Devil May Cry 3: Overrated or Rightly Apprieciated?

hello everyone after many eons it's finally that time the long-awaited dmc3 review is finally upon us and boy what a journey it's been I started this journey with dmc3 set solidly as my favorite Devil May Cry game but over the course of about six different difficulties with over a hundred total hours put into the game over around 10 or 15 playthroughs my opinions have changed somewhat and become more complex now before any dmc3 fans freak the [ __ ] out don't worry I do still love this game but I also think it's spent so long on a huge golden pedestal in the action game genre and within my own head that a full playthrough on every difficulty plus some more for grinding really caused me to re-examine it as well as its strengths and weaknesses and where it stands in relation to what came both before and after Devil May Cry 3 already finds itself in a bit of a tough spot as it has to essentially revive the series from the dead after the posca DMC 2 was in order to achieve this the director hideaki itsuno and the development team had to go back and examine each of their failures in Devil May Cry 2 and rectify them whilst incorporating large amounts of automate the first game so beloved on top of this they had to evolve and improve upon these positive aspects to create a game that would not only revive the series but also be its strongest entry so how well did they achieve this well let's find out [Music] [Music] [Music] your foreign [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign no doubt you've got some fun planned for me right Virgil before I begin the review properly I'd like to make two main disclaimers as I feel that these are issues that may be raised or are contextually relevant in terms about how I feel about certain design decisions first though I have played this game many times I do not consider myself a pro by any means and I admit there's probably many things that Pros can either circumvent or use to their advantage that would be annoying for a typical player like me to handle however being able to circumvent something because of hundreds of hours of game knowledge doesn't make it not a bad design decision if it is one although people are absolutely free to disagree with my takes if there's something obvious that I missed which there may well be the second point is that while trying to 100 the game I had my original 60 plus hours save file corrupted causing me to have to replay this game several more times than I initially anticipated this has caused some major DMC burnout or recording for this video and may affect some of my takes however I feel that this isn't enough of a major factor to massively overwrite my opinion as I'm perfectly capable of playing games that I adore 10 plus times back to back and I do believe that my burnout within this game comes from a fundamental lack of replayability on its part which I'll get to anyway as the key aspect at the core of Devil May Cry success in order to successfully Revitalize the series Devil May Cry 3's combat would have to absolutely wow players while building on what had come before to begin with the game features a reworked Alistar and effort in the form of rebellion and Beowulf as well as three brand new and unique weapons for Dante to make you solve these are obtained for beating certain main story bosses essentially acting as rewards for progressing through the game with each new weapon having its own set Niche that brought an interesting layer to combat rebellion and Beowulf as previously stated serve much the same purpose as Alistar and effort before them with one being a high-speed mid-range weapon and the other being a short-range but extremely powerful beat down Tool Sober and Agony and rudra then act as the game's combo machines with a larger degree of skill required to learn them but the reward of even longer and more stylish combos on that subject the combo system from Devil May Cry 1 makes its deserved return with delays and button inputs during attacks resulting in new and varied combo outputs however the major Improvement made to this system is the ability to seamlessly switch between two main equipped weapons even mid-combo and produce a virtually infinite number of unique results this system rewards a player the more they experiment and engage with each of the game's weapons and each of these weapons feels satisfying and fun to fight with in its own right none of them really have glaring issues that prevent them from being usable and that cannot be overcome through a greater understanding of that weapon or simply by combining it with another that covers their weapons inherent weaknesses at least that's what I'd like to say if there wasn't too many issues viewers familiar with dmc3 already may have noticed that I left out one major weapon Nevin a scythe electric guitar hybrid that acts as a weird zoning tool which spams attacks from afar but also has this big AOE blast around you which I assume is meant to be a method of keeping enemies away but rarely ever works the problem essentially is that this weapon's moveset is slow far too slow to be efficiently comboed in with any of the other game's main weapons and it lacks a lot of Versatility and fun within its design although again I do not profess to be anything near a pro at this game so it is possible I don't understand it but every time I've tried it I found it extremely lackluster and unfun to use worse still instead of the delayed button combos of other weapons it uses directional inputs a holdover from Devil May Cry 2's combat system which are deeply flawed essentially because of the way the game's camera Works see one major aspect that Devil May Pro 1 attempts to improve on from its predecessors is its camera instead of being fully fixed the player can now turn the camera to a small degree either way as well as having a much improved lock-on system the problem is that this doesn't entirely fix the issue as the camera still has the devil micro one issue of abruptly switching between perspectives very frequently in some areas this has the effect of completely throwing you off when it happens and rendering directional inputs completely useless so yeah thanks to these two issues Nevin feels completely unusable as every enemy either invalidates your range Advantage by being faster or by ganging up on you on that subject though ranged weapons have gone through some significant changes and are now well integrated into the combat system in my opinion Ebony and Ivory now don't really do terribly significant damage and act primarily as a way of juggling enemies to keep up the soul meter or as a method of maintaining damage on an enemy whilst repositioning this is absolutely perfect as it allows the guns to feel like a central part of the game's combat loop as they should be but it uses their implementation to encourage