The singing Drill boss is awesome, that's literally all I can remember

"Note to self, after I take over Skylands, come back and DESTROY THIS PLACE!"
"I'd like to see you try, Kaos."
"Who said that? ARE YOU FUCKING-"

Overall rating is the average of DMC1, 2 and 3

DMC1: 5/10
DMC2: 2/10
DMC3: 8/10

Average: (5+2+8)/3 = 5/10

Overall, pretty good remasters, although it's weird they didn't change the aspect ratio of the menus to widescreen to suit the gameplay and cutscenes.

To appreciate a quality videogame when you see it, one must simply play 20 minutes of Devil May Cry 2 and then compare it to the first 2 minutes of Devil May Cry 3. The improvement to gameplay, music, story, characters and basically everything goes even beyond DMC1. This is the game that really establishes a lot of what would be seen in later games, such as Dante's weapon selection and styles.

I'm really glad they stuck to the gold orb respawn system, but it's nice they give people the option for yellow orbs instead (I will never touch that option with a 10 foot pole).

There is an actual proper story now, with greater emphasis on humour and cutscenes that brings the characters to life. This is also the game to actually make Vergil into a character since he's basically just a namedrop in DMC1, and yeah he's fantastic. Of course, Lady, Dante and Arkham are great too, especially Dante, who has so much memorable dialogue compared to the blank slate in DMC2.

This game is pretty damn hard, even on normal mode. I finished almost every bossfight with less than 10% HP remaining. Although, unlike DMC1, I found the difficulty much more of an enjoyable hurdle to overcome, due to the wide variety of combos, weapons, and styles.

Also, why is Joker and Arkham in this game, but no Man? Is he stupid?

Type of game where I can say "this boss fucking sucks" and have to search up the solution on how to beat it and then also say it's one of my favourite games of all time. Besides the soundtrack, bosses, story and emotion, I love the open world and just how empty it feels. Unless you get super lost there you will probably miss half of the map on your initial playthrough. The world design feels so intentional and yet so untouched at the same time. I can see why the Secret Seekers thought there may be something to find like a 17th colossus.

There is a saying in the Berserk community that “nothing can prepare you for The Eclipse”. No amount of prior information or spoilers can mentally prepare you for how devastating it is to watch/read, especially within the wider context of the story. No matter how much you know, you will still be shocked when you experience it firsthand.

Nothing can prepare you for the Infested Chopper in Devil May Cry 2. No amount of hearing from DMC fans “just skip this one”, “it’s the worst game by far” can prepare you for holding the shoot button for 10 minutes. IN A HACK AND SLASH. And that’s basically how you deal with everything in this game. Trying to use the sword will literally fling enemies away from you, and the guns do enough damage that combined with Devil Trigger you just melt bosses. You also get stunned from most attacks which further dampens any semblance of enjoyable combat.

For the first couple levels you think "this isn't that bad" but then the boredom sets in. And then you get to the infamous Infested Chopper, which is probably where most people quit, but beyond that is where the real garbage sets in. Bossfights in particular are complete trash in this game. The rest of the game teeters between dull (I recommended a podcast or music playlist to maintain sanity) and frustrating.

Levels are incredibly linear, even compared to the first game, it all just feels so bland, even if the factory was a cool contrast to the medieval/gothic DMC1.

I have no idea wtf is going on in the story. DMC1 has a pretty basic story, but this one basically doesn't even have one at all. Dante just kind of shows up in different locations and it looks like Lucia is doing something important when you run into her.

A nice change from DMC1 is that now there’s a visualiser to show what you’re targeting. But I also have no idea how to choose who to target which is annoying for boss fights with multiple hitboxes. Like just target the actual fucking boss so I can get it over with ASAP!! The targeting also worsens the already unhelpful camera as it tries to drag it towards the enemy. Trying to hit the blue orbs (in Mission 14 especially) is terrible because of the targeting making you miss them.

Platforming is not good, again unhelpful camera. Also that one mission where you're in the spinning ball room. Fuck that so much. And trying to hit the blue orbs in the air in Mission 14 is terrible

There were multiple points where the same enemy kept spawning over and over again, and I thought “am I doing this right?” only for the solution to be, yes, kill 6 larvas after the boss died, in order to progress.

I like - in theory - the new respawn system compared to DMC1, but having gold orbs auto-consumed is annoying

Terrible voice acting (that's saying something)

Also why does the villain look like Lee Van Cleef

I lost structure writing this review because I actually do not want to think about this game anymore

I almost gave this 3 stars because I'm scared of DMC fans combo-ing my ass, but I just didn't really enjoy this one.

You can tell this was a prototype for Resident Evil (this isn't a detriment to the game btw), with the backtracking map design, horror aesthetic, fixed cameras and text descriptions of the environment. Honestly the horror design is probably the coolest aspect of the game, especially in the alternate worlds with the warping walls and the ominous skyboxes.

Speaking of fixed cameras, considering I'd recently played the original Resident Evil, this didn't initially bug me, but it does suck for executing direction inputs and gauging your relationship to enemies (camera really collapses during Nightmare boss battles).

This game is very hard, a lot different from the experience I had with DMC5. In DMC5, I didn't really feel any pushback until Son Of Sparta difficulty, as I feel the game focuses more on just letting you experiment with flashy cool shit. DMC1 on the other hand will kick your ass on Normal, mostly because attacks do humongous damage. This is a pretty short game anyway, but I probably could've finished it in 2 hours if enemies did 40% less damage. I didn't find the difficulty that rewarding of a hurdle to overcome, especially because of the yellow orb system that I am personally not a fan of. Unlike later DMC games where revival items allow you to get right up again, the original DMC uses them as a consumable-checkpoint system; if you want to save them, you have to restart the level fully. This shouldn't be too much of a grievance because of how short the levels are (ranging from 2-30 minutes) but can be extremely annoying on levels with bossfights. Maybe I'm just terrible at this game but it felt pretty unintentional to abuse saves and restarts to farm red orbs so I can actually survive more than 2 hits from bosses.

I appreciate this game for being the start of a genre, but unfortunately it wasn't able to fill my dark soul with light. Dante is a pretty awesome character though

How the fuck did they figure out how to reuse the same ending cutscene from the base game💀

Mannequin section: 10/10
Rest of DLC: Slightly annoying walking simulator, reused assets, locations, characters
Story: Goofy ahh Forspoken dialogue

I feel so bad for Ethan as a character but also he has the funniest and corniest one-liners of all time (a tall order coming from Resident Evil). While it's not a scary as RE7 (minus the baby section) I found it to be a complete improvement in terms of gameplay. The return of RE4's inventory and upgrade system/item store really improve the gunplay which I found to be quite frustrating in RE7. You don't have to be anywhere near as precise with spending and inventory management as 4, and the game is about half the length, but it still works pretty well. This honestly just feels like the most balanced fusion between the different eras of Resident Evil game design. Also a pretty visually beautiful game, especially in the castle.

Shadow Of Rose addendum: A walking simulator with recycled objectives from the base game. HOWEVER the Doll House section made me so paranoid I had to close the game so congrats I guess