I am definitely a competent gamer, and have completed some challenging games on higher difficulties. I don't usually enjoy this experience, with the exception of both Kingdom Hearts games, but I figured I would give it a shot in DMC 4. One thing I didn't realize was that thanks to the hyper-Japanese design philosophy, each set of "Missions" could only be run through consecutively on one difficulty. This meant that I got to the last boss mission, found him to be stupidly difficult, and also discovered I couldn't just bump the difficulty down to face him. To try to beat him on Normal difficulty, I would effectively need to play through the ENTIRE GAME again, on Normal, to unlock that mission on that difficulty. That is 100% Testicle Sack on my face.
Upon discovery of this little gem of design, I attempted the last boss a few more times, albeit halfheartedly, and then threw in the towel on DMC 4. I had been rather dissatisfied with it since it abruptly switched the character and move set half way through the game. This was the point at which I was finally feeling competent with Nero and his Uber-Devilclaw-Get-over-here move. But then, anticipating my comfort level, Capcom wisely decided to pull the rug out from under me by switching the perspective to Dante because Nero got owned like a punk bitch by the Pope or something. My memory of this plot is intentionally fuzzy, because the heinous objectification of female characters and asinine overall plot didn't really do it for me. In any case, this shift from one character who I'd been working on upgrading and mastering to one who handled COMPLETELY differently really pissed me off. To compound this inconvenience, you, or should I say Dante, are thrown right into level 11 with no fanfare, tutorial, or slack. This made relearning how to play the game an exercise in frustration and controller throwing. The one saving grace is that all of the levels were familiar, since you just stroll back through all of them and even get to retread some of those lovely puzzles from the first time around. What a joy.
By now, you might be thinking that Capcom had realized that it might be difficult to switch perspectives and play styles once, smack in the middle of the game and may even have repented their ways. You would be mistaken. For the last set of missions, which are end boss fights in the form of the Basilica with wings and lasers, and of course the Pope himself, you are once again pitched back into the feeble body of Nero, throwing away all that progress you just made learning how to play Dante's four different classes, lack of claw arm ball grabbing, and varied weapon sets. Thanks Capcom. By this point I wanted this experience to be over so I could tell an adult about this abuse. But I did my damnedest to fight the inert colossus that floated quite solemnly in the air. After getting insta-killed by his eye beams a few times, I wised up and took out his shadow orbs, leading to his demise. Following this, Nero did some more goofy shit resulting in him facing off against the Pope. But wait. The Pope isn't a feeble dude who can quite literally be head-butted to death (See Assassin's Creed II for details), no he is a devilishly powerful and frustrating old man with lots of shields. Throughout the final showdown with him, I would arm grab over to him, try unleash a combo, but consistently fall just short of being in range, or being able to fully take down his shields. Then the old douche would teleport away, recharge his shields and hand out some punishment in the form of more lasers. There were a few times you could do context sensitive arm grabs that resulted in beating the already corpse-like old dude handily before tossing away his desiccated body, but after doing this a few times and not making much of a dent, I still ended up losing to the bastard. Repeat this a few times, then realize that you can't try on an easier difficulty.
I did make an effort to search forums and walkthroughs for a solution, but most of them either told me to fight him the way I had been, or suggested grinding orbs so I could upgrade Nero by replaying old levels. No fuckin' thank you. I had already endured all these levels at least twice in my one play through, I did not feel the need to go back and fight more enemies so I could kill one old dude. This useless advice clinched my decision to give up, something I can't say I've often done on a game I invested that much time in, but I decided it wasn't really worth the aggravation and cost of dental work to fix the wear of resultant teeth grinding.
In the months since abandoning all hope for DMC, I have grown increasingly disenfranchised with Eastern style games that are all about missions, titties and grinding. I tried the Bayonetta demo and found the combat was pretty fun, but the character and plot sent me running for the hills. The lack of understanding about how to implement achievements is another bone i would gladly pick with these developers, because in my 12+ hour play through of DMC 4 up to the last level, I netted a whopping 125 points out of 1000. That, to me, is total shite. I know that the meta-game aspect of achievement points aren't paramount to enjoyment of a title, but honestly by now there should be an understanding that people A) Like achievements and B) Want to earn them at an appreciable rate, either logistically or linearly. In either case, it shouldn't ever require more than two play throughs even begin to earn half of the available achievements. This may be a minor blow against these games, but it does add to my reluctance to touch any more of these titles. And one thing I should make clear is that I want to like these titles, I grew up being a huge fan of multiple forms of uniquely Japanese media, such as anime, manga, and in particular JRPGS: Final Fantasy, Mario RPG, Kingdom Hearts to name a few. I wish I was more enthusiastic about upcoming titles, but increasingly find that I'm not jazzed about hours of repetition, punishment, and whacky tacky plotlines.
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