good game
The story doesn't offer up a whole lot of surprises, but it embraces a certain attitude of self-indulgence. Cutscenes are overwrought, visually stunning affairs, and are among the best you are likely to have seen in any game in recent years. The theatrical dialogue, impossibly athletic animations, and swooping camera work make for quite the spectacle, but somehow, it's a spectacle that manages to stay on just the right side of cheesy. Devil May Cry 4 takes itself seriously, but not too seriously, so for every shocking, bloody cutaway, there's an equally funny quip that helps keep the narrative in check. There are a couple of cringeworthy exceptions, such as one scene where Dante decides he's a tango dancer (don't quit your day job!), but overall, you're apt to find the scenes to be gorgeous, thought-provoking, and emotionally stirring.
Nero's claim to fame is his demonic arm, better known as the devil bringer. With it, you can grab onto distant enemies and pull them in, pick them up, and slam them around for some excellent combos, plus deliver a few other surprises. These mechanics are easy to pull off, and they represent a general shift from the defensive gameplay of Devil May Cry 3 to a more aggressive approach. As you play, you can pull off some incredibly satisfying moves, both in the air and on the ground--the most violent of which are accompanied by slick, bloody animations and appropriately gory-sounding thwacks and slashes. Timing these various moves can be tricky, but like in the previous games, eventually the subtleties of your combos click, and in time you'll be pulling enemies toward you, slashing them into bite-size pieces, and smashing them into one another with glee.
The devil-bringer moves go a long way, which is probably a good thing, since Nero has neither as varied an arsenal as Dante nor access to multiple fighting styles. However, he does have his standard sword, red queen, and a revolver known as blue rose, and later on he earns another weapon that franchise fans will enjoy seeing in action. As you progress, you will earn proud souls based on your performance in any given mission, and with them, you can purchase new combos and upgrade existing ones. And you'll need them, too, since you'll need to handle droves of demons that get progressively tougher--and they're awesome to look at, to boot. You can choose these new moves individually, or you can let the game auto-select them for you based on how varied you want your array of attacks to be. It's worth noting that you can't really make a mistake here; if you don't like the move, or if there is a more powerful upgrade available to you, you can unlearn what you have purchased for a full refund and use the souls for something else.