I went home to Northern Virginia a couple weeks ago for a much-needed refresher. This here community manager gig of mine had seen me in too many time zones in too short a time, not to speak of the emotional toll of actually managing this here rambunctious community, if you can really even call it "management" (although technically Brelston's the "Manager" and I'm the "Senior Specialist," if we're gonna be proper about things).
Ever since I moved away from home in 2006, I've found that these trips back always amount to a whole lot of digging through mementos of my past. Old drawings, recordings I made with my old band, letters from old girlfriends, comic books from childhood, and photos from back when I still had a veritable mop of hair on my head.
Just look at that glorious burgundy mane. What the hell happened?
Anyway, the point is that this trip home was no different. I hung out with old friends, watched old movies on VHS, went to all my old haunts, and sifted through my old box of mementos.
At this point, I've more or less memorized the contents of said box, which is why I was so surprised when I discovered the thing that is in the header image of this post. If you can't tell, that's the original receipt from when I went to pick up my pre-order of the very first Devil May Cry game back in the fall of 2001. Man oh man, what a fall that was--one for the ages, to be sure, and in no small part thanks to the awesome times my friends and I had with DMC. Using the shotgun to farm for orbs in the castle library; taking on the perhaps inappropriately named "Phantom" (inappropriately nicknamed the "lava spider" despite clearly being a scorpion), skulking around that spooky pirate ship; having a hearty laugh at more than a few lines of dialogue--it was the best game I'd ever played at the time, full of fresh ideas, inspired art direction, and fun combat full of what a friend of mine would call "friction."
In the spirit of nostalgia, I like to look back on those times once in awhile and remember when DMC was a brand yet to prove itself, but free of any expectations other than those created by preview assets of the game itself. Every piece of a information, every screenshot or video of the game was a step up for it, because it only had to be itself to be impressive.
The trouble with continuing a brand of any sort is that, once that first game is out, those who enjoyed it--the consumers--mentally become more than consumers. They become "co-owners" of the brand. Or at least some of them feel that they do. Suddenly a game just being itself isn't good enough anymore, and developers are no longer free to just follow their creative instinct, even though that was what led them to success to begin with.
I guess the reason I've been so excited about this new DmC game, then, is that it feels like the brand is once again proving itself for the first time. In many ways, this game, to me, is the Devil May Cry of a new generation, and I don't mean because of Dante's haircut. I mean because it once again builds on what came before it (DMC classic was born out of Resident Evil, after all), but also takes a huge risk doing things differently from its predecessors. It has a bold and distinct artistic style, an equally bold and distinct combat style, and I'll be damned if it doesn't tell a pretty enthralling story, too, which frankly isn't something action games (or any games) often bother doing.
If you haven't pieced it together by now, I'm pretty psyched for the launch next month. Almost makes me feel like a mop-headed 17-year-old again.
