The fourth installment of Devil May Cry is finally out for the PC and I took some time to play Devil May Cry 4, well I was very, very pleased and excited as it is really one of the best ported console to PC ports ever and wrote my impressions in the following review.

Platform: PC
Publisher: Capcom
Developer: Capcom
Genre: Fantasy Shooter
Release Date: Jul 8, 2008

Story:

The story this time is much more simple than in the previous DMC 3 which was in my opinion the best story so far for any DMC game released. You start off with a young guy called Nero who arrives just in time to a ceremony hold by some priest and to join his girlfriend Kyrie, than suddenly Dante jumps through the ceiling window and executes the priest with his gun. Everyone runs away and Nero tries to battle Dante. You will be confused at first by this event but things are getting really clear till the end of the game you will see. The main story is actually full of cliches and so are the dialogs but I actually really enjoyed it and it fits the whole game pretty good even though its not that dark and epic as it was in DMC3. The whole adventure is set in the coastal town of Fortuna where the townspeople seem to worship the demon king Sparda which is actually Dante's father, Nero is member of the so called Order of Swords who swore to protect the city together with Credo who is the brother of Nero's girlfriend Kyrie, I wont spoil much more of the story here so just play and try to uncover the truth for yourself. 7/10

Gameplay:

The gameplay is the main reason every PC gamer should play this game at least once in my honest opinion. You are controlling your character in third person view just like in the previous three DMC games, welding swords, guns and other nice weapons. What makes the whole DMC gameplay feeling so unique and cool is its very fast and flashy style to combine all kind of combos in an intense fast paced method. For instance you will be faced with hordes of demons and creatures throughout the game and you will be sorry if you don't time your combos and attacks in time, this makes any DMC game so damn cool. The colored orbs and blue fragments and the style system are back again this time as well, so you can collect this mystical artifacts and enhance your combos and weapons firepower. The acrobatics are top notch as you are forced to climb walls, evade enemy attacks, destroy giant bosses, grab for very high glowing skulls and solve some puzzles as well as secret missions scattered in the game. Overall great gameplay concept here. 9/10

Controls:

The controls are best enjoyable with a USB gamepad or the Microsoft 360 gamepad for Windows otherwise I wouldn't recommend at all even trying to play this game on your keyboard because it wasn't simply designed for the keyboard and will destroy your fun factor and will put your patience at risk if you wanna finish this great game with your keyboard only. Just grab a gamepad and play with it as the in-game interface recognizes almost every gamepad and isn't as buggy as it was in the previous PC port for DMC3 which was one of the most frustrating gamepad configs I ever encountered. Overall very enjoyable with a gamepad. 7/10

Graphics:

Wow hell yeah, you got that right ! DMC4 delivers high end graphics at its finest and the scenery and water effects are just gorgeous as well as the ice, city, castle and jungle areas. Its a very huge step from the former DMC games of course. Unfortunately you will need some high end system to run DMC4 at high settings which makes this game some serious GPU intensive and consuming experience. I used Nvidia 7600 GS on some 4200+ AMD dualcore rig to play this game and I was fine with the medium settings. I strongly recommend using some high end graphic card this time around because DMC4 offers clean and beautiful visuals and ingame movies. Great graphics but requires high-end PC system. 9/10

Sound:

Devil May Cry's 4 soundtrack is good but it's not as good as it was in the previous game or in the very first one, once again it offers good rock-metal music and thrilling sound effects combined with nice and dramatic tunes. The main letdown in DMC4 is the fact that there are only two fighting tunes one for Nero and the second one for Dante of course, but they are getting repetitive all the time you are encountering enemies. Fortunately you will get used to it and Neros battle music kinda rocks. Nice soundtrack, gets repetitive but still rocks. 7/10

My Review:

Let's just dive into my review. The PC version of DMC4 offers two new features which the Xbox360 and PS3 console ports lack and I will name them right off so we know what we are dealing with here. On your PC you can speed up the game in turbo mode by increasing the FPS ratio by 20% and there is a new difficulty mode available called Legendary Dark Knight which will throw you in, tons of enemies to battle throughout the game if you are aiming to choose this insane mode and thats it, therefor I consider the PC version of DMC4 the complete version. Besides this two cool new features I must admit that DMC4 is absolutely flawless compared to other console to PC ports and especially from the DMC3 PC port which was one of the bad ports to the PC.

