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DmC Devil May Cry Ships 1 Million Copies; Forecast Lowered To 1.2 Million
- Thread starter BLACK AMERICAN PSYCHO
- Start date
To be perfectly frank and honest i'm going to try my best to not come across as a condescending dick when describing the reality of the new Devil May Cry game compared to the old ones, but when some people say that it's basically as good as or better than the old Devil May Cry games in nearly every single way (and then scratch their heads as to why it hasn't sold well, or blame 'idiots' for not liking it because of "no floppy white hair") it's hard not to.
To begin with i'll give you my credentials when it comes to Devil May Cry. I have played and completed every single Devil May Cry game there has ever been and i have completed them all on every single difficulty setting. I also bought the Devil May Cry HD collection and got the full 1000 gamer score as well as getting the full 1000 gamer score in Devil May Cry 4 & the new DmC. Across all the games i have some of the best scores in the entire world and currently i am 20th overall in the new DmC game on the xbox360. In short i am one of the top couple of hundred Devil May Cry players in the world.
Now before i get in to the more technical side of why the new DmC isn't as good as previous ones, i first want to address 1.) The need to "reboot" the franchise in the first place. And 2.) The elephant in the room which is the style/look of the game plus Dante himself.
The simple fact is the previous Devil May Cry game (Devil May Cry 4) was the best selling Devil May Cry game there has ever been, which shows that the franchise wasn't in decline nor was it stagnating at an unexceptable level, Devil May cry was in fact selling well and its sales and popularity were increasing. Beyond that regardless of if you even particularly liked the Devil May Cry games, Dante himself was a VERY iconic character in terms of his appearance and personality and generally he was well liked within the gaming community. So for Capcom to come along and decide to reboot the entire franchise by handing it out to a different developer and allowing them to significantly change it was a bizzare choice indeed. And quite rightfully so fans of the series had every reason to raise questions and/or be annoyed by this, especially as they decided to hand the franchise to Ninja Theory, a developer who has never been able to release a game or a fighting engine which is to the quality of Devil May Cry 1, 3 or 4.
Now whilst i'm sure some people might find a few people that didn't like the overall look of the new DmC i think you'll find most don't mind the new art style and colour pallet that's been used. The main problem with the look of the game is what they've done with Dante, and that's because Dante himself was never the problem with the franchise. It's like looking at the Sonic games and saying "yeah the problem with the Sonic games is Sonic is blue, if we changed his colour to purple then that'll fix everything." The look and personality of Dante was never the problem, in fact it was pretty much prefect, the problem with Devil May Cry 4 was the level design, needless back tracking and replaying the same bosses multiple times whilst most of the bosses weren't interesting and/or technical enough. So instead of just trying to fix these problems Ninja Theory needlessly went ahead and changed a much beloved gaming icon and turned him from being a very unique and cool looking guy with a funny, witty off the wall personality, in to a pretty bland looking, angsty, brooding, annoying, unfunny teenager who comes across more as a douchebag than the "ultra cool guy" that old Dante was. Then for no reason again they decided to change the pronunciation of his name from Dante to "Donte", i mean why what's the point? It's like Nintendo deciding from now on they're going to call Mario "Morio", it's so stupid and again you're only going to annoy the fans.
And finally before i start talking about the more technical side fo the game i want to quickly talk about the cut scenes and voice acting, and whilst i could go in to great detail about those as well (i won't because i've already written too much) the bottom line is even tho they are more "western" now and don't have those awkward "japanese dialogue quirks" they are still very hit and miss and some of the voice acting delivery at times is simply atrocious.
But here's the thing, despite all of the above, the vast majority of the Devil May Cry fanbase would forgive all of those problems if the actual core fighting of the game was as good as or better than Devil May Cry 3 & 4. But the fighting engine isn't better, it's not as good as, it's worse.
