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Devil May Cry 3 HD Review PS3

Story


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This game takes place before the events of Devil May Cry, making this game a prequel of all Devil May Cry games chronologically. Dante just opened a shop to hunt demons, and after he took a bath, a man came to the shop and tell Dante he was invited to a party. Later did he know that his twin brother, Vergil was behind it, he took that mysterious mans offer and went to the huge tower ejected from the ground, Temenigru to find Vergil.​

The storyline is actually quite good, an improvement from previous two games. Well-developed characters, likable characters, and good storytelling. Dante in this game have the same personality as in DMC1, but far more cockier possibly because of his youth. Vergil on the other hand, is the nearly exact opposite of Dante, who is far more ruthless, cold, and determined. Although they are twins and the sons of Sparda, their personalities clearly defined that they are two different persons with different fighting styles and agendas.

Gameplay


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The gameplay is revamped more closely to the first Devil May Cry games gameplay, as you can now only Roll by locking on a target to dodge attacks. Dante has access to his signature weapons such as Rebellion as well as Ebony and Ivory, and other variety of melee weapons such as twin swords, nunchaku, etc. He also now have access to a numerous firearms such as shotgun, rocket launcher, etc. ​
Since this is the HD version of the Special Edition, the game features Vergil as the second playable character in the game. However, to unlock him as a playable character, you need to finish the game once at any difficulty. Vergil adopts a different fighting style than Dante, since he relies primarily on his melee weapons such as his trusted katana, Yamato. Since Vergil does not use firearms, he uses spectral swords as his ranged weapon. ​
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This game also features mission based structure like other Devil May Cry games. The games puzzles and objectives are quite linear, which can be known by watching certain short cutscenes when progressing in the game. The puzzles in this game are not fairly tough to complete, but it has more variety than DMC2s puzzles. Most of the objectives require you to find an object and use it someplace. However, the means of obtaining them can be fairly different like the previous two games.​
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A new feature in this game is the Styles system. Dante has access to four different Styles at the beginning, and will later acquire two more Styles as you progress in the game. Each Style allows Dante to have a different fighting style, such as Swordmaster allows Dante to have more access on many new melee techniques, or RoyalGuard that allows Dante to block enemy attacks. Depending on your own playstyle, choose a suitable Style that you are most comfortable with. You can only use one Style in a mission, but you can change it before a Mission starts or by interacting with the Divinity Statue.​
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Since there are 4 styles available in the game, there is a plenty of variety of combat strategies to be used in fighting enemies and bosses in the game. As for Vergil, he has only access to one Style, which is Darkslayer, which focuses on evasive skills. Each Style has their own Level, which can be be increased by obtaining Experience points by defeating enemies. Beating regular enemies reward you small amount of Experience points, but beating bosses will reward you a lot of it. Once you have leveled up a Style, you will learn new moves for that particular Style, such as new Rebellion moves for Swordmaster Style. ​
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The combat section largely similar to DMC1s combat, but with more intense combat and quite aggressive enemies. Comparing this games enemy A.I and DMC2s enemy A.I, I would say this game have far more aggressive enemies. Although some enemies might deal minor damage, they are fairly aggressive enough to attack you repeatedly if you are not careful. Dodge enemy attacks by using Roll, Jump or Air Hike.​
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One thing to be noted that this games difficulty is rebalanced from its original version, such as lowered damage to players. Since the enemiess aggressiveness is not really tweaked, this is a welcome change, as it allows more new players to play and provides the same challenge to them as well.​
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The Stylish combo ranking is similar to previous games, and it will be raised by continuously attacking enemies. The main difference is that if you use the same moves over and over again, the combo ranking will not raise, which prompts you to use different moves instead. This requires more flexibility and more skill from players to have a high Stylish combo ranking throughout the game. You can Taunt your enemies to raise the combo ranking, and it is useful to restore your Devil Trigger gauge.​
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In combat, you can change your melee and ranged weapons by pressing the L2/R2 buttons, easily allows you to get high Stylish combo ranking faster. The key is to switch weapons when you are hitting enemies when they are defenseless.​
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There are various types of enemies encountered in the game, such as enemies that are immune to gunfire. The various types of enemies in this game require some attention as not all of them can be defeated by using the same strategy over and over again.​
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Bosses are the highlight battles in the game, and some of them are extremely tough to beat without having a proper strategy. I would say the second boss in this game might give many new players trouble as it is quite aggressive, even in Normal mode. Other bosses are quite unique and tough to beat, if you are not skilled enough. Purchasing proper skills and using a proper Style will help you immensely in fighting bosses. ​
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Like other DMC games, you can also change to a more powerful form called Devil Trigger, which makes Dante or Vergil more stronger in the game. Each melee weapon provides different D.T. forms to both of them, and each of D.T. form have different bonuses. For example, Nevan D.T. form allows you to have very fast health regeneration compared with other D.T. forms.​
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In this game, some enemies have certain weaknesses against Dantes and Vergils melee weapons. For example, Doppelganger is extremely weak against Beowulfs attacks, taking extra damage by that weapons attacks. If you want to know whether a weapon is particularly effective against an enemy, pay a close attention to the visual effects on the enemy when you hit the enemy with a weapon. For example, Dante hits Nevan with Cerberus, and there is an ice formed at her body, signifying that she is weak against ice attacks. Exploiting enemy weaknesses is vital to defeat them effectively, particularly in harder difficulties.​
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The Orbs have returned in the game, such as Red Orbs, Blue Orbs, Purple Orbs, White Orbs, Green Orbs, as well as two different types of Orbs, which are Yellow Orbs and Gold Orbs. As you start a game, you are prompted to different retry modes, which is Yellow and Gold. If you have chosen Yellow, Yellow Orbs will grant you retry if you are dead, and will revive you at the previous room that you have been defeated. If you have chosen Gold, Gold Orbs will revive you on the spot in the game, provided you have any left. All other Orbs function similarly to previous games, such as Red Orbs can be used to buy new techniques for Dante and Vergil, buy Items, or upgrade your firearms.​
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After you complete a Mission, you will be ranked accordingly as to how fast you complete the game, how much damage you have received, number of items used, total Stylish combo points, and the number of Red Orbs you have obtained. If you have done well in these five areas, you will be rewarded with a high rank as well as huge Red Orbs bonus.​
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This is the one of best gameplay in Devil May Cry games, but with some flaws that I would like to point out. Firstly, both Dantes and Vergils D.T. forms lack special techniques to be used. What I like in other Devil May Cry games is that every D.T. form has access to special moves, such as Alastor D.T. form allows you to use Vortex, and Dantes D.T. form in DMC2 allows him to use different combo attacks and many other special moves. In this game, there isnt much of special techniques to be used in D.T. forms, except Dantes Nevan D.T. form. Secondly, Vergils gameplay stages recycled all gameplay stages from Dantes Missions. This actually gives me the impression that Capcom is lazy. Although there is a second playable character in the game, special care should be taken to allow players to have a different experience to play as Vergil in this game. In this area, Devil May Cry 2 shines as that game allows two playable characters to have different Missions, but still reuses the same gameplay stages. Other than those two flaws, this game have significantly great gameplay.​

