May Cry of Devil Fighting

Great job of crafting a foreboding atmosphere to back up its balls-to-the-wall.

May Cry of Devil Fighting added a major innovation in the form of Nero's Devil Bringer, which gives players the ability to pull distant enemies in to be attacked, push them away, or smash them into the ground. Players are also allowed to switch styles in mid-combat with Dante.

The gameplay of the series focuses primarily on fast and stylish combat; gaining a high style ranking requires long attack and evasion strings while avoiding damage. In later games, the system was slightly modified so players had to actively vary the attacks used, so as to maintain the style rank. The style rank is tracked during combat with letter grades

Small plot holes and a few heavy-handed moments of satire aside, May Cry of Devil story does a great job of crafting a foreboding atmosphere to back up its balls-to-the-wall action, especially when coupled with the excellent voice acting and effortless dialogue. The demon king Mundus and his mistress Lilith are particular highlights, their ruthless, profanity-filled crusade to enslave humankind being a hackneyed, yet effective way of adding a compelling goal to your hack 'n' slash antics.

With Dante's trifecta of light, medium, and heavy weapon types in tow, as well as guns for ranged shots, spectacular combos fly off the fingers with less effort than before. That's not to say that things are easier this time around: you still need to put in the effort in practice mode, carefully studying the command list, in order to graduate from simple button mashing. But it's worthwhile, and before long, staccato stabbing motions are replaced with elegant swipes, dodges, and uppercuts that chain together for near-endless combos in the air and on the ground.

Some of the changes include a tweaked style system that quickly deteriorates, increased enemy damage, adjusted parry and evade windows, and a shorter devil trigger. The differences aren't drastic enough to be immediately noticeable, but soon, levels that might not have tested you in the past become far more difficult to beat. Annoyingly, if you've played through the game before on an older console and have already unlocked the harder difficulty levels, you can't transfer your save and skip, and you’ll have to play through the easier ones again.