I’ve had the DMC collection for a while but only ever replayed 3. Surprised at how fleshed out even the first game was after watching this. Another great video!
Oh yea it's a huuge bummer we don't see this more often in the series. There's nothing else quite like it but hey, guess it makes dmc1 That much more special in a way
From what I've heard from others, DMC1 was originally going to be a Resident Evil game which probably gave it's dark and creepy tone, even part of the soundtrack sounds like something from RE4.
Great review, especially the conclusions. Im catching up on some of these new videos I missed. I'm in total agreement with your conclusions about action games in general with some of these sub genre labels and whatnot. It can be very adversarial, creating preconceived notions about one's learning process with the game's mechanics, and the lens in which we view the other aspects of a game's design. Can end up missing out on what the side tracking/activities and non combat instances can teach and drill. You end up missing all the flavors or not tasting enough, especially if you're only expecting something sweet in flavor. The way you've described it, and the theories on the origins and inspirations, help to keep your mind open and fresh - which I think is the most preferred way of digesting the complexities and depth, of many games really. Just knowing your history(or having lived it) of classic games, helps with some serious recontextualizing - which is paramount for imagination(which is the perfect seasoning).
extremely detailed and well made video, well done! :D action game is never just about the combat system alone, the entire game has to well designed and work together like if u lost any element in this game, it will not be completed.. and dmc1 really shows how well made and aged so freaking well that.. it is still one of my most favorite games of all time, and it makes most of the modern games to shame, even Itsuno's dmc sequels (aka 345) either learnt the wrong lessons from the dmc1 and make a pale imitation of it, or for some random reason itsuno and his team thought create bunch of stupid annoying level designs will improve the gameplay, even if those annoying level designs will only make the game worst... even when they finally take the right lessons from dmc1 with the mixture of 3 and 4's combat system, devs thought drop the difficulty so low even a toddler can play is a great idea to increase sales..... which is why when i play chaos fantasy / strangers of paradise it really makes me drop my tears that, how long it has been when a game is both challenging and super fun since... dmc1? edit: doom eternal gives me the same vibe as strangers of paradise btw, love it xd however i've been playing dmc3 again thx to the sw!t@h @mulati@n! because i've been speculating if dmc4 and 5's style switch system with complete weapon wheel system implanted in dmc3, most of the short comings will be migated due to we have way more options to deal with every elements in dmc3, and so far I guess my theory is correct, plus it truly opens what dmc4 and 5's dante's combat system and difficulty could've been if devs stop way too streamlining the combat system and drop down difficulty and enemy ai's behavior significantly, still tho... it cannot beat dmc1 despite dmc3 gain a massive upgrade in switch. I've been studying dmc1's combat system for a while btw! u can check out my nelo angelo's no damage fight if u r interested xd since I want to learn the game in the most "dev inteded way" possible, i decided to not play the game with unintended cancels "such as sword combo cancel", and i want to learn around the game mechanics and see what i can do with it~ Parries, Reflects, Guard Breaks, DT switching in mid fights, weapon switching in mid fights etc this game is deep! and Nightmare Beta is brutal when you play around with the positioning and learning which environment has the best "bounce rate" for Nightmare Beta, it can melt anything like no tomorrow, not even DMD can handle the power of Nightmare Beta xd I am glad you love it as much as I do! cant wait to see more videos from you :D btw your samurai western video is pretty great too! i learnt that game recently and fell in love with it! it is super fun game indeed xd
Thank you for that! Glad you liked it Definitely I can't imagine dmc 1 without its specific lvl design, or setting, or music There's so many small details both in n outside of combat that really set this game up to be the classic as we know it. It's something that should be looked at again by devs to relearn the true basics Ooooh man I'm itching to get to eternal! It's one of my favorites too but imma have to cover NG games to really set the tone before going into it since there's soooome similarities going on there BUT I'm getting ahead of myself We'll get there soon tho soon soon N yea that switch ver of dmc3 is really interesting bc of those changes. I beat it while back n oooooh man I am not too smart to handle all those options haha Fun tho bc how different of an exp it was tho so that's more than enough reason to check it out! I might have to check those out then bc that's sounds really cool! Again I Really appreciate that you enjoy this sorta too. More ppl need to give dmc1 its props
