Hard to find what's bad about it.
Game-play: 9.5
Sound: 8.0
Graphics: 10
Replay: 8.0
Overall: 9.5*
Synopsis:
You enter the game as Nero, a young man who serves under the 'order'; a cult like religion who worships Sparda. He fights through a parade of Marionettes to reach the operatic scene of his close female friend. After attending her most amazing performance Dante appears by cutting through cards via the roof top and shooting the 'master' priest. It gets better as Nero defends the church as the Order sends for reinforcements. Here begins a very hands on Tutorial for the basic controls.
Your job starts by trying to track and capture Dante. The story becomes much more cross and complicated as you discover the underworld of the 'Order' which becomes a altered science project and you then become the target when they find out you have a demon enchanted arm. The game unfolds quickly, well, quick enough, and the videos happen often, sometimes too often, but it can't be too often as this game has the best FMV's yet.
Game-Play:
As Nero, who you play with 80% of the game you learn many abilities that concern [like every other DMC] his weaponry and demonology. This includes a Blade known as the Red Queen which has a motorcycle grip. A single revolver named the Blue Rose which only has charged shots as an upgrade. And finally, his demon arm which can grab enemies from across the screen.
It sounds simple, since it cuts the rich fat of the four styles and gun assortments of Dante, but the arm becomes a very intriguing device which will have you itching for a fight to try new techniques, combos, and throws. The biggest event for me was facing bosses at the end of the game and performing Yamato induced grabs. Which goes to a cut scene every time and shows you laying down serious Armageddon action upon your foe.
You play as Dante and all your points are relayed and spent on the styles you choose and let me tell you the truth. When you switch to Dante you will probably be upset because Nero is a very attractive character to use in game play and it seems just too soon to cut you off from Nero since you probably just are beginning to learn his new techniques. However after a while, Dante makes back tracking a breeze.
Finally, the fighting is just tough enough to make you let out some unsightly curses and maybe toss the controller, but after maybe two or three trial and error you will wonder why you had so much trouble before. Again, even though you are hacking and slashing through waves of enemies, it never gets boring, especially with Nero since you can throw enemies into others, and even force them to launch their own flaming skulls at one another. The game play is superb to any other action hack and slashing game and is complimented by the cut scenes which only unfold your fighting technique ten fold.
Sound:
The voice acting is superb and makes the cut scenes that much better. Nero has short quips such as 'Slam Dunk' and 'Not a Chance' that he yells and it becomes a bit over done, but it still entertaining. What really makes you gain respect for the Metro dressed Nero is when he punishes his enemies with brutal words before he smashes in their skulls.
The music is sub par and stopped me from throwing a 9 or a 10 up on its roster. Every time you enter battle you hear a horrible riff that sounds like its being played three doors down. The sound effects are great however as everything makes a sound and the feral enemies don't make all the noise that other games present to make them annoying.
Graphics:
Superb, barely touched. When you begin playing telling the difference between game play and cut scenes is actually difficult. The only thing that troubled me was that once you got to maybe level 11 or so there are no more gorgeous scenes you go through until the end. You merely back track through enormous levels that have every color in use.
The graphics segment here represents mainly to the outrageous cut scenes showing Nero and Dante blasting enemies apart and sometimes each other. Dante, like usual, in his cut scenes is non chalante and a complete post-Madonna about everything. From shooting enemies in the head without looking, kicking seeds into a snake woman's face while she's trying to talk, and blasting apart a concrete Hell Portal in the shape of a heart.
Replay:
The game can be played over and over as there're two more game modes of difficulty to complete and a 'survival' mode. However the survival mode gets boring fast and you usually just let them kill you by round 20. You will play the game over and over though, because when you replay on the same profile, you keep all your previous moves and can keep developing them until you're complete.
Other than that, you will probably set up the game on it's DVD like interface and 'Play All' to watch a 20-30 minute video of all the cut scenes streamed into a short movie.
Conclusion:
This is one of the best games out right now on the 360. It is quick moving and the game play has a standard learning curve of about 1 hour. The motivation exists in wanting to learn new moves, find out the story, and watch the cut scenes. Unlike the other DMC's, the game is well balanced and isn't hard to the point you give up and play something else and forget about DMC4. You will keep playing, possibly skip dinner, to just get to the part where you fight Dante.
*I rated it a 9.5, rather than averaging it all out, because this game although defeated by it's horrible line up of songs and repeated drills of guitar is made up for by it's compliments of graphics, cut scenes, and out standing voice acting.