An amazing beat 'em up. If you enjoyed DMC you should get this one as well...
But that's a good thing. The story is good but not great, good enough to keep you interested and give you a reason for spankin' lots of people. Combat mechanics are one of a kind: your character has over 100 moves to perform, which vary in damage, time of performance and effect. Some attacks can launch an enemy upwards (thus allowing you to perform a ShohRyu... um... air punch), some can launch the enemy forward (allowing you to concentrate on other enemies) and some can take the foe to the ground right below you, so you can happily stomp him to your heart's content.
You can unleash your God Hand (oh, your character has a ultra-powerful hand on his right, I forgot to mention) and do some serious damage, or you can perform special attacks. You may also choose among those 114 techniques as you get them to customize your player and perform combos as you want them to be. You may block, dodge, flip backwards, taunt, use a variety of weapons, throw big boxes or exploding barrels... you can even spank the female foes you encounter on your way!! You get the point: there's a million ways you can beat an enemy, but this doesn't make the game easy.
Your enemies are smart. They won't always come at you frontally or wait patiently while you beat someone to attack you. They'll attack you all at the same time from different angles and even with special attacks of their own. Some are so fat you won't be able to take down so easily, and some are so tough that beating them won't be enough to stop their own attacks.
So how do you get those techniques? A few bunch of enemies in the game, once dead, will transform into very difficult monsters. Once you beat them, you get a technique. You can also save people from the evil clutches of those martial art demons and get a technique (rarely). Or you can get money and buy them from a shop. And how do you get money? Beat enemies or gamble at the casino. Really. Play BlackJack or Poker or slot machines or bet on Chihuahua Races (again, really). The absurd humor this game exhibits is not the conventional, but rather the japanese sense of humor. I love it, don't know about you...
Music's great too. Good rock 'n roll tunes with the chance to get new ones. Sound FX is cool, punches and kicks sound cool and the special punches sound amazing. Oh, and it's a Dolby ProLogic II game, so 3D sound is guaranteed.
Graphics are great, also. Characters look really big and detailed, and the variety of enemies is enough to keep you entertained. Also, every two stages or so, you'll face a mini-boss or a boss, so repetition with many normal levels don't happen here. Even so, the chance to completely change the way your character attack is a very welcome invention because once you get tired of the punch-punch-kick-slide-launch sequence, you can change it entirely.
I of little faith started this game with doubts, but it really grew on me from the very first level. Ok, so the main character is a cheap Dante, but you'll soon overlook this (since NO ONE can be as egomaniac as Dante...) and start to find some mild differences between them.
But trust me, this is one game you'll enjoy playing.