Videogame Review Time
Devil May Cry 3
In spite of this being out in America, I bought the Japanese version, for an assortment of reasons having to do with it being 4AM. In any case, that's mostly irrelevant, since the entire game is in English anyhow, and has a toggle in the options menu to get the menus in English, Japanese, or Korean. I hear that the Japanese version is easier than the American version, but that suits me fine, since I'm bad at brawlers.
The game opens with our protagonist, Dante, chilling in his office, having some pizza. Suddenly, a weird old bald dude walks in, telling him he's invited to a party. Then all hell breaks loose, feral-looking grim reaper clones pop out of nowhere, and you proceed to kill the shit out of them. Then one of them steps on Dante's pizza. As we all know, this is an unforgivable sin, and as a result, baldy must die. So off we go to the freaky demon tower in the middle of the city, where we run around in a distinctly Castlevania fashion, beating the crap out of demons, collecting weapons, abilities, and items, and fighting a large assortment of entertaining and challenging bosses.
The weapons are also quite satisfying, ranging from Dante's sword, Rebellion, to Beowulf, a set of glowing gauntlets and greaves that fills the obligatory slow-but-powerful slot, to Nevan, an electric guitar with the power to control bats, shoot lightning, and defeat your foes with the power of rock. In your ranged slot, you get the standard Ebony and Ivory, which as usual exist in perfect harmony, a lackluster shotgun, a laser cannon, and a big fucking rocket launcher.
Probably the most notable part of the game is style system, which determines which special moves are activated by combinations of the circle button, left stick, and occasionally R1. My favorite is Swordmaster, simply because I delight in killing things with melee, but all of them seem viable, with the possible exception of Royal Guard, which is a bizarre defensive style that I don't really "get". Each style has 3 levels, with increasing levels of power as you work them up.
Next up: Berserk
While I have not played nearly as much of this as DMC3 at this point, playing Guts, everyone's favorite giant sword-toting whirlwind of destruction, and cleaving a bloody swath through all in your path is quite entertaining. The storyline seems to start up at volume 22 of the manga -- the first boss fight is against Zodd on the Hill of Swords, and quite spectacular. I'll probably post a more comprehensive review when I've played more of the game.
In spite of this being out in America, I bought the Japanese version, for an assortment of reasons having to do with it being 4AM. In any case, that's mostly irrelevant, since the entire game is in English anyhow, and has a toggle in the options menu to get the menus in English, Japanese, or Korean. I hear that the Japanese version is easier than the American version, but that suits me fine, since I'm bad at brawlers.
The game opens with our protagonist, Dante, chilling in his office, having some pizza. Suddenly, a weird old bald dude walks in, telling him he's invited to a party. Then all hell breaks loose, feral-looking grim reaper clones pop out of nowhere, and you proceed to kill the shit out of them. Then one of them steps on Dante's pizza. As we all know, this is an unforgivable sin, and as a result, baldy must die. So off we go to the freaky demon tower in the middle of the city, where we run around in a distinctly Castlevania fashion, beating the crap out of demons, collecting weapons, abilities, and items, and fighting a large assortment of entertaining and challenging bosses.
The weapons are also quite satisfying, ranging from Dante's sword, Rebellion, to Beowulf, a set of glowing gauntlets and greaves that fills the obligatory slow-but-powerful slot, to Nevan, an electric guitar with the power to control bats, shoot lightning, and defeat your foes with the power of rock. In your ranged slot, you get the standard Ebony and Ivory, which as usual exist in perfect harmony, a lackluster shotgun, a laser cannon, and a big fucking rocket launcher.
Probably the most notable part of the game is style system, which determines which special moves are activated by combinations of the circle button, left stick, and occasionally R1. My favorite is Swordmaster, simply because I delight in killing things with melee, but all of them seem viable, with the possible exception of Royal Guard, which is a bizarre defensive style that I don't really "get". Each style has 3 levels, with increasing levels of power as you work them up.
Next up: Berserk
While I have not played nearly as much of this as DMC3 at this point, playing Guts, everyone's favorite giant sword-toting whirlwind of destruction, and cleaving a bloody swath through all in your path is quite entertaining. The storyline seems to start up at volume 22 of the manga -- the first boss fight is against Zodd on the Hill of Swords, and quite spectacular. I'll probably post a more comprehensive review when I've played more of the game.
