This was also the understanding I had reached with the DMC franchise until very recently. Admittedly, I didn’t have a lot of experience with DMC, so the removal of it from my proverbial gaming “dance card” was not felt too keenly. I had completely missed the first DMC back in 2001, and only briefly played DMC2 (and didn’t really like it enough to buy my own copy). So it was DMC3 that would be my first (and last) foray into the franchise.

I know I must have mentioned this before, it stands out as such a jarringly memorable experience. Never before I had encountered a game that not only gave me so much ridiculous trouble, but actually unlocked a previously unavailable easier difficulty just for completely sucking. That’s the kind of thing that sticks with you.

I can’t even fathom any rational reason why I couldn’t get the hang of DMC3. I’ve played and had no trouble with similar hack and slash titles, like God of War. Yet something about DMC3 was just beyond me. I’ve sometimes considered digging through my old games, to see if I still have it. To pop it in and give it another go. Maybe I was just having an off week when I tried it out. Maybe time and memory have exxagerated the asswhooping the game gave me. Then I decide I’m more concerned with the emotional trauma involved with firing it up again and finding that I still can’t beat it.

It’s now a moot point. DMC is being rebooted, and while I didn’t pay much attention to the “Wah, Dante has dark hair now!” uproar from a couple years back when it was announced, the demo has just recently dropped, and I decided to have a look.

What I found was a game I like. I clearly can’t discuss its merits as they compare to the previous games in the franchise, but what I can say is that the demo showed me a pretty fun hack and slash game.

Generally with a hack and slash action game of this nature, you pretty much know what you’re going to get. Moving from area to area, with arenas of enemies, a bunch of combos, a bunch of juggles, all punctuated by the occasional big boss fight. Perhaps some platforming inbetween.

So in my experience, this sort of game mostly lives and dies with the combat. You’re going to be doing a lot of hacking and a lot of slashing, so if there isn’t a lot of variety, you’re going to start to feel it pretty quickly.

DMC seems to deliver in this department. Not only do you have attacks, launches and grabs, but you have not one but two modifiers (angel and demon modes) that change your sword into a swift and lengthy scythe or a slow but beastly axe. You can pull enemies to you, or pull yourself to enemies.

Oh yeah, and you have some guns too.

So overally, once you begin to learn the huge variety of movies and how to chain them together, you can get some really entertaining and flashy combos.

The demo didn’t do much in the way of making me give a shit about whatever story they’re telling, but I will say that the combat was fun enough to make me start thinking about a preorder.