Anyone else jonesing for Devil May Cry 3?

[JoeSki]

Devil May Cry is one of my favorite games, and I loved it from the moment I watched a grainy, choppy streamed video of it off of GameSpot.com a few years back. What wasn’t to love? Rock and Roll music, huge gothic architecture, extremely fast clipped action, original and appealing tough-as-nails minions, and awesome, sublime boss battles. I mean, this game contains some of my favorite boss battles ever, and I’ve been a decently hardcore game since NES and have been steeped in just about everything. The difficulty was perfect. Even when the Phantom, a giant spider made of rock and lava, made smoldering mince meat out of me upwards of a dozen times in a row, I maintained an ear to ear grin. Yes, I was losing, but it was because I didn’t yet posses the skill to take the beautifull bastard down. Oh, I’d rip into shreds eventually; no doubt about it. Untill then, I’d just have to keep rewatching the cinema in which they introduced the boss, which wasn’t bad since I liked that particular scene and the Spider’s speaking voice made me laugh.

Yes, it was a pleasure having this game as the object of my obsession during my early teen years. A few years later, a sequal was released, and my heart sank as reviewers and online friends declared it a letdown, and that the harsh difficulty had been drasticly toned down after various critics spoke out against it. Devil May Cry had been neutered.

But now, now we have another sequal in the Devil May Cry series, and it’s getting exceptional reviews. IGN’s review is very positive. Yes, from the way they describe it, it’s the game I’ve been waiting for since I beat the first Devil May Cry. Both IGN’s review, and GameSpot’s review say it’s one of the most challenging games of this generation, even harder than Ninja Gaiden apparently. I couldn’t be happier for it. So long as a game requires skill, and not luck, I’m always game for a good challenge. Devil May Cry was the only game I played through a second time on the hard setting, and then again on the “Dante Must Die” mode. Didn’t finish it a third time however since my memory card got erased before I could.

Here’s an excert from GS’s review:

Also, much like you’re pretty much always vulnerable to getting mobbed by your enemies, so too are you able to fight dirty. A hard slash (or, say, a shotgun blast) can send a foe sprawling to the turf. Why wait for it to clamber back to its feet when you can just keep whaling away while it’s lying there? Or, better yet, why not jump on its back and ride it like a skateboard, spraying bullets every which way before smashing your new ride into that wall over there? And, of course, you’ve got air-to-air, air-to-ground, and ground-to-air combat to think about. Smash an enemy up in to the sky, and pin it to the ceiling with a hail of gunfire, or jump up after it to continue your assault, and then spray bullets downward to slow your descent.

- Greg Kasavin

Sounds even more intense than the first. Hot damn, I can’t wait! I’m calling Best Buy tommorrow morning to see if they have it. According to an online friend, it’s being released at $39.99 over there.

[Harborwolf]

If it’s as good as the first one - aw heck, if it’s nearly as good as the first one - I’d be kind of excited. I’d still have to rent it first. More and more I find myself disagreeing with reviewers. The reviews do give cause for hope though.

[JoeSki]

For what it’s worth, even the games opening is a throwback to the original. The game is kicked off with Dante sitting at his desk saying something about a code, some baddies pop in, our anti-hero directs them towards the bathroom, they attack him, and then he eradicates them from the material sphere. Only big difference is that Dante now has the 'tude of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, and does all this while making lame wisecracks, eating pizza, and doing outrageous stunts farfetched for even a game of DMC’s nature. It’s pretty funny, albeit unintentionally. Oh, and I’m not joking about the pizza thing. You can watch the opening here.

Best Buy won’t have this game untill tommorrow. I should be able to post impressions then.

[JoeSki]

Alright, just bought it and gave it a whirl.

Yeah, this is pretty hard. Coming from me, that means a lot. I spent a good 45 minutes on the second level on the normal and easy difficulty, and it’s beating me like I owe it money. The graphics are swell, and the gameplay is same gameplay I loved in the original only faster. The enemy design so far is somewhere between the first DMC and the second. The first enemies the game throws at you aren’t as cool as the puppets, but they’re cool enough looking. Nothing like the contrived baddies in DMC2 that looked like a failed crafts experiments.

It also appears to have a lot of depth. You get to choose from various fighting styles, and level up on them, as well as upgrading your weapons and buying moves.

I’ll be back with more as soon as I take this SOB of a end stage boss down.

[JoeSki]

Alright, I gave the second level another chunk of my time and finally blew through it. This game gets the blood flowing big time. Once I got done with the boss, my legs were bouncing up in down and I couldn’t stop smiling. The gameplay is so nuts, I absolutely love it. You can’t stand still for a second anywhere in this game or else the fiends will bum rush, and tear you to pieces like…like…like something really bad! It is a thing of beauty. This game demands skill and finesse from the player.

I played the third level just for a moment to get a feel for it and it opened with two giant monsters made of blades jumping on top of buildings in front of me. Cut to me playing, and they shoot glowing dagars at me, and a horde of minions charge me. I blink, and turn my game off before they tear me to shreds. I’ll leave myself time to think about how to not get my ass kicked untill I decide to turn it back on .

Oh yeah, the cut scenes are pretty nice too.

[kushiel]

I just want to play this game to find out what the hell is everyone’s obsession with Vergil in the DMC fan fic fandom. I mean, people are making whole backstories and yaoi fics and you meet the guy like once or twice in the first game. You barely know who the hell he is!

[JoeSki]

Well, he was silent, cool looking, and a fun boss to fight. What wasn’t to like? People require little more to take a liking to someone. Just look at Boba Fett’s popularity from Return of the Jedi.

I was obsessed with the Phatom myself. I’ve spent a good amount of time online looking for fan art or maybe an animated gif of the big heap o’ fire and couldn’t find a thing. Shame, he’s such a cool looking monster. You’d think someone would dedicate some time to him.

If you do rent or buy DMC3 and are having trouble on the first boss, post here and I’ll give you some tips that might come in handy.