I’ll admit it: I was one of the people who wasn’t so sure, who poked fun at Nu Dante’s expense (yes, the internet really was obnoxious enough to call him Nu Dante, and Donte, and… well, you get the picture), and openly lamented the loss of our white-haired, Shakespeare spouting Devil Hunter (I’m still a little salty about that, actually). As you might imagine, I never played the original release of DmC: Devil May Cry, so the Definitive Edition was a new experience for me and one, I’m happy to say, is worth playing, especially if you’ve never played this installment of Devil May Cry before.

"The biggest change, as you might expect, comes on the technical side. Unlike its last generation console counterparts, the Definitive Edition of DmC runs at 1080p and 60 frames per second.

As a remaster, a lot of what DmC offered the first time around is still on display in the Definitive Edition. This is still the story of Dante, a loudmouthed, hard-partying, demon killing badass, his brother Vergil, their mutual friend Kat, and their guerilla war against the demons that control everything in Limbo City. Without spoiling things, it’s a pretty good yarn that sports entertaining characters, a solid plot, and some pretty good dialogue, especially when you consider that Devil May Cry had never previously been known for its storytelling prowess.

And two years removed from its controversial release, it’s a little easier to appreciate what DmC does. Dante’s character arc is nicely fleshed out, and the game’s setting does a great deal of showing rather than telling. The side characters are equally compelling, especially Kat, Vergil and Mundus, and the game’s ambition, and willingness to rip into organizations like Fox News, people like Bill O’Reilly, and companies like Coca-Cola with unchecked glee are something to be applauded, even if the game’s narrative reach occasionally exceeds its grasp. Yes, I’m talking about the profanity-laden Succubus sequence. That went on way longer then it needed to.

The game’s story hasn’t changed much. It’s more or less the same as it was in 2013. The biggest change, as you might expect, comes on the technical side. Unlike its last generation console counterparts, the Definitive Edition of DmC runs at 1080p and 60 frames per second. Normally, I’m of the opinion that the difference between 30 and 60 frames is fairly marginal for many games (though 60 is definitely nicer), but oh man, what a difference 60 frames makes in a game like this. DmC feels smooth and fluid, and that is essential for a game about hacking and slashing.

"The single biggest additions are the Vergil’s Downfall DLC, and version of the Bloody Palace survival mode though a tower with 60 floors of enemies, just for Vergil."

The improved framerate and resolution really makes the game’s art, which is gorgeously hideous, pop in a way that it otherwise wouldn’t, and believe you me, this is a good thing. Of course, there are obvious gameplay benefits as well, and DmC’s combat system greatly benefits from the increased fluidity on display. If there are any problems with the visual upgrades, it would be these: the game is not locked at 60 frames per second (though it must be said that the dips are relatively small and rather infrequent), and there is a noticeable amount of screen tearing when manually moving the camera, at least on the Xbox One. Still, these problems are still fairly minor when you take the other upgrades the Definitive Edition brings to the table.

There’s Turbo mode, a perennial fan favorite, which increases the game speed by 20% and Hardcore Mode, which can be toggled on and off by level and rebalances the entire game, from Devil Trigger to enemy AI and the style gauge for a more classic DMC experience. For the especially masochistic, there’s a new difficulty, which has all enemies spawn in Devil Trigger mode and deal two and a half times their normal damage and forbids the player from using items, and Must Style Mode, which requires you to achieve a style ranking of S or higher in order to deal damage.

All of this is, of course, supplemented by all of the DLC from the original game, including costumes, weapon skins, and pre-order bonus items, as well as some new costumes celebrating DMC’s legacy. The single biggest additions are the Vergil’s Downfall DLC, and version of the Bloody Palace survival mode though a tower with 60 floors of enemies, just for Vergil.

"The boss fights are, with two exceptions, rote encounters that exemplify the worst aspects of Western boss design, requiring you to stick to pre-determined patterns of avoidance and attack to claim the day.If DmC’s gameplay has a weak point, it’s the bosses and the platforming sections. The former are, with two exceptions, rote encounters that exemplify the worst aspects of Western boss design, requiring you to stick to pre-determined patterns of avoidance and attack to claim the day."