you to use them in concert with the game's melee weapons rather than instead of them as for the range of other guns you get over the course of the game such as usual beam Cannon shotgun and my favorite thing ever they much like the melee weapons all have their own uses and niches within the game's combat system however despite Devil May Cry 3's range of weapons with different niches the inability to change weapon loadouts mid-level does result in an almost opportunity cost-like mindset as you play through the game you realize that certain weapons perform far more poorly against certain enemies and particularly I found many of the ranged weapons struggle to deal with many common enemy types or at least deal with them in a way that was more efficient than just spamming Ebony and Ivory now granted there are statues placed at certain points within the levels that allow you to switch weapons which does mitigate some of that issue but it doesn't change the fact that not every weapon is integrated into the combat as well and the lack of constant ability to switch depended on a situation just reinforces picking favorite set and sticking with it now for the truly important question Devil Trigger it's been absolutely busted to the point of being the only state in which you can play the game on higher 10 difficulties for the last two games straight so how is it here well first of all it drains at a far higher rate so you spend less time in that state and don't have the same ridiculous damage output that you do in other games however you do still heal deal increased damage with your attacks and move faster this state Works more as a short boost of power to be strategically used in mid combo to gain as much DPS as possible rather than just something to be spammed to kill everything instantly this is because the lack of any overwhelming benefits to its usage means that just popping it randomly to whack an enemy can often end up being a waste to balance out the loss of power Devil Trigger is experience though as well as giving you an option for if enemies begin to swarm around you and give you no space to attack there's DT burst this effectively works by having you sacrifice most of your meter after a significant charge up time in exchange from AOE explosion that does insane damage and could usually kill the basic enemies of most difficulties in one hit however it does completely use up your meter and isn't that effective on most bosses outside of their specific weak States so you have to strategically plan how you use it so far though we've mainly seen how dmc3 improves on already existing systems but does it add anything new of value to the DMC formula indeed it does for it's here that we see the Advent of the Revolutionary stance system a set of four stances that drastically improve upon aspects of Dante's kit and require you to change your playstyle around them there's trickster which gives Dante a real [ __ ] Dodge Button as well as massively increasing his maneuverability in all areas there's there's swordmaster which adds new and wonderfully stylish moves to your melee weapons to improve Combos and similarly Gunslinger which adds the exact same thing but for ranged weapons and then finally there's Royal Guard which adds a [ __ ] Parry to Devil May Cry all of these are unique and fun in their own right and all have their own distinct uses however dmc3 only allows you to use one stance at a time in a mission unless you're playing on the devil's box so using a variety of approaches to combat using these stances is immediately hamstrung additionally due to this it becomes far more worth it to Simply stick with one stance for an entire playthrough in the hopes of raising it to max level as you've now again got this unavoidable element of opportunity cost essentially meaning that The Stance you pick to run through the level has to be the most fun to use and most capable of dealing with enemies on that level this essentially forces a choice between the two main defensive stances royal guard and trickster as Dante has no real defensive options to deal with some of these attacks otherwise this choice is essentially cut down to just trickster though as Royal Guard is fun to use but it severely limits your maneuverability which is essential for most fights and for navigating large portions of the platform segments in the game also it requires more play time to actively Master this is a massive shame as literally just including the ability to switch would completely remove this issue and exponentially increase your options in combat this along with the inconsistency of some weapons as well as the camera still largely bleeding an issue as why I believe dmc3's combat is still fundamentally flawed although it is a massive Improvement on what has gone before all these tools do build towards the greater goal of improving the style system and allowing you more options to increase it see in the all the games you just Spam random buttons and the style meter would just kind of go up the more times you hit something now however you're encouraged to use every combo weapon and Tool in Your Arsenal in order to keep the meter as high as possible and spamming the same attack will cause it to Decay which has the effect of constantly keeping you active during combat and rewards you for engaging with every fast combat system as much as possible overall despite some small issues it is a really strong Improvement on what has come before in my opinion however the inability to dynamically switch stances and weapons does drag it down a bit for me regardless though this has still been the most fun Dante has been to play in any of the Devil May Cry games so far with any good combat system though you need an equally solid system of progression that rewards you for completing the game's many challenges with additional skills and tools to enrich gameplay Devil May Cry 3 handles this by returning mainly to Devil May Pro 1's system of red orbs being collected from defeated enemies the amount of red orbs you collect is dependent on the stylish meeting you gained from that enemy rewarding players for trying bigger and flashier combos furthermore to that end the player is awarded a ranking at the end of every Mission based on the time it took them to complete it the stylish points they racked up and how much damage they took a ranking which is then awarded with increasingly high amount of red orbs based on how good it is these red orbs can then be used to buy healing items at the shop upgrade weapons and purchase new skills long gone is the abjectly boring system of spending red orbs to give weapons flat damage upgrades we're back to fun and unique skills that enhance each weapons play style baby Dante can also buy purple orbs from the shop which upgrade his Devil Trigger meter my only issue with this being it would be a bit more fun if they were scattered