#V devil may cry 5 full#
#V devil may cry 5 series#

'You end up doing a sort of gymnastics with your thumb. V can teleport to injured enemies to finish them with a lock on and a button press, but then can't teleport back out of the thick of things - that's left up to you. This makes combat with V a delicate dance of weaving in and out of range while attacking with the familiars, then dashing back in to land a killing blow on a weakened enemy before dashing away once again. Not even Nightmare, the Devil Trigger Level 3 summon, can do this. The familiars can't finish off enemies on their own. There's one last wrinkle in all this that makes it genius. To go with the idea of V as vulnerable compared to the others, he can even read his book mid-battle to charge his Devil Trigger gauge - but doing so leaves him open to attack. The regular health bar is entirely dedicated to V himself, who isn't a fighter at all. They automatically heal over time, and do so more quickly when they're close to V.

While the familiars can be powered up with Devil Trigger, they can also be knocked out of battle temporarily if they take too much damage at once. Each familiar has their own additional skills to purchase in the store with red orbs (which despite microtransaction concerns felt very fairly scattered throughout this demo), so you'll be able to prioritize upgrades for the one you prefer. A large dodge might involve V grabbing Griffon's claw to fly to the other side of a combat arena, for instance. Griffon is a bird and serves a sort of dual purpose, offering up a suite of ranged elemental attacks but also assisting V with movement. Shadow is a panther that attacks up-close, appearing from nowhere to swipe at your enemies. Shadow and Griffin are with him all the time and have unique properties. Shadow, Griffon and Nightmare are the three spectral creatures V attacks with - his familiars. 'Really, all these elements - the design, the story - they all coalesced together right at the same time right at the beginning of development.' That all kind of combined into this idea, and at the same time it fit with our ideas of what the story could be. 'You have what you need to protect over here, but then you have Shadow, Griffon and Nightmare over here attacking, separately. 'That was ultimately how we came up with the idea for V,' Itsuno says, going on to explain how V attacks through his demonic allies. What if you separate those two elements, though? How much does it change the core of the game? With Dante or Nero, you're using them as an offensive outlet against the demon hordes, but you're also dodging and weaving, trying to stop that same character from being injured. Typically in Devil May Cry, you're balancing your use of the single most vital resource given to you - your playable character. Right at that same time, I had the idea of taking what you need to protect and what you need to attack with and separating those two elements.' 'We also knew that character had to be different from Dante and Nero, or else there's no point. It all started with that,' Itsuno explains. So we said for Devil May Cry 5, we wanted a new character. 'Devil May Cry 4 had two playable characters, Nero and Dante. 'We knew that character had to be different from Dante and Nero, or else there's no point' - Hideaki ItsunoĪfter playing, I got to chat to DMC5 director Hideaki Itsuno about the genesis of V's unique style of play, and his explanation of how they came to it is as good as any. Now, however, we know: and he's a brilliant twist on the core formula of stylish action games like Devil May Cry. Kirk first went hands-on with Nero, and later on I played a bunch of the game as both Nero and Dante, but V remained a mystery beyond some vague rumors and interview hints as to how he plays. VG247 has played and covered DMC5 a few times before. A little later we got a first glimpse of a mysterious new figure known as V, the third (and presumably final) playable character in DMC5.

#V devil may cry 5 series#

There was series mainstay Dante, and Nero, co-protagonist of DMC4 - but it seemed the long-awaited sequel had yet more secrets to hide.

#V devil may cry 5 full#

We finally got to play as V, Devil May Cry 5's mysterious new playable character - and he's quite unlike anything the series has seen before.īack when Devil May Cry 5 was announced, fans were almost immediately teased with the fact that they didn't yet have the full picture.