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| Nero and Dante dueling each other. |
Nero, a young man whose right arm is demonic, is attending a ceremony celebrating the noble Demon Sparda with his friend Kyrie, when Dante, the protagonist of the previous Devil May Cry games, bursts through the skylight and shoots the priest Sanctus in the head. Nero is charged with tracking down Dante who seems to know something about Nero.
Devil May Cry 4 takes place over several levels. Nero goes form area to area in each level, where he is stopped by a force field and forced to fight demons before he proceeds. He does this until he reaches the boss at the end of the level.
Nero has three types of attacks: his sword, his gun, and his demonic arm. The sword is the player’s main weapon; it can pull off a variety of attacks by inputting different button combinations. The gun can attack enemies in the distance. The demonic arm can grab enemies and cause a lot of damage, but only if Nero grabs the enemy at the right time.
Nero has two ways to power up his attacks. The first way: Nero revs up his sword like a motorcycle to fill up a gauge. Once the gauge is filled it makes Nero’s next attack stronger. The gauge can be filled up to three bars. The second way: the player activates a second gauge which doubles Nero’s attack power and depletes as time passes. This gauge is filled by finding orbs around the levels or by dodging attacks.
The player is given a grade based on how stylish Nero fights a wave of enemies. The grade is based on how little the player repeats the same attack twice and how little Nero is hit. Getting a higher grade nets Nero red orbs. The player is given a second grade at the end of each level based on how quickly the level is finished, how stylish all the battles were, and how many hidden red orbs the player found. This higher grade rewards the player with proud souls.
Red orbs are used to buy health items, proud souls are used to buy Nero more attacks.
Given how central fighting is to the game, it is incredibly frustrating how flawed it is. A lot of Nero’s attacks do not do much damage, barring one or two attacks. A lot of them are based on how different the player can press one button several times in a row. Even attacks that are bought are not much of an improvement. Stronger attacks would have been better. The gun is so weak and slow that it might as well not exist. The grab is the only really strong attack.
Nero has a dodging ability, but it is slow to react and does not work when Nero is in the middle of an attack, or if he is jumping.
The first gauge attack is useless. It takes a long time to fill, and then only works for at most three attacks. And the gauge depletes whether the attacks hit or not.
Enemies range from fair to cheap and tedious. Same goes for bosses, though those are more forgivable because they are bosses. There are not that many different types of enemies either.
And the same damn music plays during every fight.
Level design is mediocre. There is a town, a castle, a jungle, and a different castle. They look nice, but are largely forgettable. Several levels have Nero go through the same areas over and over again too.
The story is forgettable as well. It does not make sense unless the player has played other Devil May Cry games, and even then not by much. The cast is two-dimensional at best. The cut scenes are awesome, showing Nero pull off incredible feats which frequently look cooler than stuff in the actual game.
Nero is okay. He is sort of funny and can do cool stuff, but he is also really whiny and prone to yelling and dramatic whispering. His faults are further emphasized whenever Dante shows up and proceeds to be cooler and a lot more likable.
Then, almost as if to mock the player, the game switches over to Dante. Dante has much stronger, faster attacks that actually can be upgraded. And his narrative is not filled with screaming, only witty one-liners. But then the game makes the player go through the exact same levels that Nero did.
Devil May Cry 4 is a broken, repetitive, mess. The Dante segments reinforce how bad the game is makes one wonder why the developers did not go with that for an entire game.
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