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I should have been the one... to fill YoUr dARK S0UL WITH LIIIeeeII11GGhhhttTT77T!!!1!
Devil May Cry is a horror action puzzler game released in 2001 following the adventures of Dante as he hunts down Mundus, the dark lord.
So let's go back, replay this now 20 year old game and ask the question, was it actually, any good?
Thank you to the Patreons supporters and Twitch subs who keep the channel alive and fill my dark soul with light.
I love the idea of making a horror game but making the main character such a badass it becomes an action game
Literally bloodborne
@@kinggingernator2964 As much as I love bloodborne (I mean it's literally everyone's favorite game ever made apparently), the hunter...doesn't really have a personality. I mean, he wasn't meant to, fromsoft's avatars are undead nobodies that's kind of the point so it's not a bad thing, but y'know, the hunter's just..there lol.
@@kinggingernator2964 I feel many things when I play Fromsoft games badass is not one of them
Elden Ring made me feel pretty badass. But I suppose it wasn't until Bloodbourne and Elden Ring that I felt that in a Fromsoft game
Literally RE:4
Dante is the embodiment of "I'm not trapped in here with you, you're trapped in here with me"
Will you do dmc3 as well? ✨
Based
lol, you have obviously never played Doom.
‘’Yeah. And we’re gonna have a hell of a time.’’
@@Gfors85when tf did he say doom wasn't too?
This franchise never fails to fill my dark soul with liIGht
Except for when Team Ninja made one, that one is good, but it should havw been so.ething else entirely.
@@caiusmadison2996 It was okay fairly bad absolutely terrible devil may cry game though at least it's not a devil may cry game now as we got the proper devil may cry 5.
Cringe
@@PassageOfChrist correct👍🏼
truly, the dark souls of devil may cry
"The gloves are fine, but you'll be using Alastor for most of the game" This man does not understand the beauty of holding an attack for 5 seconds and then obliterating something in one hit.
This man just sucks at combat. How do you not go nuts with the shotgun nunchucks.
Killing griffon in like 3 or 4 hits on DMD mode with Ifrit Fireball attack because of the giant gaping hole in his chest
Nor does he understand the beauty of dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick dive kick
As a person who is currently on mission 22, I can tell you that I love the Devil Trigger Kick13 flurry. In fact, I just bought every upgrade for Ifrit lol
I just realized that I’m at the end of the game, so I just spent about 30 minutes farming red orbs so that I can get every upgrade but health and devil trigger I also noticed that on the information file for Mundus, it spelled moment as “moement” and now I wish there was a chibi version of this mission 🥰
Ah yes, Dante being stabbed by his own sword in every iteration is as iconic as it is hilarious as he powers up afterwards !
Is it really a Devil May Cry game if Dante doesn't take his own sword through the chest?
And finally in DMC5, Dante is just all "Screw it, I'll just stab myself!"
In 6 he's gonna be like "damnit not again"
Even in the anime XD
Well, THIS is why it's iconic in the first place. That scene was absolutely epic. I remember when I first played the game, back when it came out on PS2. I really thought I screwed up and that was a game over. The inscriptions suggest that no human can touch the sword and survive, therefore you are purposedly induced to think it is some sort of puzzle and you failed because you missed something. And then Dante does this utlimate badass stuff and it's hype as heck. Imagine passing from "oh, damn, I screwed up, it's back to the checkpoint" to "WTF? That's SO BADASS!". The no-sell on the sword stab is absolutely epic.
God, the way his voice cracks when he says light really cements that scene, doesn't it?
Maybe he was trying to shed some light on the fabulous voice acting?
Honestly, I like it. It sells the emotional turmoil he's feeling, at least to me.
@@LumiRockets I don't know if Kamiya says it elsewhere but in an multi-hour interview with CarcinogenSDA, Kamiya stated this was exactly why he chose that take.
Dante's voice trembled as he expressed his urge to fill Trish's "dark soul" with his raging "light"
Well, as a meme it already lost its charm a good decade ago.
I can imagine an office party at Capcom where the guy who write the lines "fill your dark soul with lightttttt" (DMC) and the guy who write the lines "what I m fighting fooorrrrrr" (megamanx5) congratulate each other like hey man awesome writing thanks man you to. They both have the same level of awfulness and cheese in an otherwise really cool story xD
It was actually mega man X4 lol
Oh my gosh. This is exactly what I was thinking 😂
I'd go to school and ask my friends if they played "this new game" and we'd spend most of the afternoon mocking the dialogue or talking to people in the same way, just to see the looks on their faces. I will never understand how some of these 90's scripts were green lit for release.
@@nameless646 most dubs from back them were given little time, little directing, and no context for the the scene.
I don't understand the criticism of the dialogue in X4. His friend is dead, so now he doesn't know what he's fighting for anymore (he was fighting to protect the friend who is dead now). It seems to make sense to me?
It's bad that I actually teared up and giggled when I saw the cut scene .. so touching
Yeah I thought that's heartbreaking too, his messed up voice makes me feel extreme sadness. In that moment he's not badass tough guy, he's like a boy who just lost his mother.
@@13ashmaker25 well, seeing as Trish was intentionally modeled after his mother by Mundus...
It made me laugh
So, Dante was the one to fill your dark soul with LIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT!
DMC1: Dante keeps getting stabbed by his own sword. DMCV: Dante stabs himself when no one else does.
And create the sword with his own DAMN NAME off of a broken Rebellion.....It came full circle.
It ain't a proper Devil May Cry until Dante (then later Nero) get stabbed.
"fine... I'll do it myself"
It's like persona 3, instead of shooting yourself to activate your own persona power you have to stab yourself to activate your demon power.