around and wool as blue orbs are to make them feel more like an upgrade you anxiously have to work for and therefore more like an actual product game speaking of blue orbs they work the same as always by upgrading your max Health if you find four fragments or one full one you can buy up to four at the shop and the rest is split between hidden locations world and secret missions their locations strike a nice balance between being nine and possible to find like in Devil May Cry 1 and a cakewalk like in Devilman crate 2 in my opinion which marks a nice Improvement the progression system in general is a solid consolidation of what was already a pretty Flawless system in Devil Minecraft 1 and is one of the main areas that Devil May Cry 3 honestly perfects however I do still have one small karate one repeatedly weird gameplay decision that these games keep making why the [ __ ] is air hike locked behind a paywall air hike for those who don't know is essentially this game's double jump which thanks to the emphasis the game often puts on platforming feels like a pretty essential skill a skill that is locked behind a 20K or red or paywall a sizable sum for your first playthrough and that's forgetting the fact that you have to unlock it on weapons individually and that it can only be unlocked on three out of five of The Game's weapons this is such a strange design decision to me as their hike is less a non-essential tool purposefully designed to act as a reward that makes gameplay more fun as the other upgrades are air hike instead is pretty much an essential part of Dante's kit that is just missing on roundabout two-fifths of his weapons further incentivizing the player away from using them and then put behind a paywall that essentially forces the player to get it before they can actually move on to getting new moves their weapons again though this is Main only a minor personal grape and doesn't majorly distract from the fact that this is still the best admc progression system has been so far in the series every solid progression combat system needs enemies that test the player's skill and act as fulfilling an enjoyable obstacles to overcome and it's on this front which I think that dmc3 honestly kind of fails to deliver to begin with we have the hell jailers seven unique Grim reaper-like enemies with designs and attacks all themed after a deadly set individually they're not really a threat until you reach down to a must die difficulty but each one complements the others to form what is essentially a single coherent enemy for example the tanky but slow hell sloths tank damage while faster enemies Dash in and attack you from behind this kind of design allows individual enemies to be quickly and silently dealt with that forces you to be aware and wary of the capabilities of everything you're fighting this all sounds good right so where's the problem well the problems start occurring with everything else Devil May Cry 3's enemy roster which either returns to the brutally unfun gimmicks of the first two games C blood goyles Soul Eaters or fallen or lumps the most passive and boring cardboard box enemy you've ever fought against right on your lap see the chess man and the dullahans Imagine for a second imagine a gaseous flying enemy that's Invincible while you're facing it and can therefore only be attacked by repeatedly turning away and then shooting it for by spamming the jumping attack on Bell oh and we gave it a one shot Brown and it can teleport and by the way that one shot grab only cancelable if you have DT what a fun fine and although that's definitely the worst dmc3 has to offer far too many enemies on the roster have at least some gimmick like that from phasing through walls to only being damaged by hitting a big Resident Evil ass big glowy spot it completely drains the fun out of playing the game for me as the emphasis once again is taken away from style and placed on knowing how to best explode to specific gimmick it's such a disappointment especially considering how fun the combat is and can make the game of real slog on higher difficulties and when Dante must die I'll be honest abjectly impossible it also marks the one area of the game where that good old Devil May Cry 2 design philosophy can really be felt and I just don't enjoy that moving on though how the bosses well overall they're amazing ignoring Virgil for a moment don't worry we'll come back to him we have bangers like Beowulf never Severus each of the bosses represent Peak Devil May Cry boss design in my opinion as while they incorporate some of the elements of that gimmick design I really do hate in most bosses in this series The gimmicks they use don't render their boss fights unenjoyably as they can either be overcome pretty easily like with sir versus ice or are fundamentally fun to play around because they allow a range of responses from the player a perfect example of this is Nevin's backs which do make her unvulnerable but can be destroyed either by shooting them or with a melee attack this encourages the player to make a decision between the safe option of shooting from range but taking way longer or engaging in timed melee attacks in order to maintain their style meter encouraging the player to make a risk versus reward decisions like this instead of just having one set method of beating them is the Hallmark of a great boss and can be applied to almost all of Devil May Cry 3's excellent roster almost because for some reason someone at the office was allowed to cook and create these [ __ ] Abominations I really hate to have to say it but just as Devil May Cry 3 has some of the highest boss highs in the series it also has some of the highest boss lows gigaped Leviathan and Arkham are once again a return to that good old dmc2 drudgery with bosses that either barely interact with you or just spam you with minor enemies until you die yoga peed in particular is in the running for Devil May cry's worst boss in my opinion which with Devil May Cry 2's entire lineup a stiff competition is pretty [ __ ] impressive this completely [ __ ] stupid worm just flies through tunnels periodically spamming you with one of two ranged attack types the only interruptions by the way in an otherwise completely mind-lovingly boring boss fight with no actual reason to exist seriously why is this thing even a boss it's genuinely never even addressed Dante doesn't even interact with it at all so it's just a effectively a filler boss added into England's playtime I guess regardless of its purpose though it's a real letdown from the otherwise mostly Stellar quality of this game's bosses but enough beating around the bush with the unimportant fodder I know what you want to know how's the funny Blue Man the master of motivation himself Virgil well I'm sure I'm not the first person to say this but he's absolutely amazing he's effectively supposed to be this