Game Diary: Devil May Cry 5 is a Celebration of Pure Excess and Being Stupid as Hell
As good as it is to play video games that will let you troll everyone who looks at you like in Untitled Goose Game or want pure cinematic experiences like Star Wars Jedi, sometimes I just want a game that revels in excess and is complete and utter bullshit. I need something that feels like the fast food to fast food. Thankfully, the universe provided a game of that vein by way of Devil May Cry 5, released this past March. The game doesn’t just revel in excess, it basically throws itself a parade and builds a statue in the middle of town dedicated to itself.
DMC 5’s love of itself is clear right from the jump thanks to its trio of protagonists: Nero, the lead of 2008’s DMC 4, newcomer V, and series veteran Dante. All three look and sound ridiculous, but they’re all endearing instead of annoying. What certainly helps is that they’re all distinct from one another: Nero got his arm ripped off at the game’s outset and has a multitude of robotic prosthetics in its place; V is a goth Adam Driver who reads poetry and talks like he belongs in an Eldritch horror film; and Dante is a 40-something himbo who can barely pay his own bills. The basic plot is that the three of them have to band together to fight an evil tree from growing and destroying the world. From time to time, they’ll stand in poses better suited for movie posters while heavy metal plays. If you can imagine a comic crossover miniseries featuring a bunch of supernatural heroes, that’s basically what the plot of this game is.
Devil May Cry is a series that prides itself on being the coolest uncool guy in the room. It’s a series where everyone talks like they’re in a B-movie written a decade prior and only filmed very recently, so the actors know they’ve got dumb material but are just into it enough to give it the weight it deserves. Everything about it, from the script to its corny as hell lead song “Devil Trigger” is peak bullshit. But it’s the fun kind of bullshit that makes the story worth watching play out.
That fun thankfully extends to the combat. Unlike DMC 4, where the game lacked any real focus for Dante and Nero, DMC 5 knows how better to utilize its demon hunting trio. It’s also where the game just throws up its hands and leans into its own absurdity. Nero’s sword can be revved up like a motorcycle to set enemies on fire (no, really), and his Devil Breaker arms have abilities that range from firing electrical bursts to straight up stopping time (again, really). V uses a trio of shadow monsters to do the fighting for him, turning the game into a real-time Pokemon and only lets him get in the fray to use his cane and deliver the killing blow. He can power up his monsters by just reading that poetry book of his. If you’ve ever wanted to see a panther jump into the air and morph into a giant spinning shuriken while a snarky crow summons lightning, this is your game.
By far, Dante best exemplifies the degree of madness the game is running on. Not only does he have four different play. styles you can swap between on the fly, he’s packed with a ridiculous as hell arsenal that includes, deep breath: a pair of rocket launchers that can connect to become a bigger rocket launcher, nunchucks that can be lightning, ice or fire, and I kid you not, a motorcycle that can split in two to be swung around like chainsaws or ridden into the sky to fight midair enemies.
Yes, it took us to 2019 to get a game where you can beat monsters to death with your literal motorcycle and grind them to nothing with the front wheel. This is the greatest game of all time.
I’ve already beaten the game on the two base difficulties and want to tackle the higher ones. I want to get further in the game’s Bloody Palace challenge mode that pits you against enemies from the story mode. The previous two games — DMC 4 and the still underrated reboot in 2013 from Ninja Theory — I bounced off almost as soon as their stories ended. But I can see myself playing DMC 5 until I feel it’s truly bested me. Maybe that’ll come by the end of the year, and if it does, I know the game will pat my shoulder before encouraging me to try again.
There’s a universe where DMC 5 falls on its face, where it’s just obnoxious as hell and doesn’t work. That is thankfully not the case here; Devil May Cry 5 is a party where the host is frequently asking if you’re having a good time and you’re being true when you say you totally are. It is a pure blast of idiocy like beer and fireworks at a movie theater parking lot during summer break. It is maybe the dumbest action game you’ll play this generation, and you’ll love it for how much it loves itself.