"Fine, I'll do it myself."
"Up until we buy Air Raid and break the entire game." Yes.
lol I had this game back in the day and no I didnt do this to break the game hahaha. Honestly I prefered the Fire fists the most
@@carnorjax007 ifrit is a must for the harder difficulties and air raid can’t be relied on half as much past normal.
@@johngear1415 Not only is air raid Very energy inefficient on harder skill levels it's nearly useless and will certainly get you killed trying to abuse it so no. Air raid doesn't break the game
Air Raid was never overpowered, very good against lesser demons though, but when you aquire Ifrit you know what you'll use next.
Your acting as if any of the weapons were useful aswell as air raid. Ifrit and rebellion anything other than that good luck
This might have been mentioned in other comments, but in reference to the "hitting fireballs back at the skeleton dragon" not being used elsewhere, you can actually do this to the same blasts that Phantom uses on you for significant damage
i thought you had to hit it before it fired them to explode in his mouth
@@AzurezeroArt You can do that too! Also, you can knock back a similar orb attack during the second phase of the Mundus battle. It's risky, but if you DT it becomes a lot easier and deals a ton of damage.
I swear to god that stupid section had me left stuck there for 10s of minutes like an idiot, wondering what to do before I watched a walkthrough and realized what to do. I really didn't appreciate that part.
@@ARStudios2000 There is literally a plaque on the wall right there in the game that tells you what to do.
@@JJAB91 seriously? I looked around but never saw that
24:18 Air Raid will carry you through Normal or Easy pretty reliably, but one of my favorite things about DMC1 is that it rewards mastery. Even on those difficulties, Air Raid is seldom the most effective option. However, on Hard or Dante Must Die! it becomes obsolete faster than a last-gen apple product. Granted, for some instances that just means it gets replaced with fully-charged Meteors (lookin' at you, Griffon), but most of the time you're rewarded by learning enemy's tells and weaknesses by discovering more effective methods of fighting them. The more effective you are, the higher your mission rating, the more orbs you get and the more powerful you become. Speaking of learning the enemies (and because I don't wanna make a separate comment), Team Little Devils were clearly cognizant of the camera's issues, because every single enemy attack in the game has both a visual and audio tell before it goes off. So even if the enemy is completely off-camera, if you know their tells and the attacks well enough you can dodge as if you saw them in broad daylight. And while studying each enemy and their plethora of moves might seem daunting, once again DMC1 will reward you. The Enemy Files in the game menu aren't just flavor text - whenever you discover a new attack or behavior it will unlock an entry in that enemy's file that will tell you how it works and even give you information on what you can do about it. Shadows are probably one of the best examples of this. The first time you jump on a Shadow's head-spike attack will probably be an accident and you likely won't have any idea what you've done or how it helps. But the critter's file describes how standing on that spike effectively freezes the beastie in place for a time, leaving it open to attack. What's more, while Shadows normally can't be killed with gunfire, if you pump enough lead into the cat while it's in this frozen state you can kill it directly!
Exactly. When you play on dante must die mode air raid is crap. You have to use the sword and guns and dodges
True, I remember playing dmd and i had to start play smart, had to change my gameplay and make sure to learn tells. Still...i really hated dmd. Nelo angelo part 2 was the most frustrating fight i did so far, second only to griffon.
Death scissors: knock their scissors aside with your sword then move in close and to the side so you can headshot with your gun instakilling them. Assaults: hit them with stinger from behind to knock them on their face then helm splitter for an instakill Nobody's: pretty sure these can be stun locked with stinger Nightmare: interesting as his orbs get damage resistant as you damage them which is visualised by the orbs colour. This carries between fights and can be reset by being caught by the puddle and beating the subspace boss. I found ifrit to be good against him. Nelo Angelo 3: pretty sure there is an ai manip which can trivialise him but I can't remember what it is. I also remember kick13 being great here. Air raid is versatile but almost always outclassed by a more specialised strategy.
@@Crocojames Cool thing about Nightmare's orbs: Different attacks degrade them at different rates - it's not a function of how much HP damage is dealt! For instance, Air Raid and Inferno will degrade them by a lot, but Meteor2 does almost nothing even though it inflicts huge damage! Charged up attacks from Ifrit's basic combo are similar. For firearms, pistols and shotgun are probably the worst options, the grenade launcher is decent and the Nightmare Beta does no damage at all.
@@Crocojames For some reason, I remember watching a speedrun for DMC1 probably over 10 years ago now, you can stunlock Nelo Angelo for a very long time by doing the first two hits of the Alastor combo, then spinning your left analog stick in a circle once or twice. This resets your attack chain and lets you do the first two hits again, and you can do this for alot longer than Nelo normally lets you hit him.
As good as the new devil may cry games are from a gameplay standpoint, I still do wish they had kept some of the atmosphere of the first game with the Gothic scenery and ambient music is just amazing
I feel like the change in atmosphere was inevitable in a series that focused on mechanical improvement rather than thriving on a visual identity. I do agree though that DMC1's aesthetic was unique and still is
@@mercury2157 Yeah, I also wish it had kept the atmosphere but I do agree with this. If Capcom ever remakes this game though, I hope to god that they don't just slap on the current mechanics like most people want for some reason. I want it to feel similar in gameplay but with the atmosphere and exploration turned up to the max. DMC 1 is very much its own thing and it will lose something if it becomes a more Itsuno type of game.
I feel that atmosphere, while changed, isn't completely gone, at least for 3 and 5. 3's set entirely inside a massive tower to hell, and 5 is a trek through a completely annihilated city. The horror ambiance is still there between fights, though it has dropped the gothic architecture.
