A Day Late Friend

Here's the chronological order of how the series plays out with a quick synopsis.

1. Devil May Cry 3
The setting takes place at an enchanted tower named Temen-ni-gru where Dante must go to stop his brother Virgil and a supernatural scholar named Arkham from obtaining the power of Sparda, the father of Dante and Virgil who was a legendary demon hunter himself.

2. Devil May Cry 1
Set in Mallet Town, the story is set in Mallet Town where Dante and a woman named Trish must stop the evil Demon Emperor Mundus from returning to the world.

3. Devil May Cry 4
Controlling Nero (new to the series) for the most part (with a few levels of Dante as playable), players must stop the Order of the Sword and their leader Sanctus, from completing a Frankenstein of sorts called "the Savior" as they set to create "Judgment Day" on their own with merging demons into the Savior and then opening all Hellgates to kill the rest.

4. Devil May Cry 2
In Vie de Marli, the story centers on Dante and Lucia in their fight to stop a businessman named Arius from raising the demon Argosax and achieving supreme power.

Now let's move onto the reception each game received from critics and the fans of the series.

Devil May Cry 1:
Selling over two-and-a-half million copies, Devil May Cry 1 is still the best game in the series to date. Reviews from video game news Web sites typically praised the title's gameplay innovations, action, visuals, camera control, and gothic ambience. While the critics did have problems with the high difficulty level, complex control scheme, short and underdeveloped storyline, and somewhat "jaggie" graphics, the average score the title was a 92%.

Devil May Cry 2:
Selling 1.6 million copies, Devil May Cry 2 is the game that many want to forget about. Many of the fans were disappointed in this sequel due to the lowered difficulty level, shoddy weapon selection along with being overall weaker than the original, environments that lacked detail, boss battles that didn't require any form of strategy, plus it also changed Dante considerably as the developers removed his laid-back personality that trash-talked at every instance against his opposition. Gamespot named Devil May Cry 2 it's "Most Disappointing Game" in 2003. The average score for DMC2 turned out to be a 72% decisively lower than the original's overall. DMC2 was disappointing to say the least, you may want to forget that this game ever exists if you are a DMC fans.

Devil May Cry 3:
Set before Devil May Cry 1, this prequel sold 1.9 million copies and was gladly welcomed by Devil May Cry fans and critics. The new combat engine of Devil May Cry 3 helped prove worthy to the series as many praised the developers for not falling into the pratfalls of the second with a great storyline, over-the-top gameplay, impressive customization and good work with controls and the camera. Though, many took a disliking for the increased difficulty but it didn't stop many from still delivering a high score and much praise for the game. Capcom would later re-release the game with a Special Edition that would fix the difficulty and allow players to play as Virgil, Dante's brother. For the score, it ended up scoring around a 84%, a big relief to Capcom and its fans for bringing the series back to life.

Devil May Cry 4
For the first time, the game was released on the Xbox 360 and PS3 simultaneously to where it would sell two million copies together in the first month alone. While critics didn't take a liking to the hard-rock soundtrack the screams in the gamer's face, they did fall in love in the superb voice-acting though many will agree that the one-liners fail to find their humor. But for the action-oriented gameplay, fans and critics agree that Devil May Cry 4 is a great refinement of the series introducing a new lead character who possesses fine abilities to take advantage of. Sadly, the backtracking through the levels and fighting three of the same bosses three times in the game are two faults the game has. Being a little too repetitive for many gamer's taste -- along with this critic himself -- Devil May Cry 4 is a worthy entry but doesn't feel as nearly complete as DMC3 or DMC1. Standing at a 83% at Gamerankings.com, Devil May Cry 4 at least hits for par rather than bogeying like Devil May Cry 2.

As it stands:
DMC1 - 92%
DMC3 - 84%
DMC4 - 83%
DMC2 - 72%

Stay tuned for my review of Devil May Cry 4 later this week.