#5 is a great game but my god the way the women (and dante at some points) are presented...

[theonlyadawong]

Sorry if this has been asked before, but what are your thoughts on Trish and Lady and how would you have handled their use in the DMC games?

lady is amazing. we love her. she's integral to dantes development as well as the plot of 3. that being said, the girl who was doing all those flips and tricks and shooting dante in the head (TWICE!!!!) in 3 is NOT the same woman who was in 5. It's so sick and twisted. it's also awful that they never released ladys part of the 3 prequel manga.

trish is personally not my favorite of the dmc women but I do appreciate her quite a bit. i like that despite also being nerfed in 5, she still feels like trish (my favorite line of hers being, "im not your mommy v.)

i think both of them are handled very well in the anime!

[not-those-kids]

uncharted golden abyss full review come and get it

overall: 6.5/10, good, compelling characters with a great haunting of the narrative on behalf of non-existent sam, but bogged down by ooc jokes and quips that gave misogyny and transphobia

i get that it’s not a naughty dog game and not the same writers were working on it

but while it had really great concepts some of the banter didn’t hit the mark enough for me to go lower than a 7. what i love abt all 4 games + ll is the banter. it establishes character very well, makes the audience relate more to the character, but doesn’t overextend it when it doesn’t need to happen (cough marvel). at least in the first four games + tll.

and when the banter is good in ga it’s really good. i loved nate’s dynamic with dante, i love that dante sucked massive shit. and even if sam wasn’t an established character at this time, i could see how his death might’ve influenced nate to work with dante.

dante shoving the fact that nate was basically a nobody who has done nothing WAS SO FUCKING POIGNANT, especially with the undercurrent of the sam haunting the narrative!!!! like fuck!! “what have you done in the last ten years except work pissant jobs for schlubs like me?” WHAT A GREAT LINE, and then nate pointing a gun at him LIKE UGH!!!! imagine ur brother died three or so years ago, and this ASSHOLE just throws it in ur face that you have accomplished NONE of what you wanted to do together. THATS FUCKING COLD AND RAW AND I FUCKING LOVED IT.

and then the dynamic between marisa and nate was great too! she really feeds off nate well, and tbh while i definitely got more of a friendship vibe off of them, i didn’t hate it that there was romantic tension there either. that being said, sometimes. and i mean sometimes. the way nate talked to her rubbed me the wrong way, and not only did it feel ooc for nate but it felt degrading to marisa. it was like having 95% of the cupcakes in the batch being great, and then 5% being either meh or just plain bad. the reason i say this is because i felt like they had a fun dynamic as being both knowledgeable on history, but nate was. somewhat harsh on her for seemingly no reason. sometimes the banter felt like boomer comedy, Oh She’s The Nagging Wife and he’s the Tired Husband.

like here are real quotes from the game from nate that felt ooc and degrading to marisa

“i’m listening… just not paying attention”

[after her foot got stuck under a heavy stone column and nate gets her out of it] “quit your bitchin’” (as a joke)

like even as a joke, it just doesn’t suit nate and it really rubbed me the wrong way. enough to me that those 5% of sour cupcakes in the batch tasted enough bad for me to be like :/

sully was also great in this for 95% of the game and then like. that god damn 5%!!!! like he’s always been a womanizer, but the way he talked abt women in this game was a lil more gross than normal. for me, it always seemed like sully would talk abt his partners, but idk. there was just something lacking in respect in how he talked abt them in this game. like. at the end he jokes abt two girls he finds attractive, at some point pontificating abt a girl’s lips. like which. idk. he’s always been a dirty old man. i just never really heard him talk abt…body parts. he always seemed too polite for that, if that makes sense.

what really drove the nail on the coffin for me was the very final line in the game. nate made a joke abt how sully slept w a woman’s “brother named isabel”. which is just. straight up transphobia meant to be a dig at sully and his masculinity (thank u danger on discord for putting my brain thoughts into words). and it’s just so!!! ew!!! don’t assign my nathan as a transphobe. canon disregarded and thrown away. thanks.

but again like i said, MOST of the banter was good. i love that nate was a lil environmentalist, and he’s still good at heart and you can tell. dante is 1000% the best pre uc4 antagonist FOR SURE, i will always remember how he understood nathan and used it against him and i just. ugh. i kinda wanna like him more than rafe is that crazy?

anyways. it just had some lil Written By Men moments that made me feel icky enough to rate it lower bc of that. but besides that, a lot of fun. cant rate it higher than uc1, but again. would watch again just for the dante and nate banter.

[4dmc]

I am so late to this and I am sorry but oh my god......

Look YMMV but what is it about this that the game "treated women wrong"? I'm just going to focus on that.

Because the nebulous term of what even a reboot/remake/adaptation etc. really is has always been up to any devs/creators/writers.

Personally a new character is as necessary as what the created story demands it. Also in my opinion, the reboot versions are new characters anyway, since they aren't even the same people.

They thematically have some similarities but so much is so different. To treat reboot Dante as if he SHOULD be as the mainline is baffling since: A. It's a different continuity and, B. It's both a disservice and a very surface level read on BOTH Dantes! Wacky Wahoo Uncle Grandpa Dante is more than that and Hated Edgelord "Emo" Dante has shown time and time again the depth of his character, but for some reason nobody bats an eye on their different journeys and different personalities.

I mean, the 2 Vergils are very different, so at least that one was much easier because The Man With The Nice Guy Hat has a gun, but anyway....

Is it because it's uncomfortable to see? I know that women aren't depicted so well in so many media. And DMC is no exception to that even on DMC 5 (w/c is such a bummer)

I've been seeing this going around about DmC and slowly it quieted but still, it baffles me.

