Devil May Cry 4 Review

Nero is the argument for this game. The Devil Bringer turns crowd control into a hook and drag problem, pulling distant enemies into a combo or yanking Nero across a room to continue one, and the exceed system rewards timing a rev on impact with a satisfying mechanical bite. It is a simpler toolkit than Dante's and it is more immediately fun to hold. The Fortuna setting is the best looking thing the studio had produced at that point, all marble and stained glass.

Then the halfway point arrives, Dante takes over, and you walk every level again in the opposite direction with a boss rush and a dice game standing in for new content. Dante's half plays wonderfully and is padded around something that was clearly never finished. The plot about a religious order worshipping Sparda has ideas it never develops, and the final boss is a checklist. Special Edition adding Vergil, Lady and Trish patched the value proposition rather than the structure.