Without Itsuno

 

When legendary developers fade from our studios it is often usually the end of a run we're not going to see again for quite a while. When Hideo Kojima left Konami that was pretty much the end of thier relevancy as a game developer- they've not even managed to scratch the AAA world since despite recent attempts- but hey, I guess they're happy serving slop up to their audience of awaiting guppy fish. When Shinji Makami left Tangoworks, he did so under the force belief that if they just kept making award winning games then someone would want to keep them around- obviously they ended up being shut down in the next year and had to be bailed out in a temporary resurrection we can only hope sticks. (Bailed out of a shutdown? Huh, I guess that means someone found the award winning studio worthwhile. How bizarre.) And now that Hideaki Itsuno has left Capcom- what does that mean for the franchises he left behind?

Itsuno's legend began a little bit into his career when the man was brought on as a 'reorganiser' to a failing project that was spiralling down a pit. The horrifically disastrous Devil May Cry 2 was being helmed by a figure purposefully hidden to history because the mess they were making of the project was that bad all have stricken their name from the books. Devil May Cry 2 was apparently on a nose dive and with the hard work of Itsuno in refocusing the project the team managed to squeeze out something that could actually be released in the public- but if you've ever actually sat down and played the thing you'll know that's small praise. A largely gutted charm and wit, distinctly missing stylistic flair of the original, thoughtless level design, unambitious combat improvement, (or, more appropriately, regressions) laughably ill-conceived bosses- yet also the only actually worthwhile secondary campaign in the franchise. It wasn't something worth resting your cap on. And Itsuno agreed.

What happened next could only have been the result of someone with a fire lit under them, because the absolute heel turn from Devil May Cry 2 to 3 is a mind-blowing achievement. When I did my playthrough of the franchise recently, even all this years removed from the original environment and release dates, I could feel that Devil May Cry 3 was something special without any context. Combat wasn't just revived, it was rewritten- they created the style-based combat the franchise has been known for ever since. Dante and his brother Neo-Angelo/Vergil got their souls this game. The supporting cast stood out proud with great moments and designs so good we're still comparing modern Lady redesigns to her original. The game was challenging, the bosses were impressive and memorable, the title was a powerhouse- plain and simple. And Itsuno established himself as a director with a mark to leave.

He may not have birthed the series himself but Itsuno would go on to help define Devil May Cry over the years with the honestly under-appreciated Devil May Cry 4- which refined a lot of what 3 was doing into an actual half-decent evolving narrative, the heavily critiqued DMC, which is the only game I haven't had the pleasure of in the franchise so far, and my favourite of the franchise- Devil May Cry 5- the absolute pinnacle of this genre of games, a master in every facet. All with Itsuno either in the director's chair or on as a supervisor. If the man was so eager to rewrite history so he wouldn't go down as the cause of Devil May Cry 2- he ended up going above and beyond in his role. But what if I told you the reason I lauded the man's work had nothing to do with any of that?

You see, a while ago there a little Fantasy title that dropped off the face of the earth for being released at the same time as Skyrim- the single biggest fantasy game of that console generation. This title was not as big as Skyrim, nor as immersive, nor as pretty. But do you know what Dragon's Dogma of that age did well? God it was charming. And unique. Dragon's Dogma was an action adventure hack-n-slash brimming with identity and purpose in the robust grapple and climb mechanic to the cleverly designed and dynamic boss enemies- I could go on about my love for Dragon's Dogma until the cows come how- and how severely underappreciated it was by the public! 

Itsuno similarly agreed that the game never got it's flowers from the public and spent a decade trying to give it another go around. In that time we'd forever hear allusions to a potential sequel, got a middling Anime to tide us over and had to endure China bragging about their country only MMO version of the game. Only now, in the year of our lord 2024, was Dragon's Dogma 2 finally given the greenlight to release and it finally introduced the world to a game unlike what they expected. A creativity machines begging it's audience to play around, just like the modern combat for the Devil May Cry franchise. And whilst I have my issues with it, I would love to see more content come to DD2 to push it ever further beyond! But now, I'm not sure that's ever going to happen.

Like a spirit hanging around past it's due it would seem that Itsuno was just hanging around Capcom in the hopes of getting Dragon's Dogma out the door and now that's done- so is he. Itsuno has left the company behind and in doing so robbed Capcom of their strongest talent- in the shaky hope that those left behind will be capable in his absence. But so far? All I know of non-Itusno products is the absolute mess that was made out of the non-chinese release of the Devil May Cry Mobile game- a once exciting little product in it's own right. And Dragon's Dogma? I'm afraid to see that delicately balanced little swansong dragged off a cliff by weak directors manhandled under dumb executives.

Capcom aren't going to drown, they'll always have Sonic. But my reasons for still keeping up what the blue studio was up to? Yeah that was pretty much exclusively caught up in the many machinations of this one creative powerhouse. Truly the company isn't going to be the same and the legacy he leaves could be in shaky hands. Dragon's Dogma 2 pleads for more content but do I really want a DLC that Itsuno didn't work on? Do I want more Devil May Cry games that he didn't work on? We kind of starting from scratch in the trust department and that's always the sad part of departures like this. I just hope the man is proud of himself.

Jackpot!!!

 Can't believe I said it...

Difficulty Must Die

 Stylin' on fools!

Devil May Cry 2 Review

 Whatever

Well that didn't take very long, now did it? My hunt for the game I played in my youth continues on with- oh wait, no I'm pretty sure it was this one. Yep, Angelic transformation, vaguely European building you can jump up, a mission with constantly draining health, the warped level geometry which I originally thought was just my spotty memory playing tricks on me- turns out it was the Lucia disc of Devil May Cry 2 that I played all those years ago back at my Cousin's house. Guess that's that then. I don't really need to review the rest of the series. In fact, I don't even really need to finished this review. So that's all she wrote, I guess. Nothing more to say... But there's so much to say, isn't there? Especially about this game! I just keep going until I get bored. (Although considering this is Devil May Cry 2, I don't expect that will be long.)

But talking about the actual game that is Devil May Cry 2 is only half of the fun, the rest comes from talking about the legend behind the game. You see, I was under the impression that people's issue with this game was the lack of personality from Dante and yeah, he's like a blank piece of wood in this game, but it wasn't until now I realised that the infamy sinks far deeper than a bad performance in a franchise so far resplendent with bad performances. Devil May Cry 2 was a game first birthed totally without the knowledge of the series creator Kamiya. In fact, he was busy localising the original game into English when he heard about it's production, attempting to capitalise off the runaway success with a slapdash sequel. As the legend goes, Capcom were already making their own Tomb Raider rip-off when this franchise blew up in their laps, which is why the game features a rush secondary protagonist with no personality and the exact same backstory as Trish from the original Devil May Cry. They already had a half-finished protagonist, why not just recycle some old story into her?

