Do you really need me to tell you that Devil May Cry 5 is one of the best action games ever made? That’s rhetorical, but you’re smart, you already know that. It’s been about seven years since the game first released, with Vergil and the Special Edition coming with the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X just a year later. We haven’t heard a peep out of the series until now, with the release of Devil May Cry 5 Devil Hunter Edition on Switch 2. This is the first time the game has appeared on a Nintendo platform, and while it’s far from being the complete version of the game, it’s still a blast to play and makes for a perfect portable companion.
Let’s get this out of the way up top: Devil Hunter Edition doesn’t include any content from the Special Edition outside of Vergil as a playable character, and compiling together all the DLC. That means no Legendary Dark Knight (LDK) difficulty mode, no Turbo Mode, and no Ray Tracing. I can live without Ray Tracing as it would be difficult to maintain 60fps on Switch 2 with it on, but no Turbo or LDK is really disappointing. For those not in the know, LDK mode is similar to Son of Sparda difficulty, but vastly increases the number of enemies spawned in each encounter. It’s a ton of fun, and lets you go further with your moveset than you could in other modes while presenting its own challenge. It feels very weird to release a new version of the game that is, content-wise, a downgrade from the Special Edition.
That said, I’ll take any excuse to replay DMC5. It’s been a while since I’ve played through every mission, and I had a great time; I’ll probably do it again on Virgil’s campaign once I’m done writing this. As I said in my look back on the Switch 2’s first year, I just like playing games on it. So while I own DMC5 on PC and PS5, I’ll probably come back to this version more often unless I do want that enhanced visual experience and LDK mode. It’s also only 28GB on Switch 2, so I won’t have to free up too much space on my SD card to download it in the future.
Visually, Devil Hunter Edition looks incredible. Pretty much every time I booted the game up and very quickly loaded into a Mission I thought: “Is this really running on a portable?” It might be using upscaling, but the game still looks stunning, and there’s not even much aliasing going on. It’s all rendered at a buttery smooth, consistent 60 frames per second in both docked and portable modes. There was exactly one cutscene where I saw it dip below 60, the one ending Mission 3, but that’s literally it. It’s so perfect there’s really not much more to say. Other than the fact that Capcom has made the new Gold (Orb) Standard for Switch 2 ports.
There is one key issue with this version, though: opening the home menu or going into sleep mode will skip any current cutscenes. That’s not great for a first playthrough, but you’ll probably be skipping all the cutscenes anyway on any Mission replays. This is probably due to a technical thing I don’t understand, seeing as I don’t believe you can pause cutscenes in any version, but it’s worth noting nonetheless.
To summarize, if you have Devil May Cry 5 Special Edition, you don’t really need to double-dip unless you want to play portably. If you don’t have the Special Edition and you do have a PS5 or Xbox Series, you have a bit of a tougher choice to make. I’d be a bit cautious since the Special Edition content really is great, but I wouldn’t steer anyone away from Devil Hunter Edition if they really want it. With this, the Switch 2 has most of the series available to play on it; we just need 4 and DmC: Devil May Cry. And how about that Ladies Night DLC with Trish and Lady as playable characters, Capcom? If the Witcher 3 can get a new DLC, so can DMC5.
