It’s the spooky-ooky season, so it means nothing but it’s a good enough excuse to review some shitty videogame of fecal magnitude, or ones that were so bad they made many “worst of year” lists, and come with some depressing and-or absurd history to them. For indeed, “the horror!”.
And Devil’s Third definitely fits the bill, being one of the many titles that confirmed once again that sometimes you should just quit when you’re ahead, or before tarnishing your own legacy due to boneheaded behaviour in mismanaging projects that languish for years due to an accolade of deals falling through, changing engines and platform targets, only to eventually release and make one realize that maybe you can actually lose talent over time.
And as they do, stories like this just highlight how even successfully rebooting the Ninja Gaiden franchise for the original X-Box… won’t stop your career from having a “Tommy Wiseau of The Room” moment, highlighting that sometimes these legendary creators might have actually needed the company they supposedly left to do whatever they wanted, not the other way around.
Especially when the finished game had to basically receive a “pity publishing” deal from Nintendo, as no one else wanted to publish this one for years (including Nintendo Of America), so it became a Wii U exclusive because we were already in the death years of the system, and i guess Nintendo could use an action game that look like it could be on PS3 or 360. Or a game, stat.
Given the infamy this game has, when i began playing i was kinda surprised that it was way more functional than i expected, in terms of control. Yes, the problems became apparent soon enough, but it’s way more functional than i thought it would be… and yep, we’re already reached the pinnacle of positive critique i can honestly say about Devil’s Third.
The plot is (or would be) arguably kinda the best part, with this non-sensical barrage of action movie clichès taken to deliberate extremes, absurd comically “tough/badass” enemy bosses with hilarious names, like one guy called – with a straight face by the protagonist, a tattooed russian with permanent sunglasses called Ivan – and others – Big Mouse, and i have no fuckin clue why he has that nickname, this isn’t One Piece style characterization, so he doesn’t have mousey face traits or whiskers, or he’s particolarly sly or whatever, nor he is small.
The gist would be the US army setting free this Duke Nukem-esque convinct, Ivan, so he can help them fight a terrorist group called SOD that’s, but the narrative is really just an endless barrage of utter non-sense, leaving aside how the “OC Badassimus Russianoski” main character feels accidentally dropped in a hum-drum war shooter game, as if they drafted Obelix for the NAVY Seals during the Fallujah days. But it doesn’t matter as, suddendly, after levels of more or less realistic modern warfare…now there are mutant zombies that feel like they belong in a RE knock-off, with abandoned hospitals infested with giant humanoid pink pig-bat naked mutant monsters that – again – would be marginally more at home in a Duke Nukem game.
and honestly that’s where my mind went, to Duke Nukem Forever specifically, heck, even this one had a troubled as hell development history, if it was made by a japanese team that also wanted to be bootleg Metal Gear Solid, for we have – among others – the character Jane, the random ass supermutated supersoldier than strips down to her lingerie to fight you after telling you of her absurd paranormal mutant power… and not even the only female enemy boss that’s basically naked or another Quiet-style design.
At least this one doesn’t have revolting shit like the “mutant alien wall boobs” shit.
The sad thing is that the utter non-sense apocalypse of cliches and b-movies pastiches that Itagaki threw together for the “plot” of Devil’s Third sound so utterly stupid you’d think it would HAVE to be funny in its absurdity, a hilarious trash fire, especially since it takes itself so seriously…. but it does not. It just amounts to a dreadful ensemble of tired gibberish, juvenile bullshit and action game crap that maybe would have had some value… if there was some hint at the people making it letting you know THEY know this is juvenile as fuck. But it’s so stonefaced about its everything it’s kinda pathetic, like its protagonist with the charm of a cinder brick.
I can see why one would think “this sound hilarious in a so bad it’s good way”, but like the gameplay, it’s such a joyless, disjointed, shitty parade of boredom, randomness and frustration.
Then again, what do you expect of a game that “hides” pointless lore about characters (like they using an unique martial art) that just showed up out of nowhere for a boss fight missions ago and hence you’ve likely already killed?