This take undermines so many complex issues and doesn't acknowledge that women can be portrayed as any kind of character.

I'm not telling this solely to you. I am generally seeing this happen for years and took a monstrous turn after 5 came out. I know comparisons can't be helped but unfortunately there were so many very disturbing reaches against DmC, bordering on conspiracy. I don't know if some were trolling or serious😰

Personally i think it made sense that the world they're a part of is a very brutal one. And it's made clear at the start of the 3rd act of DmC's story, when their HQ is being attacked, that this is how bad it is for humans. And Ninja Theory is quite on the nose about its parallels with real world consequences on revolutionaries/underground rebels.

Kat's strength isn't tied to combat and I'm glad that she wasn't treated the same way. To me she's a realistic take on what Kyrie severely lacked (w/c is also a bummer! I actually like Kyrie....but it's lost on Capcom how they're supposed to write a compelling woman who doesn't resort to combat).

What was so great about Kat is her strength lies on her wits and being, both symbolically and plotwise, the one who endures and gives hope, especially towards Dante. Her friendship and aloof personality is rooted in her resilience. Personally she's the most relatable and very close to what a young woman could likely react under these circumstances.

I will not skip on the parts that she's also a very trope-y character (the info dump) and the flaws for her mostly revolved around her being almost a one-note character, with most of the focus on Dante. The plot almost doesn't let her shine except for the very purposes/skills that's established on her character (.. it is Dante's game after all..)

And yes she was almost Fridged. Perhaps people ONLY chose to see the uncomfortable HQ Raid and Trade cutscenes and made their conclusions that that was all Kat was. A damsel in distress and, unfortunately, they think her captivity is suddenly equal to her being a weak (which has a LOT of implications as to where/how people got into this conclusion) or a very underdeveloped character.

And by extension through the Trade cutscenes, Lilith. And she needs an ENTIRE separate post altogether.

There's also the complicated subplot regarding her relationship with Vergil. Whether or not people have read the prequel comic on DmC (it's mehh quality wise. It's obvious that it was made hastily but it still manages to be significant to the canon events in the game), it's undeniable they have a solid relationship/partnership and Kat looked up to him. Even when he's revealed his true colors Kat was the one who persuaded Dante to spare Vergil despite his views against humanity and on her.

That takes a lot of something for Kat to spare someone like Vergil. Maybe out of pity, out of forgiveness or even her own guilt because she had believed in his leadership and had a hand in his doings, honestly, it's personally everything!

Despite some of the flaws on their writing, DmC doesn't hold back in giving these characters their moments to at least consistently show who they really are, until the end! And Kat has consistently been that kind and resilient character, and that's something Dante has needed even if he had never asked for it!

So honestly, I am baffled.

I don’t even hate DMC Reboot like most people do but like if that game treated Kat or the women better, I would have defended it the way I did with DMC2. 

A reboot should have new characters. Using Dante and Vergil wouldn’t work with their existing characterization but I would have rather prefer a game that was about Sparda and Eva.  

[rwbyconversations]

DmC Devil May Cry- Six Years Later

A few weeks ago, I wrote an essay about Dante from the Devil May Cry series and his character development across his six mainline appearances. Doing it got me thinking about the franchise and got me to get around to finishing the DMC games I own in my possession- Devil May Cry 4, which has a great combat system but is let down by having far too few environments and missions, and DmC Devil May Cry, the black sheep of the franchise and one of the most controversial reboots of a franchise. Finishing DmC gave me a perspective that only finishing something yourself can provide. 

I’d owned a copy of the original launch version of DmC but found it dreary and sold it less than a quarter of the way into the game, before grabbing its Definitive Edition during a Christmas sale on really a glorified whim- sort of a “Let’s see how bad it can really get” vibe, but then I put it down and didn’t come back to it for three months because other games and other projects took prominence. But about a week ago I was bored and decided to knock the entire game out in one day due to a lack of anything better to do, and after a few days to mull on it, I decided to write an essay about DmC and how this oddball entry into an otherwise mostly beloved franchise has aged.

1) Pre-development

Devil May Cry 4 was a success for Capcom, selling about two million units in its first month of release when Capcom were hoping for 1.8 million by the end of the fiscal year. On a critical level too it walked away satisfied, with Metacritic rating both the PS3 and 360 releases of the game with 84/100, praising the fluid gameplay and intricate combat system, but knocking points off for a very repetitive campaign which saw Dante literally backtracking through Nero’s stages. But Capcom were hoping for more from DMC4. This was the debut of the franchise on not just the Seventh Generation of Consoles, but the franchise’s Microsoft debut, and the hopes were that DMC4 would be a smash success potentially on par with the numbers Western games like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3 had made the year prior. 2.1 million was still good, but Capcom wanted more.

The mid-2000s marked a turn in Japanese game development, with the increased costs of HD modelling and Japan’s home market becoming more apathetic about buying games (some Japanese games reported only 10% of their total sales from Japan itself), while the West began booming. With the 7th Generation, gaming went mainstream for many people in the West- as an example of this, I’m sure we all know at least one person who went to college after 2007 and can share stories of nights spent playing Halo over XBox Live. The mass success of the God of War franchise in the West also told Capcom that this gold mine of a market was ready and willing to enjoy some classic hack and slash action gaming.

The decrease in local sales gave Capcom the idea that they needed to begin outsourcing their properties to the West so they could appeal to a larger market, which led to such projects as Lost Planet, Dead Rising and Bionic Commando being made by Western studios. This was largely the brainchild of Keiji Inafune, nowadays known for the utter disaster of the Mighty Number 9 Kickstarter game. Inafune had a mindset of “doing the same thing is going to get us the same results (if we’re lucky). Let’s try something from a different perspective.” Unfortunately for Inafune, his different perspective failed to set the world on fire, with only Dead Rising proving to be a success and making it into the 8th console generation when handled by Capcom’s new Vancouver team, and even that series has suffered some fatal blows due to the poor launch of Dead Rising 4. 