Great vid man. Without spoiling anything, DMC 3 does kind of have a critical hit system similiar to DMC 1 Tbh, the first time I played this I liked it for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. It's not really about styling on enemies. It's more about being efficient in your attacks and dodging when needed. I should probably replay it now lol Are you actually going to cover DMC 2 ? No one would blame you if you went ahead to 3 lol
Ooooh imma have to look into its crit atks then. Bc thats one of my favorite things about 1 Exactly! I just really like the entire dynamic we have against enemies. Feels like we're on even footing n need to take on some dudes that mean Business Nahnahnahnah We are NOT skipping 2 During editing I already beat both stories n everything so that video is for SURE happening. Won't be as long I will tell you that much right now haha but I think it's still interesting to see it for what it is. Get to see why 1 works while 2 doesn't sorta thing
I FINALLY felt like I was exp'd enough to do it just right but uuuuh my lil video making hiccups are still here haha But by the end I think it came together better than I expected
The first DMC game I played in 2019 after buying on the switch, it was fun as hell. I gotta go back and beat hard mode since im stuck at Nightmare. I wish Alastor and Ifrit were in 3.
Hello, I'm new here and I really like that the content on your channel is mainly aimed at gameplay analysis and without leaving aside your review for the end. And since this video you talk about what I consider the father of Character Action, I have some comments on points you pointed out: I knew criticals as "weak points". And yes, just like the Devils Hearts in DMC2, it was a mechanic that I regret has not been implemented and deepened throughout the next games, but if you are an old fan of the franchice, is nothing new. Or do you not remember the inertia of DMC4 not being present in the last game? About the allusions to Castlevania I only noticed the ending with the defeat of Mundus and I considered it as a small reference, but with the other parallels you show It makes me realize that DMC is a spiritual adaptation of Castlevania to the 3D format (since Konami's attempts at that time did not turn out well). Regarding the endless debate about what we should call this type of game, I respect your position of just calling them action games, but in my case, I consider that it is natural to try to categorize and organize ideas and ways to execute them. At first I used the name Character Action, a name that not many agree to use because it is unattractive and ambiguous compared to other proposals such as Stylish Action, Spectacle Fighters and Hack'n'Slash. Which I can understand to some extent, but I have some reservations that make me discard these options: 1⁰ Hack'n'Slash is a term originated in tabletop role-playing games, which is established to tell us an exclusively aggressive style of play and with the rules orbiting the action. So to respect its "historical" origin, I would only use that definition in video games which the RPG elements (statistics management, customizing avatars, leveling, etc.) are main focused on fighting, such as Diablo, DarkSouls, Warframe, GoW Nordics, NieR, etc. 2⁰ The other two that remain limit creative freedom by establishing a predefined tone or a unique way of approaching the action by using adjectives like Stylish or Spectacle. As an example, we have the game that very soon it will release its sequel, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, a game that according to the semantics of the two alternatives would not correspond to the genre because it does not have dynamic combat with amazing movements, despite being a test of how to use combat to portray the vulnerability, disadvantage and even the psychology of its protagonist. Which brings me to my last point. 3⁰ The main reason why I use the term Character Action, It is because I believe in art in video games, and by extension, that it has its own means of expressiveness. For any writer, it is basic knowledge that a story as good as its characters, from their depth, personality and development, and games as a medium can transmit through interaction, or rather, through performance we seek to know the playable characters through their mechanics while the games inspire us to offer the best interpretation we can do to honor that character. And that's why games like DMC, GoW Classics, Ninja Gaiden, Sekiro, Gungrave, [PROTOTYPE], Hellblade and many others I call Character Action, since they use action to characterize their characters (sorry for redundancy).
I'm a huge DMC fan. I'm not good at them and hard is my difficult limit and never finished one on Dante must die etc... but one thing I always disliked is the item usage. there's cool items like holy water, stop watch and so on but you get punished for using them.
