Devil May Cry 5

one armed dwarf · 04-04-2019 12:28pm

My Dante loadout is cerb, sword and Balrog for melee, e&I and shotgun for range. Just about keeps the character manageable and allows for easyish switching.

Cerb is great if you don't mind clawing the controller a bit to do those electric charge attacks.

Penn · 06-04-2019 7:02pm

Finally finished DMD mode. As suspected, last mission was torture. Mission 19 was actually easier, just Dr.Faust'ed the hell out of him.

Going for the platinum is never going to happen though. Considering how often I died in DMD and got D ranks while trying to exploit cheese moves meant to make it easier... No thanks. Got the super costumes, so can mess about in some of the lower modes whenever I fancy now.

one armed dwarf · 07-04-2019 11:19pm

I beat DMD today too. Ended up gold orbing mission 19 as I suck at Dante.

But had good fun with mission 20

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od9PqQ1IIJg

Penn · 08-04-2019 10:22am

one armed dwarf wrote: »

I beat DMD today too. Ended up gold orbing mission 19 as I suck at Dante.

But had good fun with mission 20

Nice vid. My main trouble with Mission 20 was that I'd remapped the controls so I could be constantly charging Blue Rose, but just wasn't used to the new controls. Couldn't hit exceeds, lock-on and buster well enough, and just ended up in danger too many times.

Potential-Monke · 04-05-2019 12:54pm

Ok, so I can see the DMC HD collection with 4SE is currently down to €22 on the PSN Store. I've never played a DMC, don't know why really tbh, I think I may have dismissed it along with all the FF games due to the look of them at the time. Anyway, 4 games for €22 is not bad, so I'm wondering if anyone else has got the HD collection and how it plays, would I be better off just going straight for 5, or maybe DmC: Definitive Edition (which I believe is set in an alternate timeline). Probably should clarify, are they playable by todays standards?

Also, before I purchase, the combat seems very God of War, which is a good thing imo. Would I be wrong on that assumption (hack n slash)?

Robert ninja · 04-05-2019 1:38pm

The original games I would recommend but I can't personally recommend the HD collection especially for DMC1 as it massacres the visuals. My advice is to emulate or play on original hardware but that's my DMC fan side coming through. The standalone PC DMC3 has a style-switcher mod that makes it worth checking out alone (not sure if it works with HD DMC3).

DMC3 is the prime of the series. Best combat, music, locations, characters and weapons but again I remember the HD collection ruining many of the visuals although not as badly as DMC1. Some of the in-engine cutscenes are changed to pre-rendered and look way worse from it, mainly the action scenes. It's like they couldn't render it real-time for technical/engine issues. Sad.

I would avoid the DmC reboot at all costs unless you wanna have a good laugh with the mexican mod
DMC4SE has terrible un-toggleable motion blur on all platforms. You can only turn it off via an EXE HEX edit so if you're buying on PS4 I'd say nope to that. PC version there.

As for GOW... DMC series is more technical than it with cancels and hard to perform techniques. High skill ceiling (but not exactly a high skill floor) which cultivated a thriving combo-video and speedrunning community. GOW is actually quite simple with a low skill ceiling in comparison with not much combo community. It's Japanese vs Western action design so it could come down to taste in the end.

Potential-Monke · 04-05-2019 1:47pm

Hmmm, don't like the sound of them messing up the HD collection. May have to look at the other options as you have suggested. Thanks!

one armed dwarf · 04-05-2019 8:40pm

The HD collection doesn't massacre the visuals. Some skyboxes are rendered strange and there are missing motion blur effects but they're really minor things that don't affect the game that much.

As for DMC3, some of the cutscenes are pulled of the PS2 disc so they are fuzzy and interlaced, but they are like that on PS2 as well.

3 is the best of the lot, much better than 5 I'd say. It's worth picking up the collection for it alone.

I rinsed the PS4 collection for the Platinums last year (yes, dmc2 as well ðŸ˜) so can vouch for them being fine.

DmC is also worth a look if you've never tried a game in the series. Kind of a smoothed out, more intuitive but with less mechanical depth take.

Azza · 05-05-2019 1:27pm

I wouldn't worry about the issues with the HD collection.

If you were not told about them in advance you wouldn't notice them.
There not major issues and the core gameplay is not affected.

It is disappointing that Capcom didn't take more care when making the collection though and then never bothered to issue a patch that corrected the bugs, although they did release one patch that did fix the very first issue in the video that Robert linked too according to posters on the Steam forums. Hopefully one day we well get an unofficial patch or mod that fixes the issues.

Robert what was your experience like with DMC 2 and 3. There is plenty of information about the bugs in DMC 1 but not much information at all on 2 and 3.