Check out my review about DMC3 for the PC here:
http://www.vampires-crypt.com/game_reviews/devil_may_cry_3_SE_review.html

On the other side I must tell you that you need some well balanced system for running DMC4, you don't need desperately some high end gamer PC but at least you should consider to crank up some fast and good graphic accelerator like the Nvidia Geforce 7 series or above, also try to use some 2,4 GHz 64 bit CPU or highly recommended would be some Intel or AMD dualcore, suit yourself. 1 GB of DDR2 Ram or 2 GB and you will be on the good way of approaching this great game. System specs aside let's talk about the game itself.

You are introduced to a new character called Nero who actually looks kinda like Dante and also acts like Dante wearing his red coat, big sword and white shiny hair, actually he could be his twin brother but he's not Vergil okay xD Nero brings some new weapon to the series called the devil bringer. The devil bringer is a powerful weapon/tool mounted on Nero's right hand which allows Nero to do incredibly cool stuff like graping things or enemies or aiming for higher places. So you will get used to it pretty quick as the devil bringer requires upgrades and new features to proceed through at least halfway of the game after Dante kicks in. Nero is equipped with some cool looking sword called Red Queen and some revolver named Blue Rose as well as the devil bringer. You will hack and slash your way through 20 various missions this time including 12 secret missions which are crucial if you wanna collect blue fragments and exceed your lifebar energy. Nero's sword can be charged up for powerful attacks and combos as his sword is kinda designed like a motorcycle grip.

The action and speed is like in the previous three games very excessive and brutal. DMC4 is not as difficult as DMC3 but it's not that easy either. Most of the time you have to run from one location to another and fight hordes of demons and creatures as well some of the greatest bosses ever. The first boss Nero encounters is a big bull alike fire demon called Berial who burns down a whole village after his appearance, another great boss is a dragon snake alike witch who rules over some jungle area. The boss fights are one of the highlights in this game as it was in the previous games but this time around you will be stunned by the graphic details and incredibly good animations. The bad thing is that the bosses will sum up at the end of the game which was kinda boring, considering you have to fight each boss at least three times in the whole game especially after you have to backtrack with Dante and at the end where you have to choose with a dice which boss you fight to proceed.

After hacking and slashing through the game with Nero till mission 11 you will change the role with the famous Dante who made this series so popular. He brings the same four styles like he did in DMC3 called swordmaster, trickster, gunslinger and royal guard and his devil form transformation. The new cool feature about him this time is that you can switch between these four styles in a fly and not after every mission as it was the case in DMC3. Dante also offers plenty of new combos and various weapons like pandoras box or giglamesh, my favorite. The very big disappointment will be that you will loose the devil bringer ability which was used only by Nero of course and getting used to it was kinda fun and marked halfway of the game. The other letdown after finally obtaining Dante is that you have to backtrack all the way back to Fortuna City and have to fight the same bosses again this time as Dante though. Its still fun nevertheless and offers new and cool moves you can perform with Dante.

You are introduced to the story of this game through cutscenes and movie events who will unfold the secret behind Fortuna City and a giant statue called the Savior. DMC4 is not that storyheavy but let's cheer up DMC2 wasn't either, so the story would fit in perfectly into the DMC universe and it's really enjoyable. You have to slay demons, rescue your beloved and even face Dante two times, pretty cool.
The game difficulty is for casual gamers, considering you are not playing on the Legendary Dark Knight mode which will add more enemies in the game raising the encounter threat drastically. If you are getting along with the combo and fighting system you should be able to finish DMC4 in abot 10–12 hours. It's kinda short but delivers plenty of fun and intense action gameplay as it is the thumb rule for every Devil May Cry release so far.

Final Words:

Devil May Cry 4 is a must-play for every DMC fan and will stun you with great visual movies and ingame graphics as well with fast and breathtaking, actionloaded gameplay. If you are new to this series you most probably will try to pick up the former games for the Playstation 2 as well but DMC4 will please you even without knowing to much about Dante and Co. As I mentioned earlier this is one of the best console to PC ports ever and if it weren't for the repetitive boss fights and backtracking with Dante I would give this game a perfect score.

Endrating: 8/10