The Devil May Cry 6 I Would Want
Been a while since I talked about Devil May Cry, like, about a post ago.
So I’m here to remedy that with my personal suggestions for a potential sequel to 2019’s big hack n’ slash comeback, DMC5.
Like many fans, I loved the newest entry to our beloved stylish demon slaying franchise, and it definitely set a new bar for the action games out there in more ways than one.
That being said, it’s hardly perfect, which is why I hope Capcom would capitalize on the series’ newfound mainstream success, to make an even better follow up.
Devil May Cry 5 has straight up the best combat system in the entire character-action subgenre, along with some of the series’ best enemy design since the very first game.
But not everything is necessarily improved upon, and in this post I’ll tackle the title’s weaker aspects and provide my own input for, what to me, would be the ideal Devil May Cry experience.
Style Ranks
Perhaps the most iconic feature, since the very first Devil May Cry back in 2001, is the style rank. When you attempt to pull off a continuous combo on an enemy or boss, a big colorful letter pops up in the top right corner to indicate your current style rank, going from D to SSS.
As long as you keep your flow going and vary your attacks your rank will keep rising, with it dropping down when you keep on using the same moves or get hit during your offence.
It’s a simple system that, while not granting much in terms of in-game goodies, acts as the key incentive for you to style it up and motivates you to improve your skills and become a better player as a result of it.
It’s focused on the intrinsic reward, the satisfaction you get from pushing your capabilities, rather than the extrinsic, such as items or red orbs (though you get those as well).
DMC5 takes a good step forward by removing all other previous factors that used to calculate into your final mission rank such as time, orbs collected and damage taken, counting your style points exclusively instead.
Though you do get a bonus multiplier for managing to not die during the mission, and one for managing to not get hit even once, so avoiding getting roughed up is still advised.
The problem with this new system however, is that it’s weirdly inconsistent.
Most DMC5 players already know the pain of a certain couple of infamous missions being significantly harder to S-rank in comparison to the rest.
That horrid bunch is comprised of missions 8, 10, and to me worst of all, 18.
In this entry, unlike the previous games, you get to see your current style point count at the end of each aggressive altercation. Points that end up being calculated along with any bonuses or penalties to make up the overall rank of the mission.
But players noticed, that in those particular missions I listed off, you get awarded noticeably less points from combat than you would have otherwise gotten throughout the rest of the game.
The jump in style point generosity between mission 10 and 11 is ridiculous, where in the former I would barely scrape by with around 4000 despite playing almost flawlessly, while in the latter I could fuck up an enemy encounter and still get over 5000 easily.
Mission 18 highlights the major issue with the way style ranks are calculated, as it is essentially a three-stage boss fight.
Your active style point count keeps on changing throughout a mission, and it’s not always upward. You could very much lose a portion of your style points if you do not keep up the same standard for the following enemy encounters. You could have a really good fight and get out with around 6000 style points, only to have it drop down to 5000 and below even if the next battle doesn’t go over as smoothly.
It’s reasonable enough with mandatory encounters, but there’s also regularly roaming miscreants around optional paths or just in your way.
They’re usually lesser in number, which makes fighting them almost a guarantee of reducing your style points.
This makes avoiding them the prime tactic for that sweet S-rank, and I don’t think I need to tell you that encouraging players to avoid fighting enemies in a hack n’ slash is pretty counterintuitive.
This brings us back to mission 18, where your only notable fights are with familiar Griffon, Shadow, the tag team of Shadow and Griffon, and finally Nightmare as the boss fight with all three of them together.
The problem here is that your fights with Shadow and Griffon on the way to the actual boss are just short tastes of their movesets that don’t give you enough time to build up a good amount of style points.
This makes it so you come to the Nightmare fight with a pitiful stylish count, and have to bet on doing this spectacularly, not missing a single beat, to hopefully get a huge boost in points for that final S-rank.
It’s not easy, let me tell you that much.
I don’t have an organized solution, just balance the distribution of style points throughout missions better.
