Mischief Maker wrote:


Better than the horrible Ninja Gaiden camera, a small step up from DMC1's camera. It will try to get whatever enemy you've locked onto into view. You're never going to be able to see all the enemies in the room at the same time. Luckily, if an enemy has a long range attack that can hit you from offscreen, they'll let out a tell-tale battle cry right before they launch it. Still by no means perfect.

My favorite innovation from DMC1 was boss battles that rewarded aggressive fighting instead of the traditional dodging wildly until the boss reveals his hidden weak spot for a moment. Watch that fireball EXPLODE IN YOUR FUCKING MOUF, Phantom! Bosses in this game are huge, mean, bleed in gooshing jets, and still reward aggression, but will constantly fuck with your attack by changing around their pattern or the timing of their attacks mid battle. You can keep your distance and peck away at them with pistols while dodging their constant attacks muttering, "oh dear... oh dear... oh dear..." and eventually kill a couple of the bosses, but who wants to play an over-the-top action game like that?

STYLE:

The style system adds a couple extra moves to your repetoire. At early levels the extra "style" moves are okay. But after collecting an ass load of orbs they level up and start getting increasingly useful and rediculous. Level 1 trickster gives you a limited wallrunning ability and a short dash that makes you invincible for a split second. Level 3 trickster lets you fly, dash and teleport all over the screen as an impossible-to-hit freakazoid. All the regular moves from DMC1 are still available to you no matter what your style.

COMBOS:

In DMC, only certain moves would fill the combo gauge and would continue to fill it if repeated over and over again while other moves or a split-second break between hitting things would instantly send it back to zero. In NG, just hitting people consecutively would raise the combo level. In DMC3 you can use any attack you like to fill the combo meter, and the flashier ones fill it faster, but they will only fill it for a limited time until they get boring and start to drain it. To get SSS rated combos you need to constantly be using different attacks to keep things stylish. I really like this new system because while the game itself is a 3D over-the-top Double Dragon, when you get good you can start playing it like a Tony Hawk game, only instead of calling out tricks for you to pull off, the spectators are trying to kill you.

WEAPONS:

Sword, nunchucks, scimitars, electric guitar, kung-fu gauntlets, dual pistols, sawed-off shotgun, less-crappy version of nightmate-beta from DMC1, sniper rifle, and a rocket launcher with a bayonette. You can have two melee weapons and two guns equiped per level and can switch between them instantly to build up rediculous combos. While moves are still timing-based, like DMC1, and a lot of buyable abilities are shared between them, they still control differently. All the weapons and guns are pretty well balanced, so don't fret over which ones are worth powering up or not. In case you're wondering, you don't go into a FPS scope view with the sniper rifle, it's just a long range weapon with a low rate of fire that knocks enemies on their ass. Dante shoots it from the hip.

DIFFICULTY:

The basic enemies are harder and more varied than NG's, but this is mitigated by less frustrating bullshit from the camera. A good candidate for the hardest game on the PS2. Word of advice: once you hit level 3, make sure you always have at least 1 of these checkpoint yellow orbs on you. It is incredibly frustrating to fight your way through a long, puzzle-strewn level only to get killed by the boss at the end and have to fight through the whole thing AGAIN.

FILLER:

A few light puzzles. A couple jump puzzles. They suck and it would have been better to leave them out entirely, but at least they're not as prevalent as the ones in NG.

CUTSCENES/WHINY PREACHY FACTOR:

Almost nonexistent. A couple remarks about how it's important to kill family members who turn evil, but the rest are rediculous bullet-time action scenes and sinister monolouges.

OVERALL:

If you like this sub-genre, this game's the best of the bunch at the moment. If either DMC1 or Ninja Gaiden were too tough for you you'll haaaaaaate this game.