Capcom’s trying to sell the game in part based on Limbo’s
malleability. The city’s essentially a living entity here, out to kill
you. But that sounds cooler than what it actually is: a chance for Ninja Theory to show off some admittedly awe-inspiring, world-warping tech. This is the platforming part of DmC,
except it’s just not that interesting as platformers go. You can jump,
long jump or grapple through levels that menace and posture, but with
the exception of a few “whoops, there goes the floor” Temple Run moments,
they never pose an actual threat. The challenge improves when you
replay these levels later, working to unearth keys, secret doors and
lost souls to pad your leaderboard scores, but the levels are small
enough and the puzzles so elementary that you’ll run out of rope,
interest-wise, quickly.
Thank goodness Ninja Theory got the fighting right (after you ramp up the difficulty, anyway). DmC hews
to classic beat-em-up tropes — you fight incrementally challenging
enemies and mix-em-up mobs area by area — and still doles out a grade
rating for combos where you’re trying to chain nonconsecutive moves. But
your new hybrid abilities, which include an axe, gauntlets, scythe and
pair of Krull-style glaives, double as tactical keys: Defeating
angelic or demonic enemies requires you tap the corresponding weapon,
for instance, while countering demonic or angelic moves and navigating
color-coded platforms is a matter of timing trigger-pulls carefully.
Things finally get interesting when DmC starts throwing a
little of everything at you simultaneously. Style grades were the
original games’ way of punishing button-mashing, and that’s still the
case here, but adding enemies and environmental challenges keyed to
specific powers ups the ante without overcomplicating things. Upgrading
abilities you can re-spec at special waypoints unlocks alternative tap
patterns to power up a move or pull off special variations, but you
don’t need most of these to win (think of them as style-related
flourishes, plus they’re incredibly cool to watch). And after you’ve
played through DmC once or twice to unlock stronger enemies and
remixed enemy waves — call it a mainstreaming levy on core-players and
series loyalists — the challenge compounds in a way that starts to feel
like the Devil May Cry you used to know, only better.
