There are some guitars in there, with a more electronic sound to the main combat music, but the soundtrack also offers some creepy vibes channelling its Resident Evil origins, some organ music which sounds straight from an old horror film, and some surprisingly gentle piano themes considering the game’s action packed gameplay.
#Devil may cry 1 art series
While every other soundtrack in the series has a lot of heavy metal on it the first game doesn’t, which makes it a far more interesting listen. To round things off Dante heads down into the Underworld (lots of skulls, lava, and a massive beating heart you have to pulsate to open the last gate – mission 21 is actually called ‘Living Cave’!) before soaring up in space to finally battle Mundus! You start off in a castle, go under the sea, through sewers, a canyon of mist, sail on a ghost ship, battle in a coliseum, return to the castle at night (when it has drastically changed and become far more creepy) then go through a mirror to an even more sinister, tripped out version of the castle. Okay it’s a stupid name (it’s pronounced Mall-lay so it’s got nothing to do with hammers!) but it’s an incredible, varied place to explore on your adventure. Hideki Kamiya and his team really came up with some incredible enemies and combat!
Last but not least there’s the ruler of the Underworld, Mundus, who you first fight flying in a winged form through space, with the most awesome Devil Trigger attack of a giant fire dragon that shoots forward and smashes into your enemy! Everything you know about fighting him in other games began here, including the annoying teleporting and the spinning swords that he can throw at you! There’s also the mighty Griffon, who can harness wind and electricity to attack you and the sinister gloopy ooze-like machine aptly named Nightmare, which has many attacks including sucking you down into a literal nightmare dimension where you get to fight previous bosses yet again (really not fun on the harder difficulties!). There’s Phantom, a lava spider/scorpion, and a dark knight called Nelo Angelo who turns out to be Virgil, Dante’s twin brother. Then there are the bosses, not as many as in later games but once again all are awesome and you get to battle them multiple times. I can’t think of one duff enemy in this game, favourite enemies are the Marionettes, creepy puppets which are the first enemies you encounter the deadly Shadow cat demons (V has one under his control in Devil May Cry 5) the reptilian Blades Sargasso, which are floating, snapping skulls and the Nobody demons: freaky looking guys with an extra arm that grows out of their back (trust me you don’t want them to grab you with it!), oh and watch out for the exploding eyeballs they throw at you! Once you have the sword your Devil Trigger state crackles with electricity, you have lightning speed, you can throw the sword like a boomerang, and even do aerial attacks! Zipping about in the air while raining down lightning on your ground-based foes is still, to this day, incredibly empowering and liberating!Īs Dante is a Demon Hunter, of course he needs some worthy opposition to show off his skills. My favourite though is Alastor, a lightning sword! The cut scene where you first obtain it is still great fun to watch: the sword impales Dante, who then pulls himself off it and then proceeds to have his version of ‘By the Power of Grayskull!’ One is Ifrit, which is a pair of flaming gauntlets which allow you to turn into a ball of flames when you leap, fire meteors from your hands, and pound your fists on the ground setting it on fire! You pick up two melee weapons on your adventure: There are, of course, Dante’s starting guns, the iconic twin pistols Ebony and Ivory, then along the way you pick up a powerful shotgun, a grenadegun, a needlegun (for underwater combat – the first person view is a little awkward but it’s still fun), and the cool looking but largely useless Nightmare-β (it looks like Nightmare, one of the bosses). It’s one of my top five games of all time, so I just wanted to write a feature to celebrate it! (Spoilers ahead!)Ĭompared with later games in the series the weapon selection is pretty puny but they still pack a punch. On 23rd August (its Japanese release date) Devil May Cry is 20 years old! It was the first game I completed on my PlayStation 2 and I still play it regularly now (even managing to complete it on Dante Must Die difficulty this year!). Devil May Cry – 20 years old this month (pic: Capcom)Ī reader celebrates the 20th anniversary of Devil May Cry and why he thinks the original game still has much to teach the newer entries.