refinement of Devil May Cry 1's best boss nilo Angelo which mirrored aspects of Dante's moveset in order to produce an almost pvp-like experience which is what Virgil delivers albeit with more variation than his definitely cry one counterpart his three fights offer up their own unique set of challenges while building on each other beautifully a perfect example of this is how his Arena evolves over your three fights with him as the first two fights the arena is kind of in your favor as most of Virgil's attacks come in straight lines and the first two Arenas you fight him in are circular this means you have more room to effectively kite and Dodge his attacks as well as keeping him at range while watching for his tells however your third fight with him is skewed in his favor as you square off in an almost western style door where you stand at opposite ends of a relatively thin strip of Riverbank this gives you far less room to carry out his attacks and forces you to manage your distance from him more effectively especially as he gains several potentially lethal ranged attacks and a terrifying second phase we're only like halfway through this review series but I honestly believe this is the best Devil May Cry fight right here the tension the Reliance are nothing but your own wits and quick reactions and the beautifully realized fantasy of fighting an equal all combines to form honestly one of the most fun experiences you can have in a game as for dmc3's approach to level design the director and development team seem to have learned from their initial misstep and Diplomat cry too while levels were nothing but empty vapid expanses levels are now mostly set within a series of medium to small sized areas with larger connective areas like the base of the tower's Nexus effectively the same as how definitely crew 1 happen albeit without the accursed underwater levels there are no combat Arenas which feel too large or too small in my opinion as they all straddle the middle ground between being too large and too cramped very effectively the same can be said to boss Aries as I've already mentioned how Virgil's Arena perfectly complements his fights in my opinion the only really sucky combat Arenas I can think of are more hamstrung by the enemies or bosses contained within them rather than the Arenas themselves the only notable exception to which is gigaped's Boss Arena which not only sees you fight him but also several very unenjoyable encounters throughout the course of a game in a space that feels very reminiscent of those empty boring combat arenas from Devil May Cry 2 I mentioned earlier as for exploration and the Collectibles rewarded for it there are three main things to find first there are the blue orb fragments which I've already mentioned and their locations are a lot better balanced than in previous games in terms of ease of Discovery so you could likely find them all without the use of a guide but they do require you to actively search the level for a bit we also have the secret missions which reward you with blue or fragments these are much better signposts in this game instantly registering as obvious items of interest if you're looking for them in most cases for example the big Crystal Skull in Mission 10. as for how they play they incorporate a much wider range of challenges than the previous two games testing things such as your ability to stay airborne for 20 seconds or taking out a group of enemies without being hit they're on the whole a lot more fun I'd say but their difficulty is also a lot more punishing which does make sense for a secret mission but can also stand as a bit of an annoying and unnecessary barrier between you and completing your health bar these I think should reward you with something other than blue orbs as two of The Game's sets of Collectibles already offer these rewards finally there's the combat adjudicators which also reward you with blue oil fragments in exchange for reaching a stylish ranking with a certain weapon I really like these as they test your Mastery of Dante's Arsenal very fairly as well as actively rewarding it there are also place very obvious locations so your only real obstacle in terms of beating them is your own fundamental understanding of the game's combat which I think is really fun in terms of overall structure Devil May Cry 3 follows the same Mission layer as the previous entries with 20 missions in total these missions all revolve around defeating a set boss or solving a simple puzzle like finding your way to three sort of hidden key items however due to being pretty similar to especially Devil May Cry 1 in terms of mission goals Devil May Cry 3 does suffer from its problem of occasionally feeling extremely repetitive as there's no real variety to Mission goals other than just simply running around grabbing key items and putting them in places yes I know that's simply the overall framework for the game to take place within but more variation is kinda needed in my opinion as levels start to feel really saving especially in the disappointing stretch between the defeat of Virgil for the second time and the fight with doppelgang where five-ish missions straight are just spent running around and getting things to put in places nothing happens in any of these missions as you just Mark your slower sent off the tower again overall I'd say pacing and variety is one of the areas in which Devil May Cry 3 fails to improve on the mistakes of the past games the most although it should be clarified I'm not really saying the levels in Devil May Cry 3 suck just that they don't really build or improve upon the mistakes of past games in any meaningful way one of the many criticisms that was levied at Devil May Cry 2 after its release concerned its difficulty or lack thereof particularly the fact that the entire game could be beaten without even really engaging with the game's combat and just spamming the guns well director hideaki yatsuna seems to have taken that real personal as Devil May Cry 3 marks are returned to the same punishing and mostly fun difficulty spikes of the first entry normal mode is a fair challenge when you first play it provided you aren't using items and acts as a decently punishing but fair introduction to the game's combat enemies and bosses however replaying the game on increasingly High difficulties is an integral part of the main Devil May Cry experience and is the reason why the games are usually quite short at around four to five hours I think which ensures that the game is as replayable as possible with each difficulty ramping up the health and damage of the enemies and bosses it also changes up enemy spawn locations between hard and very hard and increases the amount of certain enemy types that appear in certain locations this Rising difficulty Spike Chris friend does with Dante Must Die the ultimate Challenge here enemies do about a