The items thing I get that. From what I can tell it's a carry over from classic REs since you get penalized for using 1st aid sprays n all that But in dmc these battle items are waaay too cool looking Not to use yknow Would be neat if we could use em in interesting ways just like every other tool we have on us
The first Devil May Cry game is extremely influential and phenomenal to all action games.... besides it's own future sequels lol. Very unfortunately it routinely gets a pass recommendation from the DMC fans along w/ 2 (understandable on at least that one) as they keep pointing newcomers to start off the series w/ 3 and then go on the other Itsuno entries 4 and V. A big reason which they'd love to cite is the lack of combos and the camera issues of the original w/o considering how much worse the same idea of camera system is implemented in their beloved 3SE when it goes for that. Instead I just think that most fans don't have much faith in the original to hook newcomers in to the overall series. I do agree that this is not the first real 3D action game which somehow invented this niche sub genre of action games as DMC fans at large would like to believe in their minds ignoring the history of those that came before paving it's way (thank you for mentioning beat em ups in there which often gets overlooked also yeah heavy Castlevania influence too). That being said I still know that this is the game responsible for popularizing the whole thing and showing the world at large back then that not only the 3D action games can be just as good as their 2D counterparts but also have the potential to go even beyond. Nightmare Beta is a great but situational weapon. Really shines in close locked in places and as a multi hit weapon. It even allows for Distortion tech if you're familiar w/ DMC4's idea of distortion. As for reflecting projectiles, phantom's fireball reflect is satisfying but so is reflecting Mundus projectiles in his 2nd phase which also stuns him for good in the fight. Speaking of Mundus, the phase 1 does have a double hit or critical hit window w/ the LDK Dante's powered up dragon throw that can deal a lot of damage even on DMD and can be further combo'd into the LDK's Vortex(which also has I frames) to do even more damage. That speeds things up quite well for that 1st phase. I know a lot of action game fans dislike the sudden genre shifts but as someone who's more familiar w/ old Arcade era beat em ups where such things were common to see, it doesn't bother me much if it's executed correctly. It does add more variety to the game along w/ testing the player in multiple areas. The way the game handles difficulty especially Dante Must Die (Romeo must die reference?) or DMD is just way ahead of it's time. Same w/ it's ranking that is more indicative of the player performance than the arbitrary minimum threshold checklist that the later entries turned it into.The pacing also is insanely tight and well crafted. The missions overwhelmingly are of short length which makes it somewhat okay for it not having a mission select... though a mission select would still be great and if a player wants to then they can sorta create their own mission select w/ the amount of save files the game hands out to em. It stands the test of time extremely well and I agree that a big part of it is because of how exceptional the enemies both the lesser demons and the bosses are designed. This game has no right to be as good as it did considering the amount of developmental issues it had going against it (literally had to fight for it's existence) and that was team little devil's first (and sadly only) attempt at that. Devil May Cry is one of a kind and still remains as my #1 crown king of the series after all these years, everyone else is just fighting for the 2nd spot.
Real weird seeing Dante's head on Ryu's body. I know that's, like, your thing, but it hits a bit different when it's the grandparents of the whole shebang ya know. I dunno. Maybe I'm being weird.
Nahnah not weird for thinking that. It is kinda jarring when you reeeally look at it for the 1st huh? But hey I must've just gotten used to after so long haha
I’ve had the DMC collection for a while but only ever replayed 3. Surprised at how fleshed out even the first game was after watching this. Another great video!
1 is a classic man! So if you're in the mood I'd say it's worth the time to really try it sometime
I wish they would go back to the baroque esthetic and the darker mood they had in dmc1. From 3 onward it became like a big cartoon.
Oh yea it's a huuge bummer we don't see this more often in the series. There's nothing else quite like it but hey, guess it makes dmc1 That much more special in a way
From what I've heard from others, DMC1 was originally going to be a Resident Evil game which probably gave it's dark and creepy tone, even part of the soundtrack sounds like something from RE4.
Great review, especially the conclusions. Im catching up on some of these new videos I missed.
