Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening
The devil's not the only one crying.
Published: March 7, 2005
I think it would be best for everyone if we just kinda forgot about Devil May Cry 2. You can appreciate what they tried to do with Dante's moves, but the rest of the game is better off just being swept off into the pile of "those games" that are referenced when talking about how not to do a sequel. Now a sequel to a sequel, that another story, and while I can appreciate the effort put into making the third DMC as distant from the previous game as a sequel can get, it's obvious Capcom tried a little too hard.
For those that don't know, this is a prequel sequel. Yes, it's the third game, but it takes place before the first, where our hero the unflappably brash Dante has yet to really come into his own, fancy powers-wise. He's still half demon, of course, so he's more than equipped to go badass as the situation presents itself, but you actually get to watch him really become the true badass that he is.
Well, watch/have it crammed down your throat. Between all the over-the-top slo-mo events and wire-fu moves, the sprinting down sheer surfaces and moves that you only wish you could do in the game, Dante's badical actions couldn't escape your gaze if you put your hands over your eyes. He'd just bust out of the TV and punch you in the face with one hand while flipping you off with other all done atop the front wheel of his bike which just happens to be teetering over a pool full of sharks that he pulled through the TV with him just to prove how badass he is. It's a little much.
So too is the action, which feels like the Dante Must Die mode from the first game... from the very second you start the game. By the time you finish off the first level and have moved about 10 seconds into the second, it becomes painfully obvious that you'll have to a) get used to dying and restarting from the start of a level even after getting to a boss, and b) keep playing the blissfully easy "training" level to get power-ups so you can try to survive.
This game is hard, and unfairly so. I'm sure the developers played a lot of Ninja Gaiden, and as much as I hate to stoke the fires of ego in the sandpaper-cheeked head of Tomonobu Itagaki, that game is a fun kind of hard, while DMC3 just makes you want to quit 20 minutes into it. If you don't, you'll have to brave seemingly endless waves of enemies, any of which are more than capable of kicking your (bad)ass, all while fighting the camera, just so you can see how the game turns out (it turns out pretty well, and there are more than a few amazingly cool scenes).
For those that don't know, this is a prequel sequel. Yes, it's the third game, but it takes place before the first, where our hero the unflappably brash Dante has yet to really come into his own, fancy powers-wise. He's still half demon, of course, so he's more than equipped to go badass as the situation presents itself, but you actually get to watch him really become the true badass that he is.
Well, watch/have it crammed down your throat. Between all the over-the-top slo-mo events and wire-fu moves, the sprinting down sheer surfaces and moves that you only wish you could do in the game, Dante's badical actions couldn't escape your gaze if you put your hands over your eyes. He'd just bust out of the TV and punch you in the face with one hand while flipping you off with other all done atop the front wheel of his bike which just happens to be teetering over a pool full of sharks that he pulled through the TV with him just to prove how badass he is. It's a little much.
So too is the action, which feels like the Dante Must Die mode from the first game... from the very second you start the game. By the time you finish off the first level and have moved about 10 seconds into the second, it becomes painfully obvious that you'll have to a) get used to dying and restarting from the start of a level even after getting to a boss, and b) keep playing the blissfully easy "training" level to get power-ups so you can try to survive.
This game is hard, and unfairly so. I'm sure the developers played a lot of Ninja Gaiden, and as much as I hate to stoke the fires of ego in the sandpaper-cheeked head of Tomonobu Itagaki, that game is a fun kind of hard, while DMC3 just makes you want to quit 20 minutes into it. If you don't, you'll have to brave seemingly endless waves of enemies, any of which are more than capable of kicking your (bad)ass, all while fighting the camera, just so you can see how the game turns out (it turns out pretty well, and there are more than a few amazingly cool scenes).