REVIEW – I’m tired of most publishers, but especially Capcom, just re-releasing their older games. I’m serious. Sure, I understand that they might be working on a new Devil May Cry title, but at least they could have tried to make the collection’s re-release (you read that right: they originally launched it on PS3 and X360 roughly six years ago) UPDATED.

That is my main issue. The rating at the end isn’t for the original games. No. Hideki Kamiya has done something outstanding with the first Devil May Cry, which was meant to be Resident Evil 4: I’d still give it a 9/10 even today. The sequel wasn’t directed by him, and it shows – 7/10. The third game is another decent one – with the Special Edition version, it’s still an 8.5 or a 9 out of 10. The HD collection name just sounds stupid nowadays – sure, the three games were not in HD, but as with Okami, they just didn’t give the re-release a new name.

Lacks spice

There’s no 4K support. This obscene lack of feature already shows how Capcom just made a lazy cash-in port job – they did something similar at around 2006-2007 with the PC users for their Devil May Cry 3 Special Edition and the FIRST Resident Evil 4 ports. They should be taught in schools as avoidable examples. Sure, there is an improvement in resolution: from 720p, we now moved to 1080p. WOW!

What an amazing development! Also, there are sixty frames per second. Technically, we didn’t move much, if any, ahead: the textures and the character models all seem to be just lifted over from the PS3 version. There’s not even new bonus content: the same artworks, concept arts are present as a console generation ago. How lazy can you get with these shoddy re-releases?

Crying Devils

Let me quickly talk about the games, too – Dante, who can attack his enemies (mostly hellspawn creatures) with his sword and pistol, has effectively created the basics of the modern hack’n’slash. Hideki Kamiya refined the formula even further at PlatinumGames with Bayonetta, but he laid the groundwork at Capcom. However, you have to get used to the fixated camera angles in the first game if you played say, 4: Special Edition already (which itself is a port from the PS3/X360, lol) – modifying something like that wouldn’t have been a bad idea, so I respect keeping it as is. The first game’s controls did get a bit of touch-up, getting them in line with the second and the third Devil May Cry games.

The games reward those who keep stylish, lengthy combos going (and 3 has several fighting styles, which is necessary to switch up to succeed!), and I have nothing bad to say in this aspect. Devil May Cry 1 and 3 offer big doses of adrenalin bombs in short time, which could be said about 2 as well, but it has a helicopter boss which you could beat with just your gun.

Recommended?

After the first game’s Resident Evil-like tone, the second title went a bit darker (and more humorous), followed by a much more refined approach in the third Devil May Cry, which together represent a decent evolution of the series in roughly five years. If you are a hack’n’slash fan and somehow have missed these games, I recommend it, but I do have to say that these aren’t as modern as 4: Special Edition was. If you had the collection on PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360, then don’t buy it, unless it’s like 15 dollars or so. Why the hell would you buy it again? Oh, your prev-gen console isn’t hooked up to your TV anymore?

I wouldn’t spend money just because of laziness. The only reason why I give it a 6 out of 10 is that Capcom was lazy and just re-released the collection with virtually no improvements. I wouldn’t be surprised if they will make a 1-4 collection on the PlayStation 5 because you KNOW they’ll pull this off in a few years. The three games themselves would get an 8 on average (and I’d give this number for the prev-gen collection, too), but the fact that Capcom didn’t even think about supporting a 4K resolution on PlayStation 4 Pro or Xbox One X and just stick to 1080p is just a massive disgrace.

-V-

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Genre: re-released hack’n’slash

Release date: March 13, 2018