Yeah, you should AT LEAST play through DMC 1 and 3. 2 is the weakest link in the series.

Actually, if you want to do something really interesting... you can play them all in chronological order. 3, 1, 4, 2.

Okay, so I've been playing the hell out of 4. Beat it not too long ago... so that means I'm working towards my Must Die file.

Anyway, here's my thoughts of the game:

4 seems to defintately be the longest game of the series so far. There's 20 missions... half are Nero's while the other half, you play as Dante. Because of this there is not DANTE must die or NERO must die... but just one playthrough with both characters. So I won't have to play must die twice like the last two titles (DMC3 once as Dante the other as Vergil. DMC2 once as Dante the other as Lucia).

The game is uber fun to play... just like 3, if not more. Remember how you buy your moves with your red orbs? They did away with that. Based on how well you finish the level, you'll get X ammount of "pride souls" of which you use for buying moves. But the interesting thing is you can refund all the proud souls from a move to learn other things. So you really get to customize your character how you like. The kicker here is that every time you buy a move, the price for every other move you don't have goes up. Every time you refund a move, the price of every other move you don't have goes down. The proud souls carry over to Dante as well. So if you had 10000 proud souls total, and spent 9000 of them on Nero... Dante will still have all 10000 to use freely.

Playing as Nero was actually quite awesome. I had no problem accepting him into the DMC world. Though he does have the smartass mouth of Dante, he still has quite a different personality. And with him, he introduces a whole new set of moves to play with. Yes, he may have quite a few of Dante's moves like Helm Breaker, Stinger, and Hightime... but the new stuff he brings makes it worth while.

Playing as Dante is a whole new experience. Like expected, you can change your sytles on the fly. And this does, in fact, lead to countless possibilites in battle. The only downside to Dante is that he only gets 3 different weapons from what he starts out with... and only 1 new gun. And you even get one less new style than you did in DMC3. But I think that's more than a fair trade for being able to change styles instantaniously.

The storyline is great. It really fills in a few gaps that left you wondering from the past titles. And you can see that it fits right between DMC 1 and 2. Though 2 does bring up a few questions, its self... like:

[spoiler]Seeing as Vergil doesn't appear at all in 4, is he honestly dead?

How did Agnus get his hands on Vergils sword?

How did Vergil's Sword break?

Does Nero have any relation to Dante/Vergil at all outside of sharing demon's blood?[/spoiler]

As far as difficulty goes. I played through the "human" mode without dying. "Devil Hunter" mode caused me a death on Nero's end before switching to Dante. I haven't yet played though "son of sparda" mode yet, but I assume the anti is going up significantly as "sos" mode is equivalent to hard mode.

Oh, and here's an unexpected treat. All of your friends on your PS3's friends list who have DMC4, their stats will flash on the title screen, showing accomplishments they've gotten in the game. And your's will show up on theirs. These accomplishments are kind of like the trophies from Star Ocean 3. They add another bit of fun to the game... though some are going to be rediculously impossible to get... like the one you get for getting an S rank on every level in must die mode. Screw that...

Anyway... wonderful game. I'll be putting many more hours into it as well.

I still don't have it. I GOTTA pick it up.

Well, I've finally done it. The game save says it took me 84 hours, 38 minutes, and 39 seconds, but I've finally completed every difficulty of the game.

Alas, though... Capcom had thrown a wrench in my gears. A returning difficulty from DMC3 called Heaven or Hell mode was included. Meaning that both you and your enemies will die in one hit. After I beat that, I played through the Must Die difficulty.

Here's where it snowballs. After beating Must Die, it told me I unlocked "Hell and Hell" mode. DO WHAT?!

Hell and Hell mode is a mode where you die in one hit... but the enemies do not. The game's difficulty is set on hard... but you die in one hit... every time.

Through the past few weeks though, I have actually managed to surpass this mode. So once again, I can say I have beaten every Devil May Cry title with every character on every difficulty.

Here's a pic I took with my phone of all difficulties... all completed:



Here's my final score from innitially playing:



I may go back and try to S rank as many as possible later... but I think I'll take a break from DMC for a while. Hell and Hell mode REALLY took it out of me. It was just insane.

Anyway, I totally got my money's worth out of it. I took me more time mastering this file of DMC4 than it takes me to master a file in Final Fantasy VII. This was an awesome, awesome game.

Good job, Lantis. Must have been one helluva ride.

Jesus... Hell and Hell isn't a fair mode at all. Here I am getting stomped at Son of Sparda mode. I must be really rusty. Lantis, please tell me there are at least a couple of costumes or something. There better be a Super Nero and Dante costumes.

Actually, there aren't any costumes at all. But you do get Super characters once you beat Must Die. It helps make the Bloody Palace and Hell and Hell mode a bit easier. Though you will get a penalty every level for using them.

That's... really impressive.

Very congrats, man.