There's no denying that Nintendo have been at something of a quandry when it comes to third-party support so it could be seen as ironic that a game from Tomonobu Itagaki by the name of Devil's Third would end up being released almost exclusively for the Wii U almost as if it's some kind of omen. Whatever the reasons behind the tortured development history of this game which began a few years ago I must say that in this the year 2015 it's fantastic to finally see the fruits of Itagaki's labour under the new banner of Valhalla Game Studios which was founded in 2009 it must be a relief for them and indeed for fans of his previous work being that he hasn't directed a game since the sensational Ninja Gaiden II which you only have to look in the direction of the awful sequels to show how much his absence has clearly been felt there; let's not also forget the amazing Ninja Gaiden: Dragon Sword which was developed under his steady hand as well, probably one of his most fondly remembered games created for a Nintendo system to date.

But from all of this chaos a new breed of action game has been born, in Itagaki's words Devil's Third is an intense action game in which you control the main character, Ivan, powering through various missions and taking down anyone who stands in your way! Switch between firearms and melee attacks as you fight to get the job done. Rhenium plays a big part in the plot, which itself revolves around an interesting take on what would happen in the instance of the Kessler Syndrome coming into effect and how that changes things on the battlefield, the theme of war is covered from a unique perspective which puts things across in a much better way than any recent clone shooter game you care to mention.

Take control of Ivan, a former mercenary let loose from his incarceration to take down a shadowy group amusingly named SOD - School Of Democracy - he once belonged to, Ivan must use a colourful array of weaponry to shoot and attack his way through any foe standing in the way of his attempt at redemption. With support on your side mainly consisting of Admiral Charles Caraway who is head of intelligence, Major Stella Maynard who is your liaison officer plus a predictable team of marines who tend to do nothing but get in your way on the missions but give way to some interesting enough character development as the game story advances; you set off on your mission against SOD, the organisation founded by Isaac Kumano is a radical organisation that has been untouchable for years but when its practices tested even Ivan’s tolerance, he split from Kumano and surrendered to NATO. Kumano, and the remainder of the School of Democracy – Big Mouse, Grundla Saha, Jane Doe, C4 and Ludmilla Karenina – have been working with arrogant impunity ever since, time to take them out!

Of course the story has a fair few twists throughout in addition to some frankly bizarre moments which I won't spoil, all you need to know is that it's apparent from the introduction sequence followed by the detailed loading screen that this is without a doubt a Tomonobu Itagaki game and that is a very good thing indeed. Starting out on the first stage where you "escape" from the prison you'll learn how the close-quarters combat works as you pummel the skulls of your foes against the brickwork, then following some brutal cut-scenes you'll acquire a lead pipe which intoduces you to how melee weapons work which allows you some more context-senstive scenes of brutality; finally you'll grab a fire-arm which is where the game starts to resemble a third-person shooter a bit more with FPS elements such as having projectile weapons including molotovs and grenades, yet you are never completely bound to that one style as you can opt to smash or slice your way through many of the encounters which adds an important layer of strategy to how things play out. Also the game is very quick to remind you in the loading screens - which feature a lovely heat haze effect overlayed with a detailed image of the tattoed backs of many of the characters - that the basics skills taught to you at the start of the game are important tools for your survival and that you must learn them well! This rings true for the whole game.

There are three difficulties available to you from the start including Casual, Standard plus the option I inevitably went for first which is Hardcore, I can legitimately say that it offers more than enough challenge for those of you who have completed the likes of say Ninja Gaiden II - or Ninja Gaiden 3 to a lesser extent for anyone who only owns Nintendo consoles - as it is comparable but perhaps not quite in the same league of masochism thankfully; there are several parts of the game which will really make you think just how to go about moving forward though which is testament to the games simplistic yet robust design. Many different enemies will cross your path from standard gun-slinging goons to nimble ninjas, right through to heavily armoured foes wielding Chainsaws, Sledge-hammers and even the odd mutant as the story progresses from being loosely grounded to seemingly absurd; you'll be put in so many precarious positions which will really keep you on-point and with a wide variety of weapons to use including everything from shotguns to samurai swords, machine guns to machete's plus even lead pipes along with pistols, there's certainly a decent amount of choice in how you deal death... which is nice.  

Just to break up the manic action a bit there are some sporadically placed sections where Ivan gets to make use of a turret or two, be it from behind the sandbags or from the confines of an aircraft not to mention some sparingly used moments involving vehicles which might not control too well but for the short space of time that you're in them it doesn't even seem to matter. Boss battles seem to take a fair bit of thought in your approach as if you rush in against any of the genetically modified SOD members then you're bound to end up as a bloody mess all over the screen, usually here you'll need to employ carefully timed slices with blocks or dodges with the occaisional leaping attack when they are caught off-guard; the learning curve can seem steep at these points but beating them is a very rewarding feeling indeed.

