I have a weird relationship with character-action games, beginning with the fact that I'm not even confident "character-action" is a full-fledged genre.
Action games used to be so easy to talk about. In the good old days, it was just Galaga, and that was it. Action games were that game called Galaga. But then some Japanese guy named Takashi Nishiyama decided that maybe you should be able to move a human around and punch things, so in 1984 he made Kung-Fu Master and suddenly games where one person beat hordes of dudes to death were everywhere. But this was still pretty simple; most of these games had very similar formats (re-use of enemy types, combos, forward movement stopping until enough enemies were defeated to advance, etcetera) and thus things as different as Final Fight or River City Ransom could still be comfortably grouped together as "Beat-'em-ups," while action games like Galaga, where you shot stuff, were grouped as "shoot-'em-ups," or "shmups" for short. "Bmups," tragically, never really caught on. But then 3D happened, and in addition to shmups and bmups continuing to exist, newer games were coming out that took some things from bmups, like breaking levels up into segments that ended after enough enemies were defeated, and other things from shmups, like levels that just straight-up were shmups, and the in-depth combo systems from fighting games, and hidden areas and stat upgrades from games like The Legend of Zelda, and cutscene heavy stories from JRPGs...you get the idea. Despite the similarities, these 3D beat-'em-ups had really become their own beast. A beast some call character-action.
I think the name character-action is pretty dumb, because every action game, or game in general, is to some extent based around their main character, but I can't be bothered to come up with a better one and "action games" is too general, so we'll just stick with that. There aren't that many character action games, especially in the west. The most famous Western-developed character action series is probably Sony's God of War, which also happens to be the first character-action game I ever played. It was decent (I liked the copious, copious amounts of ultra-gore) but deeply flawed. The combat is really simple and repetitive, the reliance on quick-time events (pushing a random button at just the right moment to avoid dying instantly) is annoying, and the story surrounding Greek skinhead murder-machine Kratos is misogynistic, grim, and stupid. I played the third one for a while, got bored, and forgot about character-action games until two years ago.
That's when I played The Wonderful 101 and the Bayonetta games, and realized I was actually a huge fan of Star Wars that had only seen the prequels.
Character-action is a genre that is effectively region-locked, as Japanese developers are so ridiculously superior to their western counterparts that it's embarrassing to even compare the two. Platinum Games, co-founded by Hideka Kamiya, who invented character-action with the original Devil May Cry, is the best of this superior class of developers. Their games retain the satisfying destruction of God of War while adding perfect controls, imaginative level design, really, really, ridiculously in-depth fighting systems, and stories that embrace the ridiculous and jaw-dropping in both scale and tone. I feel this trait especially goes a long way in making character-action games fantastic. God of War's quick-time events are intrusive and annoying, but honestly aren't much more so than those present in Bayonetta or The Wonderful 101. The difference is that where God of War asks you to take its awkward, mechanical, edgy sex minigames seriously, Wonderful 101 has you mashing buttons to tickle a giant robot under its armpit to get it to let go of your spaceship, which by the way, has a mast, sail, and actual helm, or charge up a giant rainbow W to shoot at a planet-destroying robo-cock. Bayonetta 2 uses mashing to kick angels and demons on a magic treadmill where they get ground up by spike-wheels. Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (THIS IS THE ACTUAL TITLE OF THE GAME!!!!) has you using QTEs in a traditional, cutting-enemies-to-bits way, but also lets you use it to cut watermelons into perfect slices. These games manage being epic and being goofy, and this sense of fun makes every aspect of their already excellent design shine all the more.
These differences in design are especially apparent in Devil May Cry 4: Pay Us Again Edition and DmC: Devil May Cry: Apology Edition releasing so close to one another. Neither are up to Platinum's standard (which is hardly a black mark, roughly equivalent to complaining that any given movie isn't Pacific Rim,) neither should really exist (both are PS3/Xbox 360 games slightly prettied up and sold on newer consoles at full price), and neither have terribly different mechanics overall. But the presentation each game chooses makes Devil May Cry 4: Yes, You're Really That Stupid Edition a fun, exciting adventure with a few rough spots, while DmC: Devil May Cry: You, The Customer, Will Cry, At How Expensive This Is Edition is a dreary, eye-rolling slog, with every flaw sticking out like an erection in a showing of Human Centipede.
