Devil May Cry 4 Preview
I’ll be perfectly upfront: I’ve never laid hands on a Devil May Cry game. From an envious distance, they always appeared to be frantic, fun, and brutally intense games, soaked in your typically bizarre Japanese panache – this is Capcom, after all. If there was an analogous experience in mind, it would have been Ninja Gaiden on the Xbox, which I had played to the point of mind numbing exhaustion.
As it would turn out, my assumption wasn’t far off the mark:the Devil May Cry 4 demo plays similar to Ninja Gaiden, albeit in a distinctly different outfit and pace. The core aspects are generally alike: Combo driven, intense weapon based combat are hallmarks of both titles. The difference, really, is in the details.
The demo places Nero, the game’s protagonist, into gamers’ hands, and is reportedly intended to showcase a few of the game’s environments. But I was more interested in seeing how the combat held up. The first level, Exterminator, gives you 10 minutes to explore a level full of low rung opponents. The second level, Executioner, offers unlimited play with much fewer but more advanced opponents.
Despite the surface similarities, Devil May Cry 4 plays significantly more methodically than Ninja Gaiden. At least in this demo, the enemies don’t attack you like they really mean it, lumbering towards you and threatening to overwhelm you should you drop your guard instead. Even the more advanced enemies in the second stage give you plenty of breathing room.
While the enemies weren’t terribly threatening, the combat appeared to offer a good deal of complexity and flare. Nero is equipped with a sword, gun, and the Devil Bringer, his grossly deformed and glowing right arm, capable of some spectacular special moves. Each weapon has its own button mapped to the controller. In addition, pulling the left trigger revs up his sword for more powerful attacks, A button jumps, and the right shoulder button locks onto enemies and objects.
With any combination of the weapons at hand, Nero is able to pull off an impressive array of combat acrobatics. He can, for example, charge forward with a slash of his sword or pull back on the controller upper-slashing his enemies skyward. He can follow to slice and dice them mid-air or shoot them from below. His gun is used mostly in light, long range attacks.
The real fun comes with the Devil Bringer. Nero’s demonically powered appendage is capable, first off, of picking up enemies and slamming them brutally into the ground. The slam also has different animations depending on the enemy. Once the Devil Bringer is upgraded – and there is a specific moment in the demo where precisely this occurs – Nero is then able to grapple onto distant objects, including opponents.
Locking onto target and using the Devil Bringer extends a glowing phantom arm that grasps opponents and yanks them within striking range. Jump into the air first and then use the snatch maneuver at your apex to pick them up off the ground and deal with them up high.
All considered, there’s a lot of stylistic combat variety in just this demo alone. Putting the pieces together results in some well animated and generally great looking battles, rife with different possibilities. With the upgradability of the Devil Bringer, there is hopefully much more that can be accomplished in the full game. The only complaint is that it appears there aren’t explicitly laid out combos, as such, linking Nero’s different attacks.
Besides combat, the demo presents the player with some exploratory gameplay as well. Scattered about the levels are red orbs for collection, getting enough of which will imbue Nero with new powers in full game. They’re often hidden in hard to reach, high places. With Nero’s jumping ability, you’re encouraged to do your part and poke around. But the Devil Bringer’s grapple move is also used to zip around via pre-designated grapple points, providing even more possibilities for navigation and light puzzle solving.
In fact, the auxiliary grapple point function was demonstrated as having practical combat use too. At the end of the second level, you’ll face off against Berial, a gigantic fiery minotaur-like demon. His face is a grapple point, and too high to reach by jumping. So to get there, you’re required to grapple up to his face then slash away upon arrival. This adds a taste of layering to boss battles and hopefully indicative of much more.
Visually, the demo proves its purpose: This is already a very impressive looking game. The demo moves at a silky framerate even with many enemies on screen at once. Detail in the environments is truly awesome as is the lighting. The environments also demonstrated a great deal of expansiveness, showing off the engine’s versatility. Character models aren’t as impressive in the details, but the game forgoes sheer intricacy with a softer, well rounded look. Enemy design was also really sharp.
Other highlights include the camera control, a mix of fixed angles and full user control offering the best of both worlds. This was particularly polished in the demo and served to highlight the game’s best assets. Thankfully, the game also supports a dynamic HUD system, highlighting important information when needed and disappearing when unnecessary.
Interspersed with vague cut scenes and corny dialogue, the demo promises lots of campy narrative and overwrought acting to compliment all the action. While the tone is either ‘love it or leave it’, one won’t be able to deny the games’ slick combat and good looks. If the demo is any indication, Devil May Cry 4 is shaping up to be an excellent addition to any action gamer’s library.
Devil May Cry 4 is scheduled to release February 5, 2008.
peachey @ January 25, 2008