Not being a huge fan of the franchise I still figured its worth it to play DMC4, I know the series increasingly gets more goofy and 'anime' but these games are decent action combat games so what the hell why not.
Right off the bat the tone in DMC4 is very much over the top generic japanese anime/manga/overly melodramatic goofy. All the characters and cutscenes in the game are increasingly more and more teenage 'badass' soap opera cliche love story than ever before. The story is pretty awful and embarrasing the most generic 'damsel in distress' "Badass savior" etc etc.. suffice to say ive not enjoyed any cutscene or piece of dialogue in the whole game, every cutscene left me cringing or rolling my eyes or just feeling second hand embarrassment.
The first half of the game you play as this teenage looking boy called Nero, it plays simiilar to previous DMC games mostly, but theres a bunch new mechanics. You lock onto enemies, which admitteedly the lockon system and controls are awkward and its hard to lock onto the exact enemy you want. This becomes an annoyance later on in the bosses but its not that big of a deal. As Nero, you have this mechanic where you can 'charge up' your sword and I never really got it. Some of the mechanics arent very clearly explained, but honestly it doesnt matter much if you miss a few of them. The game isn't all that hard or challenging. I played on normal difficulty and only the first half of the game posed any genuine frustrating challenging moments. Besides the addition of all sorts of new equipment as the campaign progresses, the standard gameplay loop is like a standard fair Beat 'Em Up, where you go from area to area, then appears an invisible wall and you Must defeat all the enemys to progress. This is the standard loop of DMC4. The enemy designs are nonsensical to say the least, but its standard DMC stuff. Weird japanese dolls and bizarre creatures, its fine for the most part. However, towards the middle/end part of the game half of the enemies have these huge shields and they're just a pain in the ass to fight , you either have to get behind them and grapple them or they're just huge sponges.
Theres the typical DMC upgrade system where before every mission you have the option to enter a shop and purcahse various new moves and combos like Mortal kombat, i never found any of this style of gameplay appealing as I hate memorizing button combinations and stuff like that. Theres an option to 'auto level up' which I kind of found more confusing than anything. The upgrade system isnt a big deal as you can respec at any time with no loss of currency, and you can eventually get every upgrade anyway.
Theres secret missions you can find and complete which usually give you more health but these use gimmicky 'minigame' style mechanics and I found them mostly way too annoying or frustrating/time wasting to bother doing for the most part. Such as one where you have to figure out a way to protect one enemy from this giant swarm of enemys and if he gets hit once you fail, its just too much of a chore to finish these. Theres another secret mission where you have tip toe across falling platforms while avoiding these annoying flying enemies constantly knocking you off, also too annoying.
You can buy infinite healing items and instant revives so that helps a lot in making the game not difficult when you dont want it to be.
The level variation is decent you go from city streets, snowy mountians, resident evil style medevial mansions complete with torture rooms ETC, the locations are probably best thing about the game.
However, at a few points the pacing is open ended and you're not quite sure where to go, and the game allows you to pointlessly backtrack far enough to the point where I get stressed out wondering if I'm just pointlessly running back to the beginning of the game or not, that was pretty annoying.
There are these stupid sections where you have to hit these spintop things around the enviorment to break obsticles to progress which is just pretty dull as a mechanic.
You have other bizarre mechanics required to progress like a 'hookshot' where you have to zip around the enviorment on hookpoints using the lockon system and I just found this more tedious and annoying than anything. Its clear they tried to break up the repetitive 'beat em up sections but I never found any of the alternatives very entertaining.
And then you have a handful of boss fights, such as this giant frog, this weird insect guy, giant fire demon, and eventually fighting dante (the guy from original DMC). These boss fights are pretty cool and probably best part of the game, certainly the most engaging, they arent all too challenging or frustrating but not too easy either. Unfortunately, theres not that many of them, and now brings me to probably the worst part of the game.
Well it is said that the development for this game got cut short they either ran out of funds or time, and thus the second half of the game is a total rehash. You switch characters, and play through the whole game again, from end to beginning, fighting the same bosses, same monsters basically, doing all the same things, its so obvious they just ran out of time and needed more content in the game so they just used this as filler. Its not all awful, because playing as Dante is a fun change of pace complete with his own mechanics and swap abilities, but still it wasnt that entertaining fighting the same boss over and over. On one of the last levels theres even a 'boss rush' where you just fight every boss in the game in one level, its kind of cool, but at the same time its more tedious and just like "This, again? I'm bored of doing this again"
The combat can be intense and engaging, the last boss was a genuine challene but here is where the camera and lock on system showed its annoyances. Its hard to lockonto the boss instead of his stupid flying balls so yeahits just bad. The camera for many parts of the game is total crap too where you cant even pan around and examine the area to figure out where the hell you're trying to go/do.
So thats really it for DMC4. It feels like half a finished game, with the second half being filler. With really stupid/embarrasing story, dialogue, cutscenes, over the top rediculous anime crap which im not a fan of, but the combat is Decent albeit a bit too beat 'em up button mash for me. None of the weapns or equipment or even the combat visually looks that appealing it just all looks so over the top and anime that I cant get that into it. Its OK for what it is, some of the enviorments are cool but also they can be irritating to navigate, but for me its just an alright game. I dont think anything will top DMC1 as its just the coolest looking game of the franchise and has less of the over the top anime drivel plastered all over it.
6/10
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