Now one part of this story that isn't conjecture is thus; the original director of the game is not known outside of the Capcom offices! Yes, there was an original director who left the project as something of a spinning, burning disaster before Hideaki Itsuno was dragged abroad to finish it. Itsuno tried the best he could to bring the thing together, and the fact the game is a functioning hack-n-slasher at all is thanks to his efforts. Still, the game was a mess and not at all a proper successor to what Devil May Cry established. So distraught in his apparent failure was Itsuno, that he redoubled his efforts into making Devil May Cry 3 and that led to- well, I guess we'll see what became of Devil May Cry as a franchise when we get there, no won't we...

For today we can talk about DMC 2 and my strangely optimistic approach I afforded this game. Perhaps part of that was due to my search into the past that I wanted to satiate, but the other half was my excitement after letting the demo for the game play and finding said footage to be exciting! I saw new more fluid animations for shooting, some acrobatic upside down shooting moments, cool cartwheel dodges- heck, the game looked like a riot! And to it's credit all those flashy and eye-popping moments make it to the gameplay too! You can run up walls vertically or horizontally, fire your twin pistols Ebony and Ivory at two targets in the same barrage. (although the stick trick to pulling it off is excessively temperamental) Dante's animations are smoother, his attacks more vicious looking, his red suit sharper than ever, there's just one problem- why is my man so slow?

I mean sure, he's not really slow by the standards of a normal fighting game protagonist, but if you had just played Devil May Cry 1 you'll immediately spot the difference. It's as though Dante was suddenly hit by the weight of his heavy sword and physics now hangs on his every swing... until he jumps in the air and propels himself by the weight of his own gunshots... Yes, as it turns out Dante was designed to feel heavier so that all that nascent agility could be unceremoniously transplanted to new-series character Lucia, a mysterious new girl in Sheik-cosplay with what should honestly be in the running for the world's worst faux-French accent ever to grace earth's soundwaves. She fights about as speedily as Dante used to.

From the get-go Dante feels quite fun to control, wielding all the basic toolset he had in the first game from his lunge to his launch, but something doesn't feel quite right. Firstly, there's actually no way to unlock any more moves, in this game all the upgrade path does is reinforce your weapon damage. Secondly, Dante's launch barely keeps the enemy up for more than a second, most times it's not even enough hang-time to start a gun juggle chain. Thirdly, and this is more of a personal gripe, the dodge button was moved from being the same as the jump button, which did mean I went through Dante's entire campaign without dodging before I realised my mistake. Weep for me. And lastly- none of the enemies really challenge you enough to require making use of the smooth animations or slightly improved basic moveset.

It was a problem I noticed in the first level, how literally no enemies managed to hit me and I wasn't even trying to go hitless. But as I progressed onwards the issue only really got worse. New enemies just seemed to idle for that moment too long, or only one would jump forward to attack in a group of five. The real moment when I couldn't take it anymore was the level which I imagine is the common breaking point for most players- the one with the infested vehicles. You have the three tanks with the giant turret that simply can't hit you when you're stabbing the tank. You can run up to it and watch the turret desperately turning about trying to achieve the impossible before the close-range machine gun turret kicks in after five full seconds of flailing. And that's just the prelude to the Infected Chopper.

The Infected Chopper is a special kind of boss that we all keep in our hearts. An apparent 'chase scene' across rooftops where the enemy is so laconic you can just stand there and shoot his health bar to pieces instead of flee because it seems to be incapable of shooting you. (Doing so does nothing, the helicopter pops up again in the next scene.) Only once it's chased you to the top of a building are you finally allowed to fight back, for some reason, and the fight is legendary. Firstly, for some reason the DMC 2 team decided to make this the kind of fight that really has to be fought exclusively with guns, which is already a pretty static endeavour that only requires the pressing down of a single button. Secondly, the helicopter only has two moves. A machine gun which seems to always shoot above your head and homing missiles that are designed to loop around you before homing in, which means if you stand still on the ground they literally smash into the floor and explode. Yes, this means the fight essentially is just standing still and pressing the shoot button. And as guns have the smallest damage output, you're there for about five minutes. It's about then that you realise that this isn't really a Devil May Cry game.

Even as you progress through the game and some of the trash mobs become a little more interesting and taxing, (nothing to the level of the late game mobs from DMC 1 which started feeling like minibosses all of their own) somehow the bosses remain just embarrassingly bad. There's a two headed man with wrecking balls for hands and a really limited range. A range far smaller than that of your guns. Another 'stand still and shoot' option. You have humanoid bosses that can be bowled over by Dante's lunge, making them pushovers. It gets to the point where the team just floods some bosses with adds so that the bad lock-on system can become the challenge players have to overcome. The new lock-on that is automatic and sticks to whatever creature is closest even when you need it to lock anywhere else. They even bring back Phantom for some reason, but forget to put him in an arena cramped enough for him to be effective, and so he's a push-over.

What's that? You want to know why Phantom is back despite being destroyed in the first game? How about asking why Phantom would even be present in any form at all given that he was a servant of the demon Mundus and this new demon is called... gimmie a sec- Argosax? (Sure.) If the story of the first game was simple and shoddily written, this narrative is straight nonsensical. The narrative is split between Danta and Lucia in such a terrible fashion that you actually cannot understand the basic events of the story by just playing one. Play as Dante and the concept of 'Arcana's being this game's mcguffin are thrown in half-way through the game as if you've always known about them. (Seriously, how does Dante know something we don't?) And if you play as Lucia, be prepared for key boss fights to just be skipped past because they get covered in Dante's playthrough. Which is just about the worst of all worlds, it's safe to say.

And as for Dante's personality drain- I can see what the fans were saying. I didn't particularly think Dante was exactly cool in the first game, but it seemed like he was trying to be. Throughout the entirety of DMC 2 it feels like Dante is on a job he really doesn't want to do and thus refuses to donate his attention to caring about anything. They'll be entire cutscenes where he doesn't say a word, and when he does open his mouth it's typically to end dialogue as soon as possible. "Whatever" and "Don't speak, just die". Up until the final two missions it really feels like Dante wants to be anywhere else then in this game, he even brings a coin to flip in order to decide whether he can bothered enough to help anyone. Of course, spoilers, it is revealed eventually that the coin had double heads, so he was never leaving such moments up to chance- but then what was the point of him using it at all? To make Matier think that he was going to leave her entire land to become a demon infested swamp based on the result of a bored coin toss? That he was happy to see her adopted daughter get gutted if the coin didn't ring in her favour? He wanted to look like a dick? To what end?