I'm in total agreement with your conclusions about action games in general with some of these sub genre labels and whatnot. It can be very adversarial, creating preconceived notions about one's learning process with the game's mechanics, and the lens in which we view the other aspects of a game's design. Can end up missing out on what the side tracking/activities and non combat instances can teach and drill. You end up missing all the flavors or not tasting enough, especially if you're only expecting something sweet in flavor.
The way you've described it, and the theories on the origins and inspirations, help to keep your mind open and fresh - which I think is the most preferred way of digesting the complexities and depth, of many games really. Just knowing your history(or having lived it) of classic games, helps with some serious recontextualizing - which is paramount for imagination(which is the perfect seasoning).
extremely detailed and well made video, well done! :D
action game is never just about the combat system alone, the entire game has to well designed and work together like if u lost any element in this game, it will not be completed.. and dmc1 really shows how well made and aged so freaking well that.. it is still one of my most favorite games of all time, and it makes most of the modern games to shame, even Itsuno's dmc sequels (aka 345) either learnt the wrong lessons from the dmc1 and make a pale imitation of it, or for some random reason itsuno and his team thought create bunch of stupid annoying level designs will improve the gameplay, even if those annoying level designs will only make the game worst... even when they finally take the right lessons from dmc1 with the mixture of 3 and 4's combat system, devs thought drop the difficulty so low even a toddler can play is a great idea to increase sales..... which is why when i play chaos fantasy / strangers of paradise it really makes me drop my tears that, how long it has been when a game is both challenging and super fun since... dmc1?
edit: doom eternal gives me the same vibe as strangers of paradise btw, love it xd
however i've been playing dmc3 again thx to the sw!t@h @mulati@n! because i've been speculating if dmc4 and 5's style switch system with complete weapon wheel system implanted in dmc3, most of the short comings will be migated due to we have way more options to deal with every elements in dmc3, and so far I guess my theory is correct, plus it truly opens what dmc4 and 5's dante's combat system and difficulty could've been if devs stop way too streamlining the combat system and drop down difficulty and enemy ai's behavior significantly, still tho... it cannot beat dmc1 despite dmc3 gain a massive upgrade in switch.
I've been studying dmc1's combat system for a while btw! u can check out my nelo angelo's no damage fight if u r interested xd
since I want to learn the game in the most "dev inteded way" possible, i decided to not play the game with unintended cancels "such as sword combo cancel", and i want to learn around the game mechanics and see what i can do with it~
Parries, Reflects, Guard Breaks, DT switching in mid fights, weapon switching in mid fights etc
this game is deep! and Nightmare Beta is brutal when you play around with the positioning and learning which environment has the best "bounce rate" for Nightmare Beta, it can melt anything like no tomorrow, not even DMD can handle the power of Nightmare Beta xd
I am glad you love it as much as I do! cant wait to see more videos from you :D
btw your samurai western video is pretty great too! i learnt that game recently and fell in love with it! it is super fun game indeed xd
Thank you for that! Glad you liked it
Definitely
I can't imagine dmc 1 without its specific lvl design, or setting, or music
There's so many small details both in n outside of combat that really set this game up to be the classic as we know it.
It's something that should be looked at again by devs to relearn the true basics
Ooooh man I'm itching to get to eternal!
It's one of my favorites too but imma have to cover NG games to really set the tone before going into it since there's soooome similarities going on there
BUT
I'm getting ahead of myself
We'll get there soon tho soon soon
N yea that switch ver of dmc3 is really interesting bc of those changes. I beat it while back n oooooh man I am not too smart to handle all those options haha
Fun tho bc how different of an exp it was tho so that's more than enough reason to check it out!
I might have to check those out then bc that's sounds really cool! Again I Really appreciate that you enjoy this sorta too. More ppl need to give dmc1 its props
@@o_uwu_o yea, dmc1 deserves way more credits than ppl give it to, keep it up! :D
Looking forward to this one. Devil May Cry was the first real action game I enjoyed.