Graphics


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The gameplay stages are remastered to HD with greater detail. However, quite a number of in-game engine cutscenes in this game are not remastered and looked very dated, with missing details on the characters, blurry images, and etc. The FMV cutscenes in the game are also not remastered, presumably lifted directly from the PS2 version without any changes. This is a lazy effort by Pipeworks Software, and they should have been more attentive to the cutscenes in this game. All of the menu screens in the game is not in full-screen, instead it was window-boxed. In this matter, I have to say this games remastered graphics fell short against Devil May Cry 2s remastered graphics, and possibly Devil May Crys remastered graphics as well.​
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Another thing I dont like in the visuals department is both Dantes and Vergils D.T. forms. Their D.T forms looked too much like Shin Megami Tensei demons, and somehow looks out of place in this game as it looks more like cel-shaded animated demons than a pure 3D looking demon like Dantes D.T. form in DMC1 and DMC2. As I understand, the Devil Trigger forms are designed by Kazuma Kaneko, the character and demon designer behind Shin Megami Tensei games. The D.T. form designs are certainly unique, but I felt they are out of place in this games atmosphere and visual style.​
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Sound


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The voice acting department has an improvement in this compared with the first two games. Dantes voice actor, Reuben Langdon did a great job in performing his stuntwork in the game as well as providing his voice to that character. Vergils voice actor did a great job as well, who defined the character himself as the different twin of Dante. Other voice actors also did considerable great job. I also would have to commend the writer, for making good dialogues in this game, compared with the mediocre dialogues used in the first two games.​
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The soundtrack is a mix of gothic, rock, metal and orchestral. This game have quite a few of vocal tracks, which uses heavy metal styled vocals to emphasise the gothic atmosphere in the game. I like some of the vocal tracks, although I much prefer instrumental rock/metal tracks used in the game, such as battle theme used in Vergils second battle.​

Replay Value



This game has good replay value. If you have completed the game in Normal, you can play Hard mode, or play other difficulties such as the notorious Dante Must Die mode. Also, you can play as Vergil after completing the game. Since he has different fighting style than Dante, playing as him would give you new experience as the other son of Sparda. Bloody Palace is also available in this game, and can be played once you have completed the game once. The Bloody Palace functions similarly to DMC2s Bloody Palace, but it would be much more challenging to beat since this game have more aggressive enemies.

Conclusion



This game has the best storyline, great gameplay, good music, but significantly held back by poor remastering of many cutscenes in the game to be called as the best looking DMC game in the HD Collection. At its PS2 era, this game undoubtedly the best looking DMC game. In this case however, it is not, and Pipeworks Software did terrible job in remastering this games many cutscenes. Although the gameplay stages and some of its in-game engine cutscenes looked good, this matter actually left me quite a bad taste in Pipeworks Software reputation. As the other two games, I would be much more happier if Bluepoint Games handle the HD remastering of all three Devil May Cry games. This is still a great game to play, but the poor job of HD remastering in this game might bother many people as this is supposed to be a much better looking game than its PS2 version.

Score

Story - 9/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Graphics - 9/10
Sound - 9/10

Final score: 9.0/10 or 36/40

HD Remastering score: 7/10

Pros and Cons

Pros

- On of the best stylish action game is back in HD.
- Dante is awesome in this game as well.
- Vergil is an interesting villain as well as a powerful playable character in the game.
- Better storyline than previous DMC games.
- Significantly great, rewarding, improved and adrenaline pumping gameplay.
- Good soundtrack.
- A lot of variety of bosses.
- Good character designs, as well as enemies and bosses.
- Great boss fights.
- Styles brought a lot of new combat strategies to be used in this game.
- Rebalanced difficulty that still appeals to new and hardcore DMC players.
- Impressive action scenes in both cutscenes and gameplay.
- Good replay value.

Cons

- Still has backtracking to previous areas.
- Devil Trigger forms felt out of place in this game.
- Devil Trigger forms lack special techniques to be used by both characters, except Dantes Nevan D.T. form.
- Vergils Missions recycle all gameplay stages used in Dantes Missions.
- All FMV cutscenes and many in-game cutscenes are not remastered in HD.