bankrupt (with a third publisher named Doobic going through the exact same situation) and then it was finally picked up by Nintendo to publish.
- But due to Nintendo of America's lack of faith in the game, the North American release was extremely limited and is almost overpriced even to this day, with copies of it often selling for a price ranging from $200 to $500 on eBay, making it one of the most expensive physical Wii U game, one of the rarest Wii U games, as well as one of the most expensive physical Nintendo games ever. Though the European and Japanese copies are easier to find and are much cheaper.
- If you don’t want to buy a copy for that much, you might have to resort to a digital copy, which is more cheaper since the shutdown of the multiplayer.
- The story is pretty bland and generic.
- While no one in the game is close to unlikable, many of the characters feel generic and dull.
- Ivan, the main protagonist, despite being the most likable character in the game, is pretty dull and tries way too hard to be cool.
- Isaac Kumano, the villain of the game, and the adoptive father of Ivan, is just a generic doomsday villain considering he’s the one who caused the Kessler syndrome effect, an event where almost every satellite is destroyed, which effectively put the entire planet into a state of emergency, while creating a terrorist group that kills anyone they deem a threat to their so called “peace”. He also bears a striking resemblance to Gouken from the Street Fighter series.
- The soldiers are just that. They look like soldiers, act like soldiers, and have little to no personality to differentiate themselves from normal soldiers.
- Despite using the Unreal Engine 3, the graphics are very lackluster, with washed out visuals and 2000s era character models. This was because the game was originally intended for the Xbox 360 and the PlayStation 3 before becoming a Wii U game.
- The controls can feel clunky at times, especially in the first-person mode.
- While the concept of mixing a hack ‘n’ slash with third/first-person shooter elements isn’t terrible, the way it is handled is pretty poor. Plus, some games like Vanquish already did a similar thing to this, just in the reverse; mixing third person shooter elements with beat ‘em up elements, which is much more well handled.
- Combat is extremely repetitive-you run into a hoard of enemies, kill them, and move to the next area.
- Adding more to the repetition, the enemies seem all the same. Aside from a few, it's mostly just the same hoards of enemies over and over.
- The boss fights tend to drag on for way too long.
- Really bad AI. Enemies will often stand still or run into walls. This is even worse for the mutated enemies as they'll just charge towards the player without any kind of strategy.
- The level design is also very bland and generic as they consist of massive empty areas or empty hallways.
- The use of melee weapon swapping is practically pointless. All of the melee weapons do almost the same thing, just with different “final blow” animations depending on what the weapon is. It’s not like it would’ve mattered, as you can beat the game without changing the katana anyway, and it’s automatically switched to the katana when entering the next chapter.
- Despite being on Wii U, the game barely takes advantage of the gamepad's features.
- Bugs and glitches are common at moments. For example, there's a glitch where sometimes if you get killed by Big Mouse and respawn, all the enemies will randomly disappear leaving just him to defeat.
- For a Nintendo-published Wii U game, the game's performance is awful at times, especially on Off-TV Play, like when it stutters or lags during explosions or combat. This can even happen in the cutscenes.
- The game's multiplayer component was filled with microtransactions, allowing players to spend real money on golden eggs to buy certain weapons or costumes which was straight up obnoxious and greedy, especially for a game published by Nintendo of all companies (a company who usually doesn’t support microtransactions).
- Sequel Bait: The game ends with Ivan saying it’s not over, whatever it is he’s actually talking about.
- Ironically enough, Tomonobu Itagaki himself considered making a trilogy of this game, but obviously due to this game’s failure, and the closure of Valhalla Game Studios, such thing is very unlikely to happen, presumably unless at some point, this game, much like Fatal Frame: Maiden of Black Water, gets a port on other platforms, and does good enough to warrant such.
Redeeming Qualities
- Despite the clunkiness when in first-person aiming, the controls are still fine when hacking and slashing.
- Ivan could be pretty funny at times.
- The boss fights are still fun to battle.
- The multiplayer component was the best feature in this game. It was unfortunately shut down a year later.
- North American cover art is pretty decent.
- Passable voice acting, despite the audio sounding a bit blurry.
- The characters designs, especially Ivan, at least look good enough for something like a Capcom game, even with the unimpressive graphics.
- Some of the locations are also pretty good, especially Jane Doe’s fortress.
- It could've been a good game if it didn't slip into development hell.
Reception
Despite the game receiving positive reviews in Japan, it was negatively reviewed elsewhere with a Metacritic score of 43/100 and a user score of 6.7. Due to the aforementioned limited release, the game has underperformed.
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