Devil May Cry: The Importance of Challenge

 Devil May Cry: The Importance of Challenge

I am not very good at video games, but I love a challenge. It's especially refreshing when the game doing the challenging doesn't stop to hold your hand during some of its more difficult sections. Some of the best times I've had playing video games have involved seeing a challenging obstacle in my way, getting frustrated at it, and then calming my mind to analyze the situation and see what I can do to succeed. That's what made the Uncharted franchise so appealing to me and why I was able to get through the whole series in a rather short amount of time. The challenge is what makes games viable, because they expect you to work your mind--and the controller--in a way that amplifies your skills as a gamer.

Sometimes this can be incredibly difficult, especially if you have very little skill in a certain genre. Enter Devil May Cry. Created and directed by Hideki Kamiya, and also developed and published by Capcom, Devil May Cry is a 2001 action-adventure hack-and-slash title that pits you against a multitude of opponents that you can defeat using a combination of guns and swords. You play as Dante, the white-haired owner of the game's titular shop. Dante is the son of a legendary demon named Sparda and a human woman. A half-demon residing on Earth, Dante spends his time hunting down demons who have escaped Hell (also referred to as "the demon realm" throughout the series). While kicking it back in his shop, he is attacked by a mysterious woman named Trish who bears a striking resemblance to his deceased mother. Trish reveals this was a test to see if Dante was strong enough for a task she has for him. This involves a demon from Dante's past, Mundus, who is planning to cross over into the human world. His vessel alongside his minions are all residing on Paradise Island, specifically near the castle built on it. Accompanying Trish to the island, Dante is determined to stop Mundus, enacting vengeance while also saving Earth. Along the way he is met with a multitude of difficult enemies, including Phantom, a massive rock/lava spider-scorpion; Nightmare, a living bioweapon; and a mysterious black knight named Nelo Angelo.

The game is split up into 23 story missions, each one taking place primarily on a different part of the island or in a different part of the castle. Your main objective is to fight your way through the castle, using the semi-open environment to fight enemies while also solving puzzles to progress in the game. One of the game's more appreciative aspects is that semi-open level design of the castle. After completing a mission, you have the option of backtracking at certain intervals of the game, causing enemies you've previously defeated to respawn, but also giving you a chance to explore different areas for new items. Some items you can find throughout the game include health items, "Yellow Orbs" that give you an extra life in case you die, or "Blue Orb Fragments," which, when you collect four of them, can increase your health bar and give you a fighting chance against tougher opponents. You can also occasionally find "Holy Water," which deals significant damage to all demons in a room with you, and "Devil Stars," which can be used to instantly power up Dante's "Devil Trigger," a powerful aspect of Dante's play style which we'll get into in a moment.

Another big reason why backtracking and enemy respawns are so important in this game is because of Red Orbs. You can gain Red Orbs by killing enemies. However, if you kill enemies with a unique combination of moves--known as "combos"--the grade you get for that combo (D, C, B, A, or S) can result in a larger number of Red Orbs being dropped. In terms of gameplay, Red Orbs are occasionally used to open locked doors in the castle, allowing Dante to progress further into the missions. However, their primary purpose is to upgrade weapons and guns with more skills and strength, making opponents later in the game easier to take out. While Dante's signature handguns, Ebony and Ivory, are a favorite of mine, he also comes equipped with other guns you can find during your playthrough. These include a powerful but slow Shotgun, a heavy-damage Grenade Gun, and the Needle Gun whose function involves a specific section of the game. As for swords, Dante is first equipped with Force Edge, a rather weak sword that players aren't able to upgrade. The upgradeable sword, however, comes in the form of Alestor, featuring unlockable skills that you can use with specific button combinations after buying them for enough Red Orbs in the shop. It feels incredibly rewarding to unlock new moves for Alestor, with some of them even being helpful to getting hidden power-ups like Blue Orb Fragments throughout the missions. My personal favorite weapon, however, is Ifrit, flame-imbued fire gloves that are slow but powerful. They were my go-to weapon alongside Ebony and Ivory through most of my playthrough.