While the Combat system seems intricate but it's simple once you get to grips with it, you can melee attack with your fists but when you pick up a melee weapon you keep using the same ttack buttons but with more devastating consequences, then once you add firearms into the mix all of the gunplay is handled by the triggers, if you wish to then go back to close quarter combat simply tap the attack button on its own and you'll be instatly brandishing your chosen bladed weapon once again. Then you have "Enbaku" activated by a two button combination when the gauge is filled to unleash powers which will make you harder to defeat, Ivan's tatoo's contain magnetic elements which react to Enbaku making them light up when in this state, you can also climb rather high as standard which is handy when you're trying to scope out your surroundings which leads me nicely onto the general flow of gameplay and exploration.

You can be rather devisive with how you choose to play, of course there is a natual set path but because in your surroundings there are certain objects which are scalable while others aren't it can be interesting to see which objects you can climb because you can discover some rather interesting vantage points, some of which I didn't even consider until replaying the stages while some were more obvious - to me - so these were taken advantage of on my initial run of the games story mode. Another nice touch in keeping with Ivan's excellent idle animations is the addition of wearable hats which again is something which you can miss if you're simply rushing through, when replaying I managed to have Ivan wear a traditional Samurai ponytail plus an oversized paper machier Cat mask in the Eastern inspired stage and even a Hard hat on the more industrial-based part; this really adds extra humour to the proceedings which Itagaki is famed for, it's especially amusing when these additional items are even rendered in the cut-scenes as well.

A selection of varied locales keeps the single player campaign interesting as you'll venture from the blood-soaked walls of Guantanamo Bay prison to the streets of Panama as you fight your way through city buildings, leaping over balconies as you dodge rockets you even get to explore a laboratory filled with mutants and battle it out in the trenches avoiding heavy fire whle calling in airstikres to shell the hell out of enemy tanks which is in stark contrast to an earlier stage which has you crawling through certain sections scanning for invisible bombs; no cigarette smoke here though just a rather ridiculous pair of hi-tech glasses. Easily my favourite stage though has to be the Japanese inspired section which is as sprawling as it is seemingly authentic in its detail, this part of the game had it all for me including many ninjas to cut down - sadly none as spectacular as Ryu Hayabusa however - a silly section where you've got to take down a helicopter with a rocket launcher - there are several of these - plus a boss battle complete with traditional Japanese housing and a Sakura tree in the middle; but by far my favourite part was near the start which almost exactly mirrors a famous arena from the Dead or Alive series of games all done in such a way that it presumably doesn't infringe on any copyright but still gives a nod to many of Itagaki's fans, I'm not sure if many of the other reviews out there either picked up on it or perhaps forgot while seemingly on a mission to pick out many faults but I'd like to at least say that this nice reference - intentional or not - has definitely been noted and appreciated by this reviewer at least.

War Trophies are the collectables in the game featuring various pickups including Backgrounds, Documents, Emblems, Liquors, Musical Instruments and Souvenirs; there are nine items for each of the six different categories meaning there is one of each item to find on all of the games nine stages of decent length so you'll need to keep a keen eye out for them, you can read up information on each item from the main menu plus if you collect them all then you get a golden egg to use in multiplayer. The additional mode Score Attack lets you play the story missions normally while your score is taken into account which tallies up such things as combo, headshots, style plus you incur penalties for death, there's also a mini-game where you hunt for chickens at certain points during each mission; you also get to choose whichever weapon loadout you like from a selection of ones that you have already come into contact with, my favourite setup tended to be an Assault Rifle with secondary grenade launcher paired with a Katana and some grenades in reserve, a setup which I continued using in the Multiplayer mode.    

Indeed it's within the multiplayer where the game has a surprsing amount of depth, which starts with a message from the FDRA - Federal Disaster Response Agency - informing you that after the events of the single player campaign where all the satellites are taken out, the world has essentially gone to hell so it's up to you to rise up and fight. You'll initially be tasked with creating your character from a limited number of presets, then you get given a training weapon at Hattie's which is essentially a shop with a firing range included so you can test out all the weapons you won't have enough Dollen for yet in fact the only other item you initially have enough funds for is a Lead Pipe which is OK for close combat but it's not as effective as the Katana; for the matches you can only go with Drill to start with which gives you a selection of ten different modes at least in the pre-release period but due to the multiplayer only actually being live from a few days into August with limited players available at any time I wasn't even able to test out all of the modes as by the time there seemed to be enough players the servers had to be reset for retail, nevertheless I will attempt to detail the modes but take into consideration that at least half of these will be rolled out at spaced out intervals most probably after maintenance which seems to take place on a weekly basis.

