I've written for RPS previously on how such systems operate and their effect on the player, so here it will suffice to say that a good fighting system is a near-unmatched engine of expression for players, stylish in everything, but with enormous depth and flexibility. Very few genres are as purely system-oriented as the thirdperson fighting DMC pioneered, and to design a great close-combat system in three dimensions – which operates at breakneck speed – is simply beyond most developers. Capcom may have its marketing and financial reasons for pushing definitive versions of the DMC games, but the company also has an unmistakeable pride in this series. The fact that Itsuno is directing DMC4: SE says something. Hideaki Itsuno is a big cheese at Capcom these days, best-known for Dragon's Dogma, but over the next seven years he would direct DMC2, 3, and finally 4. DMC was released in 2001 and single-handedly established and invented the thirdperson hack-n-slash genre. DMC was created by Hideki Kamiya in the late 1990s, initially conceived as a more action-oriented Resident Evil spinoff – and with the idea for combo-based juggling taken from a glitch in another Capcom game, Onimusha: Warlords. Then you come to the reason that seems least prominent, but should maybe be at the top. The fanbase may be niche but it's sizeable, with DMC4 selling over three million, and DMC's nature makes it much more replayable than the average action game.

Capcom like money for old rope, of course, although DMC4: SE is a more fully-featured project than the other re-releases. This is a comprehensive curation exercise, and clearly a new DMC of some kind lies in the near future, but it's worth asking why. So, with the Special Edition now launched, does this devil finally get his due?ĭMC4: SE follows hot on the heels of Capcom re-releasing the first three DMC games as an 'HD collection' which was soon followed by a 'definitive edition' of Ninja Theory's DmC reboot. Great game plus great hardware doesn't always equal great experience. When considering Capcom's Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition, for example, exhibit A would be DMC4's original PC port in 2008, a straight-from-console affair that could only be controlled with a pad. Support the biggest and most powerful platform on the planet or miss out on sales: seems like an easy decision, but the results can be questionable.

As the mighty PC strides into the future, a choice faces the great console developers.

Devil may cry 4 special edition