I can't blame you there. It's an absolute timeless classic! Hope you enjoyed the video
Great vid man. Without spoiling anything, DMC 3 does kind of have a critical hit system similiar to DMC 1
Tbh, the first time I played this I liked it for a lot of the reasons you mentioned. It's not really about styling on enemies. It's more about being efficient in your attacks and dodging when needed. I should probably replay it now lol
Are you actually going to cover DMC 2 ? No one would blame you if you went ahead to 3 lol
Ooooh imma have to look into its crit atks then. Bc thats one of my favorite things about 1
Exactly! I just really like the entire dynamic we have against enemies. Feels like we're on even footing n need to take on some dudes that mean Business
Nahnahnahnah We are NOT skipping 2
During editing I already beat both stories n everything so that video is for SURE happening. Won't be as long I will tell you that much right now haha but I think it's still interesting to see it for what it is. Get to see why 1 works while 2 doesn't sorta thing
Great channel! Hope you will get blessed by the algorithm
We can only wait n see now
But hey you made it here! Seems to me like that algo.magic is already working juuust fine
Finally your reviewing the og
I FINALLY felt like I was exp'd enough to do it just right but uuuuh my lil video making hiccups are still here haha
But by the end I think it came together better than I expected
The first DMC game I played in 2019 after buying on the switch, it was fun as hell. I gotta go back and beat hard mode since im stuck at Nightmare. I wish Alastor and Ifrit were in 3.
Oh most definitely! Go n let em know who's boss.
I'm w you on that one. Now that I've used those 2 for a while - they're all time classic weapons
I was literally just looking at the DMC5 artbook less than 5 mins ago! LOL
Yoooo nice nice! It must be DMC season out here
I didn't even know about criticals. Gotta love Capcom games for having hidden mechanics.
Hello, I'm new here and I really like that the content on your channel is mainly aimed at gameplay analysis and without leaving aside your review for the end. And since this video you talk about what I consider the father of Character Action, I have some comments on points you pointed out:
I knew criticals as "weak points". And yes, just like the Devils Hearts in DMC2, it was a mechanic that I regret has not been implemented and deepened throughout the next games, but if you are an old fan of the franchice, is nothing new. Or do you not remember the inertia of DMC4 not being present in the last game?
About the allusions to Castlevania I only noticed the ending with the defeat of Mundus and I considered it as a small reference, but with the other parallels you show It makes me realize that DMC is a spiritual adaptation of Castlevania to the 3D format (since Konami's attempts at that time did not turn out well).
Regarding the endless debate about what we should call this type of game, I respect your position of just calling them action games, but in my case, I consider that it is natural to try to categorize and organize ideas and ways to execute them.
At first I used the name Character Action, a name that not many agree to use because it is unattractive and ambiguous compared to other proposals such as Stylish Action, Spectacle Fighters and Hack'n'Slash. Which I can understand to some extent, but I have some reservations that make me discard these options:
1⁰ Hack'n'Slash is a term originated in tabletop role-playing games, which is established to tell us an exclusively aggressive style of play and with the rules orbiting the action. So to respect its "historical" origin, I would only use that definition in video games which the RPG elements (statistics management, customizing avatars, leveling, etc.) are main focused on fighting, such as Diablo, DarkSouls, Warframe, GoW Nordics, NieR, etc.
2⁰ The other two that remain limit creative freedom by establishing a predefined tone or a unique way of approaching the action by using adjectives like Stylish or Spectacle. As an example, we have the game that very soon it will release its sequel, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, a game that according to the semantics of the two alternatives would not correspond to the genre because it does not have dynamic combat with amazing movements, despite being a test of how to use combat to portray the vulnerability, disadvantage and even the psychology of its protagonist. Which brings me to my last point.
3⁰ The main reason why I use the term Character Action, It is because I believe in art in video games, and by extension, that it has its own means of expressiveness. For any writer, it is basic knowledge that a story as good as its characters, from their depth, personality and development, and games as a medium can transmit through interaction, or rather, through performance we seek to know the playable characters through their mechanics while the games inspire us to offer the best interpretation we can do to honor that character. And that's why games like DMC, GoW Classics, Ninja Gaiden, Sekiro, Gungrave, [PROTOTYPE], Hellblade and many others I call Character Action, since they use action to characterize their characters (sorry for redundancy).