Even though Inafune cut ties with Capcom in 2010 (a month after DmC was announced), his idea of Westernizing several dormant properties was still in effect and Devil May Cry became one of the franchises that was outsourced. British company Ninja Theory, known for their games Heavenly Sword and Enslaved Odyssey to the West, were the company Capcom gave a phone call to. While known nowadays more for Hellblade, back in 2010 Ninja Theory were known for two very simply action games that relied more on their stories and usage of motion capture and facial captures to fill in the gaps. What didn’t help was that in the interim period between 4 and the reboot, DMC1 director Hideki Kamiya had since formed Platinum Studios and proven themselves to the West with Bayonetta, a game hailed by many as a spiritual successor to the DMC franchise. 

Capcom had faith in Ninja Theory to translate DMC’s vision to the west, and as such at TGS 2010, the first trailer for DmC Devil May Cry was released and... well the rest is history.

The fanbase’s hackles were immediately raised and knives were out within seconds of the launch trailer dropping. A series that had become known for its over the top cutscenes and wry sense of cheesy humor had been Westernized into another gritty, bleak product. Dante went from the goofball who quoted Shakespeare to a gravelly voiced methhead who smoked. And for a series that prized itself on action and combos, that no proper gameplay was shown at the reveal was a worrying sign. The reveal trailer tainted the whole game right out of the gate; alongside Ninja Theory’s less than stellar track record with action games the fanbase was ready to hate this game on principle if it followed what had been done to Capcom’s other franchises that went on a foreign exchange trip.

Being fair to Ninja Theory though, several extenuating factors must be addressed. Among them is series director Hideaki Itsuno’s admission that he didn’t want to do Devil May Cry 5 yet after having worked on three straight games for the series out of concern that he would suffer from burnout. He wanted to go off and finally make a passion project he had been dreaming of for years in Dragon’s Dogma, which launched in 2012. Additionally, Ninja Theory did try and make a more faithful rendition of Dante, one who even kept the white hair and vibrantly red jacket, but these initial designs were shot down by Capcom, who told them to “go crazy.” In fact one of the people who rejected the designs that were close to classic Dante was Itsuno himself, who saw little point in Ninja Theory just copying Dante’s look if the whole point of the project was a new approach on Devil May Cry.

But the fanbase at the time didn’t know that Capcom were actively encouraging Ninja Theory to experiment, and what didn’t help was the quotes coming from the game’s director, Tameen Antoniades, which would prove to be a series of disasters that plagued DmC’s PR campaign. Tameen, put bluntly, wasn’t ready for the backlash to the game and its visual style and shot back at the fans. When asked by Venturebeat how he felt about the fan reaction to the TGS trailer, Tameen “took a drag of his cigarette and without blinking or pausing to exhale the smoke from his mouth, said: ‘I don’t care.’” People began to mockingly compare Tameen to Dante as seen in the trailer, which caused some fans to question if Tameen had used his own likeness as the basis for Dante. 

And unfortunately for Capcom’s PR team, he didn’t stop there, mocking Dante’s original design in a later interview when saying that what was and wasn’t cool had changed in the years since DMC1: “If Dante, dressed as he was, walked into any bar outside of Tokyo, he’d get laughed out.” 

I’d like to remind you that Tameen as director of the project likely signed off om some of these alternate concepts for Dante and keep that in mind whenever Tameen or a Ninja Theory staff member talk about A) what is and isn’t cool B) Original Dante’s character design.

The fanbase didn’t exactly make a good case for themselves after the game’s announcement though, with Ninja Theory reporting that they received death threats from some more hardcore fans. It still doesn’t make Tameen admitting he didn’t care if his game sold “a thousand or two million copies” look stellar, nor his derisive attitude towards the original series and its depiction of women, mocking Lady and Trish as “prostitutes with guns.” Ironically, despite being insistent that he’d made the game he wanted to play, Ninja Theory did dial back on methhead Dante, redesigning his model to be more beefy and replacing his voice actor, alongside redoing some scenes to make Dante crack more jokes. 

On a technical level, hype was low from the hardcore fans due to simplified combat and, more egregiously, the game being locked to 30FPS on launch unless bought on PC which offered an upcapped framerate. For those unaware, all prior Devil May Cry games had run at 60FPS, including DMC4 which had come out some years earlier on the same console. 60FPS was a requirement by many pro players due to how it made animations silky smooth, so DmC being capped to 30 was an immediate red flag. Suffice to say, the fandom was ready for DmC to be a disaster at launch and began prepping their funeral pyres.

2) Gameplay

Early reviews for DmC were quite positive, with the game earning a Metacritic rating about even with DMC4, but the fanbase were far less forgiving. The 30FPS framerate lock outside of the PC port (which was admittedly one of the more polished ports of 2013, as covered by the late and great John Bain) had tainted the well pre-release and then came back with a vengeance to haunt the console launch in 2013. Without a lock on system, movement felt sluggish compared to the other games, hurting the flow of combat.

Difficulty was a major criticism of the game from long-term fans, particularly pertaining to how the style rank system rewarded damage done over pulling off varied combos. Whereas in the older games the player was punished for repeating moves over and over, DmC’s style ranks were so easy to abuse that so long as the combo was never broken due to taking damage, achieving a SSS rank was child’s play. Aquila’s Tornado and Arbiter’s Trinity Smash were especially broken in this regard. 

