Child of Light: Finally started this after having it on my Wii U for a while. Playing Hard Mode to start because hey, if I can shift difficulty mid-game, why not see how things go and shift later if it's a mistake.
That said, this game is really hard to play. No, not because of anything the game does, but just that everytime I start playing, my tooth starts acting up (I'm getting it checked up on June 20th, and by checked up I mean "Root Canal"), which in turns leads to a bit of a demotivation factor for playing the game. I'm probably going to forever associate Child of Light with my hurting tooth, which is an unfortunate negative psychological reaction to the game that isn't the game's fault at all.
Anyway, just beat the Ogre which seems to be the game's 2nd boss.
Devil May Cry 4 Special Edition: Beat Lady/Trish mode.
WARNING: This post contains some mild DMC4 Plot Analysis. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!
Lady is about what you expect with lots of ranged stuff. Her charged Kalina Anne is kind of ridiculous, shaving off like a 1/10th of a bosses health...it's also really hard to pull off given the charge time required AND she's committed to one direction, so if the boss moves while she's charging, or you were oriented wrong, you're going to miss. Generally speaking, Kalina Anne is her workhorse weapon. It's powerful, it's got massive range, it has crowd control, etc. Weird to say that about a Bazooka, but that's Lady for you. Her Shotgun is good for close range combat, doing about as good DPS as you'll get close range and she's a lot more flexible with it, being able to move and charge. Also, the way charge shots work with the Shotgun are different than the other two; it's not a single powerful burst, but rather, a cooldown state where every shot is powered up kind of like Dante's Charge Shots in DMC3/4. Also it gets Gunstinger, so an actual approach move! This means the damage can really pile up if enemy ever gets close. The Handguns are DMC handguns; mostly there for free damage that doesn't do a lot but can pile up. Rather impressed with what they did, since normally the dullest DMC fights are the ones where you can just sit back and shoot the guy to death, since DMC-style games work best when you do a lot of swapping between the two, but they managed to make Lady work by giving her plenty of tools to make ranged combat fight, and there's plenty of instances in DMC4 where the environment is structured to make it hard to get into that position, forcing you to adapt. Oh and her DT Stand-in is ridiculously strong on most bosses...but not Sanctus because he's small, so only a few bombs hit him. Still stronger than anything else she can do save a full charged shot from Kalina Anne, but the DT move is instant.
Trish is not what I was expecting. I figured they'd take her DMC2 style, which was basically DMC1 style, and ramp it up...but nope! I guess this is because DMC1-style combat just doesn't WORK in DMC3/4's more hectic battle system. Instead, her gimmick is she can legitimately use 2 Full Melee Weapons at once. I don't mean she can swap between them, I mean Melee Attack is her Punching (combos being about what you expect for a DMC Fist weapon, though she has Chun-li's Spinning Bird Kick because...well...Capcom...) and her Style Button is Sparda, which is what you expect out of a DMC Sword more or less. She has some weird charging gimmick that seems to increase the power of Sparda's Attacks briefly but I never quite figured out how it worked, just know it's there, and you can get a visual indicator not only via a gauge, but Sparda itself starts glowing. One thing to note about Sparda though is that it doesn't seem to have Helm Breaker, but rather does Dante's Swordmaster Combo in the air; I suppose this was to give Trish some form of Anti-Air. She does have the token DMC Fist Dive Kick granted, which works as a quick fall, but ALSO leaves a Lightning Trail that if an enemy is caught in it, they're stunned for a good 5 seconds taking minor damage...and she can make multiple of these trails too...yeah, they're taking her MvC3 Zoning to heart <_<.
She gets Luce and Ombra naturally, which seems to be the fastest Handguns in the game, though they're weak because, well, DMC Handguns. She ALSO gets Pandora, which took me a while to figure out how to use, and she can even fire the Crossbow Mode (which is an explosive) in the air. Trish became a lot more effective at range when I learned how to use the two basic modes of Pandora. LASER OF DEATH!!! exists too, and seems even better than Dante's, but it drains DT gauge instead of it's own unique thing (I think the implication is that Trish is actively shoving her own Lightning Powers into Pandora, powering up the beam)
Her DT is at what I expected...but then I fought Angus 2, a fight that has a lot of moments you'll be attacking at range, and saw how fast his health was dropping with DT. Then it dawned on me: Trish was playable in DMC2, the game where "Go DT, Hold Shoot Button down" drains a large amount of enemy health...so of course they apply that to her in this game! More seriously though, I feel like Trish's DT was entirely focused on just buffing her offense. It contrasts Dante whose more defensive (Super Armor frames for example), and Nero who gets a bunch of new tricks and expansions of his original in DT. Trish gets no new tricks, just does a lot more damage (and of course Regen because Devil Trigger.)
End of Lady/Trish is cute. Instead of being in the courtyard fighting demons where Nero is protecting Kyrie, you play as Lady blowing up Demons in the adjacent street, while Trish is standing on a bus shooting and slashing things (I don't think they're actually doing anything, unlike Lady in DMC3's ending where she COULD kill some enemies.) Neat that they actually bothered to make it different; here it's just "kill as many demons as possible" ala DMC3, but much lower time-limit (because the 2nd half of Shall Never Surrender is meant for cutscenes, not battles!), so you're not expected to kill as many. Then there's a cutscene showing the Nero/Kyrie stuff from Dante, Lady and Trish's perspective.
One thing I'll say about Lady/Trish mode for DMC4 PLOT is that they show something that was implied otherwise in the other game: That Lady was actually in Fortuna. I guess the logic is Lady was dealing with a lot of demons attacking the townspeople while Trish and Dante were doing their thing.
Also started Vergil Mode. Plot set up that is only meaningful before and after the game? Vergil went to Fortuna Several Decades ago, and mocks the cult there, and then butchers a bunch of demons effortlessly. It almost paints Vergil as some kind of loner anti-hero here instead of the Neutral Evil dick he was in DMC3. I guess Vergil COULD pull the anti-hero thing, since his goal in life is "get more POWER!" by any means necessary, which means he doesn't actively seek out doing bad things, he's just totally fine doing them if it gets him what he wants. I guess he's visiting Fortuna because they worship Sparda like a god, so it'd make sense Vergil would be interested and hey, maybe there's something there that makes him stronger.
As far as how Vergil plays? He's his DMC3 self with some DmC Vergil spliced in. He can do the Summon Sword version of Angel Lift, has his own version of Dante's Drive, and can actually use Million Stab, both the Stinger follow up and combo versions. He also gained a new gauge which near as I can tell, is based around Summon Swords. He can spam Summon Swords like mad make no mistake, but the Summon sword tricks like the barrier now use this gauge instead of DT. IOWs, they're encouraging you to use those tricks a lot more. What I'm saying is...Vergil is still very much the same "GO WILD AND HAVE FUN!" character he was in DMC3, but now he has more tricks to do so. I won't lie; Vergil's fighting style is exactly why I can't completely hate him, because while not the most interestnig character, he's a hell of a lot of fun to play as.
THat said, this game reminds me that we need a DMC RPG. Dante would be the tank, Nero the balanced character, Trish the mage, Lady the Glass Cannon fighter, and...I guess we'll force Kyrie to do something useful and be the healer because she's a priestess or something.