quarter of your health on attack have improved Ai and access to their own Devil Trigger State this all sounds like a theoretically fun challenge being asked to stylishly dispatch enemies who have every conceivable advantage over you using these skills previous difficulties have taught you however there's one main issue that caused this Devil May Cry 3 is DMD mode to be fundamentally just sorted on fun in my opinion see enemies in Dante Ms die mode also get ungodly tanky which means that you've actively spent like five minutes comboing each one while a horde of other tanky enemies interrupts you constantly this adds this really unenjoyable element of artificial difficulty in my opinion as fights become these elongated and drawn-out Wars of attrition that end up tripping you up more simply because of their length than because of their actual difficulty their ability to get Devil Trigger adds another layer of frustration to this as enemies gain the ability to Poise tanks for many of your attacks as well as an even larger health bar which makes fighting them even more drawn out and annoying this isn't even particularly bad on most of the basic hell Jailer enemies as again most of them are well designed enough that enough awareness means that you can basically learn to deal with these encounters the problem gets real bad though when facing those poorly designed enemies I mentioned earlier which are only somewhat salvageable in the base game because of their smallish health bars which are now dialed up to 11 on Dante Must Die making them effectively miserable to fight enemy DT mode also works differently than in previous games somewhat to my frustration as enemies no longer have a timer before they go Devil Trigger mode so you can simply beat them before they transform which is a very fun test of your skills effectively asking you to speedrun every encounter as stylishly as possible however now Devil Trigger is automatically activated in certain enemies based on how many you've killed now you can still mess around with this system but mostly that's to do with just oh I will prioritize this incredibly destructive enemy type first to ensure that it doesn't get double tricked but the problem is everything's infuriating in this game when it gets Devil Trigger and there are only like two or three combat encounters where that kind of prioritization actually matters the old system I feel was Superior in terms of their difficulty as it rewarded players who could quickly and efficiently deal with the game's combat encounters instead of effectively punishing you for playing in terms of replayability there's also the added option to play in yellow or gold old mode the difference being that in yellow orb mode each death resets you to the beginning of the mission this in my opinion makes the game a whole lot less fun especially Andante must die as the game becomes this slow trudge repeatedly doing the same encounters over and over if you die even once and the game doesn't really feel like it was balanced with you resetting back to the beginning of the mission after every Gap in mind there's also bloody Palace mode completely revamped and braided from the shoddy experience it was in death May Cry 2. there's now actually fun and distinct Arenas boss fights now happen in their proper areas instead of being crammed into space that don't fit them and the difficulty curve is a lot more well handled additionally items are banned but you have the choice to replenish your DT in health at the cost of ascending up the bloody palace's flaws a bit slower which is a fun mechanic which forces you to weigh up risk versus reward overall all I've played this game about 14 times so I can't see the replayability factor isn't there in a big way but I do think the game hits its actual fun Peak at very hard mode instead of Dante must die as it intends the game could also feel better repetitive because of that lack of variation Mission design as I mentioned before a holdover from the series is earlier entries hello this is editing Chucky while script writing for this video I almost completely forgot you can even play as Virgil how silly of me how goofy uh yeah he's pretty fun I'm just annoyed there is absolutely no variation at his campaign at all in terms of adding new cutscenes or even bothering to add Dante in as a special boss encounter so you just get recolored Virgil um you can also feel a bit weird to navigate the early platforming Focus levels on considering you don't have air hike but that is again honestly outweighed but his fun factor in combat where he trades out a lot of the moving parts of Dante's Arsenal for sheer power and devastating attacks which feel gorgeous to use again just wish there was a bit more to his story you showed up [Music] you sure know how to throw a party food no drinks and the only babe just left my sincerest apology brother I was so eager to see you I could couldn't preparations for The Bash corner at any rate it's been a whole year since we last met how about a kiss from your little brother or better yet how about a kiss from this [Music] now let's start discussing the story and characters where both DMC one and two focused on an older mature and often quite edgy Dante Devil May Cry 3 takes us back to the past Before The Devil May Cry hunting agency was even formed and to a much younger and more immature Dante adante who runs around shirtless and relentlessly taughts every demon he comes up against at the beginning of the game he gets an anonymous call and has the shot attacked by a horde of demons as to swiftly dispatching them a demonic Tower arises from the ground the summoned by his brother Virgil who he has a bitter rivalry with spurring Dante to ascend the tower in order to fight him Virgil is assisted in his mission by Arkham a mysterious and downright weird [ __ ] fella who wanders around going demon debug doctor Stephen's Tower and acts as the secondary antagonist his daughter lady also climbs the tower equipped with a [ __ ] bazooka with a Bayonet attached she seems equally bitter and also wishes to ascend the tower to stop her father and that's about the size of it another extremely simple plot setup in my DMC game who'da thunk it right however what's most immediately interesting about Devil May Cry 3 is this more moving Parts than other DMC games with a few more major characters and therefore more opportunities to explore the themes and ideas of the DMC series through them it is overall an excellent story in my opinion for many reasons mainly to do with how it interacts with and explores Devil May cry's themes while maintaining a relatively Simple Story and as this game's strongest asset in my opinion now that's it for non-spoiler territory I'm afraid everything after this will be discussing those so if you don't wish to be spoiled skip to this in terms of the story's pacing it's split into a pretty