Title : Devil May Cry 3 : Dante's Awakening Platform : PlayStation 2 Genre : Hack and Slash, Action Developer : Capcom Publisher : Capcom Rating : M (ESRB) , 16+ (PEGI) Devil May Cry 3, like the subtitle says is actually a prequel to all of the Devil May Cry video game series. Created by Capcom, who is quite known for it's Resident Evil series, a survival-horror fame, this game might look like the same way, but it's actually not. Devil May Cry is a game that focus more on Action and fast paced battles against hordes of Demon, the player takes the role of Dante, a half-demon and he's a devil hunter. Since this game is a prequel it features a younger and even more cockier Dante, mocking every demon enemies he met and shows no sign Fear of them. Story The story isn't that hard to understand and it's quite straight, with an interesting twist too. The story is told through cutscenes that appear before and after a level (the game called the levels as "missions"), in the Opening you see a battle between Dante and the Antagonist, Vergil, Dante's twin brother, Lady narrates the opening and explain that both of them are the Sons of Sparda, a Demon that fight against his own kind to save humanity. The battle of the two brothers After the brief Opening cutscene, the story goes to sometimes before the fight happened with Dante still in his yet-to be-named shop. Having a visit from Arkham, Vergil's accomplice that said that he had "invitation" from Vergil to Dante, and then summon a horde of Demons to attack him. Suddenly, a tower appear in the middle of the city and apparently Vergil wants to re-open the portal to the Demon World through that Tower, and thus Dante's journey to stop his brother begin.... The appearance of the giant Devil tower, Temen-Ni-Gru I won't spoil more than that but it is a quite good and touching story overall and a nice character development too, especially for Dante. Gameplay For new players, the first thing they will notice is the game is Crazy hard, the cutscene shows that Dante is strong enough to survive getting himself slashed by some Demon, but it's not applied to real gameplay. Dante can easily died only by a few hits from the enemies. And the steep learning curve doesn't really help for new players, Dante has many arrange of weapons and moves that is different with each weapon, mastering how to use these weapons is the key to survival. The tutorial doesn't really help much. The game also present you with different "style" of fighting, there are 4 style that is available at the beginning. - Trickster : For better Maneuverability - Swordmaster : For better skill on Melee Weapons - Gunslinger : For Better skill on Guns - Royal Guard : It's not for defending mind you, skillful players can use this style to counterattacks the enemy. The skill can be leveled up depend on how long you use it, and you can only change style at the beginning of the level or through the divinity statue founded in some area of the game's world. Despite the powerful names like Swordmaster and Gunslinger, it's highly recommended for new players to use the Trickster style due it makes it easier in moving and dodging attacks. But.... after getting passed all the hard learning, it's really worth it, because it's the time when you can really enjoy Devil May Cry 3's gameplay ! And which is one of the reason I give the gameplay a high score. ;D The game it self focuses on the player doing a combo style, repeatedly pressing the melee button won't get you nowhere, and running away from help because the game focuses you highly on attacking and doing massive combo on the enemy while trying to avoid damage at the same time. See the meter that says "Alright" there ? The game also rate how "stylish" you fight in battles by using different combo. This meter reange from "Dope" to "SSStylish" (Yup that's SSS there ) and keeping this meter high has it's own fun. One of the game's highlight is the boss battles, the boss is as dangerous as they look like and this may make many player stressed out and drop the controller in frustation, but once you get the hang of it you should know how fun the battle is. All the enemies has pattern and signal about when they are going to attack. You sense danger ? Trust that sense and try to avoid getting hit by the enemy, cause the damage they dealt is really massive. See that big 3 headed dog ? Apparently that's your first boss. : Midway through the game, Dante will have access to his Devil form by Devil Triggering, this is when the difficulty will become bearable, the Devil Trigger makes Dante Stronger and faster and it is useful during a fight due to it's fast regeneration. This form will help you a LOT ! The game doesn't fully feature fighting, it also has some puzzle and exploration elements to it. The puzzle is quite easy to understand and it's a nice diversion from the battles you have been facing.You have to rest your hand you know : Graphic The game features quite good graphics for the old PS2 console, the characters and enemies are nicely rendered. The game also give you a nice atmosphere of the areas you passed through, most of the time you will be spending your time in the tower of Temen-Ni-Gru, and the game gives you the noce gothic and demonic atmosphere to it. The game also flows smoothly, with using 60Fps the characters move and action is smooth to watch which makes the game experience even better. The special effects also nice to watch too, demons turn into dust, Bosses's special effects, gun and sword shooting and slashing is nice to look Sound You are fighting hordes of demon with style, so what music will suit it ? Apparently Capcom decided put a Rock/Heavy Metal music into it, and it's nice one and really suit the mood and feel of DMC's intense battles. They also features some nice Orchestrated music during some events on the game and the Soundtrack that play during the ending credits is quite nice. Yup, he fights using a guitar there : The Voice Acting is nice too, they fit the personalities of the character quite well. From the cocky Dante to the Bosses (Yup, the demons can talk) Voice that suits them. The music only play during battles and for the rest you will only hear the silence and sound effects of the things in the Devil tower, it's nice and give you more evil atmosphere on it. And of course the sound effect of the moves and other special effect is nicely well done, gun shooting, sword slashing, explosions.... all can be clearly heard. Story 7/10 : Pretty straight, but have a nice plot twist in the middle, and nice character development Gameplay 9/10 : It's fast, fun, and addicting once you manage to pass all the learning cures. Graphic 8/10 : Nice, and flow smoothly despite all the action in the screen Sound 8/10 : Rock music is nice during battles, and most music suit the event they're in. Replayability 8/10 : Finished your first playthrough ? Go challenge yourself at harder difficulty or play the Bloody Palace. In conclusion, this game is a fun and addictive game once you get past all the learning curve and understand the basics for battling Demons in the game, it's fast action, stylish battles will make this game worth a while for the people who love action games That's it for my first review though, constructive comment are highly accepted
Re: [PS2] Devil May Cry 3 : Dante's Awakening - g@l1h Not bad, maybe you can put more screenshots. Such as gameplay, menu, etc. and put your overall score at the bottom.
