Devil May Cry and $8.00 USD cranberry juice

It's been a busy month for me, to put it mildly. Cancer hasn't let up, although I've been pretty lucky autopsy-wise. Only two this month, and one was neuro-only. But I've had at least one presentation a week and, during the first half of the month, had to deal with at least one colon cancer a week. I've gone out with friends only once all month, and though I had fun, I'm still bitter that I an NYC bar charged me eight dollars for cranberry juice. And not even good cranberry juice. At one point, I had a whole post ranting about it, but that was at least a week ago.

Anyway, I think I wrote a post about getting a PS4 and Final Fantasy Type-0. . . wait. Looks like I did. Mild update: Type-0's story is an abomination that hinders a promising battle system and an open map that at least tries to be engaging, unlike some other Final Fantasy games I could name. I gave up after two chapters, too many days ago to remember all the complaints I had for a blog post dedicated to the whole mess. Suffice it to say that my cautious optimism for Final Fantasy XV is more cautious than ever. 

Moving on to better news, I'm really loving this game so far:

Apparently fans complained about it when it came out?

I remember playing the first Devil May Cry game when I was in high school, though it's more accurate to say that I watched my younger brother play it. Did I ever tell the story of how my brother and I destroyed a Nintendo 64 controller and our mother refused to buy us another one, so we defaulted to my brother playing as I told him exactly what to do? Anyway, we loved it. Then couldn't afford the sequels, which might be just as well since it seems that the series' overall quality is debatable. 

Regardless, my immediate opinion of this game is that it's awesome. It's some kind of reboot or alternate universe of the original game. I don't actually care about that. The game opens with Dante (the new one) waking up in his trailer after a threesome with two unnamed and barely seen girls (strippers?) and being attacked by a literal demon. It turns out that Dante is the son of Sparda (a demon), and Eva (an angel), which makes him a nephilim. And there's a prophecy that only a nephilim can kill the king of hell. Also Dante has a twin brother.

A story that is both ridiculous and easy to follow, even for someone who spends twelve hours a day dealing with cancer and hilarious office shenanigans that are no where as hilarious as sitcoms would have you believe. 

Not that DMC doesn't try to tackle serious political themes, and with hilarious subtlety. By which I mean "subtlety". Mundus (the king of hell that Dante and/or his twin brother are destined to kill) has entered Earth and become a shady CEO who controls humanity via debt, a propaganda-laden "news" organization with a talking head that looks suspiciously like Bill O'Reilly, and spiked soda that presumably makes people obese? And that's just in the first two missions of the game. Like I said, it's freaking awesome in its earnest stupidity. 

The art fits the epic, dark, but ultimately cheesy tone of the game:

Cartoon angels and demons riffing off Renaissance art. . . I think. Didn't really study art history in school because I'm far from the classy critic who could enjoy that type of thing. Don't tell on me. 

The battle system is. . . well, I'm not really good at action games. My hand-eye coordination is not ideal, so it's probably for the best that I didn't pursue my rather brief ambitions to become a surgeon. Timing jumps is the worst. I put the game on the easiest setting and I still get a measly D after every mission. Once, I managed a C. Regardless, I'm having a lot of fun with it. Thoroughly recommend it.