Lucia, on the otherhand, doesn't sound so much bored as she does...confused. About her entire being. I'm not just talking about her backstory, by the way, I'm talking about her performance. Her VO sounds like she either couldn't speak English or had never actually met a French person before to study how they speak- and the result is the kind of line reads where you'll be constantly second guessing yourself trying to figure out what she even just said. And of course the sound mixing is shoddy so sometimes you just can't hear the woman anyway. Honestly, she did not make herself main protagonist material in either her content or delivery, and since Dante didn't feel like giving his one hundred percent for most of the story, our narrative feels largely checked out for the majority of the story.

You'll largely just drift around this quite large map, almost totally devoid of the zone repetition from the first game which I was actually somewhat fond of, preforming objectives purely because the game has decided this is what needs to happen next. It seems the confused mythological inspiration splurge of the series canon has leaked onto the main script. Although we haven't lost the confused inspirations either, mind you! We still get to see Freki and Geri, Odin's wolves, now serving under some random weirdo called Bolverk, who in the lore was Sparda's rival who now hunts his son, but in the game he... well he says nothing. Nobody seems to be willing to establish any world building whatsoever. The main mastermind monster is only name dropped once, and I might be wrong but I think it only happens in Lucia's playthrough despite the fact that Dante is the only character who actually gets to fight him. 

Most of the game is painfully easy to drift through and a few of the bosses are so boring I was actually editing one of my other blogs whilst I fought them, I wrote the first two paragraphs of this review whilst fighting the first phase of the final boss for the second time. (I forgot to save after beating the game the first time, stupid story.) On rare occasions, however, the difficulty spikes up so abruptly you'll get whiplash. Bolverk's stupid fight with his wolves in a tiny room where they can all stun lock you, Lucia's one-on-one with an invisible fish she can't lock-on to, or the three floating heads. They're all painfully annoying and difficult in all the wrongs ways. Bolverk is enemy spam, the fish exploits the fixed camera angles in order to launch attacks you can't see coming and the head... well that's another 'pistol only' fight, which should be considered a war crime. Only the final form of the final boss for Dante's disc, The Despair Embodied, is an actual fully formed fight with challenge and precision in the style of the first game. Still, it's a shortlived bout.

Fighting The Despair Embodied did, however, introduce me to a concept I had never even known exsisted. Desperate Devil Trigger! When your health is in the critical, if you activate Devil Trigger you'll transform into a much more powerful, and larger, variant of Devil Form that boasts it's own unique moveset and a huge DPS boost. It's actually a genuinely cool and cinematic way to turn the tables of a fight going bad, although I struggle to think of anywhere it could possibly used outside of the final boss because everything else is either painfully easy or utter grating trash. What a cool, but ultimately wasted, idea. 

Lucia's own campaign is like a mirror of Dante's, occurring at the same time but taking mercifully fewer levels to complete. Lucia pushes through levels that are largely the same as Dante's but done in a different direction, typically backwards- but she does have some unique levels such as her water level bouts, which aren't terrible. Lucia also has some of her own bosses, which are all terrible. Especially her final boss which is just ludicrously pathetic to the point where I think you'd have to actively be trying to die in order to lose to him. I don't think I saw him do more than two moves in the entire final encounter. Next to the genuine challenge of 'The Despair Embodied' he was a total joke. Then again, with Lucia's moveset I wouldn't want to fight The Despair Embodied!

Although she is mechanically the same as Dante, Lucia plays just a little bit different thanks to a few key factors. As I mentioned before she attacks at the speed that Dante is supposed to- but she also has a pathetic reach making her 'lunges' an embarrassment to witness. Honestly her battlefield coverage is pretty poor, which would make for an interesting change up to the way you play the game if she actually had any different way to play, but apart from those points she plays pretty much exactly the same as Dante. The animations are different but the fundamentals are identical- she's just Dante with less potential for moving whilst striking, making combos more difficult to chain and annoying me. Her side arms are also all terrible, especially the grenade which takes so long to roll the enemy has already gone off and started a mortgage by the time the fireworks start.

Now I know that Lucia has her fans who consider the character underappreciated, and I can only assume that's down to the bird-like design of her Devil Trigger which is actually pretty cool. I think her human design, however, feeds into the 'generic rogue' archetype too heavily. Plus I find it funny that fans bemoan the fact she's never made it into another game, dooming her to the stereotype of 'the one in the bad game' when it's only those same fans that are holding her there. Literally, open your eyes and look around- you'll see that she absolutely did return in one of the greatest Hack-n-Slash games of our generation. She's literally Mistral from Metal Gear Rising Revengence- only Mistral somehow has more character, emotion and a real French Accent with a fraction of the screen time. Now can we stop stanning such a mediocre character just because some fans still think she's hot? (Besides: Mistral is way more hot.)

Summary

Devil May Cry 2 feels like it was a mistake that everyone rode to the finish line in the desperate hope that belief alone would keep the ship together. It's not nakedly bad enough that it's problems would shine to a total stranger who approached the franchise, but even my cursory experience granted enough context to recognise this mess before I actually started looking into and learning the story. It's AI is bad, the bosses are badly designed, the story is a mess, (increadibly for such a simple plot) the acting is terrible, the script couldn't have been more than a couple of pages long, the world feels disjointed to navigate, neither of the two protagonists feel right to play as and the unlocked outfits for beating the game on normal difficulty are ugly Diesel promotional items. After Devil May Cry 1 this game feels like one of those full face tumbles that a franchise can be sunsetted off. The bizarre thing is that in a round about way, this game might actually be more influential than the first. It was the utter disgrace of failing to live up to the first game with this sad fart of a title that inspired Itsuno to pull out all the stops for DMC 3, a game that the world assures me defined the genre. But I guess I'll have to see that for myself, now won't I? Hmm? Oh right, score... umm... D Grade. Yeah it's a D. Below passing, criminally boring. No game this short should drag like it does. This one is a skip, without doubt.

Devil May Cry Review

 I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIGHT!

Well this came out of nowhere, didn't it? In a week that has rather suddenly become a week of reviews, I get to cover a title I've been trying to complete for a long while now and just decided to sit down and 'get her done', so to speak. To be clear, it isn't by design that I completed the reviews for three games in a row, that's just how thing's have shaped up. And what a spread of games they are! An action adventure openworld faux-RPG game that never ends, a disgraced and redeemed openworld first person sci-fi RPG I didn't want to end, and now a hack-n-slash legend-in-the-making: How do I fall on the first Devil May Cry game? You'll have to find out once I'm done telling you the bizarre story about how I came to this franchise in the first place. Sharing time!