As for using real hardware, well your stuck with a 480i picture and the first DMC only ran at 50hz in Europe, thankfully 2 and 3 had a 60hz mode. I suspect all PS2 originals also have the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen that most Pal games had at the time.

If your emulating them, well the NSTC versions are the ones to go. Wonder how good emulation of them is with them.

The original PC port of DMC 3 was mean't to be pretty terrible. I believe it can be modded into good shape but out of the box DMC 3 in the HD collection would be better.

As for DmC. It was the first DMC game I played and it was a good game. Whether the gameplay was better or worse than the other DMC games I couldn't really say as I only have DMC 5 to compare it too and it was years ago when I played DmC. DmC reviewed well but I think its generated a lot of dislike from the dedicated fanbase simply because it wasn't the game they wanted. They wanted a straight follow up to 4, not a reboot and its the fashionable game in the series to hate.

Have to say I'm enjoying playing 5 at the moment. Excellent game.

Penn · 05-05-2019 1:43pm

I wouldn't worry about the quality of the HD collection either. Ultimately, they're old games, the HD remastering will always make a lot of it look better but also make parts of it conflict with the rest. Nothing that made the games in any way unplayable. I played DMC3 from the HD collection a few months ago and had no issues with it.

I'd almost be inclined to recommend only playing 3, 4 and 5 though. 1 is a good game, but the controls didn't age well. I think if you played 3 and enjoyed it, you could watch a video run through of 1 for any story points, then move on to 4 and 5. 4 gets a bad rap as it was fairly rushed out the door and has a lot of backtracking, but I enjoyed it a lot and the special edition adds 3 playable characters.

Just skip 2 altogether. It's goddamn awful. DmC, the gameplay is fairly decent and was improved in the HD remaster, but it's largely a different beast altogether in terms of tone, style, platforming and story. It has its positives, but also a lot of negatives.

K.O.Kiki · 06-05-2019 11:33am

Azza wrote: »

If your emulating them, well the NSTC versions are the ones to go. Wonder how good emulation of them is with them.

Did a search on the PCSX2 compatibility list and they're all listed as Playable, with the wiki claiming 55-60fps (even at double resolution) on ancient machines.

Robert ninja · 06-05-2019 6:02pm

Azza wrote: »

If you were not told about them in advance you wouldn't notice them.
There not major issues and the core gameplay is not affected.

You could say that about modifying a movie's content, CGI or color pallet. It hurts the original art and intended experience. I don't think graphics are completely irrelevant in the face of gameplayotherwise it would be fine to play the game with nothing but color-blind-friendly blank textures. Some of those HD backgrounds are jarring. The atmosphere of DMC1 is the strongest in the entire franchise. It would be an absolute shame for that to be dulled on someone's first playthrough.

The Silent Hill HD collection is the best example of why HDs are not always the best way to go. Those games got absolutely butchered. Would you recognize the change in voice acting if you hadn't played it before? Nope. But recommending anyone to miss out on Heather Morris' performance would be sin. You also wouldn't know that

you're not supposed to see Harry's face in the opening

, either; A tiny graphical change with massive artistic damage.

Azza wrote: »

Robert what was your experience like with DMC 2 and 3. There is plenty of information about the bugs in DMC 1 but not much information at all on 2 and 3.

I can't remember much of 2 (so boring) but 3 made Dante's hair look like plastic. There's important close-up shots of his face and eyes that are all but obscured from his fringe when in the PS2 version they were slightly transparent.
In gameplay I don't remember any problems.

Azza wrote: »

The original PC port of DMC 3 was mean't to be pretty terrible. I believe it can be modded into good shape but out of the box DMC 3 in the HD collection would be better.

Correct. It's only worth playing for the style switcher mod. Not a user friendly modding experience, either. I believe even just having the music on drops frames. This essentially means there's no proper PC port of DMC3 to date.

Azza wrote: »

Wonder how good emulation of them is with them

As good as most. The only problem is with emulation's inherent input lag. Nothing a new player or casual would notice but combo enthusiasts or long fans will notice something's off. Once again original hardware beats 2 generations of consoles and PC porting contractors. What a sad state.

one armed dwarf · 06-05-2019 10:59pm

I think you overestimate how meaningful any of that is to someone who's probably looking for the most convenient way to see what the game is like.

Anyway I'm not far off the plat in this. Just have a couple of S ranks to get and the human and heaven&hell playthrough. Beat Hell & Hell, which was pretty terrible. The game isn't built for one shot and your dead difficulty, not when a lizard can just whip its tail in your direction without warning.