@@ShockedLogic I think they wanted to avoid becoming like Castlevania in which every game is in a different iteration of the same location.
@@ShockedLogic which highlights something Ive noticed and don't get... Why are the odd numbered games the good ones? No even numbered game is that good.
You're one of the few if only instance where a KZheadr has made a 2nd channel and I actually like the content just as much if not more than the OG. Loved video so far!
While what you said isn't really true, i still love that he decided to make a channel that separates itself from MMO stuff. His content is definitely top notch!
there is a main channel?^^
Indeed his opinion "isn't really true" :'D
@@Eckendenker yes, "it's called Josh strife hayes"
I started watching this channel and only just noticed it was a 2nd channel when you pointed it out, level of quality is exactly the same as I'd expect from a standard JSH video.
My favorite part of this game is when they were recording the lines for that infamous voice crack. They decided not to redo it because it was the funniest thing they've ever heard. This year one of the best moments of gaming was this summer when i began my journey from DMC - DMC 5. I'm glad the original DMC was my first game. Glad to have found the true meaning of life in DMC 3 and to find the true meaning of modivation by DMC 5
Nightmare-Beta was a mystery to me and mostly everyone at the time the game was released. It's for Phantom. Any laser that gets thru one of the holes in his armor has a chance to bounce back thru him off of the inside of his armor plates, getting you double/triple damage from whatever beams bounce around inside him. Its decent for Mundus too. Charge it up fully with DT on and watch the lightshow.
I finished my first playthrough yesterday and yeah,Mundus is easily beaten if you spam Nightmare-beta and use the spheres to replenish the Devil Trigger. Didn't even have to parkour,i just rolled to dodge the lasers and the magma dragon
one of my favorite things about this game is the sound design, the gun shots and sword swings are so damn powerful, hearing this game is an experience on its own
The mundus fight the scene before it used to make me Cry so much when i was younger 🤣
@@NohabloEngno it didn’t bro, the original commenter is a bigger fan than you
24:24 Something neat I wanted to add about the final encounter with Phantom If you get him to jump onto the glass ceiling enough times, he'll fall through it and end the fight earlier than if you were to try to beat him normally.
It’s honestly interesting to have another way to win the fight and it’s helpful in DMD if you don’t want to spam air raid or if you’re out of Devil trigger.
nah DT helm breaker on his lower back is faster in most cases
Huh, that a fact now?
Another thing Josh forgot/didn't encounter is that the Nightmare boss can actually send you into a nightmare. It has a grab attack that sends you into a weird unfocused arena where you fight a weaker shadow version of one of the other bosses. When you defeat the shadow boss, you return to reality and automatically destroy the cocoon Nightmare build around you. This deals heavy damage to Nightmare.
“Like yeah he wants to kill you but he’s going to be gentlemanly about it” god this video is gold
The fact that such an awesome game was a by-product of the development hell of another classic (RE 4) will always give it extra points in my books. Nowdays they would probably scrap the build or disband the dev team and re assign them somewhere else. Also, the fact this game and Devil May Cry 3 were released on the same console is just insane. There was such an improvement in speed and graphical quality. Talk about optimization! I just feel bad I could beat those games in higher difficulties as a kid but nowdays I wouldn't be able to land a 5 hit combo 😂
Putting in a good word for Dark Cloud. A criminally underrated game.
Dark Cloud=Dark Chonicles 2? The fact that they changed the name for a certain region is confusing to me.
Dark cloud 2 is one of my fav games of all time
@@sindri1447 Other way around. Dark Chronicle is what Dark Cloud 2 is known as here in PAL regions.
Facts. This was one of my most beloved games as a kid. I recently just played it again as an adult and it still holds that same charm.
Missing the item to go to hidden dungeons in na sucked it was the feather for the painting I think but I loved dark cloud
This makes me appreciate DMC3 even more. Because DMC3 is all of DMC's ideas but realized.
100 percent agree
It almost makes you appreciate dmc2 as it was so terrible it made him come back for DMC3
1 and 2 feel like a different franchise to 3+ (not necessarily bad considering how much 2 sucks, but i miss how 1 was way less goofy)
I dunno man, DMC3 is what DMC could be, but the enemy doesn't match what you could do DMC4 balanced this well, but that made them awful campaign DMC5 increase what DMC4 could be, but the enemy roster is so baddddd compare to 4 anyway
@@somechinesedude5466 Uh, the enemy roster in 5 is worse than 4? No. 4 had the worst enemy roster in the franchise to the point of it shattering an otherwise good game into pieces. There's so much fake difficulty nonsense like the enemies that prevent you from combo'ing because they randomly spawn blades that swing around when you combo them, the insane amount of enemies with no stagger, the Blitz, etc. The only bad DMC5 enemies (granted they are terrible) are the Hell Juddecas for nigh-infinite super armor, along with them just teleporting away constantly and thus destroy the flow of combat; Furies for similar reasons to the Hell Juddecas, Riots for being able to leap from off-screen and almost one shot your entire HP on DMD in a single attack, Lusachia for being a gimmick time waster, and the bats (either variant) for the same reasons as the former. Meanwhile there is no a single enemy in 4 that isn't complete cancer in some way and cheap. DMC4 with Nero is tolerable/ok. DMC4 with any character that isn't Nero is the worst DMC next to 2. And yes, I know what high level Dante players can do. But there is no reason to get that good on a bad game. And must of the high skill stuff is realistically useless and just for show. Doesn't do good damage or even increase the stylish meter.
