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Thursday 6 March, 2008
GAMEPLAY
After more time with the game, the main problem with the game continues to be the sharp difficulty curve that crosses the line from the entertainingly challenging to the aggravatingly so. The first boss was seemed ridiculously simple in comparison to the headache the first; I can assume “real” boss is in this game.
The flow of the game suffers because of this by almost requiring that you play the first tutorial mission again and again in order to acquire enough currency to buy health ups and upgrades to your weapons in order to progress from one level to the next. As a result sometimes you forget what happens in the other missions, and it becomes harder to stay firmly in the magic circle when you are forced to constantly replay the same mission again and again for currency to just be able to survive.
Despite the need for massive amounts of replay necessary the narration progression, if played one mission after another as is meant to be, is very good. The player is told just enough about the characters and their different motives to make you want to keep playing to discover them, yet at times it can make it seem like a bad thing by making the fact that you can’t proceed all the more disappointing in the end.
DESIGN
Some innovative elements of Devil May Cry 3 are the class system, style system and Devil Arms that are implemented in the game. You can tailor your gameplay style to whichever style suits you best. If you like shooting more, there is the gunslinger style, if you like dodging there is the trickster and if sword fighting is more your thing, there’s the sword master style. Each has its own strengths and weaknesses and must be leveled up to become more powerful. The game also keeps you from falling into a button mashing rut by having a point system that encourages the combination of the gun and the melee weapons that can be switched between two different devil arms instantly by pressing a single button. This leads to massive combos and visually stunning fight scenes even early in the game. In addition each of the devil arms and guns are very different styles of play and are useful or useless depending on the situation and space that Dante’s enemies confront him.
The game is extremely linear, as you cannot go anywhere but in the step-by-step movement towards a boss at the end. There are hidden side rooms or treasure such as extra health, lives, or money, but other than that the game is a straight path with segments of demonic ambushes. The tone of the gameworld is also extremely dark and menacing, the levels are either in a burnt out, abandoned industrial district or in a demonic tower leading into the bowels of hell. The levels are varied and has very difficult puzzles that unfortunately end up as not much more the complicated fetch and unlock puzzles such as get key A to unlock door A and etc.
This game sets up for a amazing fights that can cause a very cinematic feel that can even in gameplay that causes for some great fights. However the time in-between the fights are usually dull search and find puzzles and the boss battles are almost impossible, making this one of the nicest, but also one of the most frustrating games that I have ever come across.
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