The secondary purpose of Red Orbs is to buy health, Devil Stars, and Holy Water, as well as Blue Orbs and Yellow Orbs to increase health and number of lives respectively. But they are also the only way you're able to upgrade Devil Trigger. As Dante defeats more enemies, he builds up his Devil Trigger meter. When the meter reaches a certain point, the player can press a button, transforming Dante in his demon form. Not only can he run and attack faster in this mode, but he also takes much less damage from enemies. It doesn't last long, but if you're able to attack opponents in the right way through its duration, you can deal some serious damage--especially during boss fights. In the shop, you can also buy Purple Orbs which increase your Devil Trigger gauge. While getting the gauge all the way to full isn't required after this upgrade to induce Devil Trigger, doing so will give you additional time to duke out fast, powerful attacks.

That kind of power is most definitely needed in a game like Devil May Cry. While a lot of games these days don't have a life system, Devil May Cry does. However, it doesn't just function by sending you back to the start of the mission. Instead, the save system becomes both your best friend and your worst enemy. There is no autosave function in the game, meaning you'll have to manually save the game when you finish a mission. However, doing so will also save the number of Red Orbs and Yellow Orbs that you have. The life counter doesn't reset to a certain number after you die; you are responsible, even after getting a Game Over, to have enough lives to keep yourself from failing. I'll never forget my first time facing the first boss, Phantom, and dying over and over. I decided to save the game and come back to it later, only to realize I had saved with just one life left. Meaning I would have to go through the entire mission and beat Phantom every time he killed me (It's also worth mentioning here that, if you save in a mission, it only ever saves your item and completed mission progress. So if you save in the middle of, say,  Mission 5 and shut off the game, you'll be booted back to the start of the mission when you open it up again).

While this saving element was no stranger to video games at that time, to spoiled gamers in the modern age who haven't touched anything outside of modern mainstream titles, this can often act as a nightmare scenario. At first I wasn't a fan of this system. I thought it was too difficult and too unforgiving, that I would never make it past the more difficult parts of the game because of this system. There was genuine anger at times as a boss would kill me, bringing me one step closer to a game over and having to restart a lengthy level, losing any upgrades I'd made or items I'd gotten in between.

But then I beat Phantom for the first time. I don't know why the boss of Mission 3 had given me so much trouble, but he had. Even so, I had bested him after what must have been an hour and a half of gameplay alongside early grinding to get enough Red Orbs to upgrade Alestor with skills that would help me. Doing so opened my eyes to what this game really was about. Sure, there was the surface-level game of grinding for Red Orbs, getting more powerful, defeating enemies, and making your way to Mundus. But there was another layer to the game, too, one that forced you into uncomfortable corners that you had to strategize your way out of using the save system and your time. Sure, I could turn the difficulty down from Normal to Easy and have a bit of a smoother time. But I'm so glad I didn't, because the rewarding feeling of finally, finally beating Phantom was one I wanted to experience again. It wasn't something I would have gotten had I just given up or made things easier for myself. It was a unique resonance that only games with "broken" systems like Devil May Cry can make its players feel.

There are times in this game where the content can get ridiculously challenging. I'll never forget just how awful it was to face Nightmare, a blob-like bioweapon whose barrage of attacks was enough to send me into a near frenzy in real life. Or a part of the game near the end that becomes a Bullet Hell stage a la the Touhou Project (though head-on instead of top-down). Or the first time I faced these monkey-like opponents with a large amount of health that would grow in size if you didn't kill them fast enough. Even without the save system, this is not an easy game. But that's what makes it such a fun, unique experience, especially for someone who's never had to worry that much about manually saving games. There is real fear and a real learning curve that you have to climb if you ever want to beat it. The "saving grace," I suppose, for people who hear this and are still hesitant, is that the game takes probably 12-15 hours to beat. It's not a long experience, but if you're willing to learn, it is a rewarding one.

Devil May Cry is a great start to a franchise that, even in its early days, was built on the soul of its gameplay. While sometimes a frustrating experience--and while the story itself is not as memorable or in-depth as later entries in the series--Devil May Cry is a worthwhile experience, and one that I feel made me a more skilled, analytical gamer. The game is currently available on the Nintendo Switch as a standalone title, or on Windows, PS4, and Xbox One in the Devil May Cry HD Collection which also contains the third entry in the series. I implore you to try it out, keeping in mind that the game isn't there to challenge you or make you mad because the designers wanted to be unfair. Instead, think of it as a challenge you have to overcome in order to make progress not only in this game by itself, but also when it comes to building up your skills with video games in general. It's an appreciable gaming experience that is more than worth its hardship.

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