izigame.me

(This is my first time playing any of the DMC games. This review is my first impression for each)
DMC1 is a literal proof of concept: It was the original Resident Evil 4, but was given the greenlight to be an independent game; its built on the foundation of another, scrapped, game. For the time of its release, it was akin to God of War: A veritable king that has since defined an entire genre. It did a lot of good, for absolute sure, and I do not actively hate the game. I respect what it did. However, more than 20 years later, the gameplay itself does not hold up. The game is incredibly jank, held back by an extremely terrible camera (In a fixed position that swaps during combat and changes directional inputs), an awful save/checkpoint system, a poor lock on system for aiming, few combos and weapons, and overall boring combat. There is no tutorial or introduction to anything (other than the water level controls a quarter of the way through), no ability to replay missions, random one off gimmicks thrown in, poor item management (Game limits your items, despite there not being a cap. You're just not allowed to buy more than one), and no player direction. I did not enjoy actually playing the game and found it very frustrating. I did enjoy the aesthetics, music, enemy design (They have their own movesets rather than single attacks)... Quite literally everything in the game is SSS+ except the combat. It even has NG+ and carries all of your stuff, with new enemy placements. I beat it purely for the sake of getting a better understanding of how far the franchise has come and developed itself as a part of Hack-and-Slash / Action Game Royalty. I would not skip this one, as its more unique than the rest of the franchise. Additionally, it allows you to see where the core of the series originated. However, I do not recommend playing it more than once due to the other games just being better and for most people, the jank with frustration you. Though, despite everything I've said, I think it'd be my favorite if it got a proper Remaster to further flesh this rendition of a Resident-May-Cry.
DMC2: Universally acclaimed to be the worst in the series... this is true. From the beginning, it was destined to fail. The director and team behind DMC1 were not called upon to work on the sequel and as such, the game was a total failure. Nobody making the game understood what to do, and they only began working in the final 6 months before release, with a new team. The game fails at too many things to properly list, however, here is a short list of what absolutely ruins this game and makes it unworthy of being a good game: Comically easy enemies (Which often stand still), lack of puzzles and secrets, Dante having no personality, poor map design and layout, fewer weapons than the first game, weapons having no identity or variation (Never call iconic weapons by name, and all melees are identical), every boss in the game is easily exploited (Standing next to some of them renders them unable to hit you) and the bosses themselves are boring, uninspired, or copy/pasted from DMC1 (Despite there being no lore for their return or lack of voices?), overtuned firearms which trivialize the game, and half of your armory isn't usable due to the aforementioned guns taking precedent (You're expected to use guns for almost everything and get punished for melee). I didn't understand what was going on, as Dante doesn't even speak until Chapter 7, which is 45% through the story. There's an absolute disconnect between the player and the characters... HeII, you can't even pick the legacy control scheme from DMC1. Now, the game does do SOME good. I enjoy the advanced mobility via wallrunning, shooting downwards, having extra air attacks, being able to carry more items, as well as chapter select. However, the list of positives is very small, and since the game is so uninteresting, I never attempted to play the game as the other two characters: Lucia and Trish (Which uses DMC1 Dante as a base) There's technically three, with DMC1 Dante if you beat the game on DMD, but you'd have to pay me to open DMC2 after this first impression. I recommend skipping DMC2 in its entirety. You will not lose anything from doing so.
DMC3: Will update after I finish the campaign and extras... though its considered one of the best hack-and-slash games ever made so... There's that.
Misc Thoughts: My plan was to return to each game after I beat the next, to compare and contrast the new additions, what was taken away, and what worked well, to better understand the legacy of DMC.
After beating DMC2, I returned to DMC1, but with NG+ and a harder difficulty enabled. I found DMC1 to be a much, much more pleasant experience. Every weapon had a purpose, every enemy had a counter. I grew to appreciate the flow to its combat and resented the gunslinging in DMC2 much more. DMC2 devalued everything DMC1 built; all of the unique melee traits, weaknesses, combos, etc, were all removed and guns stunlocked and dominated every encounter. Enemies felt too similar to each other in DMC2, while they were very unique and memorable in the first game.