So as any kid in the age when I grew up, most of my experience playing games were done around the houses of those I knew who had game's consoles. I never controlled what I played, I just enjoyed whatever was there and spent more time dedicated to the hardware than the people around me because I guess I've always been a recluse like that, huh. And in doing so there were a few games that stuck out in my head. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, the original Star Wars Battlefront and, of course, that one weird hack-and-slash game that I remember playing at my cousin's house. God knows what it's name was, or even what the story was about, I just remember being fascinated and that I couldn't beat it. I remember two distinct aspects of the game, even now. I remember combat areas being enclosed with doors who's locks were a giant ghostly face that would shatter when you beat everything in the area (I think it was a face, although that might be my memories of Fable diluting the memory pool. ) and this one later area mission. This mission wherein you were constantly having your life drained and I had no idea how to stop it. Despite this being a late area in the game, you could visit areas from other levels and I remember running all the way back to the start of the game to figure it out- powered by the fact I remember some type of 'ultimate' state you could 'trigger' that allows health regeneration when in effect. Also, for some reason whenever I think of the game I remember a DVD copy of 'The Devil Wears Prada'.

Now unfortunately I also remember the map consisting of high reaching European streets, which is the reason why I've been searching all this time without any luck. But upon starting Devil May Cry for the first time some years back, I've been struck with the feeling I'm onto something special. In fact, I'm willing to bet that the game I'm looking for is none other than Devil May Cry 2, often referred to as people's least favourite in the franchise. But as a stickler for consistency and lore I have to start where it all begins, with Devil May Cry 1, you know- so that I can properly come to respect the world of this game before I wrap up my investigations. Although... although I have already purchased the entire franchise... so I guess I might as well give the other games a shake as well... damn, has this turned into a series retrospective? Bugger.

Welp, might as well get to it. Devil May Cry: the blueprint that launched a thousand of Hack-n-slash games! Actually, it might have been the franchise that killed the hack-n-slash genre because we don't get a great many competing franchises these days and those we do typically spawn from this franchise. Bayonetta is directed by the man who started the DMC franchise, and Final Fantasy XVI boasts the talents of a Devil May Cry design alumni who calls the new game his 'personal masterpiece' based on all his years working on the DMC games. It's almost as though Devil May Cry defined the genre so much that no one else is confidant enough to try and make their own franchise in the space anymore. And it all started with this first outing, so what could it have to show me?

Well when we hear about what people love about these games, one of the loudest refrains I always hear pertains to fans love for the style and personality of it's main lead- Dante. Dante and his too-cool-for-school, white haired bad-ass antics that sent countless hearts a flutter across his prolonged career of impromptu demon hunting. Which means that, alongside the combat, is certainly something to look out for. Because you know, there are some games that really do hold up all these years later in those special regards. Discounting graphical achievement, some games have that style or performance that remains timeless and fantastic all these years later. To this day the cinematic achievement of Metal Gear Solid  stands firm, the clever gross-out irreverence of Conker's Bad Fur Day still draws a chuckle, does the charismatic wit of Dante still twinkle with that same charm?

No, good lord no. When we first see Dante, running his demon extermination service 'Devil May Cry', he boasts the 'pretence' of the aloof 'I'm so cool you couldn't hurt me even if you wanted to' hero- and to be fair the things he actually does are extremely cool. The man juggles a motorbike in the air through the power of firing his twin pistols, he gets impaled through the chest with a massive sword and simply gets up and walks it off. Twice! But the backbone which would cement the style of these actions, the performance of the voice actor and the lines he has to read... not great. (It's not going to be until Devil May Cry 3 that we get the voice of Dante people know and love.) Right away, I can see how the team try. Behind the janky action sequences and silly cutscene action, I see them attempting to have Dante seem cool as he whips out his dual pistols and remarks "Let's get to work", but I just don't feel it. And that might be due to the way that his breaks of seriousness are filled with either utter nonsense or abject cringe. We'll get to the latter in due time, but for now I'll give you a small taste of the early game nonsense. "You were the first one to know about my Avengence." Your what? Avengence? Who in the- that's even more ridiculous than Revengence! I know it's kind of Japanese en vouge to revive long depreciated words but... that ain't it. I'm sorry.

Thankfully the cutscenes and performances in Devil May Cry is not what keeps people coming through the door. That would be the actual gameplay and layout of the world you traverse on Dante's journey to 'Avengence' his Brother and Mother who were apparently slain by some vague bad-guy called Mundus or something. The game itself takes place in a sprawling castle/mansion through which you'll explore mission-by-mission as you uncover it's secrets. In one of the cooler early uses of this design style, you'll find yourself walking over the same bits of castle in each mission as you become familiar with the layout, uncovering new pathways and crannies in places where you've been before. It's a little like Castlevania in that regard, except that exploration is explicitly linear. Still, the game has you become familiar with your playspace in a way that engenders those some types of 'familiarity cues' when playing through Resident Evil or Symphony of the Night; most games get too 'ambitious' to shoot for that, I still appreciate it. 

Of course, any DMC game is defined by it's combat, and here I have to admit that even in it's early form, DMC has impressed me. The combat tool kit is quiet basic with your melee weapon attached to one button and your dodge with another. Locking onto a target allows the use of move specific movement options, special attacks and your sidearm attack for 'peppering damage'. A lot of the heart of DMC combat depends on giving the player the tool kit to look stylish as they blast through their enemies, and this game handles that beautifully. The range of attack options, gradually unlocked through the spending of blood orbs, is neat enough for the average player to get to know all of them. You have the lunge homing attack, the launch attack, some variant types of attack for Devil Trigger and the ability to juggle enemies in the air with your twin pistol attack should you need to. The 'Style' meter which constantly assess the quality of your combo is a very neat addition as it's strict rules really teach you how to play. You learn how to read enemies and dodge so as not to break your combo, how to absolute not touch the analog stick in the middle of a bout, that you have so many attack moves that double as movement options, and as you learn to start pulling S-Rank combos, the smooth rhythm of combat settles in and the breadth of combat possibility becomes second nature. It's a very simple system by the standards of today but it just works so well.

Devil Trigger is the special state you can build up by landing attacks and activating with a touch of a button once you're got enough 'devil juice'. It's essentially your typical buff mode; attacks hit harder, certainly faster, and certain special attacks morph into pretty powerful 'devil attacks'. Your jump in the air and shoot move (a fine way to stay off the ground when action down there is getting dicey) can morph into becoming a flying winged demon shooting lightning from his hands. It all depends on the primary weapon you have equipped and the abilities you've purchased for that weapon between missions. However, I found that it was difficult, given the brief nature of the game, to really develop both of the weapons you unlock in the story, so despite the fact they have quite unique move sets, I ended up sticking to the sword rather than the fire fists. I figure this system is built more for follow-up playthroughs on higher difficulties. Oh, and Devil Trigger provides a stream of constant health regeneration, so that should be a plus in anyone's book, right?

