Considering the latest Devil May Cry has a five in the title, you might think you have a lot of catching up to do in order to jump into Capcom’s latest critically-acclaimed game. However, that’s not true in the slightest, as Devil May Cry 5 is actually the perfect place to jump on board with this long-running series.
Technically, Devil May Cry 5 takes place at the very end of the series’ timeline, right after the events of Devil May Cry 4. While there are plenty of nods and references to past games, the story is entirely self-contained and the game gives you a basic understanding of who its main two protagonists, Dante and Nero, are.
The story of Devil May Cry 5 is insanely goofy and over-the-top, playing out like one giant gory anime. Equally flashy and brutal is the game’s combat system, which succeeds at making you constantly feel like the badasses the game’s main characters actually are.
Devil May Cry 5 goes to painstaking lengths to encourage players, and constantly make them feel like their doing a good job.
The music amps up and gets even harsher as you gain style ranks, the animation on character’s dodges are perfectly tuned to make it look like the enemy missed you by a hair’s breadth, and you’re given a wealth of combos and options that can easily be chained together.
This also happens to be the most accessible Devil May Cry game we’ve ever seen, with multiple difficulty options, with the lowest, called Human, being tuned more toward newcomers.
To add onto this, Devil May Cry 5 liberally gives you Gold Orbs and red orbs, both of which can be used to revive yourself if you’re killed during a mission.
Every day you play the game you can get a Gold Orb as a login bonus, meaning there’s almost nothing standing in the way of you beating the game, as at the very least you’ll have one revive each day.
The best option for newcomers, however, is Auto Assist, a system that you can turn on at any time during the game on the fly simply by clicking down the right stick.
Auto Assist makes it so that your character automatically links attacks together with repeated presses of one button, regardless of which button they’d normally be assigned to.
The game will automatically choose which attacks and combos are best suited for the situation you’re in, so it takes out a lot of the complexity normally involved with DMC’s combat.
Past that, though, if you’re picking up the series for the first time with Devil May Cry 5, this system is fantastic for showing you which attacks work well together. By automatically linking things together, you can get a feel for how combos flow, as well as when and where to use attacks.
Then you can instantly switch back to a full combo system and try things out for yourself. There’s even a handy training mode known as The Void that lets you try things out to your heart’s content.
No matter what, though, Auto Assist is a great system if you find certain fights or boss battles overwhelming, and just need to focus on dodging.
Because of all of this, Devil May Cry 5 feels a lot less daunting than past games in the series. It’s flashier and sleeker than ever, but also easier to get into in terms of both gameplay and story.
It’s the quintessential Devil May Cry experience in almost every way, and if you’ve ever been interested in the franchise, there’s no better time than now to try it out.