Re: [PS2] Devil May Cry 3 : Dante's Awakening - g@l1h Good advice Mega, I know something seems missing. I'll see what I can do later.
Re: [PS2] Devil May Cry 3 : Dante's Awakening - g@l1h I'm surprised you didn't mention the history of this wonderful game. The first game was originally a prototype of resident evil 4 that went too far from the track XD (nah that's not required-just me ranting XD) It does seem like something is missing though...not sure what but this is preety good
Re: [PS2] Devil May Cry 3 : Dante's Awakening - g@l1h I don't know about that history Thanks for the comment, I add more screenshots and separate the scoring part, thought something still missing I think.
Re: [PS2] Devil May Cry 3 : Dante's Awakening - g@l1h Heey! Great review! After I finish DMC4, I'll play DMC3 for suuure! Your review made me excited.
Looks like I need to write a tutorial on writing a proper review... I blame the rule on using attribute ratings for the result of such amateur reviews. That rule makes me cringe and reminds me of crappy reviews posted on GameFAQs that use such pitiful format. Just like this review.
Ok, I'm just gonna add something... While a "proper review" is prefered...one's like this to the majority aren't harmful right? I can see crappy reviews a mile away, but comparing this to a professional one...I can't tell the differance except for the amount of words. Ether re-explain what has been missed or let it go...I seen the guides and...I thought this was within the guide lines set out. After all, most of the people that bother to write reviews these days are just normal people who just think "oh let's make a review" and ether it'll come out like this or just a simple "it's a great game buy it" and those I especially hate. We may be gamers, but not all of us can actually be bothered to spend hours upon hours to write how good a game is, sorry that is just my opinion and I predict many like this will appear for years to come...unless the next 5,000 user's have high intellegence levels and even lesser lives.
Actually Hypnos, I can see a glaring difference between a professionally written review, and this particular review (though there are others just like this.) For starters, GalihEB uses the word, "I" in his review. No professional review should EVER have that for the reason being that the review should focus entirely on the game itself, not what you feel or have experienced by it. "I" is strongly discouraged in reviews, especially when it is used in this sentence: ^ That suggests to readers that the reviewer is basing the gameplay off his own opinion (after all, it is based off of his reason.) And don't even get me started on that discussion: reviews are supposed to purely objective and completely independent from the reviewer's opinion. Second, the way the reviewer chooses to section off his review to discuss the story, gameplay, graphics, and sound each separately is completely unnecessary. Since the objective of the review is to provide an overview of the game of why it is good or bad, explaining each attribute of the game separately and individually simply does not fit that objective. Take a look at the section GalihEB wrote to describe the graphics attribute for example. Couldn't that attribute be described with just a few sentences within the review? Also, the explanation of the story should have been replaced by a quick synopsis of the plot (preferably a hook) since the game review should focus entirely on the overview of the game itself. In short, his review is all over the place. It fails to stay concentrated on the overview of the game only.
I...see...I think... I seriously don't see any quality/professional reviews coming any time soon if professionalisim is to be expected... And hypr...I must confess, like everyone else here you noticed my spaces right...well that's how I read them and understand them. A review...a professional review from a gamespot reviewer I...can't read because there is too much txt in the paragraphs, call me what you will...but I prefered them in the format I see here, seperated into sections so I can comprehend, know what the exact points are, and for me...just plain read it instead of cutting and pasting sections into note pad just to understand them. As a review by a non profesional, I'd give this 9/10, but if I expected this from you or a professional reviewer, then yes I'd give it low marks. Just my opinion, and realitically...how many people would do "professional reviews" here? If 1 each day was made in professional format by a different user, prehaps I'd get used to it and eventually accept it, but it's rare we even have 1 and thus this is the best most recent review that i seen...that I can read.
Thanks for the warning and explanations hypr. I know I'm just an amateur on this, and heck this is my first review I'll take what you told into consideration I need to learn more about this stuff.
you have a typo Gameplay 9/10 : It's fast, fun, and addicting once you manage to pass all the learning cures. it should be Gameplay 9/10 : It's fast, fun, and addicting once you manage to pass all the learning curVes.