To begin with you've got the style system, in every other Devil May cry game the style system rewarded players who used varied combos in quick succession and if you stood still for too long then the combo would disappear. This was a main staple of the series and took a great deal of skill to achieve and it was also well loved. Now you have a system which is pretty much just purely based on damage dealt, and once you reach a letter grade, their is no time limit for it to disappear. This now means that all players have to do is learn two or three moves and spam them and they'll get the best ranks and scores which removes most of the skill and joy of what makes Devil May Cry what it is. And to reach the tripple SSS rank in old DMC games actually used to mean something because it took time, a lot of skill and a varied move set, now you can reach SSS in a matter of seconds from most enemies (across all levels and difficulties) by abusing the broken demon dodge system. Beyond that the combat is slower, there are less weapons and less moves in the game, unlike the old games this game automatically locks on to the nearest enemy for you taking away your control of who you try and hit, which ends up causing so many unnecessary problems especially as Ninja Theory have decided to add so many enemies that have projectile weapons and enemies that can only be hit by certain types of weapons. The weapon balance isn't very good, demon weapons are too overpowered and angel weapons are too underpowered so when you have to fight angel enemies they take far too long to kill and the encounters becomes boring and monotonous. The boss fights whilst they might look dramatic are a total joke as they're far too easy due to their limited attacks of which nearly all can easily be dodged and they have obvious weak points that end the fights far too quickly. Not to mention that all the boss fights have cut scenes that take place during the fights themselves which sucks you out of the flow of action which just makes the fights even worse. Devil trigger is also now completely overpowered and "noobified", instead of enhancing a players attacks like it used to, it's now more like a free pass to destory all enemies in the room as they float helplessly in the air. And then last but not least in Ninja Theories infinate wisdom they've decided to remove the taunt button, again one of the most loved and staple parts of the franchise, it fitted well with the cocky character of Dante and if the player managed to successfully pull off the taunt it would raise the style bar.... but now it's gone, sigh.
And to address a few other points, the platforming in the game is hit and miss and on multiple play throughs becomes very boring and tiresome. No matter how much Ninja Theory says otherwise reducing the frame rate from 60 frames per second to 30 frames per second makes the game worse and contributes to its slower feel, the camera isn't great and finally taking out game content in this new DmC that has been in there from the start of old Devil May Cry games and charging money for it is the final kick to the fanbase's nuts.
Overall DmC is still a decent game, it's just not up to the standard of Devil May Cry 3 or 4 and Devil May Cry fans have every right to complain.
To begin with i'll give you my credentials when it comes to Devil May Cry. I have played and completed every single Devil May Cry game there has ever been and i have completed them all on every single difficulty setting. I also bought the Devil May Cry HD collection and got the full 1000 gamer score as well as getting the full 1000 gamer score in Devil May Cry 4 & the new DmC. Across all the games i have some of the best scores in the entire world and currently i am 20th overall in the new DmC game on the xbox360. In short i am one of the top couple of hundred Devil May Cry players in the world.
Now before i get in to the more technical side of why the new DmC isn't as good as previous ones, i first want to address 1.) The need to "reboot" the franchise in the first place. And 2.) The elephant in the room which is the style/look of the game plus Dante himself.
The simple fact is the previous Devil May Cry game (Devil May Cry 4) was the best selling Devil May Cry game there has ever been, which shows that the franchise wasn't in decline nor was it stagnating at an unexceptable level, Devil May cry was in fact selling well and its sales and popularity were increasing. Beyond that regardless of if you even particularly liked the Devil May Cry games, Dante himself was a VERY iconic character in terms of his appearance and personality and generally he was well liked within the gaming community. So for Capcom to come along and decide to reboot the entire franchise by handing it out to a different developer and allowing them to significantly change it was a bizzare choice indeed. And quite rightfully so fans of the series had every reason to raise questions and/or be annoyed by this, especially as they decided to hand the franchise to Ninja Theory, a developer who has never been able to release a game or a fighting engine which is to the quality of Devil May Cry 1, 3 or 4.
