Devil's Third

The soldiers Ivan’s teamed up with are a bunch of generic - almost cliché - and didn’t add to the story, or help with bosses, making them fairly pointless. However, despite all that, it was fun, and in the end this could have been a great straight up beat ’em up if they had left out the shooter aspect.

What Itagaki and his team have created isn't exactly a masterpiece, but it does showcase some innovative ideas, and that's why anyone who possesses interest in it shouldn't hesitate to pick it up.

The best thing we can say about its campaign is that it works as a tutorial. The multiplayer mode is the key of this title, but you need to understand how it really works to make the most of it.

If everything read up until this point has you nodding in agreement or wanting to check this out, forget the numerical score, the $60 price tag might just be worth it. Otherwise wait for a price drop…if it ever happens.

More than anything, Devil's Third feels like a last-ditch salvage job that scrapes together what could be rescued from previous builds, slaps it all together, and then shoves it out the door. That said, as rough as Devil's Third can be in many ways, I've had an absolute blast with it most matches.

This is a simple shooter with some uninspired swordplay. We expected more from the creator of Ninja Gaiden.

This should’ve been an even lower score, as The Devil’s Third is the most middling, archaic and ugly action game Itagaki has made in recent history but we’re forced to admit we had a tiny bit of fun playing it. [Sept. 2015, p.058]

All in all, Devil’s Third is a mixed bag on the Wii U that even with its graphical issues and at times flunky controls, there is some sort of decent game to be found, more so in multiplayer.

A complete disaster saved by a competent online multiplayer. Devil's Third is ugly, with bad control, and is boring... Itagaki must have been napping while developing this.

Devil's Third isn't the game that Itagaki promised to us. It has a generic campaign, old graphics and repetitive mechanics. The multiplayer part of the game is maybe the best in the package, but still very far from the action game we would wish for.

Devil’s Third is not a complete disaster, but the troubled development process left us with a phantom of what this game truly was supposed to be. With that being said, I’ve had a lot of fun with what we got.

I was really looking forward to this. But here Itagaki-San is a mere shadow of his creative former self. Devil’s Third wants a lot: It wants to be a shooter like Call of Duty while maintaining the brute force of Ninja Gaiden’s close combat and presenting a deep story. But in the end it is nothing but generic and unfortunately it fails on most levels.

Devil's Third is too far from being the promised masterpiece: Poor hack and slash mechanics, an irregular campaign and a technical disaster. However, it has a strong multiplayer: full of original objectives, deep customization and solid clan mode. It features a fun and frantic multiplayer that's an interesting matchmaking option for Wii U catalogue.

Later this year Devil’s Third will be ported to PC, but single player campaign won’t make it – DT Online will be a free-to-play multiplayer-only shooter. And it’s one of those rare occasions where cuts made during porting process are strictly beneficial. [Issue#201, p.60]

Combat is surprisingly basic given that this is from the man behind the Ninja Gaiden games. [Issue#165, p.86]

Devil's Third has everything it takes to become a cult hit; katana and grenade throwers, explosions, mutants, vulcanos with blue lava and a tough character that lights a cigarette within this madness. But this game does not meet its full potential. The frame rate is terrible, the surroundings are soulless, the loading times are long and the boss fights are frustrating.

Devil's Third is tricky to recommend, ultimately. There's undoubted fun to be had online, but at the same time this is an action game that sells Wii U gamers short. It's packed with good intentions and ambition, but Valhalla Game Studios was unable to execute its vision well enough. The devil is in the detail, and that's the problem.

Devil’s Third is a real disappointment: a game that shows a lack of ideas, and a more than mediocre production. The multiplayer might become slightly interesting in the future, but for now it's a title that you can easily forget about.

Devil’s Third could very well be an outstanding piece in the third-person shooter genre but its overwhelming flaws and lacklustre campaign mode plague it with unacceptable impediments. Nonetheless, its multiplayer mode has potential for fun and intense sessions.