I’ll first say that I haven’t played any of the Devil May Cry video games. I decided to get this game because I was trading in a ton of games and found Devil May Cry 4 used at my local GameStop.

You play Nero – a family member of the earlier games’ hero and devil hunter, Dante. Instead of a normal right arm, you’ve been blessed (cursed?) with a powerful demon arm that can do all sorts of cool and powerful stuff once you learn how to use it. The story is not all that earth shattering. Beautiful girl is captured by mean guy that wants to become like a God, and he uses her to bait you in. Now you have to try to work your way through levels of minions and bosses in order to rescue the damsel in distress. And when I say “bosses”, I can’t stress that enough. These guys are MASSIVE and can be a bit intimidating.

I’ve never really been a big fan of the “combo attack” games where you have to memorize an arcane series of button mashing and d-pad maneuvers in order to do some effective and cool.  I was pleasantly surprised with Devil May Cry 4. First, the graphics are awesome, and the imagery is very impressive – especially for far off scenes such as castles and mountains and forests and such. I found myself saying “whoooaa” a lot. I played through as a Human which gives you an easier time than playing through on the more advanced Devil Hunter level. In doing so, I found the game to be kind of a pushover, but that’s probably my own fault for choosing the easier course. The easier approach did free me up to concentrate more on mastering a few powerful combo moves.  I didn’t get caught up in trying to learn everything – it’s just too much, and my A.D.D. kicks in.

The only thing about this game that I really didn’t like was having to play back through several levels. Instead of new and interesting challenges you would sometimes have to backtrack through areas you already cleared in order to make your way to the next mission. That is ANNOYING. Also, towards the end of the game, it seemed as though the developer had run out of ideas and through a giant, time-consuming level in your way just to give you more to do before the final fight. In that mission, you basically have to make your way up various staircases and fight lots of demons just like you’ve defeated before. You even have to fight some of the mission bosses (or demons just like them) AGAIN.

Aside from some frustrating redundancy, the game is fantastic and well worth diving into.