By far the best enhancements, however, are the ones that Ninja Theory has made to the gameplay, which has been rebalanced to mitigate the bugs, problems with the style meter, color-coded enemies, and issues with enemy behavior that plagued the original game. The most important change is the addition of a manual lock-on, which can be toggled on and off or held down, which does wonders for DmC’s particular brand of gameplay.

What you have in the end, then, is a game that plays fluidly, and very, very well, while striking the right balance of being easy to pick up and play and difficult to master. You’ll have to learn the combos and spend some time in practice mode before everything clicks, but when it does, combos will by flying off your fingertips with incredible ease, and there’s an impressive level of depth to be mined here for the dedicated few. The sheer excellence in combat is augmented by the designs for the standard enemies, who will require you to parry, use heavy attacks to break shields, and execute high speed dodges if you hope to win the day. And what’s more, they look good doing it.

If DmC’s gameplay has a weak point, it’s the bosses and the platforming sections. The former are, with two exceptions, rote encounters that exemplify the worst aspects of Western boss design, requiring you to stick to pre-determined patterns of avoidance and attack to claim the day. This kind of fight takes away what has always been Devil May Cry’s biggest strengths – the combo system – and forces you to land a few simple hits before dodging again. Worse, many of them are simply boring to fight, and you’ll often wish you could just go back to fighting the normal enemies.

"DmC: Devil May Cry is still a very good game despite all of these flaws, and the Definitive Edition’s gameplay enhancements make it the best version of the game available. Fans of the older games who avoided the original release will be happy to know that this version of the game is the most like the earlier titles in the series, and those who love the original DmC will find a lot of new content to enjoy here."

The platforming is less problematic, but comes with the added issue that most of it isn’t actually platforming. Instead, it’s you pressing a button and Dante whipping himself from place to place. This isn’t terrible in small doses, but it gets annoying during long stretches, and is exacerbated by the fact that what you need to do in some sections isn’t always clear. You’ll find yourself leaping over cliffs more than a few times, simply because it looks like you should be able to do something that you can’t, or because you haven’t yet figured out the precise series of movements that the game wants you to perform.

DmC: Devil May Cry is still a very good game despite all of these flaws, and the Definitive Edition’s gameplay enhancements make it the best version of the game available. Fans of the older games who avoided the original release will be happy to know that this version of the game is the most like the earlier titles in the series, and those who love the original DmC will find a lot of new content to enjoy here.

At $40, it’s not a bad value, especially if you’ve never played the game before. It may not be an instant classic like Devil May Cry 3, Bayonetta or Ninja Gaiden Black, but it is a very good game, and longtime holdouts should definitely give it a shot. If nothing else, it just might convince you that Ninja Theory’s ideas had some merit. It certainly changed my mind. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to get back to Limbo City. I’ve got some demons to kill.

This game was reviewed on the Xbox One.

Producer Rey Jimenez spoke to GamingBolt about DmC: Definitive Edition including why Capcom chose to remaster a two-year old game, changes made to Unreal Engine 3 to accommodate the 64-bit architecture of the PS4 and Xbox One, and how many similarities it bears to the PC version.

"We’re releasing a high quality game from last gen on current consoles, while leveraging more powerful hardware for a better experience and adding more content to bring value not just to new customers, but also to existing fans who may want to revisit the game on new hardware.

Rashid Sayed: The reboot was honestly fantastic with great level design and combat mechanics. How does it feel to deliver a fantastic product despite the initial backlash and negative reactions?

Rey Jimenez: The final product was really a vindication of the decisions the dev team made and all the hard work they put in. While by no means perfect, the game had buy-in from the team and they really believed in and were behind the game that they were working on. Because of that, the team was always confident in the quality of the final game.

Rashid Sayed: Let us get the tough question out of the way. Instead of a new entry in the series, why go for a remastering a 2 year old title?