Being fair to the game, it did introduce several mechanics that were later incorporated into DMC 5 in 2019- enemies get a subtitle during their first appearance (taken from Bayonetta), weapons getting a slight glint when the player pauses to let them know they can launch a pause combo attack (also taken from Bayonetta) and a dynamic soundtrack that racketed up the higher your style rank got, alongside the killing blow at the end of a fight getting a cinematic camera angle. These are all features that were genuine improvements over Devil May Cry 4, and while Bayonetta likely paved the way for most of these improvements, DmC still served as a test-bed to experiment on their integration with Devil May Cry as a whole.

The level design was also a huge step up from the earlier games. Dante’s whip functions made platforming far more varied that it had been in prior games, and these new traversal mechanics allowed for the level designers to stretch their legs. DmC arguably has, even in light of 5, some of the best platforming in the entire franchise, and a gorgeous color palette in some areas when Dante is in Limbo. Gothic European cities were cited as a huge influence by the team, Barcelona in particular, and it shows whenever Dante is outside as he gets dragged into Limbo. The idea of the city itself being a weapon of Mundus that tries to kill Dante is inspired, with obvious homages to Inception, and allows for the designers to make environments that at the drop of a hat can try to kill Dante. The team did their best to bring their unique aesthetic mixture of grunge and color to life, and even goes through a full color script. The downside is that exploration is rarely allowed beyond side paths that lead to collectables, meaning the player is on rails for much of the game.

DmC’s largest gameplay addition is in Dante’s Devil Arms. As he progesses through the game, Dante absorbs angelic and demon weapons from the bosses, gaining Angel Weapons that serve as fast crowd control, and Demon Weapons that are single-target but heavily damaging. Both of these sets of weapons are accessed by holding a trigger button during combat, allowing Dante to fluidly switch between weapons as the situation calls for it. One of my personal favorite applications of this tactic was to use Rebellion’s opening two slices to lead into Arbiter’s Trinity Smash as it was easier for me to read the above-mentioned glint tell on Rebellion. Alongside Dante’s firearms, it gives the player eight different weapons to switch between in combat, allowing for some unique combo potential, albeit potential that isn’t as deep as the original games. Dante losing his styles from DMC3 and 4 alongside the unique moves from those styles like Royal Guarding and jump cancelling was a particularly heavy blow for the hardcore fans, to say nothing of the revulsion generated by the color-coded enemies who could only be hurt by specific weapons.

Another heavy blow for the fans was the handling of Dante’s Devil Trigger, which gives Dante his traditional color palette, slows time to a crawl and gave Dante an attack and speed boost, alongside automatically sending most enemies flying into the air upon activation. The air-boosted hurt the usage of Devil Trigger in the long run, as it reduced whatever encounter it was activated in a stomp for the player- even Dante’s basic combos could tear through enemy health with DT active. Devil Trigger in the original games was a mixture of emergency button and power boost, but here it just serves as an “I win” button on whatever enemy irks you today.

And yet for all that can be said of DmC at launch, it could have been worse. Despite being busy with Dragon’s Dogma, Itsuno still served as an executive producer of the reboot and often gave Ninja Theory advice on areas to improve the gameplay mechanically. One such story goes that Itsuno saw a design for an enemy with blades in its arms. Upon asking what purpose the blades served in combat and being told they had none, Itsuno ordered that the blades be removed. Capcom producer Motohide Eshiro later noted in a Famitsu interview that Ninja Theory had to be reigned in on several occasions in spite of the “go crazy” approach given to them in early design, in order to avoid the game receiving a rating that could potentially stonewall it being sold in physical stores in Japan.

Ultimately the gameplay failed to impress for DmC in 2013, which reflected poorly in its sales. Capcom initially hoped for DmC to break 2 million units like DMC4 had back in 2008, but then quietly lowered the projected sales to 1.2 million. Rumors circulate to this day that Capcom were so desperate to boost the game’s poor sales that when DmC was part of the PS+ membership offer in January 2014, Capcom counted PS+ downloads as part of the sales for the game. In a financial report for 2013, while not speaking of DmC by name, Capcom spoke of a "delayed response to the expanding digital contents market," "insufficient coordination between the marketing and the game development divisions in overseas markets," and a "decline in quality due to excessive outsourcing." Capcom would only report in June 2018, a full five and a half years post-launch, that DmC had met the original sale goals of 2.3 million units. But it wasn’t the gameplay that ultimately turned off the fans and prevented Capcom’s sales pitches from becoming reality. No, that matter fell to the story.

3) Story

DmC’s story isn’t so much a straw that breaks the camel’s back, as it is an anvil. Regardless of your opinions on the gameplay, the story is where DmC comes to a grinding, screeching halt and fails to capture any of the essence of what made Dante and characters from the original setting interesting or even cool. Before we dive into the narrative itself, we need to discuss what started the controversy back in 2010 at TGS, and that’s Dante.

Dante is simply not likable in the reboot. While the original Dante was a goofball and a bit of a jackass, he always backed up his actions with flashy deeds and was ultimately a good-hearted man. In this setting, Ninja Theory try so hard to make Dante cool and badass that it loops around and makes him look like a petulant child’s version of what’s cool- a hard-drinking loner who has threesomes with strippers in his trailer by the amusement park. Dante in DMC4 threw Shakespeare quotes out at Agnus, while Dante in DmC screams “Fuck you!” at demons and writes profanity on clipboards. Nothing about Dante carries that effortless swagger that the original had. His smug, IDGAF attitude tries to make him cool and more fitting for the gritty tone but it’s so different from the original Dante that the subsequent tonal clash makes Dante a much more poorly written character. Again, this is something that must be put at Capcom’s feet and not Ninja Theory, as they were the ones telling the developers to westernize Dante, but the end product stills fails to match up with what came before. 