cut and dry 3x rupture with each story at end being marked by a fight with Virgil there's the opening seven missions which follows Dante's first Ascent up the tower and his first Skirmish with Virgil after which he unlocks his Devil Trigger the second act then has him dive to the Tao's Subterranean basement to stop Virgil from unlocking its Central purpose finally the third act revolves around Dante chasing Arkham back up if shifting and rapidly collapsing Tower in order to reach him before he attains godhood culminating in the ultimate western style standoff between him and Virgil thankfully in contrast to the game's missions the story feels well-defined and well paced with the only real issue I have being the lack of location Variety in the majority of the third act the story benefits heavily from its relative Simplicity in the structural sense as there are no real wasted cut scenes in my opinion and it gets its major intended messages through to the player clearly and concisely there's only really one or two major shocker reveals that I can think of and they all feel pretty well set up in my opinion especially Arkham's betrayal of Virgil at the second X climax but what about the characters DMC and most character action games in general mostly carry themselves not on the weight in complexity of their plots but instead of the likability and fun present within their characters Devil May Cry 1 and 2 struggled with this severely as I've already elaborated in their respective reviews and it really held those games back in returns of enjoyment for me so how does Devil by Cry 3 perform well for a start Dante's character was finally nailed down in this game and no longer hovers awkwardly between sassy and edgy in the middle of scenes here he's consistently an arrogant prick but lovely so as all of his dialogue beautifully straddles lines between being entertainingly snarky and genuinely heartfelt when the story demands it of him Devil May Cry 3 also handles these otherwise jarring character changes by Framing it within this coming of age Arc where Dante Begins the game arrogant and overly self-confident however he later owns that his power should be used to protect others as well as his familial responsibility to stop Virgil's power hunting schemes thanks to this we finally get a game where Dante meaningfully grows the character between the start and end while I know right and we get the contrast of his arrogance and apathy with which he faces off against Virgil for the first time with the sheer passion and heartfelt desperation he shows in their final door I know it's somewhat simple as character rocks go but sometimes simple as best as for Virgil well despite my better nature I'm not going to write 2 000 words about him here that can come later but long story short he's an extremely fun villain with a surprising amount of subtextual depth you wouldn't expect from brooding Katana man his solemn silencing cutscenes for example implies a level of remorse in working with demons to undo his father's Legacy but that he sees it as a means to an end in order to gain greater power a Detachment which reflects Dante's own initial emotional distance from the events Place Beyond his writing quality as his rival he perfectly matches Dante in every aspect he kicks ass just as entertainingly [ __ ] talks just as well and above all is just fun to watch what more could you want Devil May Cry 3 also provides us with that first truly well-written female deuteragonist in the series in the form of Lady a badass bayonet bazooka wielding woman with absolutely zero patience for Dante's [ __ ] her quest for revenge on R can perform the main emotional and thematic core of definitely Play 3 as it's her story that directly inspires Dante's shift in character she's also just a normal human being taking on demonic Horrors with nothing but pure grit determination an archetype I have always found extremely fun she represents the good in humanity with her determination to make her father pay for his actions despite her own lack of power making her a wonderfully unique character within devil who cries roster in my opinion her further Arkham is the perfect dark reflection of her in that sense as he is sacrificed nearly every everything in his life in Pursuit Of God first through the sacrifice he has come to hold a great amount of power including the ability to summon and control demons he also acts as an interesting thematic Counterpoint to Virgil a reflection of what a desire to gain power at any cost could do to a person and their relationship with others but more than that he's just a very fun villain in my opinion and genuinely one of Devil May cry's most underrated characters both are excellent and greatly improve the story and the exploration of his themes with their presence this also marks the beginning of Devil May Cry being able to pull off having a range of interesting characters other than just dance much like its story Devil May Cry 3's characters are also fairly simple at first glance but that belongs the surprising amount of complexity that could be found within their characterization as well as a very interesting level of interaction with the overall themes of development cries series part of the reason these characters work so well in my opinion is the fact that the dialogue feels like it's finally hit the right Niche between being goofy when it wants to be and serious where it needs to be yes certain lines feel melodramatic but then again this isn't meant to be a highly grounded story so those lines tend to fit well with the Devil May cry's overall time without being so ridiculous that they feel that in place a great amount of characterization can also be found within some textual details in the way characters hold themselves in cut scenes as with Virgil's Apple mentioned regret over undoing his father's Legacy these characters are also all genuinely fun to watch on top of being competent with grip and all get to have standout moments within the story it is in my opinion the best cast in The Devil May Cry game and it's another aspect that honestly carries large portions of it I'm sure you have time for one more game right why not after all we share the same blood I'll just use more of yours some dude daddy's little spell though you want a piece of me literally okay bro come and get it can so how has the game aged aesthetically well usually in these reviews I don't like to hop on about Graphics since those are inherently going to age and become outdated from a technical perspective however in terms of how the game is aged it's aged like a fine wine in most areas and still looks pretty good although there are places where choices made with the game's presentation have caused it to age more like milk especially in the locations where this weird blur effect is added to the screen for no reason cutscenes in particular though