We all saw a couple weeks ago when our own Colby, between bouts of spontaneous cowboy yells and possible internet notoriety, told you kids that a Final Fantasy VII remake was now officially in the works from Square-Enix. Clearly, that was tremendous news. Tremendous, life altering, world peace delivering news. But there were some other remakes that came out of E3 and I’ve finally had a chance to play all of them while we wait for the remake of all remakes to descend upon us from Japan.

1. God of War III.

Look. I’m just going to get this out of the way shortly and sweetly. God of War III was, remains, and possibly will always be one of the greatest outlets for mythological platform violence the world has ever known. I was hooked on the first title of the trilogy back in on the PlayStation 2, and even tried to push Kratos/Pandora unsuccessfully as a presidential ticket. Sony basically just said “Hey Tushar all that insane blood you’ve shed over the years? Here it is in 1080p at 60fps with the ability to record and share screenshots and video through the PS4 engine.”

Sold. The gameplay is the same and I’m still sold. It is that much fun.

Oh right one more thing – The Sony reps told me I could tell you kids that “It’s a reminder that God of War was still out there, and I can tell you something new is in the works.”

2. Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition

Knowing how I feel about God of War, it should be a no brainer that I’m a huge fan of other games that involve that kind of gameplay. Devil May Cry was another franchise that had me hooked in the PS2 era, even though we all wish Devil May Cry 2 was just a bad dream. These were the guys that took stylized action and turned it into an art, actually awarding bonus points for how varied your attacks are and how “stylish” your battles are.

Stylish action violence. I’m about that life, kids.

So as opposed to GoW3, DMC4SE delivered some new things – balance and increased speed and fluidity on the gameplay side makes this fun as ever to play. They’ve also included the ability to play as supporting cast members in from the Devil May Cry universe – in addition to the Nero/Dante campaign there’s also Lady/Trish and Vergil campaigns, letting you play through the story as them with completely different play styles than Nero and Dante.

Playing with all these styles does add replay value to the special edition, but since there’s no additional story aside from a beginning and end cutscene for both the Lady/Trish and Vergil campaigns, the missions one is tasked can get somewhat repetitive. See in the original campaign, Nero does roughly the first half of the missions facing 4 bosses then his final boss. Dante takes over and finishes off the same 4 bosses before turning it back over. Nero then has to fight the same bosses again in a gauntlet before endgame. The way it’s spaced out in that campaign it doesn’t seem super repetitive because with each fight you have new weapons and techniques.

But with Vergil that’s where the repetitiveness kicks in. When you play the Vergil campaign you play ALL of the missions with him. So I’m running different versions of the same levels twice each and fighting the same 4 bosses 3 times each which begins to eventually get kind of stale. Now normally I wouldn’t have an issue with this because it’s a special edition game, so just being able to play through the game with another character is enough. But according to the “story,” Vergil’s campaign takes place “a few decades ago” in Fortuna city before the original DMC4 takes place, so the way time flows a lot of this campaign is impossible and he faces enemies that shouldn’t have been born yet.

That aside, the gameplay still makes this a tremendously fun, fast paced and furious action game. The different play styles with each of the characters really grow on you even though it might not seem so when you start. And those really come into play starting on “Dante Must Die” difficulty, where you have to begin to rely on all your skills, not just your favorites, to clear a room.

DMC4SE also includes some different costumes for all of the characters – which includes a smooth badass tan dark haired version of Dante. They say that it’s to mimic the DmC colors, but I think it more reminds me of someone I know…

Oh I know you’re pickin’ up what I’m puttin’ down.

At any rate, still a fantastic game and a worthwhile pickup.

Tushar Nene
Staff Writer
@tusharnene