REVIEW: Devil May Cry 5 Devil Hunter Edition

Devil May Cry 5 first arrived in 2019, and it remains one of the best action games Capcom has ever put out. After years of being confined to PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, it has now made its way to Nintendo Switch 2 in the form of the Devil Hunter Edition, which bundles in all the previously released DLC including the playable Vergil, who was originally a Special Edition exclusive.

The question is how it holds up on Nintendo’s handheld hardware.

Story

Most people didn’t come to Devil May Cry 5 for the story, but there’s more going on here than the surface-level demon-slaying spectacle suggests. Yes, it’s a game about flamboyant hunters tearing through a demonic world tree to take down a demon king, but underneath that there’s a genuine meditation on family, identity, and letting go of the past.

Broken relationships, old wounds, and the burden of legacy are all explored through the series’ signature over-the-top lens, and it works better than you’d expect.

The cutscenes are well-produced and entertaining. One notable inclusion in the Devil Hunter Edition is a set of live-action versions of these cutscenes, created during pre-production to help animators plan choreography and motion capture.

They feature actors in deliberately cheap costumes with low-budget effects, and they’re worth watching purely for the novelty. The main cutscenes themselves are well-choreographed and packed with character moments that do a lot of work in defining the personalities of the cast.

Gameplay

Gameplay is where Devil May Cry 5 earns its reputation. This is a stylish action game built around combo variety, enemy juggling, positioning, and maintaining a high Style Rank. Playing well means mixing up your attacks, avoiding damage, taunting, and keeping things creative rather than hammering the same moves repeatedly. The game runs at a locked 60 frames per second and demands that level of performance.

The Devil Hunter Edition includes four playable characters. Nero is the accessible entry point, a swordsman with a rotating set of Devil Breaker prosthetic arms that each offer different utility, from rocket punches to crowd control, before breaking under heavy use.

Dante is the most complex, juggling four melee weapons, four ranged weapons, and four distinct combat Styles on the fly. His ceiling for combo expression is enormous, and mastering him takes serious time.

V is the outlier. He commands three demonic familiars rather than fighting directly, and the layer of separation between input and output makes him feel clunky compared to the others. He can earn high ranks with less effort in some situations, and completely fall apart in others. He’s the weakest of the four.

Vergil, included here as part of the DLC, is the highlight. He’s a precision-focused character built around speed and devastating single strikes, armed with three distinct weapons that interact with his Concentration Gauge. That gauge fills as you play aggressively and cleanly, and at high levels it dramatically amplifies the power and properties of his attacks.

He is arguably three characters worth of depth compressed into one, and for players willing to invest the time, he’s the best thing in the game. That said, his campaign is assembled from stages recycled from the other characters’ routes, which is a missed opportunity given how distinctive his mechanics are.

Visuals

The Switch 2 version runs comparably to the base PlayStation 4 release. Shadow quality, depth of field, model detail, and effects are broadly in line with what you’d have experienced on that hardware. It’s not the Special Edition, and that’s worth being clear about.

There is no 120fps mode, no 4K output, no Turbo mode, and no Legendary Dark Knight mode. Those features required the processing headroom of PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, and they simply aren’t feasible here.

The loss of Legendary Dark Knight mode is probably the most frustrating cut. That mode dramatically increased enemy counts and was the most efficient way to farm the red orbs used to purchase Vergil’s extensive move set. Grinding for those upgrades in the standard game is noticeably slower as a result.

Some Switch 2-specific additions, whether bonus mini-games, extra costumes, or anything to soften these compromises, would have been welcome.

Conclusion

Devil May Cry 5: Devil Hunter Edition is a solid port of an excellent game. It doesn’t match the full feature set of the Special Edition, and the absence of Legendary Dark Knight mode in particular will be felt by anyone planning to put serious time into Vergil.

But the core game is exceptional, the combat is as deep and satisfying as it’s always been, and having it in a portable format is genuinely appealing. If you haven’t played it before, this is a fine way to experience it. If you have, Vergil alone remains reason enough to return.

Devil May Cry 5: Devil Hunter Edition Pricing & Availability

Devil May Cry 5: Devil Hunter Edition is available now on the Nintendo Store. The game is currently priced at a special discounted rate of €29.99 until July 7th 2026, after which it will go up to its standard price of €39.99.