While Dante does have an arc over the game that sees him develop concern for the people close to him and humanity as a whole, the characterization and framing regularly undermines his arc. Dante is written as the archetype of “Jerk with a heart of gold,” but as a direct violation of a core rule of this character- that they must be fun to view and see their antics as an audience member- Dante fails to meet this tenant and it makes his obnoxious, smug and asshole moments taint the character and make it difficult to care for his struggles. Rather than see Dante’s dark backstory that puts his behavior into context and makes you understand why he’s so sullen and bitter, the audience just sees Dante being a smug jackass, and one who takes himself too seriously to be fun like mainline Dante. The one time I buy that Dante genuinely cares for other people is at the Order hideout raid when he stays in order to guide Kat through being arrested, and stays with her as the SWAT officers shoot her and beat her unconscious. His facial expression sells his anguish at seeing Kat be brutalized like this and it contains the best acting from Tim Phillips.

Ironically, despite how hated Methhead Dante was, I do have to wonder what the game would have been like had the developers stuck to their guns and committed to their original idea for the character- someone with psychosis who has no clue if he’s actually seeing and killing demons or if he’s just a mass murdering lunatic. It might have been even worse or it could have made the game work. It’s probably for the best we don’t know what Methhead Dante would have been like, but part of me can’t help but wonder.

It’s important to understand all these problems with Dante, since as the protagonist, the story partly rests on his shoulders. While older Dante had the charisma in most of his appearances to be able to sell the weight of a story moment when he stopped fooling around, reboot Dante’s heavy angst focus means that feat is harder for him to accomplish, and it doesn’t help that his supporting cast are less than ideal.

I mentioned earlier Tameen’s “prostitutes with guns” remark aimed at the DMC female cast, and I think it’s amazing how little self-awareness he must have had to say that when his own story’s approach to female characters is frankly insulting. DmC has one of the most sexist stories I’ve yet seen in any media, and it’s galling when compared to the mainline entries, DMC3 in particular. Kat, Eva and Lillith are all plot devices, Eva being long-dead and existing just to give Dante motivation to kill Mundus, Lillith being the stereotypical sexy villainess who gets reduced to her womb, while Kat is basically the subject of a snuff film with how she gets brutalized by the plot and the camera makes sure you see all of her injuries in extensive detail. And this all goes without saying how the second act revolves around the two female characters in the narrative being traded like Pokemon cards only for Vergil to perform the now-infamous sniper rifle abortion. 

It doesn’t matter what joke you’re making in your head right now, it’s still not half as tasteless as this actual scene

Speaking of Vergil, his depiction in DmC is genuinely upsetting and while I’ve seen people argue for Dante’s arc in the reboot, Vergil is almost universally despised and seen as a black mark on the prime version of Vergil. Putting aside the sniper rifle abortion, Vergil is just not written well and he never gives the impression of being powerful. Vergil’s opening scene has him say point-blank to Dante “I’m powerless to stop you,” words that should never flow out of the mouth of anyone claiming to be Vergil.  It doesn’t get much better as throughout the game, Vergil hands all the major physical parts of the plan against Mundus to Dante to preserve the secret of Vergil’s Nephilim heritage. The problem with this is that Vergil subsequently never gets to show his stuff in a fight until the very end of the game when he fights Dante and suddenly has a lot of his moveset from the old series transplanted. It makes moments like Vergil hiding behind a barrier at the hands of one demon that Dante has to kill undermine his character and make him look like a coward, to say nothing of his awkward heel-turn which just shows up for the sake of having a final boss. Compared to the depiction of Dante and Vergil’s rivalry in Devil May Cry 3, which was amazing on a thematic and character level, DmC falls flat on its own shoelaces. And the character Vergil gains through his DLC is just further unpleasantness as he rips off Bleach and the Hollow Ichigo fight wholesale. Vergil is just a mistake in this game, and alongside Dante is the cardinal sin in its writing. 

Mundus represents a lot of the larger problems with DmC’s story, in particular its on-the-nose message and symbolism. The game is so focused on making sure you get the point that “Hey, we’ve seen this niche film called They Live and it’s the sickest shit also FUCK THE MAN, CAPITALISM SUCKS, WAKE UP SHEEPLE,” that Mundus doesn’t really get to be a proper villain. He’s just this stereotypical slimy corporation guy, with one slight hint to his character in that he’s obsessed with continuing his lineage. The problem is that his lack of writing makes him boring and one-note, a cliche rule-the-world dictator that’s been done to death. He’s not even a major threat in gameplay, his boss fight just being a giant blob monster. It’s visually drab and has the most boring boss fight in the game. Mundus may not have had much personality or screentime in the original DMC1, but he made up for it with a powerful presence that made him feel dangerous. This Mundus is just a bald guy in a suit. The only fear he puts in me is the fear that I’ll drop my controller when I fall asleep.

DmC’s story is a mess. While structurally well-put together, its dialogue is often weak and cringeworthy, most of the villains have no real staying power beyond Barbas, Vergil is a waste of the character name, Kat and Lillith are plot devices and Dante is just a jackass. It’s a cast of unlikable people being unlikable jerks to each other and when the story it’s making me sick with how repulsive it can be with its tone deaf themes and sexism, it’s putting me to sleep with how fucking dull it is. 