After spending so long with its combat I really like 5, but I think it's a 6/10 campaign with 9.5/10 combat. I really like V even. Dante is a beast in this game once you get into the flow of SSSS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOl2wJ0M3A0

For the fighting systems in it 5 is second only to 3 for me, but as an overall package 3 and even DmC rank above I think

Edit, input lag tho, I agree it would be nice to have some sort of ultimate technology that keeps the CRT response and combines it with our modern TVs. I wonder if this is why 5 has this sort of "floaty" feel to it and has such relaxed input requirements, like they literally can't design a game that plays like the old ones anymore

Azza · 07-05-2019 12:43pm

Robert ninja wrote: »

You could say that about modifying a movie's content, CGI or color pallet. It hurts the original art and intended experience. I don't think graphics are completely irrelevant in the face of gameplayotherwise it would be fine to play the game with nothing but color-blind-friendly blank textures. Some of those HD backgrounds are jarring. The atmosphere of DMC1 is the strongest in the entire franchise. It would be an absolute shame for that to be dulled on someone's first playthrough.

I can't remember much of 2 (so boring) but 3 made Dante's hair look like plastic. There's important close-up shots of his face and eyes that are all but obscured from his fringe when in the PS2 version they were slightly transparent.
In gameplay I don't remember any problems.

As good as most. The only problem is with emulation's inherent input lag. Nothing a new player or casual would notice but combo enthusiasts or long fans will notice something's off. Once again original hardware beats 2 generations of consoles and PC porting contractors. What a sad state.

Of course graphics and audio are important. But for a video game I would rate gameplay as the most critical factor. It is a disappointment that the issues exist in the first place, a developer should take pride in their work and do their upmost not to introduce issues when porting a game to a newer platform. The visuals are compromised but not to massive degree, to say there massacred is an exaggeration. This isn't on the level of Greedo shooting first!

I would argue anyone in the PAL regions who played the original PS2 release would have had a worse gameplay experience than anyone who played it first in the HD collection and that better gameplay experience would trued the slightly worse visual and audio experience they would of had.

How did you originally experience the game?

The PC gaming Wiki lists a mod to fix Dante's hair issue in DMC 3. Yeah modders!

Azza · 07-05-2019 12:55pm

one armed dwarf wrote: »

I think you overestimate how meaningful any of that is to someone who's probably looking for the most convenient way to see what the game is like.

Anyway I'm not far off the plat in this. Just have a couple of S ranks to get and the human and heaven&hell playthrough. Beat Hell & Hell, which was pretty terrible. The game isn't built for one shot and your dead difficulty, not when a lizard can just whip its tail in your direction without warning.

After spending so long with its combat I really like 5, but I think it's a 6/10 campaign with 9.5/10 combat. I really like V even. Dante is a beast in this game once you get into the flow of SSSS

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOl2wJ0M3A0

For the fighting systems in it 5 is second only to 3 for me, but as an overall package 3 and even DmC rank above I think

Edit, input lag tho, I agree it would be nice to have some sort of ultimate technology that keeps the CRT response and combines it with our modern TVs. I wonder if this is why 5 has this sort of "floaty" feel to it and has such relaxed input requirements, like they literally can't design a game that plays like the old ones anymore

When you Platinum it, how long did it take you to do everything and overall how difficult a game do you rate it. You reckon its easier than previous games in the series?

one armed dwarf · 07-05-2019 1:22pm

As the game goes it's a good bit easier than 1,3 and 4. Maybe comparable to DmC but harder to get up and running with the three characters.

But it's a very time consuming platinum compared to the rest I'd say. It's not super respectful of the players time as you have to s rank every mission on every mode. Some of it is plain unbalanced and unfair, there's bosses that spam projectiles at low framerates on one-shot and you're dead modes

But it's almost necessary to get enough mileage out of it to get a grip of the three characters. V took me a couple playthroughs to click to how you're supposed to play him. It's a shame how the game is carved between three characters instead of having a three campaign structure where you choose one at a time.

WRT your point about the PAL release, I remember watching the start screen demo video play and couldn't understand why Dante moved so fast in it. Then I learned later our version was f*cked royally. The HD version was the first time I played something close to the intended experience and it was a game changer, even though it was super old and dated

Azza · 09-05-2019 11:55am

Just finished my Son of Sparda play through. After going through the first 15 missions and only dying once the bosses at the end where quite challenging. Having so many gold orbs mean't I could just mash my way though them in the end.

As it stands I have one easy achievement left to get with Dante about spending reb orbs using Dr Faust.

Going through Human, Devil Hunter and Son of Sparda modes plus replaying a few missions to do achievements, find the secret missions and collecting orbs had me max out all 3 characters with the exception of the EX Provocations.

So I started farming red orbs via Dr Faust hat spin spam at the last checkpoint on mission 11. Took me about 20-25 minutes to get enough for Dante's EX Provocation. I'll do the same tonight for the other two characters.

After that I'm really going try to learn how to play the characters properly for my Dante Must Die and Bloody Palace playthroughs.