The challenge of Devil May Cry comes in the variety of it's enemy pool, and for the length of the game DMC has a healthy amount of enemies to throw your way. Puppets to Grim Reapers to animalistic mask monsters- and they've all got quirks to their attack style and movement which makes them interesting to tackle. And frustrating for some of the tankier ones later on. They aren't just sword fodder I'm glad to say, and some even gave me a serious run for my money and straight killed me off when I wasn't paying attention. Of course, the actual programmed enemies are only one fourth of the challenge that this game has to offer; another fourth being the reoccurring bosses you'll become very familiar with throughout DMC.

All of the boss cast here are like old friends- annoying friends you really wish wouldn't keep turning up to parties they weren't invited to. In some ways it fits the nature of the world layout to fight every boss at least three times before they sod off for good, but on the otherhand I really do wish these reoccurring bosses changed up their approach a little more for each fight. It's like they learn one new trick for each fight and the new trick is never really all that different from what they were doing last time so whatever trick you learnt for fighting them then (running around Nightmare, rolling around Neo Angelo's slashes, Just straight blasting Griffon to pieces with your guns) still works wonders no matter when you fight them. Still, they're decent enough stop gaps, and at least the Neo Angelo fights felt fast enough to be a genuine challenge.

And the remaining half of the difficulty? That damn accursed camera! Devil May Cry makes use of the fixed camera angles that were all the rage back in this day, but unlike similar titles like Resident Evil and it's ilk, DMC doesn't appear to have designed the fixed camera angles with the enemies that would spawn in those rooms in mind. You'll have fights where travelling to one edge of the room gives you a bizarre corner angle that blinds you to everything else present in the area because some designer was too busy thinking about how to direct you to parkour rather than how you'll keep alive from the actual fight. And the final Neo Angelo brawl takes place in a room that is inexplicably split down the middle in camera coverage, there's a very real possibility he can teleport to a corner of the room you literally can't see and spam projectiles at you- the dick. And don't even get me started on platforming with badly fixed camera angles- hell incarnate.

Yes, let's put our woes to rest and instead pull back to the narrative itself- wow, is it confused. I get the sense when playing this game that the scenario writer was a big fan of a bunch of different western myths and cultures but had never taken the time to formally study a single one- a position I'm very familiar with in the reverse. You'll be bombarded with various ill-fitting names and objects from jumbled together mythologies without any connecting rhyme or reason to their placement. Dante and Vergil, from the Divine Comedy, bare no resemblance to their name sakes in even the most analytical sense. The Philosopher's Stone is a key to the underworld? The caduceus of Hermes Trismegistus unlocks a... mirror dimension? A lot of things are just 'keys' that sound cool because they've got the name of some Greek god haphazardly slapped ontop for no discernible reason, such is the result of slap-dash world design.

That lack of narrative purpose bleeds into the script and story, which are nigh on non-existent. I get the sense that a certain love for film was central in visualising this project, but not from the place of studied mastery like with Hideo Kojima three years prior to this game, but from more of a hobbyist- 'I bet I could make something like this' angle. (Again, painfully familiar.) Information is teased and withheld for underwhelming late game reveals with bad lines. "You remind me of my mother", being an especially silly moment. It's not until the final encounter with Mundus, however, that I was hit with the unavoidable rays of weaponised cringe that this game was hiding beneath it's cool-guy faux-exterior. Dante is coolest with his mouth shut in the middle of gameplay, when he was faced with back-to-back 'emotional' scenes... well let's just say it doesn't go... great.

Man, what am I talking about! Is there any scene as legendary as the moment when Dante screams "I should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIGHT!" topped off with the classic voice crack and echo effect? I feel like 'lost-in-translation' is to blame for the flat composition of most of these lines, but come on, what am I going to do: listen to some Japanese dub of Devil May Cry? Dante is American, I think, so that's the language I'll here the man speak in! Even if he hits me with such lines like "Trish, Devil's never cry... These tears, they're a gift only humans have!" I swear it's like the lyric sheet for an Evanescence song got jumbled up with the DMC script in the late game. And you know, Devil's may never cry but I was absolutely red-eyed by the end of this game. It took hours for me to stop crying from how bad everything is. "The sky is fair, it'll always be above everybody's head, no different." WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? WHO TOLD DANTE TO WAX PHILOSPHICAL? Some of the greatest and worst dialogue lines ever devised by man- I don't know if DMC 3 can top this masterpiece of narrative cohesion!

Summary

Devil May Cry is a classic franchise in the industry, responsible for marking out the face of hack-and-slash games as we know them today. And when the gameplay is in front of me I absolutely know why. The simply intuitive nature of combat, empowered by stylish flair and just the right amount of freedom plays smoother than any other game around it could have dreamed of at the time. When the gameplay gives way to cutscenes, however, I'm left wondering how this story ever got a follow-up at all. Iconic, classic, baffling, cringe-worthy: Devil May Cry is a lot of things all at once. Honestly, I don't really know if I'd recommend this game to anyone who is a lover of this genre of gaming. Newcomers would certainly find something approachable yet challenging here, but hack-and-slash veterans might find the breadth of gameplay choice somewhat frustrating. It's a great place for the genre to begin at, but I'm just not sure if DMC has that same 'ageless appeal' as some other series might. It's not as well aged as Baldur's Gate, although not as badly aged as the original 'Hitman'. At the very least, you must watch the cutscenes on Youtube because they are ridiculously stupid. All in all I enjoyed my brief romp, and DMC gets itself a C+ Grade for it's troubles. Historically significant and still has a little kick to it, there are far worse ways to expand your repertoire of gaming knowledge than delving into the DMC rabbit hole.

Devil May Cry: Pinnacle of Combat

 MIRCOTRANSACTIONS ARE APPROACHING

You ever had those games that you play once so very long ago and then could never find again? Maybe you blindly happened upon it at a friend's house and really got into your time with the game, only to then loose track of it once you were finished? That happened to me. Obviously. I'm talking about it here, ain't I? It was this explosive, demonic hack and slash game that I remembered best for it's magical sealed doors and 'special form' mode. Yeah, I was young at the time so those were the things that really stood out to me. "The doors look weird and I think the character looks cool when they go super Saiyan" Not a lot to go on, is it? Yet years later I would happen upon the game again and realise that I had inadvertently dipped my toes into one of the most celebrated hack'n'slash action adventures of all time; Devil May Cry. Why, I could finally sit down at the big boys table and join in with their discussions. All I had to do was tell them that I had experience with the franchise too because I had played DMC 2- oh... that's the one everyone hates... nevermind.

