I may or may not have played a lot of Character Action Games the past week or so. Maybe. You can't prove anything.
Devil May Cry and Bayonetta are forever entwined, both originally born from the directorial talents of the great Hideki Kamiya, and based around the core philosophy of Being Cool As Heck. They even exist in the same universe, like all Kamiya's games (ask him about it on Twitter! Go on! Do it!). But they also represent two very different approaches to the Character Action genre, enough I feel to be able to write about the two of them in tandem through the lens of the most recent entries in their respective series. And also the first Bayonetta, for reasons.
Bayonetta 2 screenshots borrowed from Nintendolife. Cheers.
So, lets start with DMC4.
I never really understood the common complaint about DMC4, about how the second half of the game had you going backwards through altered versions of the levels you went through in the first half. In a genre that has earned the name Character Action you'd think people wouldn't be that bothered about the environment. Hell, you did just as much backtracking over the course of DMC3 and DMC3 had an incredibly dull setting. It had it's moments, but that tower was drab as fuck. Plus it works so well on so many levels. It was a great way to put you in the shoes of Dante, giving you the advantage of familiarity as a parallel with his experience. It gave the second half of the game focus too, as the tone of the story shifted from Nero wandering into the unknown into Dante taking the lead to fuck shit up, your goal becomes much clearer and you start cleaning up the things Nero left behind.
If you are one of those people who can't stand even the slightest bit of repetition no matter the reasoning, then perhaps DMC4 Special Edition won't be up your street, seeing as it's main draw is the ability to play as another 3 characters, their campaigns in total having you go through those same environments another 4 times. But again, Character Action game. The fun of the genre comes with what you can do, what you fight and how cool you look doing it, and all of DMC4's characters are brilliant fun in their own ways. Nero is a masterclass of introductory character design, simple to understand but with plenty of depth in his available tools and rewarding to a skilled hand. His arm is a brilliant introduction to the concept of the genre, encouraging players to experiment with how it reacts to each enemy, giving an easy way into the way of thinking fundamental to enjoying these games. Dante is logical stepping stone from Nero, loaded with options with different interactions to experiment with.
As for the new faces, Lady is one of my favourite DMC characters and she's really done justice in her representation here. Her focus on ranged moves is fresh and interesting in a genre mainlined by a melee focus. There are few things more satisfying than walking towards a group of knights unloaded fully charged shotgun shell after fully charged shotgun shell into their god damn faces. Brutal. Trish is simple on the surface, with no alternate weapons, but she opens up when you realise just how packed her moveset is. Chucking out Sparda lets her multitask vs larger groups, or just pound the love of Christ right out of one poor sod's face.
And then there's Virgil.
Virgil is without a doubt the most powerful character ever playable in a Devil May Cry game. Everyone else is designed with weaknesses, mostly in limitations of mobility and when and how damage can be maximised. Vergil doesn't have any of those. Vergil can escape any situation, kill things in seconds that take other characters minutes, and he can do it all with any one of his 3 weapons. In DMC3, Vergil was a difficult character to master, requiring effective use of all 3 of his weapons at once to compensate for and take advantage of the distinct strengths and weaknesses of each, while in 4 you could comfortably use just one for the entire game without ever experiencing resistance. I suppose in theory this is a "bad" thing, but, well, it's really god damn satisfying. It's like he was MADE for the new Legendary Dark Knight mode, which stuffs fights with ridiculous numbers of enemies that leave other characters with barely any breathing room. He's interesting to me as he represents a different attitude to the genre, one represented much more directly in Bayonetta.
Devil May Cry and Bayonetta are forever entwined, both originally born from the directorial talents of the great Hideki Kamiya, and based around the core philosophy of Being Cool As Heck. They even exist in the same universe, like all Kamiya's games (ask him about it on Twitter! Go on! Do it!). But they also represent two very different approaches to the Character Action genre, enough I feel to be able to write about the two of them in tandem through the lens of the most recent entries in their respective series. And also the first Bayonetta, for reasons.
Bayonetta 2 screenshots borrowed from Nintendolife. Cheers.
So, lets start with DMC4.
I never really understood the common complaint about DMC4, about how the second half of the game had you going backwards through altered versions of the levels you went through in the first half. In a genre that has earned the name Character Action you'd think people wouldn't be that bothered about the environment. Hell, you did just as much backtracking over the course of DMC3 and DMC3 had an incredibly dull setting. It had it's moments, but that tower was drab as fuck. Plus it works so well on so many levels. It was a great way to put you in the shoes of Dante, giving you the advantage of familiarity as a parallel with his experience. It gave the second half of the game focus too, as the tone of the story shifted from Nero wandering into the unknown into Dante taking the lead to fuck shit up, your goal becomes much clearer and you start cleaning up the things Nero left behind.
If you are one of those people who can't stand even the slightest bit of repetition no matter the reasoning, then perhaps DMC4 Special Edition won't be up your street, seeing as it's main draw is the ability to play as another 3 characters, their campaigns in total having you go through those same environments another 4 times. But again, Character Action game. The fun of the genre comes with what you can do, what you fight and how cool you look doing it, and all of DMC4's characters are brilliant fun in their own ways. Nero is a masterclass of introductory character design, simple to understand but with plenty of depth in his available tools and rewarding to a skilled hand. His arm is a brilliant introduction to the concept of the genre, encouraging players to experiment with how it reacts to each enemy, giving an easy way into the way of thinking fundamental to enjoying these games. Dante is logical stepping stone from Nero, loaded with options with different interactions to experiment with.