Hearing the name Alastor brought back a lot of memories. Stupidly enough, they’re memories of playing as Dante in Viewtiful Joe
2 things you may have missed: 1. The Skeleton fireballs being able to hit back IS usable in other parts of the game, namely the Phantom boss. I personally think this is a cool reveal because it makes you realize "oh this is a thing?" And then you experiment elsewhere. The game being so short encourages additional playthroughs; especially new game + 2. The Phantom fight when he falls through the glass onto the spire can actually be done quicker by intentionally causing him to jump and land on the glass multiple times, causing it to crack - effectively skipping his traditional fight by using big brains. Great video, love your passion and it's very fun listening to.
he was so focus on air raid that he never really mention how useful ifrit was in the game. it's a great weapon against nightmare and the frost demons. there are a few others but I also like alabaster more than ifrit.
I honest to God had no idea about that stuff with Phantom. I was stuck on that stupid bone dino thing for 10s of minutes before giving up and cracking open a walkthrough to figure out what was I doing wrong All I'll say is, I didn't appreciate the bone fireballs one bit.
The mechanic to reflect fireballs back to the skeleton dragon was also usable for the fireballs Phantom shoots at you.
It's good for a lot of attacks but mostly projectiles. It's one of those mechanics that's persisted throughout the whole series.
Also Mundus's fireballs. I love secrets like that in combat.
@@nimonabeturbulon9390 Indeed, it's always great to subtly build up combat mechanics with each fight, that observant players can adapt early or try out on second playthroughs. And then we had Mundus, which used none of them.
Which is why a very fast way of killing Phantom is to just go into deviltrigger and spam the meleecombo in it's face. The Fireball deals a lot of damage to it.
Also if you parry the sin scissors you open them up for a one shot.
Honestly I'm just glad that Itsuno decided I'm not gonna be known as the DMC2 guy and managed to convince the bigwigs at Capcom to let him make DMC3. As for 1, yeah it didn't age the best but it's still a pretty fun little game overall and you can see exactly how much of it was going to be a Resident Evil game and just how much of it laid the groundwork for the future games in the series.
Can we stop saying "it didnt age well". Its such a useless statement. What you are saying is that "by my standards right now in time its different therefore iT dIdNt aGe wElL". Its such a useless criticism. Old games are that, old and should be looked at in perspective, not with your critical modern eye, NoT hD sO bADDDDDDDDDDD
@@jonathansoko1085 You seem very upset for no reason my dude. And yes, by modern standards DMC1 is a very clunky game, it came out in 2001. Howerver you know what else came out in 2001? Max Payne, MGS2, Silent Hill 2 and a lot of other games that aged far better by having smoother movement, better camera control and far better platforming. Now none of those deliver the experience of DMC1 and they were never meant to but DMC1 really isn't as good at everything it sets out to do as some games that did those things better. That's what I meant by "it didn't age well". It just had some design choices that were meant for a completely different game and held it back from being the best it could be.
@@Dovakhiin01 OH im not upset, i do enjoy pointing out the flaws in how people think.
@@jonathansoko1085 i’m sure everyone loves having you around for it too. Like he said above, things DO age well, therefore pointing out if something did NOT age well, conveys an idea of something being outpaced and improved upon greatly far faster and more efficiently than going out of your way to state the singular points of things decaying. You’d probably have caught that and deleted the stupid butthurt comment if you didn’t have such flawed thinking.
@@jonathansoko1085 so you are just upset ok lol.
This is the game that made me ask for a PS2 for Christmas. I remember playing it so much at the display in BestBuy.
I played this game a few years ago and I had so much fun! I loved everything about it - the music, the combat, the scenarios, the aesthetic... and using a gun and a sword
"The sky is fair, its always above everyones head." This piece of kitchen philosophy has always stayed with me, somehow, and I never forgot it. Devil May Cry 1 was a real cool and innovative game for its time and paved the way for many more style-combat-games, maybe even directly inspiring gods of war? A fun little tidbit about the flight sequence at the end: during the games release some magazines where praising this throwaway scene, because, even though it was just a fun little intermission, it looked better as one dedicated 3rd-person flight shooter that released the same month. Thats some kind of roast you dont wish on your enemy! But of course I dont remember which game this might have been.
I love that line, it's cheesy but it's wonderful.
The line maybe carry more meaning in its original Japanese culture, blame it to the dub like all dubbed movie.
@@lee98210 Can’t blame the dub this time, since it is the only one available in every version of the game. The only difference in the Japanese version is that cutscenes have Japanese subtitles.
WTF! I always say this shit lolol Had no idea anyone else did.
@@lee98210 devil may cry was always meant to be in english first, it's just a cheesy line
When it comes to Dante just knowing where to go, such as the cathedral, I just assumed he was doing whatever the hell he wants. Just seems to fit his character during dmc1.
The atmosphere in this game is amazing. I remember my brother playing this on his new flat screen CRT. I remember it being one of the coolest looking things ive ever seen and 20+ years later it still looks cool .
This is definetly the best game related channel I've come across in ages!! Thank you for your great work and keep it up.
Dmc is one of my favorite franchises in gaming! oh and btw, patrolling the Mojave almost makes you wish for Josh Strife Hayes to make a was it good -Fallout New Vegas video.
I recently replayed it, of course I modded it but it still holds up in my opinion. Obsidian did a great job with the story of new Vegas.
Definitely still holds up, dead money and lonesome road are the best dlc in any fallout game
@@Alex-bi9mk joshua graham is the best character hands down
Ever notice how the best Bethesda games are the ones they didn't make? ^^
@@Nerobyrne to be fair, Obsidians best games are when they aren't making their own IP haha
Will you fill our dark soul with light, Josh?
nono, you have to pronounce it right. "LAAAAIIIIaiiiiAIIIIIGHT!"