4) Definitive Edition

The post launch years of DmC weren’t kind to Ninja Theory or Capcom. Capcom retracted their Western development philosophy after a string of flops resulted from it, while Ninja Theory became the whipping boy of the action community for several years post-launch, which led to the now infamous GDC presentation where Dante was photoshopped onto scenes from Brokeback Mountain by someone who had no hand in designing Dante’s old costumes:

Revenge, evidently, is a dish best served cold

What didn’t help them was that 2013 also saw the launch of Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, Platinum’s take on the Metal Gear franchise that quickly gained the adoration of the action fanbase while leaving DmC in the dust. According to Dante’s voice actor Reuben Landgon, Itsuno apparently was extremely close to retiring after DmC, and Capcom had to offer him the chance to finally make DMC5 before he decided to not quit (though this story has been disputed by Capcom USA producer Matt Walker). 

Capcom, like many publishers, has taken Sony and Microsoft both refusing to have backwards compatibility in the PS4 and Xbox One as an excuse to re-release many of their old titles on the new console platforms, often slapping a new coat of paint onto the game and potentially adding achievement/trophy support and calling it a day. In the case of DmC though, the team went above and beyond in solving many of the mechanical problems that players had complained about in the following two years.

Released in March 2015, DmC Definitive Edition was handled more by Japanese side of the Capcom team, and they set to work on making DmC more mechanically in-line in with the mainline entries, as covered by this extensive changelog. 60FPS was an advertised feature on the box, Dante got multiple costumes that let players play with white hair, the style rank system was retooled to punish repetition more harshly and a slew of balance changes were made to the core game- some even based on PC mods players had made of DmC’s original PC port like a lock on function, though sadly the adventures of Donté, el exterminador de demonios didn’t serve such a function. 

Rest in piece, you brave soul.

The Definitive Edition goes leaps and bounds in solving the pressing issues of DmC. With the combat balanced and framerate bumped up, the combat had a much better flow to it. In particular the addition of a new mode, Must Style, where Dante can only damage enemies when he has an S Rank or higher, received a warm reception from the fans to the point where it was hoped that DMC5 would adopt it. With the DE upgrades, DmC goes from a flawed game with potential to being one of the best attempts by the West to emulate Devil May Cry’s frantic, stylish mode of gameplay while adding variety to how the combat and level design was handled. But even two years on, the damage had been done; while Definitive Edition was well-received by hardcore fans, it still failed to set the world on fire sales wise, and in fact was outsold by DMC4′s own HD remake that launched that year, even though the Special Edition was a digital only purchase outside of Japan. In fact, DMC4SE’s sales were so strong Capcom noted them as being behind the company having a good financial quarter during 2015, which many saw as an ironic nail in the coffin for any hopes for the DmC universe getting continuation.  

There was no saving the story unfortunately, barring removing Vergil’s laughably pathetic fedora and one especially cringeworthy line from Lillith (”The world is at last your bitch, as am I. Nothing left, but to grab it by the hair, bend it over and-”), which means that much of the issues that DmC’s story presented are still haunting the overall product. One new scene added in the game has Dante calling out Vergil for shooting Lillith and causing countless deaths from Mundus’s rampage, but the scene was itself criticized for missing the point in the fan anger to Vergil’s .50 caliber coat hanger. And the further away the player and time gets from DmC’s outdated-at-launch messages and symbolism, the more the script just fails to entertain or educate, leaving just apathy and the ability to mock it.

5) Conclusion- Left in Limbo

DmC Devil May Cry is... alright. It’s not the worst game I’ve ever played and there’s far too many good things here for me to even call it a boring game. The level design and color palette has real moments of beauty, the combat system is a decent showing from Ninja Theory with Capcom supervision and the Definitive Edition showed that the teams from both cultures acknowledged the feedback and made a more mechanically satisfying game to play. DmC is one of the best Western attempts at emulating the over-the-top action of Japanese games alongside Darksiders 2 and does deserve credit for being a satisfying experience to play.

Where it falls apart is whenever control is taken from the player. This story is just terrible and wrought with bad choices that haunt the entire experience and taint the game by association. DmC’s cutscenes are almost slimy in how detestable they are, and it is odd that they inspired such loathing from me on my first run while I was left feeling nothing towards the entire cast other than pity towards Vergil due to what had been done to him on a writing level. I must repeat that I have never played a game as derogatory in its depiction of women as DmC and I pray I never will. 

DmC is a flawed experience, perhaps one that you should experience yourself so you can formulate your own opinion on the matter. I wouldn’t recommend it for full-price but if you see it on sale for ten bucks, you can do worse- if nothing else, get some friends over and laugh at the story to get past the cutscenes and onto the mostly-decent gameplay. But you can also do a lot better, being honest. Ultimately DmC is this weird relic of Capcom’s attempts to branch out into the West, and one that ultimately just.. happened with no real lasting impact. Itsuno went on to make DMC5, Ninja Theory and Tameen redeemed themselves in the eyes of many with Hellblade and then got bought by Microsoft, while Capcom finally started to turn around and starting with the 8th console generation, made a concentrated effort to return to the “Capgod” reputation that they had before the 7th gen. Everyone came out of this story with a happy ending and got what they wanted, but that leaves DmC as this odd relic of a weird time in gaming, albeit one that certainly made... memorable experiences.

Thank you for reading.

I guess a million years just comes in at... about five or six.

[governingmouse]

5 Times The Love

5 Times the Love. { No Longer Accepting }

SEND “5 TIMES THE LOVE” AND I WILL WRITE A DRABBLE ABOUT THE FIVE TIMES MY MUSE FELL IN LOVE WITH YOUR MUSE.

          i. In the garden among the roses, a modernSocrates and Plato – a resurrected Dante and Virgil – begin the lesson plan. Prisonwas Governor Ferguson’s palace to rule. Overseeing the work of the women,Governor and Deputy stroll at an even pace. Vera doesn’t struggle to catch upwith Miss Ferguson. She’s learning. While Joan is on the topic of correction,Vera listens in her currently enamored state. The breathy way in which shespeaks lures her in like bait on a hook. It’s a piercing sensation. She’scultured and knowledgeable, capable of quoting the classics and spill thetruths of a long game. She is everything Vera wants to be.