Battle Royale should be self-explanaory as this is where you fight it out against everyone, it is fast-paced, chaotic in addition to being a lot of fun but not quite in the same league as Team Deathmatch which takes things to new levels of fierce competition, there might not be any voice chat but it's still possible to work well as a team when relying on instinct alone, Close Quarters is a team deathmatch featuring melee only weapons so firearms and grenades are prohibited; Chickens I found to easily be the most hilarious mode as you have to find and catch chickens hidden across the map which will earn you points over time for controlling chickens, more chickens will give you more points over time so defeat your mother-clucking enemies to steal chickens they control. Then we have Guardian which is your control an area mode where you stay in one place defending it for points or attacking to gain control, Cargo Capture has you running to the cargo to gain points and sometimes powerful weapons, there is also Gladiator where nobody has weapons then one spawns on the map which if you can get it then kill another player with it you'll gain double points; Transporter is essentially capture the briefcase and finally Ignition tasks you with blowing up the enemy bomb sites... with a bomb, while stopping your own site from getting blown up. It's worth noting that these last aforementioned modes aren't available yet but will be soon but please allow me to at least tell you of one brilliant mode I have experienced.

My favourite mode of all just for sheer randomness and enjoyment has to be Carnival which gives you the goal of throwing fruit & vegetables into giant blenders, the moment the game starts you run to one of the fruit vendors who are wearing hockey masks while beckoning you to their stalls with such phrases as "lowest prices anywhere!" or "come in!" in various accents; you then hold down a button to collect up to three pieces of "fruit" which you must then toss into a very large blender for points. Oh yes, and all of the various vegetables plus fruit are explosive, meaning they double up as grenades too which makes things interesting, add in all of the crazy sound effects plus little things like the Pumpkins - which are worth the most points - saying "Trick or Treat!" in a high-pitched voice as you throw them, also here it's the pineapples which explode rather than being a code-name for grenades. There are plenty of tactical elements to consider as well such as the weight of the grocery item you are throwing, Melons are easier to judge whereas Bananas or Cabbages can prove a little trickier to aim, you must also pick your moments for pinching fruit from the vendors or from the floor as members of the opposite team could be waiting for you or indeed you might decide to lie in wait yourself if you get there first and sacrifice one of your vegatables to clear the area, afterall there's surely nothing more hilarious than laying waste to your enemy with an explosive carrot; while all of this plays out you'll hear classical music playing in the background which just adds to the brilliance of this mode, personally I found it to be rather addictive.

At level 5 you graduate from the FDRA, you then choose from four locations where you'd like a fortress, upon creating or joining a clan it then becomes added to that clan's strength, you must be wary when you've built your fortress as it can be attacked at any time even when your offline, however you don't need to worry about this until you reach level 20 as at any level below that you are granted FDRA protection; naturally I have created a clan named "N-Europe" which I even cobbled together an emblem for, of course anyone on the site/forum is welcome to join as I don't actually have any members as of yet which is "helpful" for the review, although one player did join briefly - before leaving - so it was interesting to see a few extra options appear. Indeed there is plenty to play around with as a clan leader, you can assign Captains within your clan of which the maximum amount goes up as your clan expands which doesn't take too long for the first barrier as you have to pay a certain amount of Dollen currency - which you earn periodically and for logging in a lot - which seems to double for each tier; making a base can be fun in itself  even if you only build a few things, of course it all costs in-game money so I suppose the more you play then the more you'll be building things up such as Special Weapons to defend your base which is another section entirely... there's certainly a fair amount of depth present, it's just up to you how deep you want to go with it or just continue playing as a Mercenary if you prefer which keeps things simple.

On the subject of currency though I simply must attempt to address the presence of Golden Eggs which are required for certain aspects of the multiplayer mode, specifically costumes which range from having anything from a simple pair of shades costing only two golden eggs right up to ornate Japanese masks which cost at least sixty golden eggs to purchase not to mention that you need to play the game for a while to even unlock the "right" to buy them in the first place; it is possible to gain these Golden Eggs from within the single player as I mentioned before, after doing almost everything offline for a few weeks - well I had to do something while waiting on the servers! - I amassed a total of around sixty-four eggs for finishing the game on the hardest difficulty and chasing chickens around in each chapter of the single player in Score Attack mode. After deliberating on what to spend these on I decided on the most practical approach which was to kit out the free slots on my machine gun which enabled me to buy the Grenade Launcher secondary function which proved so useful in the single player plus various magazines and attachments, all of which cost Golden Eggs which of course you can obtain at a fair rate just by levelling up though I can see why some might choose to actually pay extra amounts of these items in order to get the best bits of kit early but to me this "pay to win" ethos seems completely wrong as the amount of eggs you could quite easily spend in one go would be a hundred which would cost you just under eighteen pounds on the Nintendo eShop! Personally I have no intention in buying into this awful part of the game even though I understand that because there is also a seperate "Free to Play" version of the multiplayer available on the PC that this is why these micro-transactions exist, but on the Wii U version which is a full retail title costing just under fifty pounds in some places for a physical copy; it's beyond wrong so I would advise anyone who actually wants to buy this game - because aside from this issue the game itself is still good - to just enjoy the multiplayer for what it is which is a fantastic online experience and just use the Golden Eggs you obtain from levelling up in the game which happens frequently enough anyway.