So yeah, I've never exactly been the diehard lover of the Devil May Cry games that some other people are, but that's not because I found any fault with them. Devil May Cry 2's gameplay stayed with me all those years precisely because I thought it was so fun, so I certainly respect the series and those who adore it. (Even more those who master it; some of those combo videos on YouTube are insane!) I've just oddly found myself being around the whole DMC series instead of playing it for years. I've dabbled with them every now and then, but my most substantial experience is with the first game, and even then I didn't finish the thing. (I think I got close) So then why do I care about the series? It's hard to say. Maybe the answer lies in the same the way that gaming royalty tends to get around the zeitgeist for some specific reason, the reputation sells the legend as much as experience. How many people respect Metal Gear without ever having actually touched the games? Whatever the case, I'm certain that this is a series that I will one day get my hands upon, thus keeping my eye on its releases seems pertinent.

That's how I know that the 2013 reboot is widely considered heresy and, as far as I can tell, is entirely non-canonical to the rest of the franchise. (probably a skip, then) And how I know that Devil May Cry 5 boasts some of the best dynamic boss-fight level transitions that I've ever had the pleasure of dabbling with. It is, incidentally, also how I've heard of this new mobile Devil May Cry game, with the dubious title of 'Pinnacle of Combat'. (Sounds like a ropey 'Ace Combat' ripoff to me, but I guess I'm not the marketing guy...) Now when I hear 'mobile' game, there's obviously going to be a few immediate words that also spring forth from my cynical old noggin. 'Cash Grab', 'Microtransactions' and 'half assed' are just a few. (word association is fun!) But I'm willing to halt my pre-conceived prejudices for a moment as I look at the actual game and what is on offer. Because at face value; I'll admit I'm impressed.

So modern Devil May Cry games have obviously followed hardware trends and now operate in this great looking engine with flashy visuals and solid framerates, as one expects from their classic franchises. However, being as old school as this series is, the early games obviously don't boast as great fidelity; however they are still beloved an iconic for their visuals as much as their gameplay because that's just what happens when you make a classic. Well, what if I told you that this mobile game has done an uncanny job of replicating the style of those older games? To the point where it almost looks like there's some high-quality emulator running? Would you be impressed? Would it change your immediate bias towards the very existence of this game? Because that's where I was when I first looked upon this and went 'hang on, this looks good'.

Now to be clear, it isn't totally unbelievable for mobile phones to be able to accurately recreate the visuals and gameplay of a 16 year old game, in fact that isn't even functionally surprising. Mobile phones and their ever increasing capacity are easily the match of old game consoles, so remaking games for mobile users from that era is actually completely feasible. What knocks me for six is that someone actually went and did it. I mean, effort looks like it when into this project and that's so often never the case. Usually there's an ugly easier-to-work-with replacement style which conveys the feeling of the game they were trying to make fit on the mobile phone but lacks the heart. (Looking at you, Just Cause and Diablo) This 'Pinnacle of Combat' looks as good as a port of Devil May Cry 3, and the fact that's it's being made as something of a standalone, with new content to it's name, is actually pretty cool. It doesn't scream 'Look at me, I'm a lazy cashgrab' in the slightest.

As for the game itself, it seems to have been based on Devil May Cry 3 as it's base, borrowing much of that game's aesthetic and systems. (Such as levels, weapon switching, combos and the like.) And as a point towards the dedication involved, some attack animations have been replicated frame-by-frame, which makes all the difference in this sort of game, as any fan could tell you. But where things get interesting is when we start hearing about new locations from other DMC games, such as locations from 4 and even that DMC remake which I'm fairly certain is still non-canonical. There's even going to be a few bosses from the about the place confirmed to make a reappearance such as the giant lava spider; Phantom. (I actually remember him! He was the worst. In a good way) So we're looking at no strictly new content; but even a remix of what we already know but for the mobile market is far beyond the expectations I, and I'm sure many others, had when hearing about this for the first time.

In fact, after all the footage I've watched and articles I've read on the game (Which haven't been many, not a lot is out there right now) my only real concern is something which this platform can't really help; the controls. I've played my fair share of mobile ports, as well as actual emulations, and I know that the 'gamepad becomes touch screen' thing can be a total nightmare. Grand Theft Auto 3 is nigh unplayable for some of the more finnicky moments and considering that an action adventure hacker-slasher game is, ideally, all finnicky moments, I worry a tad. Now I'm sure that this is being taken into account and great efforts are going into how to place each virtual button to be as ergonomic and responsive as possible, but there's only so much real estate to work with; these are mobile screens. How is any amount of finetuned button combos going to be feasible given the circumstances? What can any of us realistically expect?

I suppose the only remaining empty spot in my knowledge that I think really does need to be cleared up before release is monetisation, because that's a prickly issue that hasn't been properly addressed. Although, even as no entry price has been mentioned and the team has a history of questionable microtransactions built into their main games, (charging for extra Continues is embarrassing, guys, come on) I'd be lying if I said I wasn't interested anyway. It's so rare to see someone actually take advantage of the technological offerings of phone hardware and those that do really stand out against their peers. Honestly, if things turn out as well as they look, I might be holding off for an actual full blown PC port, because I think this might be a pretty sweet nostalgic ride for the DMC fanbase. Looking good, Capcom.

Prosthetic Limbs

We can rebuild him!

Limbs are very important to human beings. (Judging by Spore's economy I can personally attest to how much DNA they cost to unlock in the first place.) As such it can be devastating to lose a limb and be forced to readjust to simple life. Luckily, in this enlightened age of ours, there exist handy prosthetic replacements for our lost limbs which can sometimes be as sturdy and versatile as the real thing. 'As good as' isn't enough for video games, however, and for that reason whenever prosthetics make it to the video game world, they often come with so many bells and whistles that one might wonder if it's worth keeping our flabby weak human bodies when we can have some of these incredible creations.

Whether we have a story exploring the limits of humanity in transhumanist philosophies, or simply a game in which an Anime-esque hunk uses his robot arm as a baton; Video games are full of examples of this kind of body modification. I suppose developers can see it as a 'proof of struggle' to lose one's limb, as it can be one of the hardest injuries to overcome. However such developers also realize that few people want to play a game wherein they are subject to a disfigurement, and so out come the robot replacements. That might be a simplification but I'd wager that train of thought legitimately paid some role in the absolute deluge of prosthetic limbs we've seen in games.