          Admirationand reverence tangled together like the lethal snare of vines. Without the gloves,Joan pinches a silken, red petal. She looks over the garden with thesatisfaction of a creator. The petal shrivels from her touch and falls to theground. Her Deputy swears that Joan grimaces – at least, a twitch of her lipscould be perceived as such. Joan lets go, only to snap her fingers at Vera. Theroses in the garden are corrupt, tainted like the inmates.

           ‘ Vera, are you listening? ‘

           Blinking, she jolts back toattention. A deep flush of embarrassment tints the tips of her ears and hercheeks. Vera feels hope. For herself, for the women. She mistakes it for love. Seducedby reason and order, a crush manifests. 

           ‘ Yes, Guv’na. ‘

           With a nod, Joan walks and Verafollows.

          She thinks it’s love.

          ii. A wolf surprises a lamb sore from growingher own set of teeth. On her doorstep, Governor Ferguson holds up a bag of takeaway. Shelooks surprisingly domestic in that earthen, near sheer blouse and a satchelover her shoulder. It’s a sight Vera could easily become accustomed to. Shefeels a twinge in her chest and steps aside to grant Carmilla entry.

          Thefood waits on the counter while Vera rushes in to take care of her mother { it’sbecome a curse for her, an ugly word }.Mum spits out her medication and gripes about Vera’s Florence Nightingale act. Verafears that she is an impostor, a fake, and everyone knows it. Guiltily, hershoulders slump down.

          Seatedbeside Rita, Joan intervenes. One malevolent entity grapples with another. Shesqueezes Rita’s frail hand riddled with varicose veins. Joan leans forward,whispers a mystery that will be buried alive with her.

          Wilted,Vera leans against the doorframe. Watches the exchange. Her heart pounds wildlyin her ears. A worn smile slips into place. She looks at Joan as if she’s thenext fucking messiah

          She knows it’s love.

          iii. Another midnight debrief. Another midnighthour where she wants to scream for more, more, more. Vodka tonics replace mint leaves and mojitos. Ice clinks.Condensation clings to the glass. Every single time, Vera can’t fathom how Joanisn’t drunk. Maybe her height’s a factor, maybe it’s her Russian blood, butVera’s too hammered to theorize.

           Thistime, she picks up on the slight slur that accentuates Joan’s voice. Shegiggles and sets down her empty glass. Joan loosens her tie. Vera’s blouseopens, exposing her throat and collarbone. The Governor looks at her as if she’sgoing to flay her, eat her alive, and suck the marrow from her bones. Verafeels heat, strange and confusing. She wants it to happen.

           A firm, strong hand squeezes herthigh. She slides forward and scoots toward the edge of her seat. Wetting herlips, she aspires for a chaste kiss, but receives more. More means teeth and tongue and gasping for air with Joan’shair falling into her face, shrouding her like a veil.

          She believes it’s love.

          iv. A silken scarf with a pattern of butterfliescovers up her scrawny neck. Vera checks in at the front desk. The nurse asks ifshe’s family. How she wants to laugh at that. Instead, she smiles and shakesher head. Says ‘no.’ This isn’t how she expected the governorship would fallinto her lap. Despite burning down half of Wentworth, despite the razorbladebetrayal, she visits Joan at the psych ward.

          Shesits at the round table like it’s a skewed version of the Last Supper. Purged ofall feeling in a catatonic state, the medication masks Joan Ferguson. It’s hardto look at, harder to say. Vera squirms in discomfort, she’s trying to stay forall the battles, but this is somehow worse than when she visited Fletch. Veratries to think about what Joan is thinking - really thinking. Joan wears an expressionless expression as theportrait of vacancy. 

           “I fought your battles. I did whatyou asked of me. I learned everything you chose to teach me. It wasn’t enough. I wasn’t enough.”

           As she reaches across the table, herhand covers Joan’s. Curiously, this ghost of Joan looks at the hand, but doesn’tmake a cruel, jabbing remark with a sharp tongue. She would have preferredthat. It’s easier to comfort stone. This is the danger of falling in love witha switchblade.

          Veradoesn’t expect a response. She expects glassy eyes and parted lips. Herface reddens from the pain of holding back tears. Instead, she chooses to steelherself. Her anger swallows her. She retracts her smaller hand. Curls it into aloose fist.

          Come back to me, shewants to plead. Show me the way.

          “I’ll beback tomorrow… to check on you.”

          Sheleaves behind the scent of her perfume, but not the betrayal. That stillstings.

          She swears it’s love.

          v. Baptizedin a river of fire, Governor Bennett runs Wentworth with compassion unlike herpredecessors. Despite all her wrongdoings, she doesn’t stray far from protocol.With Vera’s former mentor on remand, Joan Ferguson has yet to be laid to earth.So, it’s an old game of cat and mouse. To Carthage, a devil of a woman comes.She only lives to inflict pain.

          No morally superior position exists within this circumstance. She wantsto wish her away – to will her away from this prison. Tension radiates likeheat from Vera’s body. Alone, under the cover of night, she approaches the unitwith a letter in hand. Addressed to Shayne Riley and scribbled with a no. 2pencil, the letter has a weight to it. It crumbles within Vera’s grasp. The dimlighting of the isolation unit gives her a waxen complexion. She feels the tugin her chest, her heart, her soul. And realizes that the feeling is still there.