Now whilst i'm sure some people might find a few people that didn't like the overall look of the new DmC i think you'll find most don't mind the new art style and colour pallet that's been used. The main problem with the look of the game is what they've done with Dante, and that's because Dante himself was never the problem with the franchise. It's like looking at the Sonic games and saying "yeah the problem with the Sonic games is Sonic is blue, if we changed his colour to purple then that'll fix everything." The look and personality of Dante was never the problem, in fact it was pretty much prefect, the problem with Devil May Cry 4 was the level design, needless back tracking and replaying the same bosses multiple times whilst most of the bosses weren't interesting and/or technical enough. So instead of just trying to fix these problems Ninja Theory needlessly went ahead and changed a much beloved gaming icon and turned him from being a very unique and cool looking guy with a funny, witty off the wall personality, in to a pretty bland looking, angsty, brooding, annoying, unfunny teenager who comes across more as a douchebag than the "ultra cool guy" that old Dante was. Then for no reason again they decided to change the pronunciation of his name from Dante to "Donte", i mean why what's the point? It's like Nintendo deciding from now on they're going to call Mario "Morio", it's so stupid and again you're only going to annoy the fans.
And finally before i start talking about the more technical side fo the game i want to quickly talk about the cut scenes and voice acting, and whilst i could go in to great detail about those as well (i won't because i've already written too much) the bottom line is even tho they are more "western" now and don't have those awkward "japanese dialogue quirks" they are still very hit and miss and some of the voice acting delivery at times is simply atrocious.
But here's the thing, despite all of the above, the vast majority of the Devil May Cry fanbase would forgive all of those problems if the actual core fighting of the game was as good as or better than Devil May Cry 3 & 4. But the fighting engine isn't better, it's not as good as, it's worse.
To begin with you've got the style system, in every other Devil May cry game the style system rewarded players who used varied combos in quick succession and if you stood still for too long then the combo would disappear. This was a main staple of the series and took a great deal of skill to achieve and it was also well loved. Now you have a system which is pretty much just purely based on damage dealt, and once you reach a letter grade, their is no time limit for it to disappear. This now means that all players have to do is learn two or three moves and spam them and they'll get the best ranks and scores which removes most of the skill and joy of what makes Devil May Cry what it is. And to reach the tripple SSS rank in old DMC games actually used to mean something because it took time, a lot of skill and a varied move set, now you can reach SSS in a matter of seconds from most enemies (across all levels and difficulties) by abusing the broken demon dodge system. Beyond that the combat is slower, there are less weapons and less moves in the game, unlike the old games this game automatically locks on to the nearest enemy for you taking away your control of who you try and hit, which ends up causing so many unnecessary problems especially as Ninja Theory have decided to add so many enemies that have projectile weapons and enemies that can only be hit by certain types of weapons. The weapon balance isn't very good, demon weapons are too overpowered and angel weapons are too underpowered so when you have to fight angel enemies they take far too long to kill and the encounters becomes boring and monotonous. The boss fights whilst they might look dramatic are a total joke as they're far too easy due to their limited attacks of which nearly all can easily be dodged and they have obvious weak points that end the fights far too quickly. Not to mention that all the boss fights have cut scenes that take place during the fights themselves which sucks you out of the flow of action which just makes the fights even worse. Devil trigger is also now completely overpowered and "noobified", instead of enhancing a players attacks like it used to, it's now more like a free pass to destory all enemies in the room as they float helplessly in the air. And then last but not least in Ninja Theories infinate wisdom they've decided to remove the taunt button, again one of the most loved and staple parts of the franchise, it fitted well with the cocky character of Dante and if the player managed to successfully pull off the taunt it would raise the style bar.... but now it's gone, sigh.
And to address a few other points, the platforming in the game is hit and miss and on multiple play throughs becomes very boring and tiresome. No matter how much Ninja Theory says otherwise reducing the frame rate from 60 frames per second to 30 frames per second makes the game worse and contributes to its slower feel, the camera isn't great and finally taking out game content in this new DmC that has been in there from the start of old Devil May Cry games and charging money for it is the final kick to the fanbase's nuts.
Overall DmC is still a decent game, it's just not up to the standard of Devil May Cry 3 or 4 and Devil May Cry fans have every right to complain.
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Not really bitter at all. Well, alright, maybe a bit bitter that this game got crapped on up until release, it ended up being a solid game, and it still gets crapped on. I just feel bad for Ninja Theory. It'd just be nice to see some of the "huge DMC" fans here at least put their prejudice aside and give DmC a shot before condemning it outright. It's not the DMC of old, no, but that doesn't mean it automatically sucks.