One could not start a subject like this without starting with the grandfather of it all; Metal Gear Solid Peacewalker. (Huh, that's two mentions in one week. I might be having another relapse...) Fans might remember a very distinctive prosthetic arm in that game belonging to one- hold on- Vladimir Aleksandrovich Zadornov. (Phew, that's a mouthful.) When first introduced he appears to be a humble college professor travelling with his innocent schoolgirl accomplice who's name is literally 'Paz', which is Spanish for 'peace'. (There's a secret cover story that's trying too hard.) There's only one problem, the man has a bright metal robot hand that doubles as a cigarette lighter. (You get that from grading papers professor?) By the time this incredibly suspicious man, who just happens to hire you to investigate an extra-legal CIA occupation, reveals himself to be a Soviet spy, no one in the audience can manage so much as a pity gasp. Unfortunately this particular prosthetic doesn't prove very useful for Zadornov. Once he gets shot by Big Boss, after attempting an incredibly ill-advised quick draw against 'the world's greatest soldier', he makes a last ditch go for Snake by launching his robot arm with it's built in rocket function (What? Your prosthetic doesn't have one?) only to completely whiff his target and hit the wall. A sad way to go for the world's most conspicuous infiltration operative.

The arm, however, lived on. In the prequel to MGS V, 'Metal Gear Solid: Ground Zeroes', Snake is caught in a helicopter crash that costs him his arm and rugged beauty. (Those scars might have some charm to them but the giant horn-shaped debris sticking out of his forehead will definitely cost him some Tinder matches.) But opportunity arises from tragedy as in 'Metal Gear Solid: the Phantom Pain' his old rival, Shalashaska, (colloquially known as Revolver Ocelot) gives him a replacement arm that is known as 'The Bionic arm'. (Probably because 'The Phantom Limb' made too much sense.) This arm is modelled directly off of Zadornov's, for some reason, all the way down to the red paint job. Player's can even unlock the ability to launch it from their arm down the line, just like the 'professor', except Snake's comes with remote control. (That's how you avoid looking like an idiot, Zardornov, by firing your forearm at your combatants instead of your very functional firearms.)

Okay, so I've never played Devil May Cry 4 (I own it, I'm just a lazy piece of poop) but as far I understand it, there is a point wherein the adorable little cherub Nero has his arm sawn off through means that have never been explicitly discussed. (Bummer.) Rather then settle down and live off his impending disability benefits, Nero lived up to his name-sake and decided to secure a demonic replacement known as Devil Bringer. (Maybe not officially a prosthetic but I'm counting it!) In DMC 5, the platinum haired Nero loses this demonic gift and is forced to replace it with a robotic arm called Devil Breaker. This one has the ability fire unearthly demon beams at enemies, pull them over Scorpion-style in order to prolong a combo, and make it explode. (As you do.) However, Nero is in luck because some charitable soul decided to scatter levels with replacement arms, for some reason. (I guess the NHS are over funded in the DMC universe.)

Of course, there is one classic video game character who's prosthetic is so iconic that most forget he even has it, despite the fact it's really hard to ignore a huge black man with a Vulcan minigun for an arm. As I remember it is never explicitly explained why Barret has his minigun arm, nor why his former friend entrusted him with the raising of his daughter in spite of that aforementioned child-unfriendly implement. Whatever the reason, it means that Barret Wallace if often a stable of any team makeup for FF7 due to his useful ranged attacks and his tankiness. (Primarily for the tankiness.) It sure is encouraging that the Shinra of Midgard allow a man who should be classified as a weapon to walk the streets unhindered. (I bet he doesn't even get stop searched.)

On a more philosophical note 'Deus Ex Human Revolutions' proposed an interesting question; if your body was damaged to such a degree that you required a body worth of robotics in order to live, are you still human? (The ol' 'Ship of Thesus' question. ) Every part of Adam Jensen's body is redesigned by David Sarif into tools for hunting down those that kidnapped legendary scientist Megan Reed. Adam is forced to confront a body he doesn't recognize in a world torn by prejudice against the mechanically enhanced as he unravels the world's deepest cabal. (God, I sound like a movie announcer.) Honestly, this is one of my favourite examples of transhumanism in gaming and I sure hope that Jensen's story gets a third game to round out the story. (For the love of god, Square, I'm begging you!)

Tactical revolution, 'Xcom: Enemy Unknown', encountered some controversy regarding prosthetics when it came to envisioning their expansion/new release: 'Enemy Within'. This arose because the new 'mech units', who were designed to balance against the powerful Alien robotics from the late game, had to be piloted by individuals without arms or legs. (So that the mech suit could act as a replacement.) This meant that those who wanted to turn their soldiers into mech units would have to opt them into a procedure to have their limbs removed and replaced with metallic supplements. At the time there was some hubub by those who thought this was 'glorifying body mutilation', but then there were people who claimed that Xcom 2's badass Alien-head wall was 'unhygenic' so I don't but much stock in the word of outrage warriors.

Hold on. Another Metal Gear mention? I've gone mad with power! As it turns out, there is yet another example of prosthetics in Metal Gear, although this one did go a little overboard. Anime schoolboy stand-in, Raiden, was far-in-large the least cool member of the Metal Gear cast after his debut in Metal Gear Solid 2. Especially in the way that they replaced series icon Snake with a guy who is such a pathetic spy that his girlfriend is on the support line and repeatedly calls him by his real name several times over the airwaves. ("Jack, do you know what day it is?") Hideo Kojima amended this by replacing most of Raiden's body with cybernetics in Metal Gear Solid 4 and having him literally wield a samurai sword into battle. (I'm fairly sure this counts as overcompensation.) In Metal Gear Rising Revengence, Raiden has even more bodyparts replaced and essentially becomes a murder fueled robot of death and destruction. (Without all the philosophical hints that Deus Ex implemented.) Throw in a line where cyborg Raiden utters that infamous line; "The Memes!" and Kojima may have created the ultimate life form.

Bizarrely this is such a common trend across video games that I had to leave out a few of the ideas that I had come up with. (The Sekiro arm is too similar to Devil Breaker anyway.) Personally, I do enjoy the hints of imagination that this particular cliche invokes, not just in gaming, but for story telling in general. That 'body horror' angle mixed with typical badass-ery is just the right blend of surreal cool to make me smile every time; and I look forward to see if future games with this idea, like Cyberpunk 2077, go the whole hog and show all angles, the cool and the weird, all in one package.

Catching the Censorship bug.

Somethings gonna give.