From playing DmC, I don't think Heaven or Hell will be too challenging, Hell and Hell on the other hand. :pac:

Robert ninja · 11-05-2019 1:45pm

Azza wrote: »

I would argue anyone in the PAL regions who played the original PS2 release would have had a worse gameplay experience

It was 60fps even in PAL region. We had 2 60hz TVs in the house at the time.

Azza wrote: »

How did you originally experience the game?

DMC3 was my first game. PS2. One mission every day after school. Very fond memories of doing it that way as I knew I had found something special and wanted to savor it. Joined a DMC fan forum and even found a GF there :pac: I got DMC1 much much later and I think I had a 60hz capable version. Don't own it anymore though so can't check.

Azza wrote: »

The PC gaming Wiki lists a mod to fix Dante's hair issue in DMC 3. Yeah modders!

DMC3 is a lot more playable on console HD & PC (vanilla & HD) than DMC1 is in HD. It doesn't suffer as harshly from the graphical and audio changes.

So here's my reccomendation list

DMC1 - PS2
DMC2 - Whatever's convenient
DMC3 - PS2
DMC3SE - Whatever's convenient
DMC4 - PC
DMC4SE - PC (hex edit motion blur)
DMC5 - PC (remove denuvo, mod away censorship if still needed)

DMC4-5 are when the FPS caps got removed so it's hard to recommend playing on anything but PC. 5 is probably still enjoyable on 8th gen consoles though but it's the only game-platform combo I haven't tried myself so can't actually speak from experience.

ancapailldorcha · 11-05-2019 5:29pm

Was the PC version of DMC3 not notoriously terrible though?

Robert ninja · 11-05-2019 11:25pm

It was hence why I recommend playing a PS2 copy unless you want to mod in style switcher. For 3SE, HD is ok on anything.

Azza · 13-05-2019 11:30am

Robert ninja wrote: »

It was 60fps even in PAL region. We had 2 60hz TVs in the house at the time.

If I'm not mistaken that's an image from DMC 3.

As far as I can tell from looking it up online DMC 1 on PS2 didn't have a 60hz mode in PAL regions. DMC 2 and 3 did though.

one armed dwarf · 06-06-2019 10:05am

PAL version of DMC1 was 50HZ with borders.

If you get DMC5 on PC there's some cool mods out there which restore some stuff that is missing in this game. Like "inertia" from DMC4, which is how you can carry momentum between different attacks and have finer control over how the characters move in the air. (in DMC5 characters sort of 'stop' or stall in the air when you cancel out of an attack, which is less fluid than in DMC4). People have taken out some of the recovery frames from attacks as well. They're already making combo videos out of these mods

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrc1Nkv-EH0

I've got the platinum now but I'm still playing this, trying to see if I can beat bosses on DMD without taking damage.

Azza · 16-06-2019 11:05pm

F**k you stage 99 Urizen....f**k you.

Mr.Fantastic · 30-08-2019 12:20pm

Thinking about picking this up for 30 squids tomorrow?

Is it worth it?

enjoyed DMC1+ DMC4 back in the day and even the DMC reboot.

ancapailldorcha · 30-08-2019 12:21pm

Mr.Fantastic wrote: »

Thinking about picking this up for 30 squids tomorrow?

Is it worth it?

enjoyed DMC1+ DMC4 back in the day and even the DMC reboot.

I don't regret buying it at all save for spending about 15 quid more than I had to. It's an excellent game.

Penn · 30-08-2019 12:24pm

Mr.Fantastic wrote: »

Thinking about picking this up for 30 squids tomorrow?

Is it worth it?

enjoyed DMC1+ DMC4 back in the day and even the DMC reboot.

I think if you enjoyed DMC4 you'll definitely enjoy DMCV. It's a great return to form for the series. Not without its flaws, but for 30 quid I'd call it a bargain.

Mr.Fantastic · 30-08-2019 12:36pm

Penn wrote: »

I think if you enjoyed DMC4 you'll definitely enjoy DMCV. It's a great return to form for the series. Not without its flaws, but for 30 quid I'd call it a bargain.

Have Resi 2 still in the backlog , will be a coin flip on which gets started first.

I am spoiled haha.

one armed dwarf · 01-09-2019 12:36am

I'm still playing it, even tho its murder on the hands lol

Astral Chain has failed to grab me so far....

Mr.Fantastic · 16-09-2019 11:29pm

Finished this tonight , have to say I did enjoy it but felt it was a bit short.

Enjoyable though.

Retr0gamer · 17-09-2019 8:54am

Robert ninja wrote: »

It was 60fps

Late to the party here but DMC1 was famously 50Hz only in PAL territories.

It was such a poor conversion that there was massive uproar about it. Sony came under huge flak over it as the dreamcast had a PAL60 mode while the PS2 did not support it. It lead to Sony allowing developers to give the option of NTSC 60Hz in games.

Devil May Cry 5

Comments