DmC: Devil May Cry: Probably Abbreviated to Just DmC for the Rest of the Review Edition is a completely overhauled version of the original attempt to reboot the Devil May Cry series, in an attempt to appeal to a western audience. The original game, developed by western developer Ninja Theory, was easily the best western character-action game ever made, but its frustrating weapon-switching mechanics (several enemies were completely invulnerable to specific weapons, forcing players to choose between fighting against the clunky weapon-swapping system or stick with one weapon and fight the clunky camera instead) combined with its completely broken style system (most character action games have some method for rewarding the player for more impressive combos; good ones, like Platinum's, reward variety, whereas DmC solely rewarded damage over time) and its, er, irreverent attitude towards the previous Devil May Cry games (at one point, New Dante, who rocks a standard emo haircut, puts on a wig giving him the white hair of the original, then looks directly at the camera and says "not in a million years") meant it recieved a chilly reception from character-action fans. This new edition polishes the controls, style system, and basic combat mechanics to the point of being merely slightly worse than the mainline Devil May Cry games. While some enemies are far more resilient against some weapons, every weapon can hurt any enemy. The style system actually takes variety into account, and will give lower ratings if the player waits too long to change things up.
What didn't change, unfortunately, was the game's story and presentation. In the broad strokes, the game is a re-telling of the first Devil May Cry, following half-human half-demon Dante as he fights against the forces of Hell. Dante is joined by his older brother Vergil, who helps him with his amnesia about their past (of course) and Kat, a wiccan girl who idolizes Vergil and wears short-shorts and bends over a lot (duh.) Together, the three seek to avenge Dante's human mother, Eva, and his demon father, Sparda, by liberating the human world from the clutches of demon-king turned banker Mundus. In terms of gameplay, this largely means Dante wanders around, finds some bad guys, and using his sword, guns, and other weapons acquired along the way, beats the ever-loving shit out of them in character-action fashion. This setup is generic, but it provides more than enough wiggle-room for some unique ideas to slip by. Mundus controls the world on a macro level through his financial dealings, and on a smaller scale he controls individuals through a demonic soda factory, a satanic nightclub, and Bill O'Reilly (no, really.) These ideas, especially fighting through a glittering dance floor swarming with demons and dodging literal soundbytes from a demonic talking head inside of a TV, could have been amazing given the right treatment.
Unfortunately, the game's uninspired art and enemy design hold these cool concepts back, almost as much as the game's twelve-year-old esque need to be "edgy" does. Even if Bill O'Reilly's digital head looks different from the gross fetus monster that runs the nightclub or the same gross fetus monster except without legs completely different, totally fits the definition of a succubus succubus that runs the nightclub, each fight plays exactly the same: dodge its punches (in O'Reilly's case, sonic waves), hit the glowing weak spot, use the tacked-on grappling hook to zip back in, and mash. This might not be so bad if these bosses were not every boss in the game, save for a tutorial boss that's over so fast I actually forgot about it until I decided to write this piece, a final boss that's more like a long, annoying puzzle, and a final final boss that I refuse to acknowledge because it makes no sense and exists solely as a desperate appeal to those that liked Devil May Cry 3. But even this wouldn't be so bad if the normal enemies were fun to fight. Unfortunately, save for a few enemies that only appear a few times towards the end of the game, enemies are either shitty demons or larger shitty demons, the main difference between the two being how long you have to press buttons to win. The remaining enemies are more interesting visually--there are blue ladies in orbs, blue ladies that fly, and blue dogs--but are even worse than the demons because they largely require waiting around to defeat. And that's boring. Fighting such boring, repetitive bosses and such boring, repetitive enemies in interesting environments still wouldn't be fun, but it would be better than the washed-out colors that define 90% of the game. It's a shame, because the level design is actually really good, but it's hard to appreciate it when, with a few exceptions (the demonic night club is really cool) they all look so similar.
But all of these problems pale compared to the game's, frankly, gross attitude. All of the insanity and wackiness of the other games, which recognized that asking audiences to take a game where you regularly keep enemies from hitting the ground by keeping them aloft with a constant stream of bullets too seriously was a losing battle, has been sucked out. In its place is a saturated world where Dante trades his gaudy red jacket for a raggedy thrift-store number with a union jack on the shoulder, and his funny (or, at least, entertaining) dialogue for uncomfortable sexual advances towards Kat. Whom, by the way, the game implies discovered her wiccan powers as a way of coping with her father molesting her. The way she's objectified at every turn is already uncomfortable enough, but this detail evokes the feeling of "wait, why did you think this would work?" as 301: An Underdog Tale's choice to depict a character engaging in rough sex minutes after explaining that she was raped throughout her childhood. Much of the game's plot revolves around Vergil forcing Mundus' demonic wife to miscarry their demon baby. While not quite the level of God of War's casual misogyny, DmC is still an appalling example of the sexism still so entrenched in the video game industry. This game spends so much time on the edge that it doesn't even remember what an orgasm feels like anymore. It doesn't know anything else. I swear to God, there's a scene in this game where emo-hair Dante not only cuts himself "to see if he can even feel anymore," but cuts his chest so he can poke a finger in and feel his heart. Why is a game where you have a dedicated "launch enemy fifty feet into the air so you can cut them in half" button like this? Why does it have to take what should be something cathartic and gleeful and suck all of the fun out of it? Why do you have an erection when we're watching Human Centipede, and why did you tell us about it!?!
