Kollection :: Devil May Cry 3 – Special Edition

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by Kabir Kaler

Hello and welcome to another issue of Kollection. Today I will take you through a game I actually waited for years to play on my PC called Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition.

[Note: I will be talking about the PC version so anything bad I say involving the visuals or controls pay no mind, seeing as the console versions will be better and easier to obtain.]

Devil May Cry 3 is a prequel and the story involves Dante and his twin brother Vergil who are in a conflict that involves Vergil’s lust for power.  With the help of a mysterious man named Arkham, Vergil raises the Temen-Ni-Gru; a tower made to connect hell and earth together, but which was sealed many millennia ago by their father Sparda and a priestess.  He wishes for the power of his father and Dante goes to stop him. You don’t know why Arkham helped Vergil raise this “tower of Babel” but you do know that he wishes to be a demon and will go to the extreme to do so, including attempting to sacrifice his only daughter who climbs the tower to stop him.  It is because of her interactions with Dante that he starts to care about humanity more and more every time the two meet and this progression is ultimately what leads to his actions in the other Devil May Cry games.

The gameplay is fast paced, high octane action with many weapons and guns with just as many enemies, not to mention a lock on button similar to the Legend of Zelda games.  There are about five melee weapons and five guns, with the ability to carry two of each.  You also have the ability to pick from six different styles to help with any situation.  You can only equip one style at a time and they all share the same style button to simplify things. Another tool in your arsenal of demon killing is your devil trigger which turns you into a full blooded demon temporary, making you stronger, faster, etc….

The way you increase your strength is through the red souls you find throughout the game.  These red souls are used for currency to whatever you need, including buying items, health or devil trigger upgrades and holy water (an expendable weapon). The user interface is simple and straightforward with no confusion whatsoever. You can buy your items before you start a new mission or you can find these shops in the environment but their location is usually near a boss. You can also find blue crystal fragments littered in the environment or obtained from secret missions to increase your health every time you collect four.

There are a couple different types of enemies of the same race of monster. Each race behaves uniquely in one way or another.  Sometimes the enemies are the same or mixed but they all have the same objective: to kill you.  About half of the enemies can be killed with any means while others have a specific weakness.

Boss battles are some of the hardest enemies you will face throughout the game and they are memorable, iconic and hard to beat.  They all need different weapons, different styles and a different way to kill them efficiently and quickly.  Their appearance is all over the map and once beaten you gain a new weapon from them.

For that extra replay value Capcom has put in extra content when you beat the game. Modes such as playing as Vergil (you replace Dante in story mode and you play the game as him), different skins for both of them, more difficulties and a new survival arena called Bloody Palace  where you survive 9999 levels; you progress by choosing to go through one of three portals that skip by either one ten or a hundred. To this day I have not completed it; it’s that hard.

Graphics aren’t as well done seeing as there is this fuzz everywhere I looked and at times I saw screen tearing. These technical issues were apparent and ongoing, though there were times (like in cut scenes) that it was gone and when it was the game looked good.  The visuals weren’t a major concern for me because graphics isn’t my Number One concern in my video game hierarchy. For me it is story, game play, then graphics.  It also took me a while to get used to playing with the keyboard but it has an option of playing with a gamepad but I did not try seeing as I chose not to go and buy one.

Nevertheless this game was very enjoyable for me and I have played this many times both as Dante and Vergil.  If you are prepared for the difficulty I suggest you try to find Devil May Cry 3 or buy the HD collection as it is three games for the price of one old one with better graphics.  Also the special edition is the one they added in the HD edition so everything I mentioned here is on there as well.  I give Devil May Cry 3: Special Edition 10 devils crying out of 10.

Oh and for those that want to know why I had to wait for years is the computer I had at the time wasn’t up to par with the requirements needed to run. What made it worse is that I had that computer for years which made the game really dusty by the time I got a new PC. Luckily the game was only ten dollars so I didn’t lose a lot of money just to play it years after purchase. I dusted it off, installed it on my new computer which took an hour, it worked perfectly and it was awesome.

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