Im really digging your retrospectives of older ps1/2 games man!! This is the third "was it good" that ive watched and now ive subbed
I really love the thought and effort you put into your videos! Also you saying that dmc is hard made me feel a bit more proud about beating this game all by myself :D
One thing in love about Dante is his sense of humor and cheesiness, and how it contrasts the setting, plot, and enemies he is fighting. I feel like he is confident enough and has been through enough that he can laugh and joke in the face of danger.
I don't think I've ever heard a more amazing description of Mundus' final form, "made of hands eyeballs and cheese" that made my day thank you for that.
I remember devil may cry 1 and 2 arcade cabinets. I’m not kidding, they were a blast and it really seemed like the future of gaming. If only they never stopped releasing games as arcade machines and putting them everywhere
You are so articulate and have such a good flow to your speaking. I really enjoy your videos.
Ah, I remember the era of the PS2's beginnings, the glorious transition of going from the PS1 to these graphics. The feeling of advancement and excitement for what to expect from gaming as time progressed. While graphics themselves definitely have improved, gaming sure as hell lost something to. Well, a few things. Looking back, just grateful to have experienced it, bittersweet as it is to think I used to joke with people about having to pay to unlock characters, outfits and such not thinking it would become todays reality. Not to mention the oddity of half complete or broken games being sold at full price, never thought it would be the norm. Smh. Anyway, why is the video so dark though? Great retro review as usual regardless. But God, the CRINGE of that ending scene with Trish, lmao!
I know exactly what you mean. And it isn't a generational thing of "back in my day!", things were substantially better back then. There was just enough money in the industry to push the tech, but not so much as to stifle wild and creative titles being made. Take MDK as an example, such a bizzare, fever dream of a game that would never be made today simply because its so weird and wouldn't fit into any of the cookie-cutter trends that dictate the market.
It’s so cringe it’s legendary. I absolutely love it.
I was most impressed by characters having mouths that moved
@@jamesvivian2855 Same, it was the small things that were big deals like that. To me especially if a game had characters with fingers that moved and not "glove hands".
@@mrcorrosion1831 MDK was crazy in 17 ways, only 12 of which I ever was able to identify... 🤣
Dante Skywalker: I love the sky, it's blue and always there.
I was mesmerized as a kid with this game, the graphics were top notch back in the day. Still are good today.
Dude. I love your series. I watch you talk about games I never even played. Like this one
When it came out there was nothing like it. The style the atmosphere, the music, the combat. This game was and is something special. I thought part 2 was too difficult but loved it non the less. I wish they would bring back Onimusha.
....Too difficult? I went though the whole series before DMC 5 dropped and multiple bosses I beat in that game by standing in the same place and mashing the shoot function.
They remastered onimusha. Unless you meant make more
@@Nexxus088ofc you play on normal/easy lmao noob
@@ConnardYulie I couldn't tell you. Its been years...I tend to turn up difficulty settings at least once up in games. Idk if I did on DMC 2 though....I do know that I found multiple broken bosses though where I could just stand in one spot and do nothing but shoot and maybe an occasional Jump or move a few feet to the side before standing still and resuming shooting again until I killed them off. I played the original ps2 one a bit to see how...not good the game was, but didn't get far. Finished the steam HD collection one
It'd be interesting to know if Josh ever played anh of the monster hunter games
Yeah I would love to see him play the first one with the shitty controls
Keeping that heart is holding your typo hostage. I would like to say that it is now my dream to hear Josh yell ''ANH!" in the same way that dude from Star Trek yelled ''KHAN!''
@@Koijn2K oh god yes, its a great game but i can see him blasting that control setup
Or any of the .hack series. Good luck finding them at a reasonable price point, especially the fourth one.
@@joelbaker9366 ooh never heard of it!
These are my favorite kind of reviews thank you!
What a great video! Your content is crafted with so much thought and quality. I'll be looking forward to more, especially Devil May Cry 3. A suggestion of a really classic ps2 game that I played when I was younger: Soldier of Fortune.
No mention of the enemy files? Enemies in this game all have certain weaknesses, and exploiting said weaknesses can destroy them instantly. Like breaking the scissor's enemy scissors with the shotgun, or standing on top of Shadows' spear attack to instantly expose their cores. This is something very different from the rest of the games in the series. 8:55 that save state though.
The scissors enemy gets 1 shot from breaking its face with the shotgun
The scissors enemy gets 1 shot from breaking its face with the shotgun
@@onnol917 oh, was it that you clash sword with the scissors until they break and then you shotgun their face for an instakill? Maybe I got them confused with the ones in DMC V.
@@AndresLionheart yeah exactly that, knock the scissors off balance and follow up with a point black shotgun blast
@@onnol917 Could be Handguns as well, not necessarily shotgun, Dante puts the gun to it's head with special stance
I've been looking forward to this since I saw the results of the poll last week and you didn't disappoint. Devil May Cry 1 is my favourite game in the series because of the atmosphere, none of the other games in the series leaned into the gothic horror quite as much as this one does and I love it for that reason. For the skeleton dragon: Devil May Cry was made to be a replayable game. From encounters getting harder to extra unlockables, the game nudges you into playing through it multiple times. The dragon enemy is supposed to teach you that you can also deflect some other projectiles, namely Phantom's fireballs, in the next playthrough. Most games wouldn't have tutorials at the end but you never really stop learning with dmc :p Love your content man, looking forward to the.... other... Devil May Cry game
The real game starts when you finish the first playtrough, gotta S-rank those missions and clear all the bonus missions :)
@@Biouke Absolutely, it feels better the harder difficulty you play on, if not just because you know you can't really cheese the fights at that point. But man playing that underwater secret mission as someone who hates dark water was a nightmare lmao
Why DMC 1 is so shine with atmosphere ? The answer is Mr kamiya
Agreed! DMC 1 is just a no brainer for me. I do like 3 but all the others can't even come close to what the first game was in my opinion. Truly unmatched atmosphere here. I was mindblown when I first played this in 2001.
same here
Absolutely fantastic video I love it, British as well, top man, please keep doing more of these nostalgic PlayStation two classics, and whatever era classics
I've been binging your was it good videos im in love. i absolutely adre your content. keep up the hard work its paying off!