Level Design
One common complaint about the game you might’ve heard online is its linear corridor level design.
I don’t necessarily agree with people thinking Devil May Cry needs puzzles and platforming sections to break up the gameplay, trust me, that’s the last thing it needs. But I do believe more could’ve been done with the mission structure.
One of the things I love about DMC3, among many, is Temen-ni-gru itself, the huge tower raised from the earth as a gateway to the demon world.
You spend almost the entirety of the game traversing its various rooms filled with enemies and unique contraptions.
You don’t just move forward in a straight line, you often have to search for key items in certain rooms that then have you go back to rooms you encountered earlier to unlock the path ahead.
I know backtracking isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I think DMC3 executed it incredibly well, with it feeling more like you’re exploring every corner of this tower, really familiarizing yourself with it, rather than randomly halting progress for a fetch quest.
Temen-ni-gru felt like an actual place you were finding you way in, figuring out and memorizing its intricate structure, not just some fancy set dressing. Probably some of the leftovers from DMC1 initially being a Resident Evil 4 prototype.
DMC5 has you going through ruined city levels and floors of the Qliphoth tree out of order, as the campaign is built around the three playable heroes, rather than in the story’s chronological order.
This makes the pacing seem disjointed, as you jump from past to present and back multiple times, not giving any of the environments a way to connect to each other and form a cohesive whole.
I have no idea how the Qliphoth tree is structured and what leads to where, so if you were to drop me in one of the floors and ask me how to get to one in a later mission, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.
You spend a good amount of time in there, pretty much the entire second half of the game, and it’s all a bunch of random similar demonic looking rooms to me. I actually like the city sections quite a bit, but they don’t tie in together as much either.
I’m not asking for cheap gimmicks like we had in DMC4, I’m asking for the setting to feel real and flow well from mission to mission, give it a true sense of place.
Healing
Last, but certainly not least, is the topic of healing.
Similarly to style ranks, DMC5 made an overhaul, by completely removing consumable items present in past entries.
Instead you are able to find green and white orbs stored in crystals scattered throughout each mission, for a quick health or Devil Trigger refill.
When you die you are faced with an interesting choice, if you don’t have a gold orb to heal up completely you are able to heal chunks of your health bar, with the amount depending on how much red orbs you are willing to part with.
Red orbs are the common currency in these games, and are what you use for unlocking new moves and upgrades.
This poses a good dilemma, do you spend your hard earned orbs for a second chance, or do you save it for an important move down the line?
There are three tiers that you can choose from, with the lowest price of red orbs healing very little, medium a bit more, and the final healing you entirely.
It’s all a question of how much currency you’re willing to trade for an immediate revive, and if it’s really even worth it.
Maybe you have your pride and decide to die then and there, not risking the penalty you’ll receive in the mission rank for using healing.
It’s a system that has risk and reward to it, making you actually think about the choice you’re making in that dire situation.
That is, if the game didn’t shower you with gold orbs like it’s fucking Christmas.
Gold orbs in previous entries were more of a rarity to find in actual missions, only usually behind a tough optional challenge or a sneaky little corner you wouldn’t think to look in.
You could purchase them like any other item, but they cost the most of the lot, so you couldn’t get your hands on one too easily.
In Devil May Cry 5 though, gold orbs are everywhere.
In the shop, in random places just sitting there, and as a goddamn free daily login bonus, why Capcom?! This isn’t a mobile game, what good does this do?
You’re breaking your own game here!
So yeah, with so much gold orbs that are as easily obtained as chewing gum from under a school desk, the interesting choice of distributing your in-game currency gets thrown out of the window for a risk-free full heal.
For the next game, keep the red orb healing system, but drop the gold orbs completely. If that’s too drastic or unfriendly to beginners, then make them actually rare like they were before. And don’t add a stupid daily login bonus.
I hope I made my points and hopes clear enough.
I don’t expect all or any of this to come true, but it would be really neat if it does. Of course, I trust Itsuno and his team that if a Devil May Cry 6 were to be made, it would be one heck of a stylish action title regardless.