Devil's Third

Devil's Third is an action game combining close-quarters combat with a sword and katana with gunplay, created for Wii U as an exclusive title by studio Valhalla Game Studios under the leadership of Tomonobu Itagaki, known from Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. The main character Ivan gradually fights his way through a world full of action clichés after a civilizational collapse, with the game seamlessly switching between cover-based third-person shootouts and fast close-combat fights where enemies can be cut apart limb by limb. The game's development dragged on for many years and even changed publishers along the way before Nintendo finally brought it to market.

The graphics on Wii U looked dated compared to competing games on other consoles of that generation, and the game struggled with technical shortcomings, including unstable frame rate and blocky animations, partly a result of how long the game had been in development since its original announcement. The title also included an online multiplayer offering team shootouts and base building, meant to keep the game alive long-term, though the player community remained small and the servers eventually emptied out over time. The game's atmosphere leans into a rough, B-movie tone with exaggeratedly stylized characters and bombastic music accompanying action scenes full of exaggerated violence.

Critics received Devil's Third very coldly, and the game became one of the symbols of the late, commercially weak phase of Wii U, when the console was already struggling to compete. It's still mentioned today mostly as a curiosity and an example of a failed attempt at an exclusive hardcore action game on a console that targeted mainly a family audience and had practically no wide range of similarly-toned titles. Still, it has its place among collectors and fans of Itagaki's work thanks to the raw, uncompromising combat system, something almost absent from mainstream shooters of the time, and a physical copy of the game is today a rare item in collectors' libraries.

Why play it: Due to its raw and uncompromising combat system, it's worth attention mainly for collectors and fans of Itagaki's work, while regular players will likely be put off by its cold reception and reputation as a curiosity.