
Devil's Third had an interesting time on Wii U, initially as a system exclusive; it was fiercely defended by Tomonobu Itagaki and fans, savaged by others, and greeted with a shrug of indifference by many. Years in the making and a manic 'mature' shooter / action hybrid, it was one of the more intriguing releases of this generation.
Now it's lost its best feature, as right on schedule the online servers have been taken offline. In our review of the game our summary was simple - the solo campaign was a buggy mess while the online was a redeeming feature of the scruffy overall package.
Devil's Third is an odd beast, seductive and alluring in some respects and nightmarish in others. The solo campaign ultimately isn't good enough; occasional positives are eventually overwhelmed by bugs, poor design and technical issues. The online multiplayer, while still a little lacking mechanically, is a more fun gameplay experience; it's also surprisingly deep in structure, and one of few online feature-sets of its type on Wii U. Plenty of 'Drill' modes and the impressive fortress / clan setup in Siege mode are notable, with the only major downside of the online component being unnecessary microtransactions.
Sadly it's now only left with its worst part, and some have been bemoaning the end on Miiverse.
It's an adios to Devil's Third, which really tried (and in part succeeded) with that online mode.
Comments 63
It's funny because they said there would be a PC version, but I never saw it released anywhere.
Never cared for it. Sad that avid fans are now left in the cold.
I'd laugh my butt of if a Switch port was in the works.
I didn't play this but I feel their pain. When your online game is taken down, it is not a good day.
Look I'm like one of the very few but I thought the game was fine, yeah a couple of probs but I've played worse ahem, last gaurdian, ahem I had the game for free so yeah, it was a ok game
There is an untold story behind this game that no professional reviewer ever mentioned. And not to their fault, but simply the clan structure was never present during the time allotted for the reviews. a true shame and IMO a hidden gem on Wii U. I will cherish the memories of the games I played with my European clan, Hyrule Guards.
I could never get in an online match. Shame really. Single player is ok - though it could have been sooooo much better if they just delayed it and released the game when the time was right and the game was running properly.
This is my favorite WiiU game, the online was a blast.
I will continue to play the buggy single player. It's still a great underrated game. I feel like it was only hated on because it was suppose to be a x360 and PS3 game, but it ended up being Wii U almost exclusive. Personally, I thought that it was what red steel 3 could have been.
So who's Itagaki gonna blame for this one? Odds are, anyone but himself?
I thought this game was decent. Nothing spectacular, but far more my cup of tea than the current flavor of many AAA games. It was more Ninja Gaiden than Call of Duty, and Ninja Gaiden is my jam.
One day I'll go back and finish the campaign. Same goes for Ninja Gaiden 3 Razors Edge.
And nobody cared...
Well besides the ~30 people who actually played the game for more than a week.
Devil's Turd
Played the game not even a week ago, but didn't even try the multiplayer since I knew the servers were closing so soon.
Still not feel like the game have lost its "saving grace" or something like that, I really liked the campaign a lot, I found it to be a very fun game with crazy action and I needed a frenetic gameplay like that after too many hours spent with RPGs XD
@AlphaJaguar #3 "I'd laugh my butt of if a Switch port was in the works."
If they ever did a version of the game for another platform, they shouldn't just port it. They should "remaster" it and improve a lot of aspects. Maybe it would find a larger appreciation then?
@Seanmyster6 Hehe, gotta give you a heart for that totally original and awful pun.
Never played this one, despite wanting to. I think it looks interesting. I might still pick it up someday.
Never cared to check this out. No skin off my nose, but a shame for its fans.
@Equinox first off it wasnt nintendo fault that this game turned out bad and shouldnt be blamed for someone else's mistakes since nintendo reluctantly didnt want to publish it in the first place.
If the single player campaign is okay, I might check it out. Hopefully there is a price cut in the near future.
@Equinox I understand NoA somewhat, they realized that Devil's Third was a bad game, but there was barely any press for it and the trailers also didn't leave a good impression so all of this contributed to the terrible launch sales.
While the game has its own faults Nintendo of America could have done a better job of marketing and generate some hype around it but since its a mature rated game and a bad one at that, they decided to ignore and almost ditch the game entirely had the fans not noticed something was wrong.
Itagaki was really screwed over by NoA, i feel kind of bad for him cause even if it's a shitty game if Sony or Microsoft had published this game they would have hyped the game to the max even if the end results wouldn't turn out so good.
Aw come on, just when I saw the game for dirt cheap!
Ugh.. console online is just so bad. I'm never buying a console again for that simple reason. Think about how crummy a game like splatoon will be after servers shutdown.
I play some 25yo pc games and they still have servers up and running...
I would love a remastered Switch port of this game. The online multiplayer looked fun, and I would love to play that on the go.
@Yalaa wouldnt matter if they marketed correctly the game still sucks plain and simple.
I really enjoyed the single player
Surprised to see the comments section mostly full of sad, but positive words for this game. Which I find incredibly odd because last I heard of it (before this article) was that it was terrible and that most essentially wished it had never been created in the first place.
Well, my own confusion aside... I do feel sorry for the people who did genuinely enjoy the online aspect of the game. Clearly there was some love there and a few bonds made. I just hope they can all make similar bonds elsewhere, or at least meet up on another game or something.
I can't believe what a disaster story this game was.
I had a blast with this game both online and story.
