Devil's Third

Understanding what the hell happened with this game is... hard. There is some brilliance here and there, but in the end the gameplay is chaotic and all over the place, and the graphics are some of the worst we have ever seen. Random frame rate drops and an uninspired campaign complete a mediocre painting of blood and over the top action. Truly a pity, considering the multiplayer had some potential.

It might become an accidental trash myth, or just another junk-bin disaster. As it is, what it surely isn't is a good experience to be played.

If there's a game that fits perfectly as a kusoge (the term that Japanese gamers use for terrible games), Devil's Third is definitely one of a kind. Itagaki's experiment is a total failure in all of game's aspects: bad gameplay mechanics, terrible narrative and poor graphics make this title something to avoid.

Devil’s Third is not an unplayable game, but it may as well be for all it offers. From the action to the environments, the experience is devoid of personality. The story is a joke, the combat is simplistic, and it only gets worse the deeper you get. If you enjoy playing games that are terrible for a laugh, Devil’s Third is a great candidate – but please don’t interpret that as a recommendation.

If you have any other console or PC for gaming, you have so many better options in the online shooter genre to choose from that there is no good reason to give this one any of your time. If you only own a Wii U, you should be playing Splatoon, and if you only own a Wii U and absolutely must play a more “realistic” style of online shooter, then you still have the two Call Of Duty games.

Devil’s Third is just terrible in every aspect, an ugly and broken action game that ends up being one of the worst Wii U exclusive ever released.

Forget about Devil's Third, there is nothing remotely appealing in this game, starting with appalling graphics, et crappy gameplay which will make you furious and a very average storyline. Just don't bother with this one.

Devil's Third is impossible to recommend as anything other than a curio. Coming from Itagaki, this is a huge disappointment.

Uninteresting combination of unpolished elements. The campaign quickly bores and multiplayer turns out to be only slightly less monotonous.

Poor-level design where the levels consist only of small arenas or two-meter corridors, Devil’s Third is a strange mix of beat’em’up with shooter and dreadful technical issues. An interesting idea flashes here and there so you can also have fun with Devil’s Third, but at the end it’s definitely not worth buying.

Devil's Third is a game with interesting ideas, crushed by a disappointing technical value. The graphics, the gameplay mechanics, the overall game design, are just wrong, and simply fail in creating a good experience to play with.

Devil's Third triumphantly fails both as an action game and as a shooter: Itagaki's fall from grace is thunderous and bewildering, and the drama is almost surreal. It's hard to tell what happened to the genius behind Ninja Gaiden, but the result here is frankly depressing.

Devil’s Third bears the scars of a game that’s had the troubled sort of development that would lead to other games being cancelled. In this case, it should have been.

With weak combat, useless violence, and pay-to-win multiplayer, Devil's Third is not worth your time.

With just five hours on the counter, barely anything gets time to truly sink in. Add to this the technical issues and the inconsistencies of the presentation and you have a game that could have benefited from a bit more playtesting.

Devil's Third, the newest brainchild of Japanese game developer Tomonobu Itagaki, is a pretty terrible video game that tries to combine a frenetic third person character action game with a first person shooter. It fails at doing both, and ends up being just another uninspired mess that feels more like a regurgitation of genre tropes rather than a creative effort from a well known developer.

Itagaki has brought a knife to a gunfight, and the result is a bloody mess. [Oct 2015, p.116]

If you're lucky enough, you may enjoy some multiplayer rounds. Apart from that, there is almost nothing that can hold you. Save your time, look away.

Devil's Third had much promise, but the game turned out to be a huge disappointment. With an unoriginal storyline, boring weapons, inconsistent frame rate and unfairly difficult bosses. It's hard to recommend this game to anyone.

Despite the occasional laughs and wonderfully weird multiplayer modes, Devil's Third is near-impossible to recommend. The numerous issues with the controls as well as crucial elements of the game's combat systems soon mount up to provide an experience that frustrates far more often than it entertains, resulting in a missed opportunity for what could've been a cult hit.

Devil’s Third is not a hateful slog in the way that Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z is, but even after – or more likely because of – half a decade and four game engines, it’s shoddy and ill thought out.

Devil's Third is an ugly, unoriginal, archaic adventure that seems determined to sabotage everything good in it.

An absolute disaster of a videogame, on every conceivable level - it's a taint on the Nintendo name. [Oct 2015, p.78]

If somehow, Nintendo thinks due to the price gouging, people want this and they restock it, wait for a price drop.

At best, it’s a curious relic from a bygone era of videogames in terms of both mechanics and attitude. At worst, it’s an ugly and boring game where the most interesting aspect is the prevalence an of inconsistent framerate despite looking like garbage. The worst part is, I have the horrible suspicion that Valhalla believes it made something really, really good. And that just makes me incredibly sad.

Devil’s Third fails to be even an adequate game on almost every count, from its performance, to its gameplay, to its story and characterization.

Devil's Third is not fun at all. It is an unplayable collection of undefined gameplay mechanics full of bugs, sloppy textures and randomness. There is no place for Devil's Third on the current game market.

Staggeringly inept on almost every level, with crimes against game design, and good taste, that cannot be forgiven solely by the low budget.