Ryu Yamato
Absolution
Honestly, I'm just gonna straight up say that this is one of my favorite games, so there may be some bias here or there. While the story is nothing to write home about, it's still decent, but the characters and voice work was done excellently, especially Dante and Vergil. The game still looks great, and the HD treatment is definitely a step up above the original (obviously) and runs at a very smooth 60 FPS.
The gameplay is the main course of the game and boy, is it good. The depth presented within the combat engine is still unmatched by all but one game (that being DMC4), even by today's standards. The style system is done very very well, allowing the developers to give Dante a larger moveset than he ever had before, them being Swordmaster (enabling the user to perform melee-centric attacks), Gunslinger (giving guns the spotlight), Trickster (allows the player to have more maneuverability) and finally Royalguard (which gives the player the ability to block and counter). This allows for a range of players with different play styles to enjoy this game, as they can focus on the style they wish the play with, and level them up to increase moves and usefulness. The style gauge at the top right hand corner is also greatly improved from DMC. The style meter both increases and decreases rapidly, encouraging players to vary up their attacks and do it quickly. Also, this style gauge is not there just for show, however, this gauge serves a purpose of giving more red orbs (the game's currency) to the player the higher the style gauge. Another feature that links into the style system is the taunt mechanic. Taunting not only makes you look and feel cool, but is also raises your style gauge, making a cool little risk-reward system that is totally optional, giving players the opportunity to show off if they wish to do so.
The gameplay here offers up a ton of moves, swords and guns that allows the players to experiment to do as they please through the game, as it contains a variety of enemies, and even player created combos and techniques such as jump cancelling, distortion and flying. Not only does the game feature all of this, but it also contains a new playable character in the form of Vergil, Dante's twin. Though he doesn't have that many moves for each of his three weapons, he is able to carry three melee weapons (the dark-forged blade Yamato, Beowulf and a Force Edge and Yamato dual wield) at once, as well as a projectile weapon that allows players to shoot and melee at the same time. He feels good to play as and is super fun to play as too. Another feature of the special edition is the new Turbo mode feature that makes the game run 20% faster, making the already fast paced combat even more frantic and enjoyable.
As much as I would like to, I can't just keep saying how good this game is, so I'll need to address a few flaws. The first being the backtracking required throughout the game. While that isn't a particularly game breaking problem, it does feel a tad lazy and boring. Another thing that isn't great is the fact that Vergil doesn't have his own story and missions, which I don't mind too much, but it would have been nice to see a couple of new stages thrown in there for him. The biggest flaw that I can say about the game is that it feels somewhat...restricted. The fact that even though the game has 5 guns and melee weapons, it only allows you to bring 2 along with you, which I'm not quite sure what the reason is, it may have something to do with weapon switching becoming more cumbersome if you have so many weapons on you at once, but the game also only allows you to have one style selected at a time. This could have been easily sorted out by putting them on the d-pad (like in DMC4) but they put menus on the d-pad which easily could have just been out in the start menu, though implementing the Doppleganger and Quicksilver styles would be harder to do in this case.
Overall, the game remains to be one of the best games the Hack and Slash genre has to offer, and its popularity will not be fading away any time soon.
The gameplay is the main course of the game and boy, is it good. The depth presented within the combat engine is still unmatched by all but one game (that being DMC4), even by today's standards. The style system is done very very well, allowing the developers to give Dante a larger moveset than he ever had before, them being Swordmaster (enabling the user to perform melee-centric attacks), Gunslinger (giving guns the spotlight), Trickster (allows the player to have more maneuverability) and finally Royalguard (which gives the player the ability to block and counter). This allows for a range of players with different play styles to enjoy this game, as they can focus on the style they wish the play with, and level them up to increase moves and usefulness. The style gauge at the top right hand corner is also greatly improved from DMC. The style meter both increases and decreases rapidly, encouraging players to vary up their attacks and do it quickly. Also, this style gauge is not there just for show, however, this gauge serves a purpose of giving more red orbs (the game's currency) to the player the higher the style gauge. Another feature that links into the style system is the taunt mechanic. Taunting not only makes you look and feel cool, but is also raises your style gauge, making a cool little risk-reward system that is totally optional, giving players the opportunity to show off if they wish to do so.
The gameplay here offers up a ton of moves, swords and guns that allows the players to experiment to do as they please through the game, as it contains a variety of enemies, and even player created combos and techniques such as jump cancelling, distortion and flying. Not only does the game feature all of this, but it also contains a new playable character in the form of Vergil, Dante's twin. Though he doesn't have that many moves for each of his three weapons, he is able to carry three melee weapons (the dark-forged blade Yamato, Beowulf and a Force Edge and Yamato dual wield) at once, as well as a projectile weapon that allows players to shoot and melee at the same time. He feels good to play as and is super fun to play as too. Another feature of the special edition is the new Turbo mode feature that makes the game run 20% faster, making the already fast paced combat even more frantic and enjoyable.
As much as I would like to, I can't just keep saying how good this game is, so I'll need to address a few flaws. The first being the backtracking required throughout the game. While that isn't a particularly game breaking problem, it does feel a tad lazy and boring. Another thing that isn't great is the fact that Vergil doesn't have his own story and missions, which I don't mind too much, but it would have been nice to see a couple of new stages thrown in there for him. The biggest flaw that I can say about the game is that it feels somewhat...restricted. The fact that even though the game has 5 guns and melee weapons, it only allows you to bring 2 along with you, which I'm not quite sure what the reason is, it may have something to do with weapon switching becoming more cumbersome if you have so many weapons on you at once, but the game also only allows you to have one style selected at a time. This could have been easily sorted out by putting them on the d-pad (like in DMC4) but they put menus on the d-pad which easily could have just been out in the start menu, though implementing the Doppleganger and Quicksilver styles would be harder to do in this case.
Overall, the game remains to be one of the best games the Hack and Slash genre has to offer, and its popularity will not be fading away any time soon.
