My honest thoughts on DMC5

[1/5]

Nero is awesome. Back with a vengeance from his previous appearance, he gets to keep everything and more. He’s carved his own unique style of gameplay, pushing the player to get better and getting the power they need to beat the odds. Thanks to all his execution-based mechanics he’s become the ultimate “get good” character, and a worthy protagonist for the series.

Breaker’s not being switchable is good. The arms are balanced around the breaking mechanic, being complex enough for you to play around with but not so much you’ll be gimped without them. It’s a system that rewards the player for being daring and having mastery over it but never puts them at risk for not doing so; it’s perfect for both this series and Nero.

V is wonderful. He puts a completely new spin on the gameplay, unlike many previous characters which felt like more of the same. He has his own rhythm and strategy to combat, being less about execution or variety and more about playing it safe and making the right moves to overwhelm enemies. There’s less finesse to him, but it’s accounted by the sheer amount of destruction you can unleash with him if you know what you’re doing. There’s definitely more than meets the eye with him and for a first go at this type of character, they did a superb job.

Dante is the best playable character in an action game, period. He is a marvel of game design, the culmination of nearly twenty years of videogame history. His switching mechanics are at their peak, making everything in his arsenal a powerful tool both as a piece and on its own, and it all comes full circle with his Sin Devil Trigger. He is wonderfully accessible, but his sheer breadth invites players to make use of the full range of his abilities. It truly allows the player to make a legend come to life when playing as him. He’s everything he should be.

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[2/5]

The character switching enhances the experience. It keeps the campaign fresh and does it without resorting to gimmicks. Unlike previous games at no point does this one feel padded or overstaying its welcome. Combined with the separate maps for missions, it allowed the story to be told in separate order and follow various characters, so that it could then coalesce into the big moments of the plot.

The level design and environments are great. They’re filled with dozens of little details that makes replaying them and stopping to look around fun. The city feels like a real city, and even inside the tree there isn’t a single level that plays or looks the same. There’s no backtracking or platforming or item hunting to waste your time, just great combat. The cameo system is a nice addition which makes them feel livelier but never gets in your way. The separate levels make for excellent replays, giving you solid chunks of time with each of the characters.

The enemies are the best they’ve been in the franchise. They all have unique abilities and strategies for the player to experiment with. They aren’t hard only because it’s expected of them to be. The game makes full use of having multiple enemy types all at once with prioritizing enemies and knowing their specific strengths and weaknesses vital for both survival and style. You have to focus on more than one enemy at any point, but it never feels like you’re just beating one after the other just for the sake of it. The enemy design shines brightest in Bloody Palace, also the best one in the series, with a great difficulty curve which never tries to ruin the player’s fun.

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[3/5]

The graphics and aesthetics are perfect. Not only does the game have an amazing level of graphic fidelity, but the photorealism really brings the characters to life. The game is constantly playing with high brightness effects and light sources to communicate things to the player and it looks great on top. The animation work is top notch, there’s dozens of details both in cutscenes and in gameplay and the characters’ body language alone communicates so much. It truly feels like what the franchise always wanted to look like, combining dark and horrific environments with fully human characters braving through them.

The free camera only adds to the experience. It makes all the situations the player comes across feel natural, rather than staged like with a fixed one. It also allows the player to frame the action how they want, giving an extra oomph if you learn to control it as you play. There’s also a bunch of tricks that are done with it, both in and out of combat, to make it feel all that much more reactive and make the action more visually impressive.

The music is godlike. Not only is the OST huge and incredibly varied but the character themes fit their respective heroes perfectly, truly immersing you into the action. None of it feels by the numbers, and I’m surprised whenever I hear how good something that’s playing in a random cutscene is. The boss themes fit just as well, stand-outs for me being Cavaliere Angelo’s and King Cerberus’.

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[4/5]

The style ranking system is genius. It’s elegant in its simplicity, pointing the player towards high level play, but never forcing it on them. As a result players are made aware of how much they can do with the game, being rewarded with huge amounts of interaction and replayability. The game makes becoming better at it its pure focus, it truly feels like an arcade game, but with all the benefits of modern gaming. Everything, from its level design to its combat system, exists to support and be supported by style ranking. Unlike previous games the mission scores are finally focused purely on performance, which makes replaying always rewarding as your growth as a player will be reflected in how the game grades you.

The difficulty strikes the perfect balance. The standard difficulty is introductory and doesn’t push the player more than it needs to accomplish that goal. Instead it gives them tons of new abilities throughout so that they’re engaged with the mechanics rather than just trying to beat the game. Later difficulties ramp it up, but not to the point it’s so hard playing isn’t something you’d want to do regularly.

The length is exactly what it needed to be. It’s so rare to see a game of this quality and this size nowadays which doesn’t feel compromised by some attempt to make it feel longer than it should be to justify its price with an arbitrary number of hours clocked. It’s still a game that you can finish in an afternoon, but not one you’ll go and forget. It leaves the player wanting more which, rather than a negative, speaks to its consistent quality. But if you replay it, like it’s meant to be, it never stops being as fun as it was the first time.

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[5/5]

The story is amazing. It delivers on so many fronts, from giving more depth to Vergil’s character, to Nero growing into his own and finding his family, to Dante finally getting his well-earned happy ending and healing his wounds from the third game. The decision to spilt Vergil into Urizen and V was pure genius, allowing the character to reflect on his own actions and showing parts of himself he never could. It not only manages to perfectly juggle multiple main characters, but also incorporate parts of the whole franchise into it. It’s not ashamed to present itself as a long-standing series, not boxing itself into an easily digestible package, but the plot is still tight knit and to the point. For new comers, it’s a starting point into a much larger series, while old fans will enjoy all things from previous games they’ll see. It’s a sequel, and it’s fully proud of being one, and makes good use of it. It’s happy to comment on previous events or fulfill broken promises, rather than change things for the sake of it. It’s not only good as a stand-alone story, but it makes the story of previous games better to boot.

For me it’s a 10/10. The definite Devil May Cry experience, a classic in its own right and the best action game I’ve ever played.

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Based and DMC5pilled.

what was even the point of including lady and trish in this game? they could have been cut completely and nothing of value would have been lost

Because if they hadn't appeared people would be wondering why they were missing during such a crucial fight instead.

No Lady means no Kalina Ann and no Trish means no Sparda and no Eva. Plus there doesn't need to be much justification to their appearance when it's the fifth game in the series, they're just part of the cast.

Glad you liked it. I think it's not as perfect as you make it out to be, and yet still the overall best DMC game by far.