after i had finished DMC 2 (three times) i still felt like playing more, but sadly i'd already finished more or less the entire series, but that wasn't fully true since i'd forgotten entirely about this DLC campaign for DMC:DMC, a game that i actually really love! i think the reboot is super underrated, i think it's ninja theories best game, which says a lot because i've always been a big fan of their first game called kung fu chaos, and i think it's one of the best playing games in the genre and a real standout for its generation. this DLC gives you a short 2 hour campaign where you get to play as virgil after the events of the game as he has his, well, downfall and gets all corrupted. it's a fun little campaign that plays differenly enough from the main campaign to be worth a try to anyone who enjoys hack and slash games at all and makes for one of the more fun versions of the character i think, shame he's missing his trademark fedora though.

this mini campaign sets itself apart mainly with the gameplay, virgil only has one sword versus dante's multiple weapons but he gets 3 different movesets, his normal one which has your judgement cuts, normal sword attacks and a launcher, some angel attacks which lets you teleport to enemies and you get things like a projectile while airborne and a really fun dash slash that was my favourite of his moves, it just looks stylish no matter how you do it, it also gets its own launcher and a charge slash with his circle attack. then there's also the demon moveset which are slower but super powerful, he has some really powerful slashes and an AOE ground smash you can charge, plus his own varient of the air projectile that hits directly below and a really fun, but hard to land divekick and to round it all out you have a grab that pulls enemies to you, combine all these with his summoned swords and teleportation and you have a really fun moveset that has almost no downtime if you don't want it, you can constantly be in the action and it makes for a really fun combat system, the grabs and the angel attacks were always my favorite to combine and finishing off an enemy with a judgement cut always looks stylish, he's super fun here and as he gets more powerful he even gets new moves like that angel launcher or his doppleganger style from 3 near the end! but at a downside you do unlock things super slow and if you aren't pulling of SSS ranks every fight then you probably wont have even half of them unlocked by the end of the very short dlc, you do get the bloody palace mode to make up for this though so you can go and do your grinding there, but still i think upping the upgrade rate here would have been a good move. other than those things it's all buisness as usual, your fun DMCDMC platforming is here and still really good, it's focused wholley on the limbo style of levels from the maingame so while aesthetically they can be pretty samey they're also just really fun to play around in with the emphasis on the platforming and your moveset works really well on those reused maingame enemies, though you don't have much for boss fights here, it's really just the final fight with himself at the end, a chance to fight dante would have been nice since he's a part of the dlc, but the virgil fight is still very fun and a good chance to really get use of all your moves.

it looks nice enough too, the limbo levels were always the coolest part of the basegame and doubling down on them is a good move, even if it is just a lot of reused assets, you even get some cool peace walker-y motion comic cutscenes here.... probably because of budget yeah but still, they look nice and when it does give you a real cutscene it's a nice treat, the ones with dante were really funny and honestly show that version of the character at the best he's been, same goes for virgil honestly, he's so edgy (positive) and it's adorable, hot topic fanfiction.net vibes you know, he's the most fun here and i say that as someone that's never really cared for the character, sure he's a fun villain in 3 but every other rendition of him i've just found to be a little boring especially like in 5 where his playable appearance was basically the only major thing added (LDK mode was really cool though and is my preffered way to play any DMC) while that games female cast never got any playable spotlight, it annoys me! but he's fun here at least, silly edgy :) and the whole vibe really reminds me of like, bleach, for some reason . you even get to see dante's mom here for all the DMCDMC lore-heads out there and there's some fun edgy versions of the main cast here just hamming it up, dante especially is clearly having fun with the role, it's not much more well written than the basegame and is still maybe a little gross at points, just like the basegame, but for the most part i did think it was less obnoxious than it writing-wise and was at least kind of edgycute and tolerable, naturally it ends on a cliffhanger that will never be resolved though, much like many dlc from the time period (remember prince of persia's epilogue? or the other big ninja theory game with enslaved).

the ost (by jason graves of tomb raider 2013, the dead space games and F.3.A.R) is... there? it has mostly a lot of ambient movie OST Style stuff and reused battle themes from the main campaign, it works, but you won't remember any of it, you know, though for some reason there's no menu music between missions, it's just dead silent, i don't know if that was a bug or what but it felt really weird to me, eerie. that's more or less all there is to say on it, it's a super short dlc with not a ton to do, 2 hours for the base dlc and maybe another 2 for bloody palace if you're skilled and want the trophy which i did get far enough to get though i had to turn the timer off to get that far, it's a fun mode and worth the try since the harder waves are a lot of fun and it's generous enough with healing to make it last a while per fun and it's the best way to grind for upgrades here, though virgil can only be used in the definitive edition, there's also a bunch of difficulty options if you're into that. there's also more depending on the version you play with the definitive edition having must style mode which makes it so you need to do S rank style to do damage and a hardcore mode which has things like a different DT or style meter and these will add a ton more time if you really want it, this port in general is the version i would reccomend going for, it's the only way to get this DLC physically and it's free with it anyway, by the time you pay for the ps3 ver and the dlc you might as well have gotten this ver which improves the game massively with those new modes, changes it so you can do damage on colour coded enemies no matter what weapon, ads a manual lock on which that original game really needed, a turbo mode similar to the one from 3 and 4SE, the gods must die difficulty for real hardcore players, virgil in BP and ads things like costumes and gives you a better frame rate, if that matters to you. this one game is about it though, no sequels or followups and beyond dante's model maybe being used in nightcry it'll probably be the last of it, it is interesting to see this as the last of this game and it's world and if you enjoyed the original at all i would reccomend to go and try it, ninja theories games after this didn't appeal much to me, hellblade just wasn't interesting when i saw it being played and their VR stuff just isn't for me, though bleeding edge was close to what i'd want from them, i may have to give it another try someday before its servers die, they do have an upcoming hellblade sequel backed by microsoft who now own them so i'm sure that'll be good, but as a digital only game on a console i'll never own.... i don't think i'll play it.