When Devil May Cry first appeared on the scene in 2001 it arrived bearing a truckload of admirable qualities. From its excellent gun and sword combo system to its stunning bosses and ranked level breakdowns, which loved telling you how rubbish you are for not finishing the mission in 0.2 of a second in a flurry of 1,000 hit combos. It managed to achieve an elusive balance between being both satisfyingly traditional, while at the same time was charged with perfectly pitched levels of intoxicating, stylish action. Strangely, and most likely due to a change of developer, its sequel was, well, how can we put this? Utter pants. But with DMC 3 learning a great deal from DMC 2’s failures, all was right with the world again and another wonderful Devil May Cry game landed in our laps, the trilogy becoming a bit like a sh*t sandwich. With really nice bread. Devil May Cry 4 has a lot to live up to – so is it the even numbers that are cursed, or does Devil May Cry 4 buck the trend?

The Devil May Cry series has long defined what it means to be tall, stylish and as camp as a Christmas tree – its effeminate hero ensuring that the player experiences the double-edged sword of being both the best in the business at kicking demon arse, while also knowing how it feels to look like a trainee hairdresser. But wait! For the first time in the series since its debut, you have a whole new persona with which to stylishly dispatch the awaiting hellspawn. It’s just as well really (sarcasm mode engaged), because we were all getting rather fed up of controlling the same tall, poofy, snow-white coiffured, sword and gun wielding ponce in a red jacket, so luckily, along comes Nero; a tall, poofy, snow-white coiffured, sword and gun wielding ponce in a red jacket.

But Nero has an extra trick up his sleeve in the form of his cannily named Devil Arm. Now, we could sit here and accuse Capcom of getting lazy at this point, with both its near-identical new hero and its decision to name his new weapon by taking a leaf from the guys responsible for naming the anteater, but to be honest, so much of DMC 4 is so damn fabulous that such petty criticism is ill-advised. Besides, we’ll get into more petty criticism later on, but in the meantime, the Devil Arm basically boils down to the ability to grab your enemies and toss them liberally about the environment, or, in the case of heavier enemies, to use them as an anchor point to throw yourself around and attack from the rear. Nero can also use it to latch onto specific parts of the environment in order to either gain the upper hand in battle, or to get to high, previously unreachable locations. It’s a mechanic that feels incredibly intuitive and activating the Devil Arm becomes second nature in a fight, more often than not, just to see what happens.

So there’s this organisation of religious nutters, right? Nero is a disciple of this bizarre faith, in which their elderly leader wants to become a god. Nero is put on the tail of Dante with the mandate to duff him over, by Credo, a sort of general of this religious organisation’s army. Credo’s sister, Kyrie (conspicuously pronounced Key-rye-ay), is Nero’s main crush, but she’s too busy singing Ave Maria to crazy Japanese-cum-English lyrics to give him the time of day. Then there’s this German-sounding chap who’s sort of a mad scientist with a stutter and inconceivably big and shiny lips. He spends his time crossing human souls with demon ones in a series of bizarre experiments which have made him, Credo and the big boss into powerful… erm… bosses. If all of this sounds utterly bonkers, don’t worry because simply put, it is! To be honest, the plot is barely understandable by a Western audience, but is no doubt exactly the kind of thing that’s likely to go down a storm in its native Japan. Somehow though, Devil May Cry 4 manages to provide more charm than outward frustration at its nonsensical narrative. All you really need to know is that it allows for some breathtakingly cool cut-scenes, which, as in previous instalments in the series, are told through the use of the in-game engine. And, it will have you playing as both Nero and Dante for equal portions of the game. Job’s a good-un.

Even by the standards of previous outings for the series, the bosses of Devil May Cry 4 are a sight to behold. Usually eschewing the hackneyed ‘hit weak point at right time’ approach to boss combat, Devil May Cry 4 instead gives you free run to knock ten bells out of each of these behemoths in whatever manner you think best. And we have to give even further credit to Capcom for proving that you don’t need any quicktime events to make the player feel damn cool when making mincemeat out of your foes. Quick-time events truly are the curse of modern gaming and believe it or not, finding an action-adventure title that doesn’t actually use them is a very rare thing these days. However, that rarity is tenfold when you are executing cinematic takedowns using only the battle mechanics at hand, while still managing to look cooler than Kratos.

In an industry in which we’re all looking for the next big thing – awaiting innovation from developers to push gameplay further and further into new territory, it almost feels odd to love DMC 4 for being pretty much the antithesis of this rationale. Although staples such as finding the red key to open the red door have been disguised by acquiring certain powers to proceed, these old-school mechanics are there for all to see, even with ancient concepts, such as saving the girl from the cackling bad guy, brazenly in place, yet showing none of their age.