Shamefully, DmC is the first Devil May Cry game I ever played, and I'll always be thankful for Devil May Cry 4: Palate Cleanser Edition coming along a few weeks later and showing me how this series is meant to be done. This game, developed by Capcom back in 2008, is often considered in the lower tier of the Devil May Cry franchise. While the first game experimented in finding new, exciting ways to destroy enemies, and the third game took those ideas and ran with them until it had to take a break because it had burned off the soles of its shoes, Devil May Cry 4: The Weird Arm is Cool Though, Right? Edition is well known to have been rushed during development. This might explain the game's greatest flaw--its copious reuse of bosses, enemies, and areas. The game begins in a Vatican-esque town, then transfers into a snowy castle, then some jungle ruins, and seems to end in a massive cathedral-labyrinth. Then the second half of the game begins, and you go through all of these areas in reverse, with minor changes (there's fog in the jungle that forces you to take different paths, the cathedral-labyrinth is filled with poison gas, that kind of thing.) On top of that, many of the game's enemies are reused, especially the bosses. The fire wolf-centaur, the ice-frog with sexy lady-anglers on his forehead, the snake-flower-lady that poops seeds, and half clergyman mad scientist half bug demon Agnus are all reused three times each. How can a game with a combat system that's barely superior to DmC's possibly come out better with these weaknesses?
Firstly, it helps that the twice-repeated areas and thrice-repeated enemies are all much more varied and interesting. Devil May Cry 4: Okay Now Typing This One Out Is Getting Tiring It's Just DMC4 Now Edition doesn't shy away from color like its younger paint-huffing step-sibling. The forest is green and verdant, the ice castle is full of eerie, chilly blues and whites, and the church architecture is very clean and distinct from the game's more natural settings. The common enemies are also really interesting, with everything from the grunts (scarecrows of varying shapes and sizes with knives for hands) to more advanced variants (gross parasite bugs that can possess scarecrows and completely change their movesets OR grow into their own terrifying creature) to the super badass enemies (angelic suits of armor that require maneuvering behind them or breaking their guard) proving consistently entertaining to fight. Despite being even more overused, the bosses are all fantastic, each having a different balance of size, speed, physical strength, and range from each other to prove utterly distinct and fun to fight. And while I disagree with Zelda-style pieces of heart in games like these (looking around for miscellaneous bullshit isn't fun, murder is fun) DMC4 does a much better job of hiding its goodies than DmC, so looking around for them is less of a chore.
Secondly, in DMC4's main story mode, you change characters halfway through the game, and while Dante and Nero (the correct way to do emo Dante) look too similar for my tastes, they play so differently that half of the time I didn't even notice the repeated assets. While Dante's multiple weapons and emphasis on fast strikes with swords and guns is fine, Nero's slower style and grab attacks--which are completely different for every single enemy, by the way--really make this game stand out. Sure, I might have just fought four or five of those sword-wielding angel knights, but when I can grab them with my devil-arm and German Suplex them into a dropkick, why would I care?
But ultimately, it's this attitude of who cares, look how rad this shit is that saves the game from its troubled design. There is an overwrought story, but its influence on the game's tone is severely limited by the ability to shift the camera and zoom in and out during cutscenes. There were several scenes where Nero fought back tears over his lost love and I still laughed because I had finally gotten the perfect angle to do a close-up on his left nostril. The rest of the time, especially in Dante's half of the game, the cutscenes become a beautiful, beautiful farce. At one point Dante and his opponent have a kabuki-esque monologue fight, with each teleporting to a stage and spotlight and even using Yorick's skull in poorly translated Hamlet references. The game is crass, with its scantily clad heroines sporting jiggle physics a little too close to Dead or Alive's for my taste, but the heroines (one a demon lady with a giant devil greatsword, the other a marksman with a bazooka equipped with a bayonett) are playable and have their own roles and agency in the story. Based on the way they very un-sexily have slices dangling out of their mouths as they destroy foes, they almost seem in on the joke, or at least moreso than the female characters in the game centering around non-consensual abortion. Good God, that was an actual sentence I had to write. To make it up to you, here's Dante's actual dialogue upon getting Lucifer, a dart shooting weapon:
"First I whip it out! Then I thrust it...! With great force! Every angle...! It penetrates! Until...! With great strength I...ram it in! And in the end...we are all satisfied...And you are set free!"See, that was nice, wasn't it? It's even better with the hundreds of darts shooting a satanic monument and chipping away at the stone until it forms a heart. That Devil May Cry 4 chose to include a scene like this where DmC: Devil May Cry was content to have Dante simply stare at a shurken before putting it in his pocket is the ultimate statement about the difference in the two games' design philosophies. Until western developers learn that the correct way to do that scene is to have Dante comedically try to fit his wiener in the hole in the middle of the shurken, the massive character-action gap will remain.
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