No, you can’t play as Dante for the majority of this game. Yes, the 20 minute install on the PS3 is mandatory. There, now that’s out of the way, take a look at the latest and maybe the greatest game in the series so far. While the original Devil May Cry was filled with enough badass moments to fill a book, the second one led us down a bad path. The third one was an awesome time, but only reserved for the handful of people willing to put up with its gigantic difficulty spikes. In the 4th installment of the Devil May Cry saga, everything flows just perfectly to make for an enjoyable experience, if only it was with Dante.

You are given the character of Nero, a cocky upstart who witnesses Dante murder his leader right in front of his eyes. He then takes it upon himself to hunt him down and exact revenge. From there the story starts to weave through its spirals and twists as you continue your journey, any of which are too good to spoil here. Nero is almost a carbon copy of Dante in every sense of the word. He is a white-haired, gun wielding, sword-toting, demon enhanced warrior with a cocky attitude and a certain distaste for any sort of rules. The only differences lie in the fact that he only has one gun and his demon powers are relegated to his right hand of doom. Oh yeah, and he wears a blue trench coat instead of an all red one.

It may seem like a slap in the face to loyal fans to be given this punk on the first next-gen outing, but Nero turns out to be a formidable character to be in control of, and all loyalties to Dante only resurface once you can finally use him in the game. You do eventually get to use the infamous man in red, but his missions almost don’t seem to have the same epic flair to them that Nero’s do. You are generally tasked with fighting the same bosses that you encountered before, albeit with a slight modification here and there. It isn’t until the end of the game when things start to ramp back up into overdrive.

The controls haven’t changed since the days of the first DMC. Even on the 360 the controls translate rather well and make for a seamless gaming experience. Admittedly, this game is pretty much a button masher. Even if you are trying to pull off the various combos that are available, you’ll probably wind up just slashing and shooting away at any enemy in your path. This isn’t going to be a bad thing for any fans of the series, but newcomers may grow tired of the seemingly nonstop mashing of the attack button that they will have to do. Nero’s devil arm ability does do its job in mixing it up a little, but after you make the switch to Dante it’s all a slash-fest from there on.