Devil May Cry 4... beaten!

I've just beaten one of the most kick-ass games of all time, the latest entry of the DMC series; Devil May Cry 4. In a Devil Hunter difficulty, mind you, so I'm not a mere mortal Human.

Impression so far? Well, let's just say that I'm impressed with the graphics and all, especially when I grabbed an HDMI cable to replace the original 360 component cable, the graphics look stunning and smooth, with clear filtering, no jittery white lines on a 720p setting, super awesome display. Gameplay overall is satisfactory, with huge boss battles (and I mean HUGE), even those Shadow of the Colossus bosses look like dwarves (OK, that's exaggerating). This game represents one of the best experience for a hack-n-slash enthusiast like me.

But...

(SPOILER ALERT!!)

here are the things that I don't really like about this almost perfect game (emphasis on almost):
The game's too repetitive in terms of boss battles and world-venturing. When Nero has finished his part, then you play as Dante. Dante then, umm, running back right to the point to the very beginning of the game, to enter the final boss stage, including fighting the already beaten-by-Nero bosses. I'd say that's cheap trick. That makes the game's too short (in my standard) to be played into full force. I'm not the type of gamer who likes to play the game all over again in second or subsequent run-thru after beaten a game. Especially when you start in medium difficulties (exception on GoW when I played in Casual on the first run and then beaten on Hardcore the second run, most because I'd like to know the display comparison after my TV set was HDMI-charged). I mean, is that it? Is this the game that took more than two years in development then feels like you're playing Monopoly? Don't get me wrong, the boss battles are still very-challenging, and tough. Even dueling against Dante makes sword-fighting against Vergil on DMC3 like a walk in the park. But that's it. That's the toughest battle, tougher than the final boss, I think. I'm expecting this like as tough as Ninja Gaiden, but apparently Ryu has some tougher opponents.

Now that I think of it, this turns out makes this game far from perfect, not almost. Capcom can do better of course, but this time it's just not good enough. I'll wait for Resident Evil 5 to come out, and Ninja Gaiden 2. By then I'll see if my craving for virtual blood would be abated.