Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - Special Edition Member Review for the PS2

Re-worked, re-done and re-released!

One thing the PC has over consoles is the expansion pack. Developers on PC can just add some new units, a handful of new buildings, slap it onto a CD and make millions. Of course, there are those who do not abuse the right of expansions, such as Westwood Studios did later in their lifespan with Command & Conquer Red Alert 2: Yuri's Revenge, and Relic Entertainment's Dawn of War expansions.

But console games don't do expansions that well, which is why we just get 'Special Editions'. Like this one.

Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - Special Edition by Capcom, is in all forms, the standard version of the game with a little tweaking and some new goodies added for good measure. Some of the additions seem a little 'forced', but otherwise it's a good game.

The game kicks off... actually, I'll skip this bit, as the game's plot is exactly the same as the original version. No, seriously. I'm not kidding. The only differences between the standard game and the Special Edition (SE) is that Normal and Hard modes are easier and that there's a new boss. The difficulty thing itself deserves many praises, as many people (myself included) found the difficulty level of the standard game to be ridiculously too high. I couldn't finish the game. I got up to Mission 18 of 20, and gave up when I found the room where you have to fight all the game bosses aside from Vergil again. With the SE, I got through the game in 3 days. That's a serious difficulty decrease.

What's more, I can't even pinpoint how they did it. Subtle, yet completely game-altering? Awesome.

The new boss, though, isn't that awesome. At certain points, you get teleporters pop up. These take you to a mandatory boss-fight with Jester. Honestly, it just feels 'added at the last minute'. Even his speech during the fights feels tacky, as you'll recognise almost everything he says from a cutscene. It's that bad.

But, by far the most appealing aspect of the Special Edition that will attract gamers like a swarm of hungry locusts to a corn field is the ability to play as Vergil himself, in all his demonic splendour. Vergil controls a lot like Dante, except that Vergil, instead of having guns like Dante, simply summons swords to throw at people. This frees up the L2 button for switching between the three kinds of melee weapons Vergil has equipped at all times. Having three kinds of melee weapons at your fingertips, getting that SSS style rank is significantly easier.

That's not to say Vergil is without flaw. The main gripe I have with Vergil is that they didn't create a specific campaign for him. All they did was swap out Dante for Vergil in the original campaign. They didn't even swap out Vergil in his boss battles for Dante, which means you'll be fighting yourself three times over the progress of the game. It's fun, but it's not accurate.

Then again, is it really fair to complain that they didn't change any of the awesome gameplay? Playing as Vergil simply adds a new method of laying some half-human, half-demonic smackdown on some pathetic demon underlings. Plus, being able to match Vergil move-for-move in his boss battles is rather entertaining. Honestly, this game is one of the two I have found so far that you would be too embarrased to play in public because you'd be talking to the screen too much. "No, THIS is how you do that combo correctly!" *slice*.

Once you've finished the campaign, you can go into the other extra they added to the game: Bloody Palace. That's right, the one (and only) redeeming feature of Devil May Cry 2 is now in Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - Special Edition. It works relatively the same as the DMC2 incarnation, except that you get bosses every 1000 levels or so, instead of on every 10th level. I guess it's because the bosses in DMC2 were basically enhanced enemies instead of full-blown DMC worthy bosses.

For those of you who do not currently own DMC3, or have destroyed their copy of the game out of sheer frustration, then this game is definately worth getting. However, for those of you who DO have a fully operating copy of DMC3, then you'll be struggling to find a reason to buy this update.