Rey Jimenez: When determining a title to “remaster”, there are two ways of going about this. One is picking a game/IP that hasn’t been seen on a console in a long time, thereby having the largest delta in “improved” content from the original to the new release. Having worked on DuckTales Remastered, I can attest that there are a lot of positives to this type of remastered game.

The other route is selecting a title based on its overall quality and what we can add to the title to make it a real value to gamers. Think of it as when a console game is released on PC, especially last gen. It really isn’t considered remastering the game. It’s a new console release, which really is what the Definitive Edition here is.

We’re releasing a high quality game from last gen on current consoles, while leveraging more powerful hardware for a better experience and adding more content to bring value not just to new customers, but also to existing fans who may want to revisit the game on new hardware. I think that may be the most corporate sounding line I’ve ever said, but it’s something we really believe.

Rashid Sayed: In the past a lot of developers have promised that their remasters will run at locked 60 frames per second but it turns out that the game was not locked to 60. Is this the case with DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition as well?

Rey Jimenez: We are not claiming that the game is going to run locked at 60fps. That being said, I can attest that the game runs ­­very reliably at 60fps. After personally playing the game all the way through all through development, I can honestly say that the times the title drops frames are so rare that I barely notice it ever happening at all. The technical team at QLOC did a fantastic job of hitting our performance goals and hit them much earlier than I anticipated.

Rashid Sayed: What kind of updates have you made to the game’s engine to support the new versions?

Rey Jimenez: I’m not super technical so there’s not too much detail I have in this area. I can tell you that there was a bit of work that had to be done to Unreal 3 to make it run in a 64-bit environment and on the current gen of consoles, both of which it was not developed to do.

"More weapons, with different strengths and weaknesses, means more choice for the player. In the context of a vast open-world game, this is equivalent of providing the player with the means to find and enjoy her or his style -- from total offense to complete stealth, from ranged attacks to close combat, and anything in between.

Rashid Sayed: I am sure you must be aware that Rockstar released a remastered version of GTA 5 last year but it was not a mere port. They added new content, thousands of new animations and improvements.  So having said that, are there any kind of improvements besides the visual upgrade in DmC?

Rey Jimenez: Big fan of GTA V and I did double dip on that one I have to admit. DmC is really about the challenge to the player, playing stylishly and what we can do to augment that. That being said, we put a lot of effort into tweaking and rebalancing the combat with additional difficulties and gameplay modifiers to achieve this goal. The game is also shipping with all of the original DLC from the previous gen game, including Vergil’s Downfall, which is a whole story mode where you play as the game’s iconic character Vergil.

In addition, we’re adding a new mode for Vergil called Vergil’s Bloody Palace. It’s a 60 level survival mode for Vergil new to the Definitive Edition of the game. While I won’t say we’re able to add as much content by sheer volume that Rockstar was able to, I think with the content that we are able to add and at a lower price point of $39.99, DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition will be a great value for PS4 and Xbox One action game fans.

Rashid Sayed: Is the Definitive Edition based off the PC build of the game?

Rey Jimenez: Yes, in more ways than one too. The visual and audio assets were higher resolution than what was able to be released for the PS3/360 version. For Definitive Edition, we are able to utilize that higher fidelity art and audio. We’ve also based some of the tweaks/balancing that we did to the game based on what the PC community did on the PC release of DmC. The PC community if a fantastic way to receive feedback and seeing what they did to mod the game was a great way to decide what to put into Definitive Edition.

Rashid Sayed: I have to ask this question.What can fans expect in terms of a new Devil May Cry? Do you think you will still like to continue the origin story or make a direct sequel to Devil May Cry 4? If you can’t answer this what can you tell us about the future of the franchise? Is it looking strong?

Rey Jimenez: Well, there’s nothing concerning a new Devil May Cry game that I can talk about, but I will say that the upcoming March 10 release of DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition and later Summer 2015 release of Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition shows that Capcom still loves the Devil May Cry franchise. I’m personally hoping for awesome news in the future for Devil May Cry as well.