35:40 it's kinda hidden but you can also deflect Phantom's fire balls, so it's not that underutilized.
you can also pop your devil-trigger and mash Phantoms face in instead of running from him and get a ton of extra red orbs if you force him to retreat.
Or you can hit him with Stinger while he charges up to force him to reel back as his fireball explodes in his face and abort the attack sequence. Explosive indigestion.
Fun fact: The game offers you an easy mode after the first level IF you used your given Vital Star to restore your life :)
It also offers Easy Automatic if you use a few Yellow Orbs within the first 3 missions, too. If you're a completionist, it's needed to manually unlock Easy Automatic for new games, too.
Well its only Easy Automatic, theres no standard easy mode it makes you perform combos by just spamming the attack button. Making you rapid fire with just holding the fire button, enemies are replaced with lesser enemies like the sewer has now only the weakest of marionettes.
Yup! It’s how I beat it! 😅 I love DMC but I am woeful at playing them! 😂
@@marianix1591 Git gud scrub.
@@Anomaly188 🤡
very good in depth video. oyu have put a lot of work into this.
Looking forward to the other entries in the series being covered. I know these can't be released weekly due to all the work put into it all and how busy you must be, but I probably enjoy this channel and its content far more than the MMO and NFT coverage of the main channel (though, those are entertaining as well).
I was really digging the malice in your voice when you said, “and let me show you a trick with the shotgun” lol
I was waiting for the grenade rolling. (Rolling cancels reload animations.)
I think you absolutely nailed this review of the game. Like you, I played DMC when I was pretty young; I even remember when DMC 2 was announced and ads for it were showing up in Game Informer magazines haha. I played the heck out of DMC, but always felt like the camera angles were clunky and there were significant inconsistencies in some of the gameplay, all of which you highlighted in the video. The last boss fight ESPECIALLY stood out to me as it made no sense when compared to the rest of the gameplay and boss fights. I couldn't agree more on the awful voice acting as well. But overall DMC has a special place in my heart and I think the things they did right absolutely outweigh the things they did wrong. Also if you happen to read this comment, please consider doing a "Was It Good" for the Sly Cooper series. It's an excellent series of games that I hold very dear to my heart :)
DMC1 is one of my favourite childhood games of all time. This game had you passing the controller to your older brother, or at least thats my memory of it lol. The combat at first glance might seem basic, but bare in mind this game was pretty much the introduction of hack and slash. And despite that, it actually has depth to its combos! There is advanced techniques that can be done - one of them you actually discovered being Shotgun Twitching. Another being Grenade Rolling, Shotgun Hiking, Vortex and Slash cancelling too! The setting for the castle / mallet island is so distinctive to me, much like the RE1 Spencer Mansion is too. In fact, id argue that its one of the most iconic in gaming history! The gothic vibes, music notes, and yes, the fixed camera angles all play a massive role in the presentation of the game. Especially so when you come back to the castle at night. The minimal story telling, but environment clues, and ones that you can interact with really let your imagination go nuts as a child wondering who was in this castle, what other secrets it holds too. You come through the very first door, and you see that giant statue with flame in its hand, and the statue of the guy on horseback, and you're like wtf is this place?! And of course theres Dante, who needs no introduction. Probably the first badass character I have ever seen and still to this day one of the best. Going devil trigger to this day still gets me gassed up, like when i saw his Sin Devil Trigger in DMC5 I was like holy shit, i felt like a kid again watching this badass utterly wreck everything. DMC1 is such an utter gem of a game and it has aged beautifully. One of my childhood dreams was to beat this game on DMD mode so that i could get infinite devil trigger, and potentially fly all over the map and explore - just a few days ago i finally did it, and the satisfaction was unreal! DMC1 stands the test of time, and it is an absolute classic. No doubt in my mind its one of the GOATS.
"Head-shakingly dumb" is the most apt combination of words possible for explaining the flavor of this game. I love watching your stuff and your writing, man!
watching your Josh Strife Plays videos almost feels like reminiscing with friends about the games we enjoyed, with all that was awsome, and having a laugh at times thinking about the more questionable parts.
Before this Video I never knew where V's Griffon, Shadow, and Nightmare from dmc 5 came from. This is such a cool Easter egg now that I know and it really shows how much thought went into this series.
Josh, gotta love your work, the way you explain things with elegence as if your viewers where 5 years olds but in a good way, no the insulting one.
Solid review man very thorough! I just finished this game on hard mode and I’m almost done with dmd mode. Other than the problems with the camera and platforming it’s been such a great experience.
I never realized how similar this game is in concept to Castlevania till I watched your last video on SOTN
IMPOSTOR!
Is this a JoJo reference?
@@JohnDBlue is this an overused and tired old joke?
@@The_Joestar *says that while having a gyro pfp and being named Joestar*
@@g76agi The humanity....
Josh you're clearly underestimating the power of Ifrit's Kick13 and Inferno! 😏 Great video either way!
Ifrit's Kick13 and Inferno really shines a lot in the harder difficulties compared to Alastor's Air Raid, so I'm not really surprised he doesn't know that.
Literally the only reason I beat Angelo 3. Well, that and the grenade launcher.