I have the physical copy and will cherish it.
After reading several comments here from the non-journalistic users who actually played the game's single-player, I feel some regret for not giving this game a try nor a chance while its full experience was still on offer.
A shame... I salute all my brothers in MMO and oher online games land who loose their favorites.
Otherwise, I forgot this thing even existed.
I had fun with this one online but wow was it flawed. It felt like a game straight out of 2006, almost like a 360 launch title. Problem was, it was released in 2015 and only thanks to Iwata.
I think it is REALLY poopy that this game or any game that sells for $60 to have it's online servers shut down so soon. Many people buy games like this SOLELY for the online play. I mean you can still play Call of Duty online on Wii...
I played the last day with people who were on daily from the beginning. Was truly unique.
@Solid_Stannis
How about Nintendo? They left it to die, if supported he could have patched the single player mode, which really isn't that bad.
@Solid_Stannis Tekken 7
It's a pity, I've been wanting to try this, but unwilling to spend full price on it. And in South Africa it's STILL full price!
This game have a lot of fun. Stupid reviews.
@Yalaa have you actually played the game or are you judging based on reviews??
I wished they would at least add a split-screen mode in its place.That would have justified this beyond disappointing decision of Nintendo.
I had a blast with my time on Devil's Third.
Online was excellent even though I only got to play online a few times it was really fun.
Single player was enjoyable too.
It made me laugh out loud literally, with guards blowing themselves up unintentionally.
As others have said, it's like a 90's arcade game released for today's players.
Cheesy, over the top fun.
I've played a lot worse.
Don't worry it's a switch launch title
@Shiryu I'm in hyrule guards to😱😉
Unfortunately this game looked like a turd from day one.
Shame. I don't get why this game can't run on Nintendo servers. Though wouldn't surprise me to see Nintendo shut them down very shortly after Switch launches. Which wouldn't be right as the console has only turned 4 years old. But Nintendo did that with the Wii servers shortly after Wii U launched. So, let's see.
That picture looks like he's driving that sword through his neck. Rather apt, considering the nature of the article...
.....Wow, and Burnout Paradise City and Skate 3 are still chuggin' along. Time is a heck of a test.
Meh. Single player wasn't amazing but it had its moments. Never played multiplayer.
@Yalaa "Itagaki was really screwed over by NoA, i feel kind of bad for him cause even if it's a game if Sony or Microsoft had published this game they would have hyped the game to the max even if the end results wouldn't turn out so good."
In case you don't realise, this is a good thing about Nintendo as opposed to Sony / Microsoft.
Itagaki is an , and his arrogance and problems with teamwork is part of Devil Thord's reasons for failure. Won't be missed.
@ULTRA-64 I played it and I think it's a terribly boring game definitely not worth the full price when there are indie games less than half the price and twice the value.
@Spideron Yup, because that definitely improves the trust and relationship between 3rd parties and Nintendo.
It's not a coincidence that small developers prefer to work with Sony and Microsoft.
What's funny is how Nintendo fooled us again by telling us they would still be supporting the Wii U, yeah right, another game and it's online component is now gone!
With nothing on the horizon for Wii U except Zelda, this system is dead.
Never heard of this game either in the lead up to launch, launch & am only now hearing about it as it dies. I think the main problem is that I follow multi-format news and the Wii U has never been fairly covered in the magazines & mainstream sites. Bravo to NL though for always keeping people up to date.
From what I hear, Nintendo couldn't keep the online content of this game up as it was handled by the developer. Nintendo will take the resulting poop-storm though. :/
@Shiryu Impressive shooting
@Handsomistic15 Everything went well for us on that one. It was always easier to attack than to defend anyway, even in a fully upgraded base.
I never really got round too playing the online mode but I did enjoy the solo campaign the graphics was average too good in parts didn't have any bugs in my playthrough but ran pretty badly tho the story was fine the combat was very good n fluid switching from guns too melee weapons doing combos etc and the boss fights was the best bit for me epic especially on the higher difficulty but would like Valhalla Games too get another try on the Switch.
CARNIVAL is one of my favorite multi-player modes of all time. So sad that there were never enough people playing. NOA should have released it as a $30 download title. It really did deserve better...
@NintyNate a very strange comparison.
@gizmoto Too me, just lovely memories.
Lost Reavers is probably next considering that in their last event of this month; They gave max tier weapons to everyone as gifts, weapons that were basically the longest thing to obtain.
That's a shame as I picked up a copy from Computer Exchange for a couple or so quid a few months back. Would never buy it for the full price even if I was a trillionaire. It's the principal.
Truth be told it's only by reading this article that I remembered I even bought it.
I think what's frustrating to those of us who played (and enjoyed) Devil's Third is that most people who seemingly hate it and badmouth it never played it, or ever had any intention of playing it. Very easy to criticise something you have little to no knowledge of.
Its always a sad day when a game you like to play has its servers shut down. I loved Phantasy star Zero on DS. When that shut down we were still having weekly get togethers to get every item in the game. I never achieve that status but a couple people I played with had done so. Rare drops in Phantasy Star are definately that. RARE. but it was fun to the end. Hope those who played Devils 3rd had that kind of fun with it.
thats a shame too, as i was gonna pick this game up
@Yalaa A late reply, but; I was talking as a consumer - I prefer companies that don't hype turds...
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