Cast Down The Heretic

Taking aside Ninja Theory's increasing amount of arrogance (which boils down to "if you don't like this game, then you're a clinically depressed misanthropic jobless friendless unloved sack of shit, your mother's a whore and your dad has a herniate ballsack"), this really isn't a great game or even a good one for that matter. Perhaps I'm expecting too much, but nothing about this game even remotely lived up to Ninja Theory's claims. It takes Heavenly Sword's battle engine (swift weapon, medium weapon and slow, strong weapon), adds two different chains and tries to be all edgy and whatnot. Surprisingly though, the combat isn't half bad. When it gives you the opportunity to combine all three of your weapons to make a super combo of sorts, it's a ton of fun. When it arbitrarily limits you to a certain weapon (and at times, it really loves to do this), it feels like a homeless man's God Of War without the brutal finishers. Suffice it to say, combat is only really good when you get to mix it up. Sadly, it makes up for the mediocre enemies and lame bosses.

I'll admit that I wasn't a big fan of the new Dante because he seemed like he'd be a whiny little shit who tried to be edgier than new Dante. In fact, I thought he'd be worse than Nero from DMC 4. While that's how he was for a while, he does eventually become a bit more relateable as the story progresses as he's more down to earth than his overpowered old self. Mind you, he's never truly relateable as the writers try to make him all hardcore and edgy with the rock and dubstep music that looms in the background while Dante swears more than Revy from Black Lagoon. Throughout the game, I was conflicted - should I like him for being kind of relateable, or should I hate him for being a *bleep*ing dickhead? The story does about the same thing - it wants to be taken seriously, but with a grade school level of understanding of conspiracies like the media brainwashing the populace and how we should stop them or some *bleep*ing dog shit like that. It's also worth pointing out that Vergil Ties would hate to see what they've done to him in this game...

The platforming, which was Capcom's DMC's biggest weakness, is at least better here. Oh, and it's leagues ahead of Enslaved's, but that's because DmC wasn't trying to suck Uncharted's dick.

Summary - A good combat engined and good platforming marred by mediocre combat scenarios
Rating - 6/10