DmC: Definitive Edition is something of a second chance for Capcom. The original DmC: Devil May Cry alienated much of the franchise's existing fanbase, and many argued that the game rebooted a series that didn't need rebooting.

It wasn't the worst game ever, but the very fans that made the series a success felt as if they were being brushed aside.

Now, roughly two years later, DmC: Definitive Edition comes with a number of tweaks and changes aimed at bringing the hardcore crowd back to the series. Are new additions enough to reunite the fanbase, or was DmC: Devil May Cry just too broken to fix?

At first, the story of DmC is an intriguing one: demons quietly rule over humanity via propaganda, addiction, corruption and greed. Dante, while living a life of wandering and killing demons, is suddenly given the opportunity to simultaneously rid the world of its demon masters and take revenge for his parents' murder. Along with Kat and his brother Vergil, Dante is tasked will killing Mundus, King of the Demons, and saving humanity from its unseen master.

Throughout the first half the game, the story succeeds: the world of DmC is an intriguing one, and it's genuinely interesting to see how everything works. However, the story falls apart two-thirds of the way through: characters' motivations and personalities seem to flip-flop without warning, and the story's attempts at a twist or being 'edgy' come of as forced and tasteless. DmC tries too hard to be dark, and fails at almost every turn.

It certainly doesn't help that the main cast of characters ranges from forgettable to downright unlikable. Kat is your average video game girl (whose sole purpose is to act as support and wear short shorts), Mundus is a generic dirt bag gangster villain with aspirations of world domination and Vergil is a blasé resistance leader stereotype.

DmC's cast could have been saved by a solid main character - unfortunately, Dante is the worst of the entire bunch. In the 'classic' Devil May Cry games, Dante was a fun-loving, cocky, arrogant goofball with a sword; in DmC, Dante is an unlikable, foul-mouthed, womanizing, angst-y teen with no real redeemable qualities. On top of all that, he's constantly switching back and forth between an absolute jerk and the savior of mankind - Dante was never the deepest character in gaming, but at least he used to be fun.

At the outset, the basic single-player campaigns are the player's only option. Both the main DmC story and the DLC episode Vergil's Downfall are open right away, and once either campaign is completed on any difficulty, the 'Bloody Palace' mode is unlocked. DmC's story will take roughly 10 hours to clear, and Vergil's Downfall will take less than two. Both consist mostly of combat, with a few short platforming segments littered throughout each level. Vergil's Downfall does introduce a few new enemy types and combat techniques, but it's basically the same as the core story mode.

Bloody Palace is a timed combat arena: the timer is constantly ticking down, and the only way to keep it from reaching zero is to keep killing enemies. It's DmC at its most basic, and those that love the combat will find it addicting...anyone else will likely grow tired of the mode rather quickly. Otherwise, there are several different difficulty options and the new 'Hardcore' mode to tweak the gameplay to players' liking, but most of it requires completing the campaign at least once to unlock. It's a decent way to add some replayability to the main campaign, but for many, a single run through the story will be enough.

On the surface, DmC looks like any other game in the franchise. It's all about stylish, combo-driven combat against demonic enemies - the higher the combo, the bigger the bonus. There's a massive amount of gratuitous violence, flashy weapons and heavy metal that keep the action going.

At a basic level, it works: switching between weapons on the fly is great, and the push/pull juggling system offers players a solution for every situation. Plus, there are plenty of different enemies to use all of it on, and it's easy to tell how to approach each situation based on the creature you're currently fighting. Players are able to take advantage of every tool in their arsenal and figure out exactly what techniques are useful and fun to execute.

However, for fans of the series, DmC is nowhere near as complex as prior games. The combo list for each weapon is extremely limited, as there are only a few different moves for each of Dante's five core weapons, and the combat itself doesn't even necessitate the use of this restrictive toolset. Most enemies can be beaten with a single high-power combo, and bosses are simply too scripted to offer up any real challenge - by the end of the game, everything starts to feel incredibly repetitive.

For DmC: Definitive Edition, additional modes were added in to address these issues: the 'Hardcore' mode reworks enemy behavior and the combo system to require more skilled play, and the 'Turbo' mode increases overall game speed by 20%. While it's great that Capcom added these modes into the game, it doesn't fix DmC's core problems.

The weapons themselves haven't been upgraded to work with the new combo system, and it can take quite a bit of fighting just to get a base ranking. Small groups of weak enemies and demons that are constantly blocking and/or teleporting don't help, and it can feel like players don't have the tools required to succeed. Manual lock-on and extra difficulties are great, but they don't really change how the game is played in any meaningful fashion.

At the end of the day, Hardcore mode is a tweak, not a fix.

Finally, platforming is an extremely minor part of the game. Usually, these sections consist of Dante pushing or pulling platforms, then gliding to them. While there are hidden collectibles to find, the sequences are usually just a way to break up the larger fights. Nothing is particularly wrong with the sequences (aside from a few choppy sections in Vergil's Downfall), and they're typically over so quickly that they don't really matter.

On a technical level, DmC looks great: there are some occasional visual glitches, and textures can take a few extra seconds to load sometimes, but the game runs incredibly well. The jump to full 1080p at 60 frames-per-second is great, and playing the game feels smooth the whole way through. On top of that, there were no instances of crashing, freezes, or any sort of game-breaking bugs.

It's the art and character design that are much more divisive. As a whole, DmC's environments look great: watching the world around you tear itself apart, freeze, and put itself back together is always fun to watch. Enemy designs are fine, and it's usually easy to tell how to fight each enemy simply through its appearance. Animation is also a high-point, and it's always clear when to attack and when to get out of the way.

Character design is all over the place. Mundus looks a bit generic, but isn't half-bad; Kat looks like a schoolgirl and usually feels out-of-place; Vergil looks like a model getting ready for the runway. Their designs aren't terrible, but they don't mesh well at all. Dante himself is no exception, and his character looks like a committee's checklist of everything 'cool' and 'edgy' - the only problem is that everything about him feels forced. Thankfully, Capcom included the ability to switch into a few different 'classic' Dante and Vergil skins for each of their respective campaigns right off the bat - if you want to play as the original Dante, you finally can.

Sound design is subject to personal opinion: some may like DmC's Combichrist-laden soundtrack, while others will find the constant heavy metal obnoxious. The voice acting throughout is solid, though the writing and story don't to much at all to help it along. Surprisingly, the sound effects are the real audio highlight, especially when using heavier weaponry: it goes a long way to making the combat feel a lot more satisfying, and stands out as one of the presentation's best aspects.

DmC: Definitive Edition is, to put it lightly, all over the place. The game's setting is great, but the story gets so muddled and ridiculous that players won't care about what happens. The combat gives gamers plenty of options throughout, but it feels a bit too easy, even on higher difficulties. The main campaign is easily 8-10 hours long, but the experience starts to feel repetitive far too early.

Newer fans or action game rookies may enjoy DmC: it's not a very difficult game, and it works extremely well from both a gameplay and technical perspective. However, if DmC: Definitive Edition was made to bring in fans of the classic Devil May Cry games, it's not going to win them over. The changes to the series' gameplay and characters are too drastic for an HD re-release to fix, and the new additions don't do enough to cancel out the game's problems.

In the end, DmC: Definitive Edition's new additions are a step in the right direction, but don't go nearly far enough to fix all of the original game's faults.

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