The ending is hilarious! What a gorgeous piece of art
Love when he goes crazy and the game sounds overpower his voice. This made me chuckle. Great review. 👍
That opening with the shot framing Dante's sword and Trish's... lower body is probably one of the most Freudian framings I've ever seen.
Thanks for making this miscellaneous channel! I'm not an MMO guy, but I'm definitely a Josh Strife guy. Looking forward to binging this channel on my days off :)
3:00 This intro blew my 15 year old mind back in 2001. Lol 14:43 This gameplay mechanic was so badass when it was introduced in this game. 16:48 Oh, yeah. I definitely remember seeing this for the first time and just thinking, "Whoa..." 22:30 And the boss fight music for Nero Angelo is just so good. 28:28 OH... I remember that level... Lol 41:49 Hue hue hue hue.... That was the take they decided to go with? 44:40 I agree with your points about 3 and 2. Didn't the developers say that 4 and 5 take place before 2?
I feel like it’s a KZhead tradition at this point any time we talk about dmc1 we have to let the cutscene play in full with no interruptions. Good vid btw this channel is legit
Another way to shoot the shotgun faster, with less inputs, is to simply do rapid side strafes while spamming the fire button. I love that animation cancels have always just been a staple in the series and evolved to not only make combat feel more responsive, but make each game more stylish
And I remember the camera angles being bad, but I guess I just compensated by consciously positioning Dante in a manner that would usually give me a favorable camera position because it didn't give me nearly as many problems as it gave you.
Camera angles might look outdated now, but back in the day we were use to them as ton of games had those fixed camera angles, not just horror games but some action games as well, so it wasn't huge distraction. Yeah, they were always somewhat pain in the ass, but it's something you learned to deal with back in PS1\PS2 era.
Great video! This game has several retrospective videos about it and a lot of them say things like, “Not every thing has aged well.” Well … it’s 20 years old. It created its own genre, and at the time, every game was trying to copy it. Devil May Cry wasn’t just good for its time. It is a milestone in the industry as a whole.
It may be true that "it hasn't aged well", but...some games even older *have* aged well. Chrono Trigger, and F-Zero X (bugs and balance notwithstanding) are two such examples. Probably more. Super Mario World, perhaps? Street Fighter 2 turbo still has its echoes in SF6. Smash melee is still the best smash. Marvel vs. Capcom 2 lasted for over a decade (two?) before MVC3 came along. And Seiken Densetsu 3 got a remaster as Trials of Mana.
HoM 3
@@Ilyak1986 The games you mentoined that aged well are actually not 3D games, 2D games will always age better, 3D is a different beast.
@@Casketkrusher_ Super Mario 64?
@@Ilyak1986don't forget Half Life 1!
This game has the best presentation ever. The menus are gorgeous and fun. You actually want to go into the menus to see the animations and read the ever growing bestiary. I miss this kind of beauty in addition to function.
Amazing video Josh! How do you feel playing Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver?
Additional Ideas: Chaos Legion. Alone in the Dark
I subbed when i saw it on the banner. Still waiting, but i would rather he started with blood omen first
Soul Reaver absolutely *has to* make an appearance at some point.. the OG Oddworld, too
@@Rasgarroth Ahh chaos legion I got that out of a bargain bin many years ago, unfortuantly I lent it to a friend and his brother scratched the disc so badly that it no longer works. I don't believe I completed it but it was a good game imo.
20 years old. Damn. I remember playing this when it came out too. I hope whatever dev implemented that zoom camera watches this vid. Otherwise great vid!
I remember all the trailers, and thinking, "I really need a PS2"
As a fun thing: there's no need to stick exclusively to Alastor just for Air Raid, as Alastor and Ifrit are actually the only pair of weapons in the game with a quick-change button. Click in the stick and you'll pause briefly to change between them. So, you can just swap based on the situation. Also, that wasn't the power of friendship. That was friendship and demon lightning.
Ok this game sounded awesome. I need to play it now lmao Thanks for the review Josh!
This game is awesome! The mix of horror and action was just amazing. It was one of the games that made me buy a PS2 2 times. One con of this game is the RE camera style that sometimes can be tricky. Keep up the good work Josh 👍
38:45 Mundus is a weird design. He is 3 eyeballs coming out of slime that looks like hands, that is stored inside a statue, that is stored inside another statue. He is like a Matryoshka doll from Hell. This is my favorite DMC of the original 3. Now that I've played 5, I can't decide which one I like more.
No love for 4?
5 is great but the main theme devil trigger just hurts my ears so much that it even damaged the experience for me. Didn't help that they made the song both Nero's battle them and the final boss theme. I know it's incredibly subjective, but yeah, i really didn't like it. Especially since the song sticks in your head even if you hate it like i do. Sometimes it just randomly starts playing in my head and it really pisses me off, lol. My ranking is: 3 4 1 5 2
@@theazureknight9399 5 is definitely better than 4
@@JustinQuinn623 If that bloody song didn't piss me off so much and the dialogue had less teenage high school edgy cursing I'd put it above 4, yes.
@@theazureknight9399 I believe you can change which battle theme plays for each character. I usually play with headphones tho, so I pick my own soundtrack
This is why I explain to younger gamers that tank controls made sense for a pre rendered game . Nothing is worse than the camera angle changes and you end up running back to the previous screen. Thanks for the great retrospective.
This was my game 20 years ago, and one of the many reasons I fell in love with the PS2. It's not the same since this one: underwater combat, finishing moves from enemies. Allastor was initially the only way Dante achieved super speed.
I really hope Josh takes a look at Skies of Arcadia. I really consider it one of the best JRPGs ever made.
Games like that on those consoles are some the most interesting games
The music, aesthetic and style was just something you'd never see in another one. Damn I love that game! was hyped to see Vyse and co. return for Valkyria Chronicles - another stellar game might I add.
