Devil May Cry V First Impressions (Xbox Exclusive Demo)

For those of you who didn’t know, at The Game Awards last Thursday Microsoft announced that there will be an exclusive Devil May Cry V demo for the XBox One. Microsoft is obviously doing some kind of deal with Capcoms 5th installment in the series to get exclusive content, however the game will still be on both the PlayStation 4, XBox One as well as PC. The Devil May Cry community have been waiting for this next installment, if you remember they weren’t pleased with the “revamp” of Dante in the game DMC that came out back in 2013 even though it wasn’t a bad game at all. After playing this game though, I can see why the community was so upset with that change. Even though it was just a demo it still shows what we will be getting when March rolls around. As someone who only played a little bit of the first Devil May Cry (even though I will do a playthrough of the first 4 soon) and finished DMC this to me was a nice little blend of both.

In the fifth installment of the series, we pretty much know what we are going to get combo wise and action wise if you are a fan of this game. However, from the gameplay we saw and the trailer at E3 2018 you won’t be playing as Dante in the beginning of the game, you’ll be playing with Nero who has set up his own demon hunting agency based out of a van that has a neon “Devil May Cry” sign that Dante has given him with the support of Nico. Nico has built Nero a robotic prosthetic arm called “Devil Breaker”, which you do use in the demo and is pretty sweet how you can use it. This robotic arm of course was given to Nero after his original Devil Bringer arm was taken by a mysterious hooded individual and his hunt for this person has brought him to a city that Dante declared as the epicenter of the demon attacks.

This games events takes place several years after what has taken place in Devil May Cry 2. The “V” in the game is actually for a man who guys by that who comes by the Devil May Cry office and hires Dante to solve a series of demon attacks across the world. The way the developers used the “V” in this game to stand for that and stand for “five” was very clever indeed. That being said, the background of the game is pretty straight forward, and in the beginning of the demo you start out in the van that Nero uses for his agency and in that van you see Nico as well. After some dialogue between the two finishes that is when the combo heavy, slashing fun begins.

The demo does a good job with introducing you to the new mechanics of the game, when you finish the dialogue of course it shows you a screen for the controls where it lays out the XBox controller and it shows you what button does what but that screen is just a scratching the service.

If you go to the actual menu and look at the move list, you will see there is so many things to do with Nero’s “Red Queen” sword as well as his “Blue Rose” double barreled revolver and his “Devil Breaker” arms which was discussed above that can be used for grabbing enemies and doing other special moves. With Devil Breaker arms you can use the actual “Devil Breaker” move which you can use with the “B” button. This attack can be charged or not but it will knock enemies back and it can be a contributor to some great combos. The game introduces you to it when you first start moving and it looks rather cool when you use it I will say. After that little “tutorial” of course there are still red orbs you can collect for upgrading your weapons or buying new ones. When you go into your first fight scene with some demons, this is what shows who has played the previous Devil May Cry’s and who has not. Even though I only played a little bit of the first one, I got as far as creating some nice combos and using the PS2 “R1” button to get enemies in the air and just hack and slash into some real sweet actions. This game is nothing short of the same with better graphics, so if you are a fan of the other Devil May Cry combos you will feel right at home. I will say one of my biggest gripes with the mechanics of the series is the way you roll and how you have to be in combat to do so. I am not the biggest fan of it but I do understand why they have it as such. Along with the Devil Breaker move the combos are endless in all the fight scenes against demons in this game. Another mechanic has gotten added to the game with the Devil Breaker robotic arms, you can now have them self destruct, but it doesn’t mean that you will be without an arm. Well it will if you do it 4 times in a row. There are two types of Devil Breaker arms, Overture and Gerbera. Overture has a demolishing shockwave ability and Gerbera has a superior aerial ability and you can have two of each in your arsenal. You can have them self destruct simply by pressing the the “LB” button and this can be used in combat, I used it in the boss fight at the end of the demo which I will explain later on. The combat to me feels smooth as butter just like the previous installments in the series and the graphics make looking at it 100 times better.

The end of the demo has a boss fight where you are facing a real big big demon by the name of Goliath. I really enjoyed this boss battle, you really get to show of your skills and test what you learned throughout the demo. I think the developers did a great job in that aspect, I felt like I was actually still learning how to really put some nice combos together which is the reason why played this demo 3 times, I lost to Goliath twice LOL. Remember I said you can self destruct your Devil Breaker arms, well that ability can be used in this fight. Somewhere in the fight, the boss will start inhaling many things around it including you, but there will be a notification on your screen to use the self destruct ability and when you use it you can get from out of that inhale from Goliath and continue fighting. This fight uses all the abilities you learned thus far including dodging. REMEMBER TO DODGE, that is important in this battle and to just attack when you have an opening. It’s not a hard boss fight but it is fun and you can see where they are going with this game and what they are bringing to the table with the series.

After the fight is over, the demo is over. I kind of figured that because I have been doing this for a while and most boss fights are a clear sign that the end of the demo is near. Overall, the demo was a very fun experience and a nice new installment to the franchise that is Devil May Cry. The gameplay is smooth, I love hack and slash and combo heavy games so this is right up my alley. The story is a lot to know but I am will to find out more about it, and I like the characters so far. Speaking as someone who wasn’t really upset with the change in Dante in DMC I can see why the community was so upset. From my playthrough of DMC the combos wasn’t heavily changed but they did require a little less skill than the first couple of game in this series. This demo has made me want to go back and complete my playthrough of the first couple of Devil May Cry’s so I am not completely lost when this game comes out. However, this demo MIGHT HAVE won me over. We will see what happens when Devil May Cry V comes out on March 8th.