Censorship. Something of a contentious topic in the wider world, especially when applied to creative endeavours. People always like to postulate on the necessity of censorship and the reaches it will go to if left unchecked. As a result, some interesting hypotheticals get bought up on the issue. Does the artists intent come into play when something is censored? Is anything worthy of full censorship or just partial censorship? And at what point does censorship start to impede the fundamental values of freedom of speech? I'm not here to talk about any of those larger examples of censorship you may have heard about in the world however, wouldn't fit my MO. I want to talk to you about censorship as it exists within video games today, mostly between the covering of naughty parts and violence.

For my part I'm an advocate of reduced levels of censorship and regulation. I think that artists should have the right to express themselves in whatever way that they-so choose and bring their work to light even if it does touch on darker topics. It allows for a greater range of discussion and discourse when a narrative is allowed to plump into the darker depths of human capabilities. This is the sort of thing that can really push a story into a realm where it can actually effect the audience in ways they had never thought possible. Who remembers back when Game of Thrones was still good and we were subjected to the scene that has come to be known as the red wedding? Do you remember how you felt? For me, watching it alone in the dark, I remember sitting there in shock until the next show came on. (Which, incidentally, was a making-of for GoT.) After I could bear to get up again, I remember going to by room and sitting down thinking 'I'd love to play a game to calm down but I don't think I can stand to see the colour red right now'. That scene was so brutal and vivid that it displayed the horrific reality of violence in a way that no other 'hyper violent' show or movie had ever done for me before. To this day I've never felt that way after watching a particularly gruesome scene in anything and I think it's a shame.

The reason I bought up that GoT Scene was because I don't think that would have been aired 10 years prior. Of course, it helped that Game of Thrones was still incredibly popular when that scene aired, I doubt that 'Arrow' could have gotten away with a similar scene. But we have come such a long way when it comes to regulating fictional violence that the 'The red wedding' is now a possibility. If we hadn't of made strides to break down the wall of censorship that had been established, we might have never been graced with one of the most powerful and memorable moments of TV. When we come to the topic of the way that censorship has been utilized when it comes to Video Games we find that different walls have been setup that have yet to be challenged, yet alone overcome.

But first lets start at the beginning. You're likely already aware of the origins of Video Game censorship but I love to hear the sound of my own typing so bear with me. In 1976 a little game called 'Death Race' hit the arcades. (No apparent relation to the Stallone movie.) In the game the player was tasked with running over gremlins in a little pixel car. The height of carnage, obviously. This caused a whole slew of controversy as people decried the game whilst claiming the usual: the game would lead to rampant hit-and-cases all over the country! Since then there were several scattered controversies over the years. 1982's Clusters Revenge (Aka sexual assault simulator), 1987's Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (Which didn't even feature anything sexual, it was just a crappy point and click game.) and, of course, 1992's Mortal Kombat. Midway's Mortal Kombat utilized animation developed from real life pictures to simulate it's fighters, and then worked on blood and gore effects on top. The result was the most horrifying and realistic violence ever seen by man! In the early 1990's! The ensuing chaos is well documented. Everyone and their mother wanted Video Games banned for their violent influence, because video games were most certainly the cause of all evil in the world. Things got so bad that in 1994 the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) was established in order to get ahead of things before government regulation started up.

Since then, Violence has become a huge sticking point for people who dislike gaming. Just look at disbarred attorney Jack Thomspon. (Who's Wikipedia page rather generously lists as 'activist' rather than 'explotation artist'.) Jack made a name for himself by launching a campaign on all things pixellated for years. Okay, that's not entirely true. Back in the day he spoke out against rap music too, but he really hit a stride with all the Video Game stuff. Jack seemed to position himself as an arch nemesis to unstoppable video game titan: Rockstar. The attacks he made against the violence and sexual themes of GTA are legendary. He filed lawsuits against them, funded campaigns and went all out to destroy Take Two through the legal courts. Then he got disbarred.

But before he slipped into obscurity, Jack Thomson opened the floodgates for the cries of censorship that would befall the gaming landscape. Droves of NRA members would accuse games of causing violence, rather ironically. Talks show hosts would film segments on GTA, lamenting the way the game encouraged hedonism and murder (completely oblivious to it's satirical leanings), and then there was that one time when Watch_dogs got in the headlines. I understand that people are afraid of 'hacking' even though most of those people have no idea what hacking actually is, but accusing Watch_Dogs of teaching children how to hack is positively laughable.

Censorship isn't just an issue of the past either. Just recently there was a huge controversy over the censorship spearheaded by an unlikely source: From Sony itself! (Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.) A spokesperson had made a statement indicating that the company was making moves to cut down on the stretch of sexual themes in their games, namely the Japanese Anime-focused ones. Personally, I have rather strong views on this particular branch of censorship but I'll likely write more on that at a later date. At the time it didn't worry a lot of people because, for the general public, their games-of-choice weren't in the crosshairs. That was, at least, until Devil May Cry 5.

Devil May Cry marked it's triumph return to it's series roots by reintroducing the classic versions of popular series characters: Dante and Lady. One scene did raise the hackles of Sony, however, when Lady was swallowed by a demon and had to be rescued by Dante. After she was freed there was a scene wherein she was expelled from the beast naked and defeated. Dante then picks her up and takes her to safety. It should be noted that this was done through a cut scene and the nudity was handled tastefully. Lady was obscured from view and nothing racy was shown. (Oh, wait. There was an inch of but crack in one shot? My bad, call the censors, we need to lock this down!) Sony made the move to add a light flare in one scene showing a glimpse Lady's behind, making a whole slew of gamers raise an eyebrow and say "Really?!"

It's less the act and more the audacity that Sony believed themselves fully within their rights to edit someone else's artwork in order for them to be comfortable with it. The change was small, but the precedent set is incredibly unsettling. Even Nintendo reflected similar remarks (Nintendo!) saying that it isn't their place to decide on the content of third party games. If you don't think it would fit with your policies than don't sell the thing, but acknowledge that you'll be missing out on a stream of revenue by doing so. When the question of censorship arrives, just like with South Park's manatees it is an all or nothing scenario.

The topic of content regulation and censorship stretches to a whole slew of areas that really require their own blog to dive into. I just wanted to establish a baseline to expand from and show you how things are playing out in today's world. In the coming years I think that this topic will become increasingly important as these outdated values start to seriously impact the earned media that the Internet has fostered in recent years. (Which I elaborated more on in my: 'Youtube vs gaming' blog.) From the looks of it, things are going to get worse before they get better as fear mongering starts to lead the direction of the industry. Maybe I'm being a tad hyperbolic but it can be enlightening to imagine the extremes in formative times like these, because we may just reach those extreme sooner than one might think.