As for the new faces, Lady is one of my favourite DMC characters and she's really done justice in her representation here. Her focus on ranged moves is fresh and interesting in a genre mainlined by a melee focus. There are few things more satisfying than walking towards a group of knights unloaded fully charged shotgun shell after fully charged shotgun shell into their god damn faces. Brutal. Trish is simple on the surface, with no alternate weapons, but she opens up when you realise just how packed her moveset is. Chucking out Sparda lets her multitask vs larger groups, or just pound the love of Christ right out of one poor sod's face.
And then there's Virgil.
Virgil is without a doubt the most powerful character ever playable in a Devil May Cry game. Everyone else is designed with weaknesses, mostly in limitations of mobility and when and how damage can be maximised. Vergil doesn't have any of those. Vergil can escape any situation, kill things in seconds that take other characters minutes, and he can do it all with any one of his 3 weapons. In DMC3, Vergil was a difficult character to master, requiring effective use of all 3 of his weapons at once to compensate for and take advantage of the distinct strengths and weaknesses of each, while in 4 you could comfortably use just one for the entire game without ever experiencing resistance. I suppose in theory this is a "bad" thing, but, well, it's really god damn satisfying. It's like he was MADE for the new Legendary Dark Knight mode, which stuffs fights with ridiculous numbers of enemies that leave other characters with barely any breathing room. He's interesting to me as he represents a different attitude to the genre, one represented much more directly in Bayonetta.
Bayonetta is also similarly powerful, in the sense that the game itself is designed with her abilities in mind, unlike Devil May Cry. Her dodge passes through enemies, and since Witch Time is a thing enemies don't have to have convenient moments of weakness in their attack patterns. And since you can dodge at any time, you're basically always able to get out of any situation. Just like Vergil. In both Bayonetta and DMC4:SE as Vergil, the enjoyment comes from a level of mastery and skill, of making effective use of the tools at your disposal, whereas other games in the DMC series are about using much more limited tools in as many ways as possible.
The difference lies in creativity. Bayonetta and it's sequel are loaded with combos, but they're all pretty similar in the end. Combat is entirely about dodging, and hammering buttons in an attempt to make damage happen, with capitalising on weaknesses using specific combos left to the insane math geeks. And this is coming from someone who loves Bayonetta. The samey combos don't matter so much, combat is still fun and places enough emphasis on Bayonetta herself to still be called a Character Action game.
The first Bayonetta has a genuinely excellent story with brilliantly directed and animated cutscenes. It's pretty expositional at times, cramming in backstory as quickly as possible to leave more room for action scenes, character drama and plot progression. The second entry I feel doesn't have as strong a narrative, with at least one glaring plothole at the end and a lot of treading water, but it refines the mechanics a razor-edge, even if it turned the interesting moon pearls system into just another Devil Trigger.
One thing I've taken away from playing Bayonetta and Bayonetta 2 is that Kamiya is really undersold as a storyteller. His games are known mostly for action, silliness and art style(though to be fair, he's only got so much to do with that part), but there's always some real emotional heart to how he portrays his characters. I think it comes out best in Bayonetta and Devil May Cry 3, both Bayo and Dante are really underappreciated as characters due to how they appear at surface level. Bayo 2 at times managed to convey that, but only at a few moments, whereas in the first game Bayonetta's growing fondness for herself as a mother figure was central to the plot.
So between Bayonetta 2 and Devil May Cry 4, I actually think DMC4 does a better job at continuing that legacy than Bayonetta 2. Nero is easily reduced to just "Dante, again", but that ignores the significance of the similarities between the two as well as what makes him unique. Well, maybe not "unique", he's nobody we haven't seen before, but he's not "just Dante" is the point. He's very deliberately paralleling Dante in DMC3, when he was rash and young, in contrast to Dante himself, who has matured into a much calmer, if no less self-confident, and more professional man. Nero naturally means a lot to him, because he reminds him of his family at once, and himself. He's Vergil's son, baring a natural family resemblance to his brother, and his love for Kyrie parallels his parents' own relationship. Sure it's still a game about an angry kid and a silly man hitting things with big swords where the bad guy is the pope and a scientist who is also a bee, but the characters have more to them than they're commonly seen as.
So that's why I feel DMC4 is a better sequel to DMC3 than Bayonetta 2 is to Bayonetta. Which isn't to say Bayonetta 2 is bad, it's still one of the best action games of all time, though weather you prefer it's more Raw Skill approach to the multifaceted Devil May Cry approach is your call.
So yeah, I think that's about everything I wanted to go on about with these games. They're all pretty great. God this was long.
Next week, I've been playing God Eater Resurrection. It's good, and I think I'll have enough of a bead on it to write about it next week, probably alongside Toukiden, finally, for a Monster Hunter-Alikes "special".
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