Gameplay doesn’t really fare much better, as it tried to be one of those hybrids that tried to marry TPS and beat em up, and fails miserably, as game design basically punishes not using the guns and the cover shooting affair, with arenas that are empty or just have a couple of lonely boxes, meaning you’ll have to cover shoot your way unless you wanna eat lead through the ass and die.
It’s no wonder not many games tried this hybrid style of gameplay, because it meant both TPS and beat em up elements are compromised, and the game using the obvious cheap trick you expect to force you on using melee combat, just throwing fast dudes with lots of hp or speed that bumrush yo ass.
But since it’s a badly balanced game, you’ll pretty much have to use the guns more, as the gunplay is cover based, you have regenerating health, and it’s so unbalanced that some weapons, like the rifle with flamethrower mode, will often override the need for melee combat….not that there’s actually much to it, aside from being like a rubbish imitation of Ninja Gaiden’s with crap enemy IA, so button mashing (and a bit of parrying since the health regen system means you can take very few hits) will do fine for most encounters, even if the enemies tend to be fairly aggressive.
There are some combos but honestly there’s no point in even memorizing/learning them, like there’s no point in picking up melee weapons to switch with your base katana….. which is bad, like, at least you might need to switch your two weapon load-out for the gunplay, but i NEVER felt the need of picking up a knife or sledgehammer, even if they have different combos to them.
Worry not, the shooting it’s also built on bad foundations, meaning you can shoot in third person like crap, but instead of the usual precision aim feature TPS have, here you go into first person mode everytime, which is jarring due to how overly snappy the aim assist is, but needed to actually land hits using the gun, otherwise you might as well be aiming at the sky.
Weapon selection leaves a lot to be desired, as i said before, though it does get brownie points for the aforementioned automatic rifle that has a flamethrower mode, somehow… though it does lose them because it basically trivializes every other weapons.
Fuck balance, we’ll Modern Prometheus-ize our way through it, EXACTLY as Mary Shelley wanted.
At least until the game throws another cheap sequence of bottlenecks with long rang mini-gun juggernauts and no cover, which not so much evens out but bullshits its way to a less exploitable experience… by exploiting the systems backs, of course.
I criticized the enemies for having dumbass IA, and it’s true, though Ivan is in no position to cast stones, since he himself fails to automatically stick to a cover-usable surfaces despite often doing exactly what he should. Or pick up ammo refill crates despite walking over them with both boots.
Bosses do not fare much better. Even when they can’t be cheesed with guns, they’re disappointingly easy at best, they’re all bark and no bite, mostly able to throw absurd instadeath cheap shots but still, piss easy when you get down to it…. and the final boss is no different, doesn’t matter how sick he thinks his Naruto “cosplay” is.
Speaking of which, level design is pretty bad as well, having you wander about the uber generic ensemble of third person war shooter ever (warehouses, buildings, all the shizzle), with no real room for exploration, BUT plenty of garbage like randomly mined territories that often will result in instadeath because the game never told or clued you in there could be mines, which means you dying and then using the heat visor to scoop them out…. slowly.
Do not expect to use the visors as a gameplay mechanic, they’re a gimmick used like twice, and then tossed away, unlike the insipid turret sections they clearly threwn at random when they had no idea how to “spice up” a section, that’s kind of overly basic and old timey level design here, fits alongside the game having like ¾ enemy types recycled over and over, but WOW, now they have optical camouflage so they’re quasi-invisible. Totes new.
Technically is utter crap, as it runs like ass (especially if played on the Gamepad only), but it’s also pretty shameless in reusing assets (like the “caves” ones seen in mission 1 and reused blatanly in mission 4)… or so i was gonna say, but it feels nitpicky to point that out when performance is so bad, especially in handheld mode, you can have the game lag 3 or more seconds at a time, often, even during cutscenes, and gameplay, and it’s utterly inexcusable.
Again, it looks like a mediocre at best 2007 X-Box 360 game that was delayed so much it basically released in a different market, where what it was offering was old hat… because it was, just already antiquated even before the formality of a release. Again, very Duke Nukem Forever-esque.
