Devil May Cry

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Devil May Cry
"Jackpot!" - Dante
Protagonist(s): Dante Genre(s): Action-adventure Hack and slash Rating(s): M Platform(s): PlayStation 2 PlayStation 3 Xbox 360 Microsoft Windows PlayStation 4 Xbox One Nintendo Switch Release Date: Original (PS2) JP: August 23, 2001 NA: October 16, 2001 PAL: December 7, 2001 HD Collection (X360 & PS3) JP: March 22, 2012 NA: March 29, 2012 EU: April 3, 2012 AU: April 5, 2012 HD Collection (Windows, PS4 & XONE) WW: March 13, 2018 Nintendo Switch WW: June 25, 2019 JP: June 27, 2019 Developer(s): Capcom Production Studio 4 Publisher(s): Capcom Country: Japan Series: Devil May Cry Predecessor: Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (Canon) Successor: Devil May Cry 2 (Release) Devil May Cry: The Animated Series (Canon)

Devil May Cry is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed and published by Capcom, released in 2001 for the PlayStation 2.

Plot

Devil May Cry begins with Dante being attacked in his office by a mysterious woman named Trish. He impresses her by easily brushing off her assault, and tells her that he hunts demons in pursuit of those who killed his mother and brother. She says the attack was a test, and that the demon emperor Mundus, whom Dante holds responsible for the deaths of his family, is planning a return.

Why It May Not Make You Cry

1. The game and franchise helped inspire the hack-and-slash genre that we know today and inspired many games including Bayonetta, God of War, and Chaos Legion, just to name a few.
   • It also helps that a bug in Onimusha: Warlords is the result of this game's existence.
2. Interesting plot of a half-human, half-demon seeking revenge against a devil prince who murdered his father.
3. It introduced Dante, one of the most badass video game characters of all time.
4. A unique aspect of the game (and franchise in general) is the "Stylish" combat. In each encounter, a combo is started by performing an unbroken series of varied attacks while avoiding damage, with player performance tracked by an on-screen gauge. The more hits the player makes, the higher the gauge rises. The gauge starts at "Dull"; progresses through "Cool", "Bravo", and "Absolute"; and peaks at "Stylish". Repeatedly using the same moves causes the gauge to stop rising, encouraging the player to use every move in their arsenal. The gauge terms are similar to the grades given at the end of the missions. When Dante receives damage, the style rating resets back to "Dull".
5. The player can temporarily transform Dante into a more powerful demonic creature by using the "Devil Trigger" ability. Doing so adds powers based on the current weapon and changes Dante's appearance. The transformations typically increase strength and defense, slowly restore health, and grant special attacks. The ability is governed by the Devil Trigger gauge, which depletes as the ability is used, and is refilled by attacking enemies or taunting in normal form.
6. In each mission the player's performance is given a letter grade, starting with D, increasing to C, B, and A, with an additional top grade of S. Grades are based on the time taken to complete the mission, the amount of "red orbs" gathered, how "stylish" their combat was, item usage, and damage taken. This in turn encourages replay value.
7. There are also Secret Missions. These are optional tasks that the player may perform in order to obtain Blue Orbs and Blue Orb Fragments for upgrading the Vitality Gauge. They can only be completed once per playthrough. On subsequent playthroughs, already completed Secret Missions will grant a Yellow Orb.
8. Beating the game will unlock Hard mode, which works as a New Game+. Enemies deal 2.5 times more damage. In addition, enemy waves are changed, with powerful enemies appearing much earlier in the game, while weak enemies such as Beelzebubs and Sin Scythes appear less often. Health does not regenerate as quickly while Devil Trigger is activated.
   • After beating Hard mode, another difficulty mode, Dante Must Die will be unlocked. This is the hardest mode in the game and is a staple of the franchise. This mode allows enemies to enter their own Devil Trigger state, granting them increased defense and damage output and making them more resistant to hit-stun, knockdowns and launches. Some battles also feature a timer which will allow all remaining enemies in the wave (including those which have not spawned yet) to enter DT if the wave is not defeated before it expires. Any room with a DT timer is a sealed-room battle, even if it was not in Hard mode. It otherwise uses the same altered enemy waves as Hard. Oddly, normal enemies in this mode have slightly less health than on Normal. Enemies have the same damage output as in Hard mode, but bosses and Kyklops now have 2.5 times more health. Devil Trigger does not regenerates health at all.
9. After beating Hard and Dante Must Die, the player will receive some nice rewards.
   • After finishing Hard Mode, you unlock the costume of the Legendary Dark Knight Sparda, replacing Dante with his father in every cutscene as well. Unlike Dante, this costume starts out with a Devil Arm, Yamato, and thus, can even activate Devil Trigger at the beginning of the game. Yamato operates exactly like Alastor, however, so it appears to be more of a model swap than a new weapon. The same goes for Ebony & Ivory, which have been changed to Luce & Ombra, respectively. In Devil Trigger mode, this costume will always take on the demonic form of Sparda. Attacks for Alastor and Ifrit remain the same. Yamato however transforms into his namesake weapon. For balancing reasons, this version of the Sparda sword behaves just like the standard non-devil trigger version that the player gets later. The enhanced damage from the sword and the devil trigger's resistance to knockdown make it a bit stronger than the standard Sparda sword however. This costume also features unique battle music for the first and second portions of the game that replaces the original battle tracks. Boss themes and the castle battles at night remain unchanged.
   • After clearing Dante Must Die mode, the player gets Super Dante. This costume is identical to Dante in appearance, but the player now has unlimited Devil Trigger, enabling indefinite time periods in Devil Trigger. The Nightmare-β will also not drain the DT gauge as well.
10. Amazing graphics for the time.
11. Epic boss battles that have you fighting powerful creatures including a swordsman, a magma spider, and giant eagle.
12. Amazing enemy design and variety that has you fighting against grim reapers, demons, floating skulls, marionettes, and more.
13. Expect up to 10 hours of gameplay, more or less, depending on how good you are.
14. Simple but interesting puzzles.
15. Good atmosphere.
16. Aside from Dante, the voice acting is decent.
17. Like Onimusha's remastered version, the HD Collection has plenty of improvements over the PS2 version, with hi-res graphics (despite the graphical issues with the PS3 version), widescreen support (though the menus and some cutscenes aren't redone for 16:9 widescreen), reduced blur on character models, removed loading screens, and achievements.