Also, boundaries that appear until you vanquish all of the enemies in a particular area don’t, as you might think, act as a source of frustration. Instead they push the buttons of the completionist inside all of us, the one that gains just enough satisfaction out of knowing that we haven’t left any stone unturned.

It’s a game world that revels in its own traditionalist perfection, encouraging the player to explore, while at the same time managing to keep them tightly focused on the job at hand. And while the reuse of many of the game’s locations may seem lazy to some, instead it’s simply a more Metroid-like approach in which you’ll find yourself not being able to get past a certain obstacle, but later acquiring a power that makes the association between ability and impasse immediately click. The game itself, as well as being split into the usual structure of 20 or so bite-sized missions, is also split into two very distinct halves. For the first ten missions or so, you’ll be controlling Nero, but then, something happens to him and you’ll be forced to take on the role of franchise favourite, Dante.

It really is a credit to Capcom that each of these ostensibly identical characters plays so differently. Initially, on taking control of Dante for the first time, the sudden lack of Devil Arm almost gives you a kind of ghost-pain that’s normally associated with a missing limb. But, where the Devil Arm once made its home on the B-button, Dante has other tricks up his demonic sleeve.

Previous generations of the series have followed a pretty similar path in terms of weapons and upgrades, usually introducing a new weapon or two halfway through the game. The problem there is that usually by that point, you’ve spent so many of your souls (the upgrade currency gained from vanquishing enemies) on the sword and gun that you started with, that beginning the whole upgrade process on a new weapon from scratch, rather than further increasing the power of your default arsenal, usually failed to appeal. Forcing the player to take control of another character halfway through the game is actually a pretty subtle way in which to get around the problem. It entices you to begin the upgrade process again from scratch, but carries over all of the souls you collected using Nero to re-allocate afresh. And, where previously we’d get the odd extra weapon thrown at us, DMC 4 simply inundates you with them from this moment forth. And oh, what weapons.

To name but a couple, how would sir like to try these? Gilgamesh is a sort of armoured kung fu suit, incorporating spiked iron fists, spiked iron boots and a metal mask that, to be honest, makes Dante look so good, you’re going to let some wee come out when you see it in action. Our favourite by far, though, has to be Pandora, the demon suitcase. The first time you get to use it, you’ll wonder what the hell you’re supposed to do with a damn suitcase, but one cut-scene later and you’re going to be gagging to try it out. It’s basically a gun, but that doesn’t even begin to describe its awesomeness. We don’t want to spoil it for you though, just get yourself to mission 12 and have a look-see.

Visually, we can honestly say that Devil May Cry 4 is one of the best-looking titles on the Xbox 360 to date. Big words, we know, but its visuals show a finesse in animation, character, and artistic design that opens holes in much of the competition. All of the characters are brilliantly realised, while the environments are rich both in depth and detail, providing an all-round visual treat.

So, finally, let’s get on to the petty niggles. Before we do, though, we’d like to point out that when reviewing any game, if there are issues that need to be mentioned, each has to have a degree of scale. The following are extremely minor and while none do enough to spoil the game in any way, they are nevertheless worthy of mention. For starters, the soundtrack. One could say that Japanese games simply have a different cultural compass, and that would be entirely fair comment, but in this game, every fight is accompanied by the same, pumping J-metal track. In previous iterations of the franchise, this was also the case, but we guess it's just not our cup of tea. It’s easy for the player to forget that they are listening to the same tune over and over without lyrical content, but when you constantly have a gravelly death-metal voice shouting “the time has come and so have I” into your ear, it eventually starts to grate. Luckily, you can switch the music off, but taking this road is at the cost of a certain degree of atmosphere during the stages of the game in which you’re not fighting.

The camera system on offer is a strange hybrid of player control for large, open areas and fixed or AI-controlled in more enclosed corridors. No camera system is perfect, but you’ll sometimes find yourself getting your arse kicked by off-screen enemies and when getting from A to B, pushing the stick to move to the next screen will sometimes be hampered by the camera angle doing a complete 180, with you suddenly finding yourself moving in the wrong direction. Finally, the game takes delight on making sure that you’re not entirely sure if you’re going the right way; this is something that’s going to rile some people, but our point of view is that if you don’t like mazes, don’t play games that employ them.

Like we say, though, these issues are minor and will do nothing to ruin your enjoyment of what we can honestly say, is the best DMC yet. Satisfying, cool, and damn good fun.

Dan Howdle