Plus, collision detection isn’t perfect, as sometimes the game just decides you ain’t picking that ammo box, despite clearly walking over it. Gotta love the random nature of what containers and structure you can climb and you can’t, but then again it’s incredibly easy to forget you can even jump and climb onto ledge to begin with, since there’s barely any of that ever required or made possible by the level design until the final missions, and it’s not common for a cover shooter.
In terms of content, aside from the 8/9 hours campaign, there’s Score Attack, a handful of collectibles to find in the missions referred to as “trophies”, rankings for each mission, fairly basic, i’ve seen games with far less.
And then, multiplayer. At least there was.
I’d say the game it’s lucky i’m reviewing it now, as in long after its entire multiplayer mode was available to play, since even at best what i heard and red about Devil’S Third online component was still pretty shit, with more effort in making it work despite all obvious mechanical issues that could already be seen and “enjoyed” in the campaign (like the lack of any balance in terms of weapons, for example, and the previous issues with Ninja Gaiden 3’s attempt at a multiplayer mode).
Then again, it’s telling it also had microtransactions up the wazoo, what kind of shitty modern game didn’t have those? Gotta have the shit part that also drains more money from you.
Overall, Devil’s Third is another tale of how even with the pedigree of “i gave new life to Ninja Gaiden and created the entire Dead Or Alive series”, you can easily have your head so up your ass to direct a misguided project equivalent of Bender’s “theme park with blackjack and hookers” line, where nobody ever so much could rein in your bullshit for the sake of the final game, which languished in development hell enough that when it released, it felt like 2007 again, given the asinine attempt at a third person shooter-hack n slash game, all the rage back then.
Not only it was a stale offering that design wise felt archaic in 2015, it was also pretty crap, with mostly functional but clunky ass controls, almost no balance, stupid ideas, tired cliches, and it also ran like total ass, with a framerate so bad that the lag could be felt and actually get you killed (especially if played on just the Gamepad itself), embarassing and inexcusable for the platform, neglected as it was of titles after 2014. A shitty pastiche of random cliches and infantile “bad assery” served as “plot” didn’t help, despite how hilariosly bad it could have been, it’s blunt and serious execution just felt juvenile beyond belief and boring, despite how it sounded like a recipe for master levels of “so bad it’s good” videogame storytelling.
Neither did a multiplayer mode that might have been more ambitious, but still used the same clunky systems and controls and lack of balance from the story mode, and tacked on microtransactions, as the quintessential cherry on the pathetic, almost depressing pile of “top 10 worst games of the year” material that Devil’s Third was always gonna be.
It’s not even funny bad, it’s the disheartening, frustrating kind of bad that honestly feels like it should be the japanese counterpart to Duke Nukem Forever. It’s that kind of bad.
While the servers for the multiplayer mode were shut down (honestly pretty fast, too, it didn’t even last a year)… it wasn’t quite the end, as they later relaunched the multiplayer component as its own thing on PC, called Devil’s Third Online, that one too was short lived, with similar reception to its first Wii U outing.
What followed would be best ignored, but then again Itagaki did absolutely fuck all with Valhalla Games Studios (aside from porting/working on a 3DS version of the popular board game videogames series Momotaro Densetsu), until he came back with a NFT project that went pretty much nowhere, making people wish he was actually dead instead, and proving the theory that you should never meet your idols. Or have them shitting on their legacy, but then again Itagaki was gonna be in good company soon enough, with Yuji Naka doing the Balan Wonderworld disaster and then getting arrested for insider trading. Maybe he’ll met Ivan there, who knows.
Surprised Itagaki didn’t join him in the slammer, given the unclear circumstances that let him not only avoid shutting down the studios, opening a Valhalla Games Studios Quebec subsidiary, but at least one other subsidiary of the parent company, Soleil, did something, developing Naruto to Boruto: Shinobi Striker, and more importantly Wanted: Dead, which could as well be considered Devil’s Third spiritual successor of sorts, as it tried for a similar vibe/tone and apparently succedeed a little better, according to various reviews.
I did manage to get a copy of that one for relatively cheap, so look forward to that review, please.
Regardless of that, if you want to play a game that like this tried the “hack n slash & TPS” combo, just pick up a cheap ass used copy of Hunted: The Demon’s Forge, it’s far better than this.
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