still look amazing partially because of the HD remaster but also because of the motion capture that was used to help animate them as for the actual art Direction the game could often feel lacking in terms of vibrancy and color in its environments and enemies a problem similar to what Devil May Cry 2 experience as largely the game's designs are made up of dry muted tones with admittedly a few exceptions which can make the game's designs feel somewhat dull although this may be a stylistic choice as the lack of vibrancy is then contrasted by Dante's presence in his big luminous Red Coat to its credit though Devil May Cry 3 also has a really solid set of character designs that effectively communicate a lot about their respective characters for example Dante's coat continues to present ideas about his character through its design with his now bare chest indicating a lack of restraint as well as a lack of maturity and immense sense of arrogance Virgil's designed by contrast is more closed off and also makes use of contrasting colors to communicate the differences between the two with Dante's bright red coat evoking a sense of passion and warmth whereas Virgil's blue demonstrates this cold and detached nature however the inner lining Virgil's coat is actually a reddish orange implying that beneath is called exterior lies the same passion and fire that drives Dante a similar concept can be found in how the game's other main pair lady in Arkham also have interesting black and white dominated designs respectively with ladies emphasis on white reflecting her Purity particularly the purity of intention to defeat ARCA and Arkham's black Priestly get up reflecting his corruption similar to Virgil design Arkham's design also plays around with expectation not only with the whole holy worshiping the profane implications of a man wearing priest robes attempting to become the king of hell but through how the somber black of his robes clash with his true maniacal personality which is demonstrated through Jester I will expand more on my thoughts on these designs in a future video so please keep an eye out for that if you're interested but for now I'll just say that on the whole they're both iconic and excellently put together for the most part with the worst game in addition to having some Banger character designs most of Devil May Cry 3's enemies continue to look both cool and explore the themes of the series in a variety of interesting ways funnily enough this is particularly evident within most of the enemies I mentioned really disliking earlier like Soul Eaters and Fallen as their Unique Designs do have a lot to unpack and are quite efficiently fun it's just a shame they absolutely [ __ ] suck to fight as for the hell jailers they do have a few interesting things going on but feel quite samey after seven iterations on a design with most not really having any major tie to the sin they're supposed to represent which is a shame considering it is a really fun idea and the Chessmen are unfortunately pretty much just Bland and basic interpretations of chess pieces without much actual Flair added in apart from some blandness and the more common enemy designs though the game has a real problem with visual Clarity when fighting enemies I find particularly enemies with large effects surrounding them such as Soul Eater mist or Hell vanguard's cloak which tend to blot out large portions of the screen which can get really annoying when enemies attack you through those blind spots bosses on the whole though look amazing with designs like Cerberus and Nevin being some of the most memorable the series has produced however the exceptions that do exist really Drag The Game's designs down there's obviously the weird purple fetus blob Arkham Leviathan heart and uh whatever the [ __ ] gigaped is supposed to be these are bosses which don't necessarily ruin the overall quality of the roster but act as blemishes on an otherwise Flawless set of designs as for the environments they're generally serviceable Arenas each feel unique and distinct but you do get this really fun sense of the tower's overall structure through them however as I continued to play I couldn't help but feel like they were somewhat lacking in personality and detail compared to the first game as while I maintained the tone of that game's areas was completely mismatched with the rest of the game they had a level of detail and tension paid to their design which I do solely feel is lacking from three rooms in the castle all felt like they had their own histories and you could almost get a sense of the story being told through the environment even the more batshit ones like the ghost ship in contrast most of the temen negroos areas feel weird and purposeless and while there are a few exceptions particularly with beautifully designed boss Arenas like Netherlands underground opera house and the first Tower top battle in Virgil the entire Tower rarely feels like a location with history being told through its environments which is odd to me considering this Tower does actually have a very explicit story compared with DMC one's Castle areas in this game in an aesthetic sense feel awkwardly caught between trying for the same Gothic Vibe as the castle but without the gloomy and oppressive atmosphere resulting in a location that mostly feels very dry and devoid of atmosphere in my opinion the levels also don't bear reuse as well as the Castle's interior as the changes made to these areas and revisits are often either a minor or B make those areas actively worse the area design overall is something I feel that hasn't been majorly improved on at least in terms of visual Flair from definite gray 2. and is honestly one of this game's weakest points in my opinion the soundtrack of Devil May Cry 3 though is primarily full of bangers with boss themes particularly absolutely going then of course there's the infamous Devils Never Cry which works beautifully as a central theme song for Dante's progression throughout the game and is even remixed in several ways to accompany differing scenes the only real main complaint I have is the main battle theme which while being a perfectly serviceable and action-packed piece of music did really start to greet on me after being repeated in nearly every known Bossa County you have as for the sound design the game features a wide variety of audio cues specific to each enemy and boss that fairly Telegraph every attack they're about to perform but the best example being found in Nevin's boss fight it even gets to the point where you can tell how many hits a boss like Virgil has left in his vulnerable state by the sound he makes when you attack him which I think is incredibly fun and rewards a player the more they pay attention to every detail of a boss's design while being something can fairly easily pick up their repetition on your first playthrough however