Bad Qualities

1. You can't change your weapons instantly. Instead you have to go to the menu to change your melee weapon or firearm which takes a really long time to do.
2. Similar to Onimusha (English dub only) and Resident Evil, some of the voice acting can be laughably bad at times, like when Dante said "I should've been the one to fill your dark soul with LIGHT!!!"
   • What's more, you can barely hear what the characters saying. It especially doesn't help that there are no subtitles in the game at all (except for the bosses, Japanese versions, and remastered versions/re-releases).
3. Like in Onimusha, Dino Crisis, and most of the early Resident Evil games of the 90s and 2000s, the camera angles sometimes can be a pain.
4. It has only 5 bosses in the game, which is shorter compared to later entries. In fact, you fight Phantom and Nelo Angelo multiple times throughout the game.
5. Frustrating difficulty for three different reasons:
   • The first Mundus boss fight and plane section at the end are badly designed due to awkward flying controls.
   • The underwater controls are a pain because the game switches to a first person camera, making it hard to see where you're going.
   • Whenever you die you have to go back to the beginning of the level because the only save points are the ones that come up when you finish a level, which can get really annoying. This was fixed in later entries to be an entire different mode.

Trivia

• Similar to Dante's Inferno, the aesthetic of the game is inspired by the narrative poem, The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (who the main character is named after).
• The game was initially planned to be Resident Evil 4, but Capcom decided to just make it into a new IP instead of a new Resident Evil game.
• A PSP port was planned, but was quietly cancelled.
• The game's action-packed nature is said to be inspired by Capcom's 1989 arcade game, Strider.