First and foremost, I would like to wish everyone Happy Holidays whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa and a Happy New Year!

Sorry for the really long gap in between posts. Now that it’s the holidays, I’ve got lots of games to talk about. I’ll be blogging about the 4th installment of the acclaimed Devil May Cry series. I have played all three predecessors of the game, so it was only natural that I decided to give this one a try.

The story goes that a city with its inhabitants worship Sparda, the demon who saved humanity and the father of Dante, protagonist to the series. Nero, a talented yet brash citizen of this city who is reminiscent of DMC3!Dante, is part of the group the Holy Knights that work for The Order. The Order appears to be a municipal government (At least, to my knowledge) but is in fact a group of Sparda-radicals that research on how to actually become demons in order to “liberate” humanity. This self-absorbed ideal leads Nero to betray the Holy Knights and the Order to stop the liberation of humanity at all costs.

Although I did say I have beaten previous Devil May Cry games, I feel the need to explain at least the opening cutscene in order to get the full effect of how the protagonists are. They aren’t valiant or humble by any means, they’re arrogant and attention-seeking. They’ve got skills, and they know it.

The game’s opening cutscene starts with Nero running towards some majestic building – a church or a opera house of some sort? – with one of his arms in a sling. It cuts back and forth between Nero and a lady named Kyrie (although pronounced Kyrié in the game) who is singing some sort of hymn. This song is both the opening theme, the ability/item menu theme, and the theme that plays during the data install of the game. In his way stands some demons which Nero stylishly “kicks their ass” with one arm while trying to rush to his destination.

Kyrie looks at an empty seat which is presumed to be reserved for Nero, and at the end of her performance she sees Nero there and forgives him for being so late. After, the High Priest of the Order begins a speech, where midway Dante comes down from the ceiling and promptly shoots him in the head in front of everyone. Blood spills and splatters onto Dante’s face amidst the screaming crowd and smirks for a “job well done”.

I don’t know about you, but my first reaction was “What the f-ck?”.

Like previous Devil Mary Cry games, this game is in the style of Action-Adventure, so expect puzzles and facing enemies head-on. There are also different difficulty levels for you to try, and more are unlocked afterwards. But unlike the previous games, you have the choice of playing two characters. Once you have beaten the game, though, you can freely choose which character to use to redo missions in the difficulty level you have beaten the game with.

For the first half of the game, As Nero, you are equipped with his self-made sword the “Red Queen” and his gun the “Blue Rose”. The Red Queen provides Nero with the ability to use “Exceed”, which allows you to charge up the sword’s power up to three times. But what makes Nero special is his arm, which revealed later that it is “demonic”. Nero’s arm, called the Devil Bringer, provides him a number of special abilities such as Snatch where he can grab items and enemies from afar. Also, the Devil Bringer provides a “game-breaking” ability called Buster, where at point-blank range Nero performs an often stylish throw to his enemies.

Dante is playable through most of the second half of the game, set aside the last two missions. Dante keeps the “classic” Devil May Cry fighting style. He keeps his four styles of combat (Trickster, Gunslinger, Swordmaster and Royalguard) and acquires new weapons by defeating bosses.

When you defeat missions, depending on your ranking, how fast you beat the mission, and certain penalties and rewards, you receive “Proud Souls”, another form of currency. While Red Orbs are used to purchase items, Proud Souls are used to upgrade your abilities and weapons or to purchase new abilities. An example of this is the ability Air Hike, which allows your character to have a mid-air jump. If you have bought abilities for Nero, when the story changes to Dante you are given the option to reset the proud souls you have used in order to purchase abilities. Likewise, you are allowed to reset your proud souls at any time.

The music is, well, what I expected. DMC games don’t have alot of variety when it comes to music. For every level a similar ambient, but haunting theme plays but gets interrupted by the same battle theme similar to “Devils Never Cry” from Devil May Cry 3. Boss Battles have different themes for each boss, but none of them are too memorable.

Overall, if you’re a fan of the series you should definitely give this game a try. For newer fans of the series, you might want to play the earlier games in the series to get a sense of what Devil May Cry games are about, although the data install loading screen gives quick synopsis’ of each game.

And, if you’re still sour about Nero replacing Dante, he’s a good replacement. Dante still remains a main character, and he doesn’t lose his charm.

For the marathon, I played the Final Fantasy 20th Anniversary Edition on my PSP. I think that everyone knows the origin of “Final Fantasy” so it’s no wonder that it started a widely popular mega-franchise that remains one of the world’s most popular RPGs of all time. Although it doesn’t share notable traits of the modern games such as crazy outfit designs with zippers and belts, a deep love story and/or an effeminate hero which all the girls rage for, it’s still enjoyed by many fans of the series alike.

As the legend goes, four light warriors possessive of the crystals are to rise up and save the world from growing into destruction. This is because all the elements that support the world are being sapped by four elemental fiends sent by the God of Destruction, Chaos. It is up to your combination of four warriors (who also just so happen to be the light warriors) ranging from Warriors, Thiefs, Monks and a variety of Mages to put an end to Chaos’ plans and to save the world as the legend forgoes.

For this run, I decided to use a Warrior, Monk, White Mage and a Black Mage. I find this team to be the most balanced for my playing style. Warriors are excellent all-around party members and I’ve heard that people have 2 or even 3 of them in their parties. I use him for backing up the true powerhouse of the party, the monk, and to also provide small cure spells to those who need them when he’s a Knight. Using a White and Black Mage instead of using just one Red Mage is better for the long run because White Wizards and Black Wizards are able to cast the most power of spells in their class, while the Red Wizard cannot.

Sniff, they grow up so fast…

The whole game still remains in 2D, and it still remains the same simple turn-based, air-hitting battle style which I’m glad they kept in terms of nostalgia. In terms of graphics, we’ve come a long way from using simple colors and 8-bit to a world of colour and depth. The backgrounds for each battle are beautifully done and were much better for the black ground and spare a few trees from the original version. Some of Nobuo Uematsu’s best work was composed for this game and the digitally-remastered versions keep give that simple tune a worthwhile remix.

I really like this game and even though it wasn’t what started the interest in Final Fantasy when I was young, it still remains a true classic in my heart.

Hiya! Welcome to Swordplay, my blog where I will be talking about one of my most passionate hobbies: Video Games. Now, I know the name sounds very much ‘RPG-ish’ but I won’t be posting about RPGs exclusively. They we be heavily posted about, though. More about the blog can be read in the About section.

To start off, the next few posts will be about Final Fantasy since I’ve been doing a Final Fantasy marathon over the summer. This doesn’t mean I’ll be trying to beat every Final Fantasy as fast as I can, it’s just for fun since I love the series so much. I will be offering my thoughts on each game as well as a few screenshots (to the best of my ability) of my files.

Currently, I have only finished the first Final Fantasy so expect a post on that soon!

Future posts maybe about random games I play on the sidelines (if I’m not doing any marathons/challenges) or anything I see fit. If you’d, for some reason, like to read about other aspects of my life, you can check out some other websites I frequent in the Links section.

Well, thats all I have to say for now. Bye now!