With DMC 5 releasing soon, find out why the legendary Devil May Cry series deserves your attention.
The originator of character action games as we know them; Devil May Cry is returning in style! After the extremely mixed reception of 2012’s DmC, original fans of the franchise thought that their favorite demon slaying/pizza loving protagonist would be banished into obscurity. Luckily, Capcom seems to be on their redemption arc and have been releasing stellar titles such as Monster Hunter World and Resident Evil 2. Piece by piece they seem to be regaining the admiration of their fans again and Devil May Cry 5 seems to be following that pattern.
Why You Should Be Excited For Devil May Cry 5
Here are a few reasons why the return of this legendary series should excite you!
The Legendary Dark Knight!
Everything from the original God of War games to the Bayonetta titles owes their core mechanics to DMC (Devil May Cry). Yes, all of these games have drastically different tones and art styles, but their core mechanics are heavily inspired by the DMC line of games. What the original games did to innovate within the gaming industry was evolve the concepts of classic 2D beat em up games. By using the framework of the original Resident Evil games, Capcom was able to create a game where instead of fearing the ghouls of the night, the player would be encouraged to decimate their opposition in creative combos. Multiple sword, firearms, and styles were at the player’s disposal as they faced increasing difficult mobs of enemies. Does that basic design flow sound familiar, well it should as an entire genre was spawned from the concepts displayed within the original DMC games!
Devils Never Cry!
Omitting the black sheep the franchise; Devil May Cry 2, the majority of the games continued to push the character action genre forward. But while gamers were drawn in by the flashy combos and nearly infinite gameplay potential, it’s the characters combined with the tone of the series that made fans fall in love with it. The devil may care (yes, I hate myself too) personality of Dante, the main character, charmed players all over the world. Despite the games being set in gothic environments and the characters going to hell, players never felt that the series was creeping into the edgelord territory(ignoring you DMC 2).
Gamers instead would laugh at the one-liners of Dante while being astonished by his impressive stunts. Not only that, but thanks to the stylish/deep combat system, players would often be able to pull off stunts that weren’t too far off from the fantastic cutscenes they just watched. So again, while most people write off the story in the DMC games as being excuses for badasses gameplay, some merit has to be given to how the series was able to make players invested within characters that should otherwise be shallow.
We Shall Never Surrender!
While the gaming industry isn’t exactly starving for character action games, DMC 5 has the potential to push the genre even further once more. While the 2012 reboot; DmC, wasn’t objectively a terrible game, it was a far cry from what fans of the original wanted and were expecting. DMC 5 seems to be implementing all of the minor and major evolutions of the genre while adding multiple characters and systems to push the envelope. With the track record of Capcom being at an all-time high (ignoring SFV & Marvel Infinite), DMC 5 has the potential to innovate in ways never imagined. For the curious, the DMC 5 demo is available to download now as well as the entire series on all modern consoles and PC.