          There is something refined yet syntheticabout Joan. Some things remain constant: Joan is always pale, Joan is alwaysscheming. Her vantablack hair greys at an alarming rate. Her mane falls intoher face like some god-awful fury. She plans her revenge. Plays the long gameand patiently awaits the opportune moment to dismantle Vera Bennett.

          Fromprofound misunderstandings, they invented stories: always a matter of who hurtwho. The riot, siding with Westfall { re: Westnull }, disappoinTment, Jianna’sghost. Neither woman can skirt around the fact that they’re inherently flawed. Allthis collateral damage resembles a haphazard rollercoaster ride. She hides thehurt and lets it manifest as something new. Through the anger, she still lovesher.

          “Youcan be so cruel,” Vera says and the words shine in her eyes like cutdiamonds.

          Vera feignsdisinterest, holding up the letter before ripping it to shreds. She does it toelicit some reaction – any emotion – out of Joan. It’s akin to prodding ahornet’s nest or cutting yourself in the deep, blue sea where a great whitecatches a trace. Vera maintains that glare though her insides twist and she wantsto vomit. The fragments fall to the ground like snow. Joan stands. Her shadow packsa punch, dragging across the smaller woman.

          “You’llregret that.” Joan hisses with acidity infecting her once dulcet voice.

          “Youcan’t touch me,” Vera counters. She buries her hands into her pockets to hidethe way they tremble. Things will escalate: Joan will be put in Proctor’s unit,Joan will try to kill Bea, Joan will succeed, and then what? The documentensuring protective custody will be neglected for the long game they both play.

          You didn’t think you administered her deathsentence.

          Warpedand twisted, that’s the danger of falling in love with a switchblade. Fucked uppeople do fucked up things, Vera isn’t expelled from the fact. Maybe she wantsto keep Ferguson with her, by her side, either as a reminder of better days, aspenitence, or as a reminder of the profound depth to their relationship.

          Verachooses not to dwell on it, not now. Joan won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.She walks away. Leaves her in the dark.

          She calls it love.

[astroxnot]

Do you have any book recommendations?

oh boy do i!!

youve probably already heard of a lot of these but

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

this is my favourite book ever okay i can’t stress that enough it has beautiful gay representation and accurate teenage angst. also all the main characters are Mexican and the author is too so i assume he does them justice. It’s character driven and has a beautiful focus on family and best friends and what those things mean and honestly it changed my outlook on life there are so many profound, beautiful, painfully truthful quotes from this book (”Maybe we just lived between hurting and healing”)that ive highlighted and underlined in my own copy but i lost it and im rly sad ok im getting off topic. the thing that i loved the most about this book is how honest it is. it doesnt use unnecessary drama to move things forward and it doesn’t have unrealistic depictions of teens. these are two boys with insecurities but they are written so they’re complex. they’re not boiled down to a Boy struggling with This One Thing, they’re honest characters. oh god i love this book so much if you’re stuck between this book and another one pls read this one first you won’t regret it

here is a great non-spoiler review btw (”It’s a story about a boy who is sad and angry and can’t figure out why.” - from the review)

The Foxhole Court (All for the Game series) by Nora Sakavic

okay before i proceed i want to say TRIGGER WARNING FOR EVERYTHING YOU CAN POSSIBLY THINK OF THIS STORY IS SAD. BAD THINGS HAPPEN. okay now that that’s out of the way. Neil Josten has been on he run from his serial killer dad for the past 8 years. The only thing he’s passionate about is a sport called Exy. He gets recruited by the Palmetto State Foxes, a team of misfits from broken homes who needed a second chance. They’re also known for being ranked dead last for a number of years. Since he’s on the team, he;’s in a spotlight for his dad’s people to find him. An exy star he knew from his childhood named Kevin Day is also on that team and is running away from the japanese mafia who does business with his dad. so double oops. it’s not centred around the sport tho so don’t worry if you’re not a big sports fan bc neither am i. also andrew minyard is a 5 ft ball of destruction and i love him. the women are badass and it has a HUGE FOCUS ON CONSENT. it’s also gay but not til the third book. the character / relationship development is so heartwrenchingly beautiful it’s worth the slow burn also THE FIRST BOOK IS FREE! and the other two are only a dollar each. if u cant afford them pls don’t download it illegally @coldsaturn will gladly buy it for you

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

oh man where do i start. it’s basically a fanfiction of homer’s the Illiad. it focuses on the relationship between Achilles and his lover Patroclus. it’s their story told from patroclus’ point of view and so you get a side to achilles than what you see in history books. this book is SO BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN it’s so elegant and the scenery is rich and oh man the QUOTES (”I am made of memories”) brilliant use of foreshadowing. the ending made me cry. i dont usually cry at books but oh man i can literally quote the last paragraph no lie. (there is a noncon scene in there where a woman is trying to get it on but the man isn’t enjoying it, so fair warning). anyway its a beautiful book

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

okay so this is a childrens book. like a bedtime story. but it’s still going on my rec list because it has incredible insight on growing up and it’s so wonderful it was one of my favourite books as a child and it still is now. It’s kinda old and was translated from french so its kinda behind the times as far as narrative voice goes but it’s about this guy who’s plane crashes in the middle of a desert where he meets the little prince. the little prince is from another planet and tells the narrator about his travels to other planets and his encounters with the “grown-ups”. it has a beautiful message about how what makes something special is something invisible: the connection you have with it. and how it’s okay to miss something because you know that it exists somewhere. (”What makes the desert beautiful,“ said the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well…”) and it’s so beautiful the ending gets me every time. 

im not gonna list anymore bc im tired but here!! i hope this helped!!