Devil May Cry HD Collection Review

Deal with the devil.

These HD collections are a bitch to review. First you've got two, sometimes three, games to play. Then, if each game sucks, you're loaded up with terrible things to say. More often than not, these collections are budget-priced so you have to take that into consideration.

Thankfully, the Devil May Cry HD Collection has been a good game sandwich, offering up Devil May Cry 1's castle and Devil May Cry 3's absurdity with Devil May Cry 2's... bland experience. It's like the best bread you've ever had... with watery hummus in the middle.


As an introduction to Dante, Devil May Cry offers more thoughtful pacing and plenty of style. Devil May Cry 2 took a nosedive on the style, plodding the plot along with stuff I don't care about. Devil May Cry 3, though, made up for Devil May Cry 4's horrible showing, my only previous Devil May Cry experience.

It's easy to see where new blockbusters, like Bayonetta and God of War, got their chops from. Hideki Kamiya's series laid a ton of groundwork for modern action games with these PS2 classics, so if you haven't played any of them, this HD Collection is a no-brainer. In fact, the only thing that gets in the way of my instant recommendation is the lazy job done in bringing these titles into the HD generation.


DMC HD Collection comes complete with over 100 Trophies/Achievements to unlock, and DMC 3 is the special edition, including bonus content not available in the original vanilla release, but menus and certain cinematics leave a lot to be desired. You'd think an HD UI wouldn't be too much to ask for, especially considering the Xbox 360's buttons all made the tranisition, but navigating options and the starting menu remains a grainy, ugly affair. The same could be said of the prerendered videos in each title.

As first impressions go, the DMC HD Collection is absolutely terrible. The introduction cinematic for each game is muddy, ugly, and absolutely not HD. The textures and characters in the games themselves look detailed and sharp, but the pre-rendered scenes are a visual turn-off.


The verdict here really comes down to two essential questions. First, have you played these games before? If you haven't, you owe it to yourself to pick up the $40 HD Collection and enjoy hours and hours of gameplay. Only now do I feel like I really missed out on the franchise. You can't understand how entertaining DMC games are or why people care so much about Dante until you've played the original titles.

Second, did you love these games when you played them originally? As a follow-up, do you still have the original releases? If you still have your PS2 hooked up and your favorite DMC titles ready to play, this HD Collection doesn't offer any significant updates to make it worth buying. If you're a huge fan, you probably didn't wait for this review; just know you're getting nothing more than a facelift in this package.