Ok, here is my review. Not necessarily like a formal review or anything, just a bunch of thoughts.
1. Wasn’t aware it was made in re engine. Nice. Obviously graphics were sick, but like re, face animation are kinda janky.
2. I played all the other dmc games aside from the reboot titled DMC. That said, the last one I played was 4, and that was all the way back when ps3 launched. Long time ago. Since then I feel like my tastes have changed significantly. Which leads me to my 3rd point.
3. The game is obviously intended to be over the top, and be “epic” and “badass” to the point that it’s built into the scoring system, where you are rated on how cool the combos were. To go off an a tangent for a sec, I prefer playing as efficiently as possible, and though it’s more nuanced than this I think it’s odd to do an inefficient combo when you could just get the job done faster. That’s why I like games where things like elemental damage exist, where you can’t use fire weapons on fire enemies. And maybe I didn’t play far enough, but I didn’t see anything like that. But back to my point, being “badass.” I loved it back in the day. Engine swords, gauntlets, shooting enemies into the air, the heavy music, the anime level characters being like, “heh, that was pretty good, you made me use 5% of my power.” But now it makes me cringe. Moments made me feel like I was watching the final fantasy “must kill chaos” game.
4. All that said, it’s kind of charming in a way, its very self aware, like they are trying to poke fun at it than take it seriously. That said I’d wish they’d pick a lane.
5. Once the combos and shop opens up it gets a lot better, and once you get into bigger areas that. Don’t feel like hallways. I like exploring the nooks and crannies.
6. After that big boss fight at the start that you are supposed to lose I thought it was so dumb how there were people in a crowd just watching, and Nero is like “I know demons are about to kill everyone, but imma walk away all cool.

Done with numbering now for no reason

Once you unlock essential skills like dash it much nicer, but even then I kinda felt like my movement was limited. Yeah I could grapple to enemies, but for the most part I felt like getting around in combat was slow, especially in lock on. I felt like lock put me at a disadvantage rather than help a lot.

I know I mentioned the heavy music earlier. I don’t like it in combination with everything if that makes sense, but I like it as a standalone element.

V is stupid and cringe.

I loved the destructive environments and the effects on animated attacks. They all were very well done and super crisp. There was this part right after the first mission where there are like burnt body statues in the streets, and they turn to ash and float away thanos style. One was holding a balloon and as soon as the statue collapsed the balloon floated away. The scene felt well crafted for just a walk through area, and that well crafted and set up scene type thing kept up the rest of the time I played. No area felt empty, boring, or unimaginative.

Like dmc 4, I wad just like “I want to be Dante, fuck Nero.” That said, since Nero has been established since then he wasn’t as annoying to play to me a he was in 4, while I also weirdly preferred his combat in 4, or at least I feel like I liked it more….can’t remember it well.

I’m gonna play more though. Want to give it more of a chance and think I’ll have more fun as I unlock more.

~ FIN