the central problem with this design comes again with Clarity in large fights where often hordes of large enemies attack simultaneously and it can become incredibly difficult to focus on their individual tells as for vocal performances they're pretty much excellent across the board with Ruben langdon's Dante and Daniel Southwest Virgil and until they're becoming iconic performances leading to them to continuing to play those characters for the remainder of the franchise but a particular unsung hero of this game I feel is Adam D Clark plays a really wonderful Arcane and Jester splitting between these two completely diametrically opposed roles and carrying both off wonderfully and genuinely transforming Arkham into what I feel is one of the most underrated characters in the entirety of different way crying we are the sons of Sparta within each of us flows his blood but more importantly his soul [Music] and now my soul is saying it wants to stop you unfortunately our souls are at odds brother I need more power and we're supposed twins so after all that how do I feel about Devil May Cry 3 well my feelings are complex and somewhat difficult to Define it's a game I came into remembering it fondly from playing it on my PS3 on my granddad's floor and as being the first Devil May Cry game I ever properly finished a feeling of nostalgia I think definitely painted a glorified view of this game in my head that under a critical lens it could never feasibly live up to I then began to notice that as I kept going I was becoming burnt out and somewhat bored of playing Devil May Cry 3. partially because of the additional playthroughs and grinding I hadn't planned on which admittedly is absolutely nothing to do with the game and entirely my issue but something else would definitively affecting my experience that I couldn't put my finger on no matter how many breaks I took or for how long the game progressively felt more and more like a trudge especially on dantamus die mode with nothing really living up to the sheer enjoyment and fun fact of those first few play I then came to realize it was nothing to do with how Dante felt played because he felt amazing the best he ever had this what I felt was some weird restrictions on his kids and then it hit me while playing through I think Mission 9 of Dante must die and being repeat jumped by a gang of Spider Woman I realized the game is fundamentally anti-daunting especially on higher difficulties now before you click off the video let me go on a quick tangent to explain what I mean and I promise I will loop back around to why I think this see there's this funny little game called Doom the turtle which you probably you've never heard of dumaternal has maybe my favorite combat system in a game ever the reason every enemy is as much of a central piece of the combat loop as your tools are defeating your path small lymphs and ghouls that are easily stunned to become free sources of ammunition and health well you constantly have to stay in motion trying to take out bigger targets and those bigger targets themselves all have multiple strategies to take down each of which can be changed into defeating another enemy in a sense everything in Doom's combat system works together even on higher difficulties and it creates this intense and streamlined puzzle where you have the keys to solve every problem you face it's just up to you to solve those problems properly and that is the key to living out the gameplay fantasy of just being a big [ __ ] guy beating the ever-loving [ __ ] out of Demon Accords now I know what you're gonna say chunky they don't even remotely similar games what do you want about you silly beautiful [ __ ] and yes they may not be but the gameplay fantasy is fundamentally the same you're just a cool guy hunting down a demonic chord except instead of brutality like can be too maternal you're doing it with style but Devil May Cry 3's enemies and design decisions in difficulty modes have so many missing puzzle pieces and enemies that feel completely out of place and poorly designed to fight Dante that they feel like they were ripped out of another much worse game plopped into this one this is then doubled down on by the bizarre decision and Dante Must Die to make everything a massive damage sponge that can become even more of a damage sponge if you fail to defeat it within a poorly defined time frame and to clarify I know you can overcome this with enough skill however most enemies in the game just aren't reactive enough to make that skill expression worth it especially with their ability to sit there and tank damage see fallen and Chessmen of all varieties for particularly bad examples of this precept my fundamental point being that yes some some of the challenges particularly the bosses feel very skill incentivized and they continue to be fun but most of the basic enemy encounters just become whacking something until it dies an enemy that very likely has some sort of gimmick to de-incentivize combos or any kind of skill expression and it's that exact counteraction of the game's fundamental gameplay fantasy that makes it feel anti-dante in my opinion however that criticism mainly applies to its replay value and although some enemies are definitely just quite unfun to fight on any playthrough it doesn't outweigh sheer Joyride this game can be if you're playing casually experimenting with weapons and abilities to your heart's content and while I do still have my criticisms I believe this is a massive Improvement on most of the main areas where the other two games struggle it's not a fun story with fun characters and exceptionally fun gameplay at times and what more do you really need if we're being honest I just wouldn't recommend absolutely sweating it unless you come to really deeply love this game in which case you will find a very deep and Rich combat system which people are still finding new ways to [ __ ] around with even today for me though I think it'll forever be a game I revisit one or two playthroughs as always thanks for watching I know it's been a little bit uh on the longer side but I did have quite a lot to say about this game an unexpected amount it's definitely been a real wild card in terms of how my feelings have shifted from adoration to annoyance for a little bit and now to what I hope is a pretty reasonable understanding of the game's big Pros as well as Where It suffers if you'd like to see my expanded thoughts and feelings on this game's designs and thematics I'll be making a follow-up video to this video very soon analyzing those but until then it has been an absolute pleasure boyos and I'll see you on the next one

Channel: CHOCCY PROPHET

Views: 1,079

Keywords: #dmc3, #dmc, #Vergil, #Dante, #Devil may Cry, #Video Essay, #Gaming, #Game Review

Id: gb60GPlhgUM

Length: 54min 47sec (3287 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 02 2023