Rashid Sayed: Is there anything else you want to tell our readers about the game?

Rey Jimenez: For those revisiting DmC and those new to the series, the team and I hope you really enjoy the hard work that was put into Definitive Edition. We really love the game and hope you do, too.

Capcom’s DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition will be the next big console remaster to release in the coming month and it once again carries the moniker of 1080p/60 FPS. Although, the second part may be a little iffy. Producer Rey Jimenez spoke to GamingBolt about DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition’s frame rate. In the past, we’ve seen developers claim a locked 60 FPS for their games but it usually hasn’t been the case. Will this be true for DmC: Definitive Edition as well?

Jimenez stated that, “We are not claiming that the game is going to run locked at 60fps. That being said, I can attest that the game runs very reliably at 60fps. After personally playing the game all the way through all through development, I can honestly say that the times the title drops frames are so rare that I barely notice it ever happening at all. The technical team at QLOC did a fantastic job of hitting our performance goals and hit them much earlier than I anticipated.”

DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition is out on March 10th. Will you be picking it up? Let us know in the comments and stay tuned for our full interview with Jimenez in the coming days.

Capcom’s definitive edition of DmC: Devil May Cry is out next month and will mark the first appearance of the franchise on current gen consoles. Along with a 60 FPS frame rate and 1080p resolution, it will also features lots of new content including all previously released DLC like Vergil’s Downfall and some new costumes. You’ll also be able to take Vergil into the Bloody Palace mode, which you can check out above.

DmC: Devil May Cry is essentially a retelling of sorts for the franchise. It sees a young Dante discovering his purpose in the world and rising up against the forces of evil running the city (alongside his brother Vergil). Developed by Ninja Theory, it faced plenty of criticism for essentially altering Dante’s entire look.

Releasing on March 10th, DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition will be out on PS4 and Xbox One. Will you be getting it? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

DmC: Devil May Cry may have been considered the pariah of the series due to Ninja Theory’s involvement and Dante’s new look but no one can deny how nice some of the combos looked. They’re about to get even nicer though as the Definitive Edition of the game is on its way and features 1080p/60 FPS gameplay to get your blood pumping. To exemplify how, Capcom has released a new trailer for the game which you can check out above.

Along with the base game, the Definitive Edition will include the Vergil’s Downfall DLC and heaps of other extra content. If you’ve yet to experience DmC: Devil May Cry and want to do it in style, the Definitive Edition is the way to go.

DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition will be out on March 10th for the Xbox One and PS4. Stay tuned for more information on the same.

Missed out on the much maligned but actually quite entertaining DmC: Devil May Cry? The Definitive Edition for the game will be out in March and Capcom has announced that it will be moving forward the release date for the game. Instead of releasing on March 17th, it will now be out on March 10th.

DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition will be available as a retail and digital release. Along with the previously released DLC packs, there will be a new Bloody Palace for Vergil and various gameplay modes to change up the experience. For example, the new Must Style mode only allows you to damage enemies when your style rank is S and above. There will also be new difficulty modes such as Hardcore and Gods Must Die where enemies deal increased damage and have Devil Trigger forms.

Of course, that’s not including the 1080p visuals and 60 FPS frame rate on the Xbox One and PS4. Are you excited for the re-release? Let us know below.

Capcom and Ninja Theory have announced they will be releasing the a remastered version of 2013’s sleeper hit, DmC: Devil May Cry. The HD edition will release on the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in Summer of 2015. DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition will include the original game, all previously released downloadable content which includes the “Vergil’s Downfall” campaign along with new modes.

DmC Devil May Cry: Definitive Edition will run at 1080p and 60 frames per second on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Ninja Theory have considered fan feedback and have implemented some changes into the gameplay by adding Turbo Mode which increase player’s speed in combat, hardcore and style modes.

The game will launch on on March 17, 2015 for an MSRP of $39.99 / €39.99 in North America and Europe respectively. Ninja Theory have also released some new screenshots. Check them out and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.