Not playing as Dante in a Devil May Cry game takes some getting used to—while you still do get to play as your favorite demon hunter you play at least half the game as newcomer Nero. Though the two characters' backgrounds differ it is quickly found that the two are cut from the same cloth both in general fighting styles as well as their supreme level of cockiness. The good news is that this character switching really doesn’t matter; the gameplay is just as intense and entertaining as ever.

At the start of the game while Nero is begrudgingly attending a religious service a mysterious man breaks through a skylight on the ceiling and lands crouched on the altar in the blink of an eye. Before Nero or anyone in the congregation can react the man pulls out a pistol and shoots the priest in the head, which then prompts an aggressive and futile response by the guards nearby to try and take the man down. Though the man easily dispatches the guards he finds Nero to be a much more difficult fight, and the two go at it until the man escapes back from where he came. Series fans will immediately recognize the man as Dante, and will immediately question why it is that a man such as him would break into such a place and kill a religious leader.

This story thread forms the backbone of the beginning of the game, in which Nero sets off in the direction Dante fled in an attempt to find his own answers. Along the way Nero must fight through hordes of demons, from lowly fodder to massive boss fights. Nero is only armed with his sword and a double-barreled revolver, which in a departure from the series norm is also the lion’s share of the weapons that he will ever get. Rather than making combat revolve around using a multitude of different swords and firearms for the task at hand it centers on effectively using the roster of moves and attacks.

One of the new moves Nero has in his favor is his Devil Arm which gives combat a lot of flexibility. Using the Devil Arm, Nero can grab distant enemies and reel them in, grab enemies and slam them around, or in some cases particularly punish enemies by grabbing their own weapon and repeatedly running them through with it. Its biggest use though is as a tool more than a weapon, and being able to dice an enemy up and then slam an enemy away only to pull him back and continue the beating is a nice asset to have.

Much as in prior games in the series each and every fight Nero takes part in is affected by the stylish meter; a meter that rewards players who mix things up and use a wide variety of moves and dodge attacks. The higher the stylish meter is the more red orbs are dropped by enemies when they are killed which are one of the forms of currency in the game and are used to purchase items. Performing the same move repeatedly makes the meter drop, as does spending much time not actively attacking something. When left alone for a moment players can make Nero taunt, which fits his cocky attitude just as well as it raises the stylish bar up a fair amount.

The grit of the combat is not much different than what series fans are already accustomed to. The pistol deals weak damage at first but is great for keeping style chains alive or keeping enemies airborne, while the sword is Nero’s bread and butter weapon for killing foes either on the ground or in mid-air. Nero is quite agile even before he is upgraded making combat mainly a matter of analyzing how your enemies are attacking you and then striking them while they are left open. Some enemies have weaknesses that can be exploited such as an attack that leaves them open or a specific move that can deal heavy damage to them. While often Nero will be facing down eight to one odds it rarely makes the combat feel unfair. Once the combat “clicks” it becomes a satisfying ballet of death with the player deftly avoiding attacks while wrecking the opposition, and all the while doing so with the style and intensity that has become synonymous with the name of the series.