The Devil May Cry V Demo Is All About Familiarity

The aspect I enjoyed most when playing the Devil May Cry V demo was the overall familiarity it provided, which shows just how much Capcom’s hand was forced.

The development team wanted to show it’s most vocal and dedicated fanbase that the Devil May Cry series as they know it is back, following their experimentation with DmC: Devil May Cry. To say the reboot (or spinoff, however they’re classifying it now) wasn’t well received from the start would be a significant understatement, and it still has a poor reputation among them even after this game was revealed. That’s what happens when you wrong the gamers on the internet, though that’s not to say the not-crazy types didn’t have their own disappointment with it.

DMCV is very much a sequel to Devil May Cry 4, which involves several main characters who survived that game. The demo seems tailor made for anyone who played through the game’s campaign and spent at least a little time in its all-battle Bloody Palace mode. Nero is once again the main character, and the only one playable for the demo’s three sections.

I replayed several DMC games in preparation for this title’s release, and it’s been mere weeks since I finished up DMC4; so, I had little issue jumping right in. Nero’s move set is mostly the same, retaining several of the standard ground combos with the Red Queen sword, launchers, and air combos from that game. Some have to be unlocked, while a few techniques are missing, but it’s remarkable how similar he is. The animations have received slight changes, and look considerably better thanks to this game’s new engine.

In fact, the whole game looks ridiculously polished, even for someone playing on a base PlayStation 4 like me. The urban backdrops in the demo contain several neat details, especially as they’re subsumed by a giant demonic tree as Nero strolls through the streets. The boss battle against Goliath at the end is the largest visual spectacle, thanks to the level of environmental destruction occurring during the battle.

The demo stage takes place early in the game, with Nero having a presumably early move set; but it’s enough to show some changes. By far the biggest among them is the Devil Breaker, which replaces the Devil Bringer from DMC4, the demonic arm ripped off by a mysterious figure at the beginning of the game. Three Breakers are available in the demo, and each contains different attacks. Nero can hold four at a time, and can break the Breakers (you know, hence the name) to switch to the next one in the cycle. The powerful skill each one contains, done by holding the button mapped to the Breaker’s usage and releasing it, will also break it. I also discovered that breaking them is a good way to knock back a bunch of enemies if they’re crowding you. It’s strange that there’s no option to simply cycle through them, but it’s not a game-breaking (heh) issue.

Damn, this sounds pretty complicated when described like that. When combining the Devil Breaker functions with the myriad of other techniques, I can imagine this getting overwhelming for anyone not familiar with playing DMC games. Worse, the demo teaches players very little, as the tutorials focus on the functions of the Devil Breakers. For everything else, you’re told to go to the options menu to view the controls; for the rest, well, you’re on your own, buddy. If I had a dollar for every comment I read from a player who didn’t know how to dodge (it requires holding the lock-on button and moving the analog stick to the left or right of the character’s position while pressing the jump button), I’d have enough to pay for dinner all week.

There’s a reason why I focused on the familiarity factor above, but it’s possible the main game will segue players into the game easier.

I’m glad the game doesn’t feel the need to stop the player and play a short clip showing when you’ve been boxed in a room for every encounter like DMC4; it still happens here, but the game actually takes a page out of DmC to have players focus on the battles while not concerning themselves with being confined. But the demo’s structure is otherwise similar to DMC4, and I’m hoping it won’t repeat the flaws that game contained, with its repetitive level design in the second half. That director Hideaki Itsuno went through painstaking effort to reassemble the DMC4 team gave me a little pause, but I’m hopeful Nero, Dante, and V will have unique levels and encounters.

DMCV will release on March 8th worldwide. Feel free to try the demo for yourself, now available on PlayStation Network on Xbox Live. (There’s sadly no PC version, likely because Capcom feared dataminers.) Don’t be surprised if you find it a little intimidating, but there’s an enjoyable sample underneath that’s worth trying out.