Why I’m Not Playing Devil May Cry V

Article by: Night Ninja

January 4th, 2019

2019, it’s definitely been one hell of a transition from the year where greed had its peak in the gaming industry, we have shills on most mainstream media sites who will defend a company’s right to rip you off, and try and tell you that YOU the customer and fan, has no right to stand up against that and stand for being respected as the demographic for this industry. Thing is, I’m just a gamer too, one that has grown up in the 2000s with a PS2 and to the PS3 in 2006. I only jumped into PS4 in about 2015, but I did so once I got into what has been offered on the platform, and even with 2018 behind us, we did still get good games that respected the customers and fans, which was successful in turn.

However, you notice that as time goes along, some companies just begin to be shrouded by their own personal greed, and sometimes will overpower what a company can do when they are focused on actually achieving something for the people that buy these games to begin with. Its passion and a desire to please your fans and audience that drives success, not the sales alone and big green dollar bills that shareholders are only interested in. You can say that Electronic Arts fell from what greatness they had, with what games they had done well such as Dead Space, only to shut down the people responsible for their success to begin with, and focused on only profit themselves. They are the most notorious, or how about Konami? A company that had fantastic IPs with the likes of Castlevania, Silent Hill, Metal Gear, and the former of the two have only pachinko machines, with the latter having a horribly slapped together zombie survival game, way past the time such games were trending. But one company back in Japan that really comes to mind, is Capcom as of late.

They are still very much making video games in the market, unlike Konami, but their efforts are still leaving much to be desired. Street Fighter V, the 5th mainline game in a series of fighting games that set so many standards back then with II and its many incarnations, now has full frontal advertisements in a premium game that are intrusive and punishes the player for not wishing to engage with such. Marvel VS Capcom Infinite, a shallow fighter that pushes no boundaries and having quite the lacking roster people would play a Marvel Vs Capcom game for, to begin with. Resident Evil VII was a success that saved a dying franchise, but rumors of the RE2 remake adding in microtransactions, may impede their upswing significantly, after all, nothing says horror than microtransactions to make you safe! Fucking greedy bastards…

But there is one series, that has been ignored up until now by Capcom, a series that spawned out of Resident Evil when 4 was in development, I’m talking about Devil May Cry. A series where you fuck up demons, and look bad ass while doing so, trying to deal with its hard difficulty. This series still has impact on the gaming world of today, with character action games becoming so popular, and living on with games like Bayonetta, a game developed by Platinum Games, comprising of the original team that made the PS2 title that started the whole trend. These games have great appeal for those that wants to embrace its ridiculous badassery and have one hell of a challenge awaiting them. I actually discovered Devil May Cry technically with the PS3 demo of 4, but my first real experience was with a $5 complete copy of the PS2 original being picked up at a local game store, during my highschool years.

Now although the first game didn’t age the absolute best, I still enjoyed my time with it, the atmosphere, the soundtrack, the multiple weapons that lead to all kinds of combat possibilities, if you had the patience and focus to learn the game, it could be quite rewarding. Now 2, the more obscure and not so great game, I have played and still own, but I don’t have much to add that people haven’t said already quite enough. 3, however, may easily be my favorite of the original PS2 games, deep combat, great mechanics, Special Edition giving you extra boss fights and an extra character in the form of Dante’s twin brother Vergil, and a story that can be entertaining enough, ridiculous enough to have a good laugh and a good time, even that fucking soundtrack gets your head banging like nothing else at times.

I eventually got back to 4, but with the original PC release that runs past 60 FPS, and with none of the Special Edition extras. Why would I do that? Because Special Edition for 4 is very… Underwhelming and is where greed rears its ugly head, this game for some damn reason, feels the need to up the amount of red orbs, give you 1 great extra character from DMC3 back, 2 very underdeveloped characters who just aren’t worth it, and microtransactions to unlock all extra powers and upgrades… This literally defeating the purpose of Devil May Cry as a series that set the standard for tough character action games.

The structure of a DMC game, has you collecting red orbs or even proud souls in DMC4 as currency to grow your character stronger, or give your character a bigger movepool, so you can score greater combo ranks, which gets you better stage rankings, which gives you more orbs or souls so you can buy more upgrades, and you rinse and repeat until end credits. The issue with this greedy retroactive addition to a PS3 and Xbox 360 game from 2008 for fuck sakes, is that it breaks the actual structure of the game itself in full, what genuine challenge there was, and what reward you got for doing so. If it was just a case of “giving players a choice to not waste time”, either you are idiotically trying to have someone pay to AVOID PLAYING THE GAME, which I can do for free by the way by not buying it to begin with or not even picking it up; or you could give players actual cheat codes.

Remember those? You put in a button combination in order to get weapons, a level select, unlockables, etcetera. The only time to my knowledge this was a part of the DMC series, was with DMC3, which only unlocks extra outside your current game, such as Vergil and the like to be accessible. Even more so, cheat codes when applicable, once activated, disables trophies for a game. Microtransactions? They don’t even do that much, its a pay to win scheme for a game you bought with money, and this was retroactively added to DMC4, which had certain problems that could have been handled to shape it up and make it a better game, as, at the time, it was rushed and in return having a lot of cut content, story and gameplay wise.

You know what port did fix things though? DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition! Now, full disclosure, I have not played DmC, but I am very aware to the polarizing setting and characterizations of established characters, and I am not about ready to defend that. Gameplay wise? I have seen potential and fun, a more easy to pick up character action game, with loose DMC elements which can compliment it. The port ended up fixing performance giving 60fps, adding in a cutscene to fix a plot related oversight, allowing colored enemies to still be damaged by normal weapons, but more with the appropriate weapon to allow an easier flow of combat, and a lock on feature! My question is, what is Capcom’s excuse when the reboot that everyone hated, got a better port and with much needed improvements, WHILE NOT EVEN RETROACTIVELY ADDING IN MICROTRANSACTIONS! Do you see the issue here? It’s clear that Capcom has some fucking desire to milk the DMC fans dry, to not address issues with the original rushed product, and only add greed issues onto it.

But now we have the newest Devil May Cry game, Devil May Cry V, which is releasing this year. I’m not playing this game, not only was I limited on what game I could pre-order and play this year which lead me to pick Kingdom Hearts III, due to my history with the series and love for it, but it also comes down to the fact that V will have microtransactions as well. The issue is, Capcom is wishing to exploit a fanbase that has gone without a new entry for years and went through a shitty reboot, and knows they can get away with this due to how many DMC fans have been craving for a new game. It’s sickening to me, I may not have been with this series for as long as others have been, but I damn sure can love what passion is behind the gems in the series. Capcom literally wants to shoot themselves in the foot over greed, rather than making a true sequel that gets rid of the shit that bit the past game in the ass so hard, reboot or the rushed DMC4. It’s not something I will stand for, not something I find appealing either, Devil May Cry with the original game, 3, and 4 has so much potential and love behind it, this series started as a side project coming about thanks to Resident Evil 4’s development, and was driven by the passion the team had and continued to have with 3 and even 4, despite a good portion of the original team no longer working on the series after the original title. I can’t commend these games enough, but Capcom, you can kiss my ass if you think I’ll be hungrily eating from your greedy palms all to sap my wallet dry, you can keep your bullshit practices, and you’ll regret all these times you mistreated your fans in due time.