Vergil’s Downfall is in many ways a better, but much briefer, story than ‘DmC.’
That image up above? That’s Hollow Vergil, aka Evil Vergil. You don’t unlock him until you fight the DLC boss, but once you do, things definitely get more interesting. Before that, it turns out you were playing “Weak Vergil.”
The emo-mope-fest that defines so much of the story of DmC, Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry reboot, evaporates as Vergil accepts his inner demon.
Vergil’s Downfall is the latest DLC for the controversial game, arriving just after the free Bloody Palace arena mode. The story picks up after the events ofDmC, as Vergil wanders limbo.
In some ways, I actually liked the DLC better than the game proper. There’s not as much of it, and the setting is more uniform, but the story is much more sparse. Better still, it’s blessedly free of silly political messaging and, for the most part, the atrocious dialogue. Cut-scenes are less frequent, and the narrative is conveyed almost entirely through animated segments as sparse as the story itself.
I found it all a great deal more effective than the long-winded cut-scenes in Dante’s story. I also liked the comic-book-ish art style. DmC took itself way too seriously; Vergil’s Downfall is about accepting your own capacity for evil, plain and simple.
Vergil’s Downfall is in many ways a better, but much briefer, story than ‘DmC.’
That image up above? That’s Hollow Vergil, aka Evil Vergil. You don’t unlock him until you fight the DLC boss, but once you do, things definitely get more interesting. Before that, it turns out you were playing “Weak Vergil.”
The emo-mope-fest that defines so much of the story of DmC, Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry reboot, evaporates as Vergil accepts his inner demon.
Vergil’s Downfall is the latest DLC for the controversial game, arriving just after the free Bloody Palace arena mode. The story picks up after the events ofDmC, as Vergil wanders limbo.
In some ways, I actually liked the DLC better than the game proper. There’s not as much of it, and the setting is more uniform, but the story is much more sparse. Better still, it’s blessedly free of silly political messaging and, for the most part, the atrocious dialogue. Cut-scenes are less frequent, and the narrative is conveyed almost entirely through animated segments as sparse as the story itself.
I found it all a great deal more effective than the long-winded cut-scenes in Dante’s story. I also liked the comic-book-ish art style. DmC took itself way too seriously; Vergil’s Downfall is about accepting your own capacity for evil, plain and simple.
Vergil himself is a pretty fun character to play. In fact, it made me wish that the original game had been split into Dante and Vergil chapters (possibly spanning the two time periods, adding a bit of mystery to the game and some foreshadowing.) Certainly Vergil should be a playable character in Bloody Palace Mode if nothing else.
Unlike Dante, Vergil is all about swords. There’s no shotgun, no dueling pistols, just the one sword in its normal, Angel, and Demon varieties.
Vergil can also shoot “sword illusions” at enemies and use the swords to teleport himself about. The move set is more limited, but you still don’t unlock everything on your first playthrough.
Dante had a special time slow-down power that I almost never used in DmC. Vergil, on the other hand, has two different special powers that I used quite a bit.
There’s some new enemies, and at least one of these enemy types is a real challenge. The boss fight is better than most of the boss fights in DmC itself, though that doesn’t say much. There’s also not as many moments where only certain moves will get through an enemy’s defenses, meaning you can (for the most part) use any variety of move on an enemy without being rebuffed. The exception to this rule are the enemies with shields, though once you break their defenses they can be hit with any move.
I also noticed some of the more subtle changes that have gone into the game since I last played. For instance, it was much harder to score an “S” let alone a double “SS.” I rarely even scored an “A” until I’d really warmed up to the new move set and play style. This is in stark contrast to the way the game scored on release.
All told, I think that if you liked DmC you’ll be more than happy with Vergil’s Downfall. I thought DmC was a fun action game that probably should have been a new IP or a spin-off rather than a reboot of Devil May Cry. The combat is limited but plenty of fun. The same is true for Vergil’s Downfall, though I think Vergil may actually be a more interesting fighter in some respects.
Vergil’s Downfall is in many ways a better, but much briefer, story than ‘DmC.’
That image up above? That’s Hollow Vergil, aka Evil Vergil. You don’t unlock him until you fight the DLC boss, but once you do, things definitely get more interesting. Before that, it turns out you were playing “Weak Vergil.”
The emo-mope-fest that defines so much of the story of DmC, Ninja Theory’s Devil May Cry reboot, evaporates as Vergil accepts his inner demon.
Vergil’s Downfall is the latest DLC for the controversial game, arriving just after the free Bloody Palace arena mode. The story picks up after the events ofDmC, as Vergil wanders limbo.
In some ways, I actually liked the DLC better than the game proper. There’s not as much of it, and the setting is more uniform, but the story is much more sparse. Better still, it’s blessedly free of silly political messaging and, for the most part, the atrocious dialogue. Cut-scenes are less frequent, and the narrative is conveyed almost entirely through animated segments as sparse as the story itself.
I found it all a great deal more effective than the long-winded cut-scenes in Dante’s story. I also liked the comic-book-ish art style. DmC took itself way too seriously; Vergil’s Downfall is about accepting your own capacity for evil, plain and simple.
Vergil himself is a pretty fun character to play. In fact, it made me wish that the original game had been split into Dante and Vergil chapters (possibly spanning the two time periods, adding a bit of mystery to the game and some foreshadowing.) Certainly Vergil should be a playable character in Bloody Palace Mode if nothing else.
Unlike Dante, Vergil is all about swords. There’s no shotgun, no dueling pistols, just the one sword in its normal, Angel, and Demon varieties.
Vergil can also shoot “sword illusions” at enemies and use the swords to teleport himself about. The move set is more limited, but you still don’t unlock everything on your first playthrough.
Dante had a special time slow-down power that I almost never used in DmC. Vergil, on the other hand, has two different special powers that I used quite a bit.
There’s some new enemies, and at least one of these enemy types is a real challenge. The boss fight is better than most of the boss fights in DmC itself, though that doesn’t say much. There’s also not as many moments where only certain moves will get through an enemy’s defenses, meaning you can (for the most part) use any variety of move on an enemy without being rebuffed. The exception to this rule are the enemies with shields, though once you break their defenses they can be hit with any move.
I also noticed some of the more subtle changes that have gone into the game since I last played. For instance, it was much harder to score an “S” let alone a double “SS.” I rarely even scored an “A” until I’d really warmed up to the new move set and play style. This is in stark contrast to the way the game scored on release.
All told, I think that if you liked DmC you’ll be more than happy with Vergil’s Downfall. I thought DmC was a fun action game that probably should have been a new IP or a spin-off rather than a reboot of Devil May Cry. The combat is limited but plenty of fun. The same is true for Vergil’s Downfall, though I think Vergil may actually be a more interesting fighter in some respects.
Then again, I might be saying that simply because Dante was such an awful character in DmC, it made it hard for me to take him seriously. If the story of Dante’s war against the demons had been handled with the same restraint used in Vergil’s Downfall, I think it would have been a much better game. In fact, at the time I was playing DmC I kept imaging how much better it would be if they’d just left the story out altogether. They didn’t quite do that with Vergil’s post-script, but they moved in that direction with a very satisfying result.
It’s a shame that the DLC is just six missions long, and that one of those is a boss fight and one a retread of the first mission (with much more difficult enemies and a bunch of your new powers.) Still, Ninja Theory is on the right track with Vergil, and I think the next step really ought to be integrating him into Bloody Palace Mode, and then integrating this more restrained, classy storytelling into the next game.
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