Indeed as new modes are introduced players are encouraged to play on these as they have five times the normal level of experience for a set period of time which is typically at least a few days, plus you will seem to get some eggs as a bonus for this as well, it really is a well thought out part of the game which seems to have been built after the single player was finished because if the main campaign could be described as "rushed" which I don't feel that it really is then the bulk of the time clearly has gone into the online elements in any case. It might not have voice chat but you do get text-based chat in the lobbies, it was nice to have the option to chat with other reviewers while playing as well because most of the ones I spoke too seemed to feel that Devil's Third is a game which despite having its fair share of flaws is still deserving of attention; it's true that some parts of the online could be streamlined as inbetween matches there seems to be a lot of "communicating with server" moments at up to ten seconds a screen but at least when you're in a lobby you are only kept waiting for around a minute before you're whisked off to the next game, besides there is weekly server maintenance so things are bound to improve over time with each update.

Perhaps the polygon pushing power isn't the strongest in this title but let's not pretend that its visually offensive either because that quite simply isn't the case, all of the character models are solid with reasonable levels of animation - Ivan's single player idle animations are brilliant - plus the locations have been carefully pieced together featuring some fantastic attention to detail in places, not to mention some very nice presentation throughout from the menu's to the cut-scenes and even the loading screens which although are minimal feature some beautiful artwork. All of the audio comes across very strongly as well because you can tell that this is a game which has been fully optimised to take advantage of the Linear PCM which the Wii U has been capable of ouputting since day one, here it is fully realised from the moment you first witness Valhalla Studio's trademark ship on stormy seas - perhaps an apt trademark - which is powerful in itself - in addition to being reminiscent to Team Ninja's intro - carrying on right through from the sombre title screen music to in the campaign where it really brings the world to life, each mission has fitting background music particularly when you're engaged in combat which helps ease the game along at a decent pace but it's the boss battle themes which really take centre stage with most of them being reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes crossed with Ninja Gaiden II both of which gave me that same great feeling of an epic battle unfolding before your very eyes; all of the sound effects are particularly impressive as well not least of all the explosions which are particularly powerful when you call in an airstrike on one of the later levels and of course the sound of steel on bone which you'll no doubt become more than familiar with as you slice through your enemies.        

I suppose it would be a good idea to mention how the Gamepad is used, you can have off-tv play by merely holding down on the touch screen for a moment on any area which isn't triggering any menu items, playing like this works well enough although I opted to play on the big screen while using my Pro Controller most of the time. In the multiplayer modes you can use it at any point to check any messages you may have receieved - mainly from the game - or cards of players you have interacted with, plus a few other options such as the chat room function for the lobbies, all of this can be accessed aside from when in the final ten second countdown to the next match which seems reasonable enough ; one thing worth mentioning is that once you have touched an icon on the touch-screen menu you then go back to using your designated controller which might seem odd at first but it works well enough.

On balance I have really enjoyed my time playing this tragically misunderstood game which might have a few technical issues - which are often amusing physics-based blips rather than game-breaking bugs - but still comes out the other side fighting despite its turbulent development cycle which has seen several engine changes in addition to the fall of THQ who were due to add it to their publishing portfolio; it's quite fortunate that Itagaki's title got released under the circumstances and quite lucky that Nintendo helped to bring it to the Wii U as I strongly believe that had this been released on other consoles it quite likely would have not sold that well at all whereas at least here it will surely gain cult status which is at least something. I can only hope that one day perhaps we will see a spiritual sequel perhaps on the NX which takes all of the best bits created here before making it into a more multi-player focused experience with a crazy co-op campaign thrown in for good measure with not a single micro-transaction in sight, I for one would certainly buy that but for now I would urge people to buy Devil's Third based solely on the strength of the amount of enjoyment to be had with it which so far for me personally has achieved higher play time than a lot of other games on the console already, it has already become my multi-player game of choice; I can only hope that it will be for others as well and that we'll hopefully get to see more fantastic games from Valhalla Studio's in the future.