The Bayonetta thing isn't a slight though. Being on the Wii-U alone hurts it, and from what I've played of the first one it's pretty out there as far as plot and the combat is insanely deep (a good thing to many, but also a detriment in that people get overwhelmed by a mile long move list). It'll be an interesting case-study at least. I just don't think it will do as well as the first unless they push it out on 720/PS4 as well. (Vita please?
)Neo_G and Itsuno should work together but Kobayashi is a BIG NO NO for a future DMC game. He had a big part in fucking up the canon of the series with DMC4 and that terrible anime they put out. A lot of the failures in terms of stuff they put in DMC4 were his idea and Itsuno just took the mantle of combat director. I am also 90% sure that his role was the management of time and resources for DMC4 which resulted in the whole backtracking nonsense with DMC4.
Kobayashi needs to stay away from DMC for good.
Operation Cuhrazy: Mission Success apparently. Donte must Cry sank in a week from the Amazon Top Sellers (Hot 100) while DMC HD has been going up and up but not into the 50's last I checked for the PS3 copy of it.
ShockingAlberto
Member
Apparently.
BeautifulMemory
Member
Dude I made a giant post about it in the OT. You can read about it there.
Haha, faced
Wonderful news everywhere. Now Tomb Raider has to bomba as well and I'm going to be super happy.
Supermanisdead
Member
DD was their biggest game ever. They are gonna reuse the fuck out of it for sure. The expanded re-release is out in April. I hope it does well.
GenoZStriker
Neo Member
There is no way to properly track sales, however it has been a consistent top seller on Amazon since release. DmC got a huge spike when the game came out, but about three days after release it went on a steady decline, now that it is barely within top 50/100 best seller for the respective systems (PS3 and Xbox 360)
ViewtifulJC
Banned
The most puzzling thing about this whole thing is...what exactly did NT bring to the series? What were they're innovations to the game design, how did they improve the series? More platforming? Color-coded enemies? More mo-cap? They split the fanbase down the middle with a controversial reboot, which was already a niche market of 2.5m+ or so, hoping that it'll all be worth it once people see what they have and...it's just a pretty decent if not particularly spectacular version of the old DMC games Capcom already made? Usually reboots happen when the series stops being successful(they just came off their highest selling game so that's out), or it's critcally/fans lambasted(the metacritic for both DmC/DMC4 are around the mid-80s, and the DMC fanbase seems LESS fond of DmC than DMC4, from what I can tell). The fans they got clearly didn't make up for the ones they lost with this move so...
Like...what was the point of all this? This is gonna one of those bizarre business decisions video game historians look back in ten years and scratch their heads over.
ShockingAlberto
Member
I ordered DMC HD Collection a few days ago (should arrive today, actually) because DmC reminded me how much I liked older Devil May Cry games.
That's the main question with all of this. All of this rebooting, all of this bad PR, all of this talk to "bring in the new audience," and all of this talk to sell beyond DMC4 just to end up with this. I would imagine that some DMC fans are not scathing on the game necessarily for its quality, but more so for how... needless this all was. In my opinion, I think the problem here is that Capcom went for the reboot option too early.
On the other hand, Kobayashi's decisions did contribute to a great deal of what made DMC4 a success (at least in Japan). The same things that worked for Sengoku BASARA aka pretty boys, taking away the blood/excessive gore/"ugly aspects", easy-to-grasp gameplay with nice visual feedback thanks to Nero and etc? These were the things that he directly credited DMC4's success to.
I may not agree with KobaP all the time. But judging by how Sengoku BASARA currently enjoys a lofty place of being considered a reliable "pillar of earnings" by Capcom, while DMC will likely need a little help to regain its standing? I'd definitely rather be dealing with "the devil I know" in this case, as opposed to the other possible option.
How often do reboots come off of the most successful entries in a franchise?
Is there another example?
Resident Evil 4? it's a reboot in everything but the title, and it worked.
BIONIC-ARRRMMM!!
Member
It was Shakesperian.
Yeah he put in all that stuff in the game and it might've led to better sales but not a better game. Itsuno still salvaged the Nero combat by making it extremely revolutionary.
I still think they need to turn away from Kobayashi for the next DMC game.
