With intense action, richly detailed gothic environments and some simply amazing moves ever seen in a video game, Devil May Cry from Capcom looks to set new standards for the survival horror genre on the PS2. Featuring a stunning graphics engine that should leave your eyes bleeding, plus some really incredible enemies and heart-pumping gameplay, Devil May Cry easy looks like one of the most innovative and ground-breaking action games to come out in a long time.


Capcom’s Devil May Cry was spotlighted at Sony’s E3 press conference as one the console’s premier titles this year and for good reason: it looks simply amazing in all aspects. Given how excellent the game looks in all departments, it will be a shock if this highly anticipated title isn’t an immediate hit when it comes out for the PS2 this fall. In Devil May Cry, players are cast as a private investigator named Dante, who is battling an array of demonic forces. According to the game, Dante has demonic blood in him and can use this to transform into a demon-state, in order to inflict damage on any foes he might come across.  As Devil May Cry unfolds, Dante will gradually gain more powerful weapons like dual-barreled pistols and shotguns and a variety of special powered elemental swords which he can unleash using his powers.  Dante’s journey through the possessed castle will take him on a very dark and quite gothic journey as he faces enemies of unimaginable horror.

Dante will need to fully utilize their powers because the demons he faces are no pushovers, because they’ve got far more intelligence and aggressiveness than seen in most other enemies in games of this type. These minions of Satan don’t mess around and judging by their incredible designs, they will make quite an intimidating force. Add in the fact that Dante will frequently face more than one of them at once and you begin to understand Devil May Cry’s intensity. There are three main types of enemies that Dante will face: First there are cursed souls who are inhabiting the apparently lifeless Demonic Marionettes - these are normally slow moving but can move very quickly when they attack humans such as Dante. These are the easiest to beat, but no easy task. Next up on the enemy food chain is Death, who take the forms of Grim Reapers; they can attack while floating in the air or hovering and usually use oversize scissors or scythes when attacking. Finally at the highest level are the Phantoms, which are gigantic, vile looking creatures that resemble spiders and are also the most intelligent of the enemies. Phantoms are also, by far the most powerful enemies Dante will face since they have the ability to summon magic and make the earth shake under the hero’s feet. These are merely the appetizers in Devil May Cry since the game will also sport a cast of incredibly terrifying and difficult bosses to beat.

Coming from the creator of the seminal Resident Evil series, Shinji Mikami, it already looks to explode the genre’s conventions with action-packed play offering an incredible amount of intensity while the production values push the envelope on the PS2 graphically. As you can tell from the screenshots, the richly detailed environments are breathtaking with rich environments and almost no anti-aliasing to be seen. The environments are richly detailed with brilliant texturing on the walls and floors of the castle. The creature designs, obviously look absolutely amazing, giving the game a dark feel that is definitely not for younger players. Devil May Cry’s engine itself is very impressive, easily giving the game some of the best visuals seen on the PS2 so far. High-impact particle effects and incredible light sourcing techniques, plus shadows and the aforementioned gothic feel place this in the elite of PS2 titles. This is all going to enhance DMC’s already intense gameplay is going to be very fast with fluid animation and smooth frame rates making for an overall intense experience. What the screen shots can’t show is just how smooth and fast the game runs – Devil May Cry is an incredibly fast moving experience that should keep players very busy for quite some time. Based on a short time with the title at the convention, the controls look just as smooth as the graphics, allowing the player a much higher degree of movement than other titles in the genre have so far. What’s most impressive about Devil May Cry is that will also allow for very intuitive character control with the ability for example to skewer an enemy on Dante’s sword, then unleash a ton of firepower on it. This is just one of the many cool abilities that Dante will acquire in the game.

Eschewing most of the puzzle-based conventions of the RE series, DMC looks like it will be a pulse-pounding adventure emphasizing twitch based gameplay over puzzles. While many gamers have been disappointed with the PS2 so far, this is one game that should definitely live up to expectations. Devil May Cry looks like a must-own title and you should definitely be one of the next games you preorder. This looks to be in the front of the pack for those year-end best lists, with tons of incredible creatures to face and many cool abilities of the main character, Dante not to mention some of the best visuals seen on the PS2 or any other system out there. Even at an incomplete stage of development during our short experience with it, Devil May Cry’s appearance and play mechanics already place it amongst the elite PlayStation 2 titles. The final product should be even better as its amazing production values and incredible gameplay mechanics undergo further tweaking. With all of that said and done, DMC looks incredible and there doesn’t seem to be any reason why Devil May Cry won’t meet Mikami’s stated goal of ‘making something cool.’

Devil May Cry
Developer: Capcom
Platform: Playstation 2
Release: November, 2001
Misc: Demo with Resident Evil: Code Veronica X (PS2) – 9/2001