DMC 3 REVIEW!
1. Story
Was much, MUCH, more interesting than 1s. This time we had more voice acting, more consistent cutscenes, a simple but entertaining and fun to watch story with hilarious motion capture and dumb jokes by Dante. Vergil is also a very nice addition and Lady is as well, some very cool characters here. Nothing too deep, but still enjoyable and fun and kept me playing.
2. Gameplay
The gameplay has quality of life improvements that I enjoy much more than the previous game, much more. You can now die in the middle of a mission and not have to restart the whole thing which is a godsend. There are more freely controllable camera areas in the game which are nice. You can switch weapons and guns on the fly up to 2 at a time, although I would have liked more, it's a good step in the right direction. Sadly, you cannot switch styles, which work as different move sets for Dante. I ended up mostly sticking to the Trickster style the whole game and used a fair number of weapons. Devil Trigger returns with a badass design by Kaneko who has done a ton of SMT work, however I feel devil trigger in this game isn't as good as it was in the first game. It feels less powerful in both its damage output and its life regen. Either way I am still glad it's here. Now, on to some complaints. I do not like that the fixed camera still is here to some extent, and it often gets in my way personally. Until you unlock the double jump, jumping once and landing can be annoying and you still can't move once you commit to a jump unless you have trickster equipped. If you want the best movement options, you basically need Trickster at most times. I do not like the puzzles either, as they can range from alright to very annoying. I just would rather do combat than puzzles in this game, and this game still holds a bit of that RE DNA with the exploring castle and areas that connect to find items to move on, just is not what I play DMC for, but this is more a personal issue.
3. Music
This is an aspect of the game I enjoyed in small amounts. I did not really hear many tracks that caught my attention as because you are exploring these areas, unless you are in a battle you are not hearing any music. The standout song to me is the title theme but besides that the music was forgettable to negligible and was not my style.
4. Presentation
This is a big boost from the 1st game. More cutscenes, better character models, much better choregraphed action scenes with better voice acting. Everything looks more detailed, and the camera zooms out more than before at certain points. The subtitles are smaller and easier to read now, overall, just better in every way, that's about it here.
5. Conclusion
All in all, DMC 3 Dante's Awakening was a game that did not feel like hell to play and did not make me want to bleach my eye sockets. On most fronts it was a definitive improvement from the first game, and it sets up series staples to be continued on in later entries and further improved. It has a good story with memorable moments and characters, with incentive to keep playing after the credits role. It still shares some similar issues I had previously with the first game, but overall, I enjoyed it more. This was a good game that left me with no particularly strong feelings, but I recommend starting here if you are curious about the DMC series.
FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 7/10
1. Story
Was much, MUCH, more interesting than 1s. This time we had more voice acting, more consistent cutscenes, a simple but entertaining and fun to watch story with hilarious motion capture and dumb jokes by Dante. Vergil is also a very nice addition and Lady is as well, some very cool characters here. Nothing too deep, but still enjoyable and fun and kept me playing.
2. Gameplay
The gameplay has quality of life improvements that I enjoy much more than the previous game, much more. You can now die in the middle of a mission and not have to restart the whole thing which is a godsend. There are more freely controllable camera areas in the game which are nice. You can switch weapons and guns on the fly up to 2 at a time, although I would have liked more, it's a good step in the right direction. Sadly, you cannot switch styles, which work as different move sets for Dante. I ended up mostly sticking to the Trickster style the whole game and used a fair number of weapons. Devil Trigger returns with a badass design by Kaneko who has done a ton of SMT work, however I feel devil trigger in this game isn't as good as it was in the first game. It feels less powerful in both its damage output and its life regen. Either way I am still glad it's here. Now, on to some complaints. I do not like that the fixed camera still is here to some extent, and it often gets in my way personally. Until you unlock the double jump, jumping once and landing can be annoying and you still can't move once you commit to a jump unless you have trickster equipped. If you want the best movement options, you basically need Trickster at most times. I do not like the puzzles either, as they can range from alright to very annoying. I just would rather do combat than puzzles in this game, and this game still holds a bit of that RE DNA with the exploring castle and areas that connect to find items to move on, just is not what I play DMC for, but this is more a personal issue.
3. Music
This is an aspect of the game I enjoyed in small amounts. I did not really hear many tracks that caught my attention as because you are exploring these areas, unless you are in a battle you are not hearing any music. The standout song to me is the title theme but besides that the music was forgettable to negligible and was not my style.
4. Presentation
This is a big boost from the 1st game. More cutscenes, better character models, much better choregraphed action scenes with better voice acting. Everything looks more detailed, and the camera zooms out more than before at certain points. The subtitles are smaller and easier to read now, overall, just better in every way, that's about it here.
5. Conclusion
All in all, DMC 3 Dante's Awakening was a game that did not feel like hell to play and did not make me want to bleach my eye sockets. On most fronts it was a definitive improvement from the first game, and it sets up series staples to be continued on in later entries and further improved. It has a good story with memorable moments and characters, with incentive to keep playing after the credits role. It still shares some similar issues I had previously with the first game, but overall, I enjoyed it more. This was a good game that left me with no particularly strong feelings, but I recommend starting here if you are curious about the DMC series.
FINAL REVIEW SCORE: 7/10