Stoked for this!! It is quite rare that I have a Monday off of work, I never get to see the premiers or subsequent tavern streams live!! glad to be here today :D
The sky being fair line, I actually really like. Thats a very unique viewpoint and I appreciated the thought
As someone who beat this game for a King of Hell Dante Must Die run (mostly by aping someone else’s KZhead uploads and hoping I did a decent enough job), here’s some fun facts and personal insights for the bosses. With Phantom, the hallway encounter right after his fight is actually an on-off recurring thing till you kill him for good. Kill him, leave the room and re-enter, same outcome. Also in his third and final fight, Phantom was given an AI exploit to help the alternate win condition of making him jump on the glass at the center of the arena till he falls through it. For Griffon, the ship’s verticality has a second purpose for his second fight. If you start the boss fight atop the mast, you can jump off and do a downward swing into Griffon’s starting position for a free big hit. Moving on to Nelo Angelo, I had an extra easy time with his second fight by just staying in the middle and playing very aggressive with the Ifrit. Dunno what it is but the fight was always very trivial for me that way. And never any other encounter. As for Nightmare, something that wasn’t brought up in the video was that it’s cores have adaptable damage thresholds depending on what hits it, so the best weapons to fight the damn thing are Ifrit (which specializes in methodical big hits) and, apparently, the Nightmare Beta (apparently ‘takes one to kill one’ is in full effect, so it hits big without incrementing how the cores break). This is useful because the state of the cores carries over from one fight to the next, so if you were dumb enough to spam weak Rebellion combos or gunfire till the cores turned red and cracked in half, congrats on making the fight way harder on yourself. Also, Alastor Devil Trigger is a life saver for the extra phase of the third and final encounter. Being airborne nulls all of the ground-level threats, strafing or lazily drifting to one side keeps Trish from hitting you, and Air Raid nails the final core hard while also deflecting the homing needles. Also particularly pro players can just YOLO Nightmare by getting up close and drilling it with Vortex before it can do anything. Finally we’re at Mundus. For his first phase, it turns out you can do some extra damage to him after you break his barrier, get your hits in, and then he charges you to start the loop of the battle all over again. When Mundus charges your way, you can nick his side with Vortex for an extra chunk of damage in lieu of just steering clear. High risk high reward though, you get too close and you’re the one getting hurt instead. Moving on to the second form, you can make the fight go by much faster by taking advantage of how Dante’s Sparda Devil Trigger is a cute mashup of Alastor and Ifrit’s powers. So you can wind up a Round Trip (Dante turns the Sparda into a scythe and throws it into an enemy for the blade to repeatedly spin into them before coming back) and Meteor (Dante shoots fireballs from his hands as an alternative to firearms, with a charged shot called Meteor 2). By winding up a Round Trip, then immediately charge up a Meteor 2, and then spam base Meteor nonstop still your Devil Trigger runs out or the Sparda comes back to you (whichever first), you’ll do massive damage. Turns out causing connective overlap with two potent multi-hit attacks at once causes some ludicrous damage stack. Needless to say, you can do something similar using any version of Round Trip and either Ebony & Ivory or the Grenade Launcher without Devil Trigger but it’s not as cool-looking or health-shredding. Cool stuff.
As I've played way more DMC2 than 1 i'm eagerly awaiting for Josh's take on that one. :D These reviews are a blast. Your narration is superb and very very entertaining.
i dont think anyone likes dmc 2 my guy
i should have been the one to fill your dark soul with LIIIGHT!!.. LIGht.. LIght.. Light.. light
Out of 10
You called me out, well played. Subscribed and glad to be!
My favorite moment first playing this, and was the moment I knew how badass Dante is. In the beginning Dante gets jumped in his "homebase" and as I'm fighting, Dante grabbed an opponent and rode him down the banister of the stairs like a grind on a skateboard.
This game was a Must Have at the time I Loved it. Playing it in a dark cold room was fucking great.
I actually did the no-reload trick of the shotgun too, but I used a different method! You don't need to release R1, just change direction. If you're walking backwards, for example, just strafe right or left real quick and Dante skips the reload animation. Also, another fun little tidbit: DMC1 was my first PS2 game and I played it in bed, with a high fever, so Alastor's cutscene actually sent me into a panic because I played like shit and thought I encountered a typical horror game trap or a bad ending or whatever. Then my screams of horror became screams of delight as that kickass cutscene told me that I got a new weapon instead
It's hard to earn my subscription but every classic you play is always one of the best ever keep doing the good work
The juggle idea came from an unintended feature in Onimusha Warloards. The background behind concept, story, planning is pretty good to read into. It is pretty cool how they took the story from 1 and built Devil May Cry 3 backwards from that. Even the story of DMC 2, and why it mechanically and story wise feels so different is pretty cool.
I kinda wish there was more forest environments. The forests in the first game are beautiful and the 4th games greens so vibrant I want a mix of the styles for a level in the future
The forest environments look incredible.
@@nickd1978 I forgot I made this post and that it's kinda on point. I'd like a druidic take on some demons in the future too. But beggers aren't game designers in this case.
The skeleton fireballs you can send back are actually used somewhere else. You can parry Phantom's fireballs back at him, it'd be awesome if you could also do that to Nelo Angelo's magic blasts but if that's possible i haven't been able to pull it off.
Dang... I did forget the underwater level.. instant like and subscribe
I never really played it as a kid, my brother and my nephew loved it. I have recently gotten the old ps2 that was left in my rented house up and running with some classic games I loved but there's already a copy of Devil May Cry here. I must try it out. I'll come back to this video when I played it