So this august, I’ve bought the games on Steam, the HD collection of first 3 games, DMC 4 SE and 5. Started from scratch, completed all the achievements, already made reviews on each games and I mostly love them (except for 2nd one, that one is garbage). Especially the third one, that is one of the best games ever made and I thought to myself “How can you top this?” it’s that good.

Then I started and finished the 5th game and oh my God, this game just rocks on every possible level! Here’s a TLDR review: Basically Terminator 2 of video games, one of the best action games ever made.

Now if you are interested to hear my thoughts in little more detailed way, lets get going!

SPOILERS AHEAD, YOU’VE BEEN WARNED!!!

Positives:

- Visuals are amazing and I love that they switched the more realistic style and I hope they keep it that way. Nothing wrong with the art style of games before, but I love it this way more. RE engine is super optimized beast. It looks great and runs even better, perfect 60fps on 1080p, highest settings with zero stuttering or issues. Characters look so good, especially Dante and Vergil.
- Cut scenes and motion capture are superb. Very well directed, with some great shots, action scenes are choreographed great. For example, the Vergil coming back cut scene is great on so many levels, I can’t stop watching it, even if I watched it already dozens of times.
- Voice acting is great, I love the fact that most actors from the old games are back, even after this many years. They nail it and it shows how they respect and love these characters.
- Story is good, I mean, it’s not something mind blowing with super twists and so on, I mean, Vergil’s coming back was predictable and him being the father of Nero was known fact since 4th game, but still what it tries to tell, it does it great. And I love the little nods and winks to the old games, especially the first one, seems to me they got a lot of inspiration from it. I looooove the fact that they’ve expanded on Vergil and Dante’s relationship, I love the banter at the end between them, I wish next game would focus on both of them working together as team to defeat the greater evil, maybe bring back Mundus? Character interactions in general are so good to watch.
- Sound track is just… *chef’s kiss* Not just the obvious character themes (Bury the Light slaps so hard it’s not funny) but all the ambient noises, the inventory screen music, boss battle themes, it’s all just massage for my ears. I especially love the fact that main menu sound effects are consistent and same as all the other games, it may be a whatever thing, but to me it just shows me a kind of consistency between the games.
- Level design as always great, so many details in the environments. I love the fact that they manage to make a full game with 20 levels out of the same kinda place, just like in 3rd game for example. It’s kinda same at first, but different.
- Camera. Now one of the biggest changes is the camera, it’s no longer fixed. Even though I despise that camera angle in general, I’ve kinda grown to love it after 4 games of it. So when I started the game, at first I missed it a little lol but I got used to this “new” camera style pretty fast and it’s great, I love it and I’m glad in the end they changed it.
There is actually, 1 single time in a whole game where camera is fixed and it’s actually in one of the secret places where blue orb is. I honestly think that’s an easter egg, 100%.
- There are no more items in the game, you only have gold orbs and you get 1 each day you log into game. Now when you die, you get the option to resurrect with gold orb or to pay with red orbs, depending on how much HP and DT you will get is the price you pay. I kinda like that, forces you to not rely on items like before.
- Now the biggest and best thing about this game: Gameplay.
You are playing with 3 characters: Nero, Dante and new, unique character, V. I’ll go through each in short sentences:
- Nero. The most accessible character for newbs, easy to get into, but hard to master. In my opinion the most fun I had with, he’s aggressive, his new buster arms are awesome and you have lots of options to choose from, all depending on fight and situation. His DT is superb, not just the design, but the gameplay too. I enjoyed it a lot.
- Dante. Oh boy, where do I begin? You have Rebellion, Sparda and Devil Sword Dante as swords, you have Balrog (fist weapons), Cavaliere (I’m kidding you not, a ♥♥♥♥*** motorcycle that he uses as weapons), King Cerberus (nunchucks), 3 types of guns and the most ridiculous and OP weapons like ever (and with the most hilarious and Dante introduction like ever), Dr. Faust. It’s a Michael Jackson type hat that consumes red orbs to use. You can literally farm millions of orbs in a minutes with this thing, it’s like Capcom put red orbs on store to buy with real money and Hideaki was triggered by that and just went “F you, Capcom, I’m gonna put red orbs farming machine in game so people don’t waste money on crap like that”. And not only it’s farming machine, it’s super super powerful, you can summon meteors that can one shot pretty much everything, or deal massive damage to bosses. Or you can fire red orbs like a minigun which kills everything in seconds. It’s not funny how OP this thing is, makes DMD mode a cakewalk.
So you consider all of this arsenal, now add to it all the unique dozens of combos these weapons have + 4 different styles that each weapon has a unique button dedicated to each style… Yeah, it’s overwhelming at first and the hardest character to master. But it’s still not that horrible as it sounds and you can get into it pretty fast, problem is getting really good at him.
- V. I never knew what to expect or saw any gameplay, but let me tell you, I loved it! He’s basically a poetry guy that has 3 companions which you control. All of them are bosses from the first game actually, you have Gryphon (funniest character and his voice actor nailed it, love this chicken so much), Shadow (hated him in first game, annoying enemy) and Nightmare (OP MF). Nightmare is your DT actually, he isn’t up all the time. He’s super OP, and makes all of your companions invincible for the duration of DT. V can’t deal damage, so you control your companions, deal damage with them and you only finish off your enemies with V, in a badass ways. I really had fun playing with him, and he’s really easy, you can literally mash buttons and still clear everything. That is, until I got to the DMD mode and I hated it, because it takes so looooooong to kill enemies, because of increased HP and their DT. It was not fun at all and it shows the lack of polish he needed. Btw, storyline and lore behind V and his companions is great, there’s a manga that explains how he found them, give it a read if you are fan of the franchise.

Oh and you can buy Vergil campaign as DLC. Same campaign as before, except you play as Vergil. It’s insane and ridiculous how OP he is, and I love it, I’m glad it’s like that. Because Vergil at the end of the day is OP. One of the best villains ever! They nailed him here, especially his design.

I think I’ve covered most of the stuff, now let’s get with the minor issues:

- Style system. I can't write more about it because Steam doesn't allow me, too many letters. But you'll know what I'm talking about.
- Lady and Trish are not playable at all, which kinda sucks, especially sad for Lady because I had blast (pun intended) playing her in 4th game. Not even in the bloody palace.

That’s pretty much it, I honestly can’t find any other flaw with the game. I can talk days and days about this game, but it’s already too long. It’s one of the best games ever made, Capcom actually nailed it and saved the franchise from the grave and gave it a new life. I can’t wait for DMC 6, but it will be years before it probably.

I recommend this to anyone, even if you’re not into hack n slash games, give it a try and you’ll enjoy it, 100%!