I should get back to playing my copy. Left off somewhere in DMC3.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
Well, Die Another Day was the most successful Bond movie box office gross-wise, but the movie was almost universally hated by critics and fans alike, the franchise was straight parody status after that one. It regularly appears in "Top 5 worst Bond movies!" for over a decade now.
They rebooted it, CR pretty universally loved, and hey, it made even more money! In fact, Skyfall just made a billion dollars worldwide, so it's safe to say that was a pretty smart move on MGM to not keep pumping out shitty Bond films with invisible cars.
You're not going to find too many examples of that for good reason (unless there was like many years between the two titles to the point where there was serious doubt of the old fanbase's vitality). A basic response after a highly successful entry would be to just keep building off of said entry, not try to reinvent the wheel with no real reason to do so.
That's why DmC is in this situation now.
Dave1988
Member
Forceatowulf
G***n S**n*bi
NoirVisage
Banned
you "get it" , i was actually a fan of heavenly sword as well, it was a flawed gem with some good ideas and characters..shame NT fell so hard after..
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
People cheering for a game to sell poorly will always baffle me.
dragonflys545
Member
Saw this coming. Let's shit on fans they say, serves them right.
Jathaine
Member
It selling well would mean they'd more likely give us more of the same, we don't want it.
Cheering commences.
ViewtifulJC
Banned
And when James Bond got rebooted, they really classed up the series. Now we got Academy Award winning directors and screenwriters, we got great actors like Jeffrey Wright filling bit parts; you can argue the quality of the films all you want, but the class of caretakers for the franchise really stepped it up.
Capcom...goes to Ninja Theory? That company that hasn't had a single successful title? That was the missing link to those 5 million sales you secretly wished for?
It's just strange decisions. It was strange then, it's strange now.
Capcom...goes to Ninja Theory? That company that hasn't had a single successful title? That was the missing link to those 5 million sales you secretly wished for?
It's just strange decisions. It was strange then, it's strange now.
It makes sense if they don't like the direction it's taking it's franchise.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
Most of the DMC regulars on this board have not only played the game but completed it on multiple difficulties. So what exactly are you talking about?
If it sells poorly, I might get the DMC game I want. If it sells well, the odds are less in my favor for that to happen.
I'm okay with people liking NT's take on DMC, but I don't really care about what other people want when it comes to my entertainment.
As for "trying' it. I played the demo. It's not a game worth 60 bucks, so I will "try it more" when I can get it for 15 or so.
Can Crusher
Banned
This isn't good news for the franchise folks. Making it more like the original series won't make it sell better at all either.
Or at least, make sure that he doesn't do more harm than good by just letting the director and his team do their jobs. (Also, don't just clearly tease the likes of Lady and Trish when a good majority of us would have willingly paid for them to be DLC or in an Expansion.)
And as I said before, Nero grew on me and who I thought was a solid addition to the franchise. His only failing was that he REALLY needed more weapons. That, to me, hurt me more than any bit of backtracking did.
Dave1988
Member
Unspeakable Evil
Member
I hope Nero returns. I grew attached to his character.
Ken Masters
Banned
The hack n slash action games are dying. Sales wise it's becoming a niche
Deadly Cyclone
Pride of Iowa State
Yes, let's hope people lose their jobs because they didn't make the game I want! *Pouts*
I get the actual reasons, I'd just hate to have people lose jobs because of some vendetta against some fundamental changes in design of a franchise.
This isn't a charity. I don't owe developers anything. Their job is to produce games that make money. If they don't do that, whether because of quality or ill-conceived publisher notions, I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. That's not my fault or my problem.
I mean, if the producer of the game doesn't care if the game sells 10 or 10 million, why should I?
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
It might even make you smile more to know that outside of 4 days before release and 5 days after DMC has struggled to clear top 200 on amazon and currently 400 plus for both versions.
while the HD collection (ps3 version) spent a good chunk of the same period in the top 100 and hasn't gone further than 120 in the past month.
Lostconfused
Member
If they made a game a good game that appealed to a large audience, this wouldn't be an issue.
Phoenixazure
Member
Does this mean i get to be obnoxious when MGR and Bayonetta sales don't meet expectations as well?