Solid combat mechanics and enemy/level design never gets old!
It's a suuuper overlooked aspect nowadays I feel
But I believe we'll get back to em someday
I'm a huge DMC fan. I'm not good at them and hard is my difficult limit and never finished one on Dante must die etc... but one thing I always disliked is the item usage. there's cool items like holy water, stop watch and so on but you get punished for using them.
The items thing I get that.
From what I can tell it's a carry over from classic REs since you get penalized for using 1st aid sprays n all that
But in dmc these battle items are waaay too cool looking Not to use yknow
Would be neat if we could use em in interesting ways just like every other tool we have on us
good game good review
Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it n dropped a comment
Nice guide. Are you planning on doing an overview for DMC3?
Yup! I'm currently playing 3 right now. Gonna be awhile to get it's video all done tho
The first Devil May Cry game is extremely influential and phenomenal to all action games.... besides it's own future sequels lol. Very unfortunately it routinely gets a pass recommendation from the DMC fans along w/ 2 (understandable on at least that one) as they keep pointing newcomers to start off the series w/ 3 and then go on the other Itsuno entries 4 and V. A big reason which they'd love to cite is the lack of combos and the camera issues of the original w/o considering how much worse the same idea of camera system is implemented in their beloved 3SE when it goes for that. Instead I just think that most fans don't have much faith in the original to hook newcomers in to the overall series.
I do agree that this is not the first real 3D action game which somehow invented this niche sub genre of action games as DMC fans at large would like to believe in their minds ignoring the history of those that came before paving it's way (thank you for mentioning beat em ups in there which often gets overlooked also yeah heavy Castlevania influence too). That being said I still know that this is the game responsible for popularizing the whole thing and showing the world at large back then that not only the 3D action games can be just as good as their 2D counterparts but also have the potential to go even beyond.
Nightmare Beta is a great but situational weapon. Really shines in close locked in places and as a multi hit weapon. It even allows for Distortion tech if you're familiar w/ DMC4's idea of distortion. As for reflecting projectiles, phantom's fireball reflect is satisfying but so is reflecting Mundus projectiles in his 2nd phase which also stuns him for good in the fight. Speaking of Mundus, the phase 1 does have a double hit or critical hit window w/ the LDK Dante's powered up dragon throw that can deal a lot of damage even on DMD and can be further combo'd into the LDK's Vortex(which also has I frames) to do even more damage. That speeds things up quite well for that 1st phase. I know a lot of action game fans dislike the sudden genre shifts but as someone who's more familiar w/ old Arcade era beat em ups where such things were common to see, it doesn't bother me much if it's executed correctly. It does add more variety to the game along w/ testing the player in multiple areas.
The way the game handles difficulty especially Dante Must Die (Romeo must die reference?) or DMD is just way ahead of it's time. Same w/ it's ranking that is more indicative of the player performance than the arbitrary minimum threshold checklist that the later entries turned it into.The pacing also is insanely tight and well crafted. The missions overwhelmingly are of short length which makes it somewhat okay for it not having a mission select... though a mission select would still be great and if a player wants to then they can sorta create their own mission select w/ the amount of save files the game hands out to em. It stands the test of time extremely well and I agree that a big part of it is because of how exceptional the enemies both the lesser demons and the bosses are designed. This game has no right to be as good as it did considering the amount of developmental issues it had going against it (literally had to fight for it's existence) and that was team little devil's first (and sadly only) attempt at that.
Devil May Cry is one of a kind and still remains as my #1 crown king of the series after all these years, everyone else is just fighting for the 2nd spot.
Real weird seeing Dante's head on Ryu's body. I know that's, like, your thing, but it hits a bit different when it's the grandparents of the whole shebang ya know. I dunno. Maybe I'm being weird.
Nahnah not weird for thinking that. It is kinda jarring when you reeeally look at it for the 1st huh? But hey I must've just gotten used to after so long haha
Mosdef thinking too hard on that. I find it pretty funny.
@@BboySquidfoot just wait til we get to NG games. Gonna be some headception stuff going on w those haha