#This is like a weird mix of Death the Kid and DMC's Dante.

[evilcokito]

Shinigami Secret File - Quincy

💥 Rollo Flamme - "H" HellFire 💥

💥 Curiosities:

💥 His Quincy weapon are twin Pistols.

Hell & Fire.

💥 He spends most of his time alone or working in a gardening store as an employee.

💥 He doesn't hesitate to follow the orders of the Quincys.

💥 Form group with Ortho. He is also teaching combat techniques. According to Ortho, he is a horrible teacher.

💥 Rollo says he hates Ortho, but protects him anyway. (That character who acts cold, but cares).

💥 Rollo does not exert too much effort in battles. He observes calmly and is tactical, but can quickly lose control under a lot of pressure.

💥 He has the strength to fight a captain.

💥 Rollo hates shinigamis, more than anything.

💥 In case of endangering Ortho or Yuu [ if Mc/Yuu exists ] he will fight with everything.

[lacquerware]

Sword & Guns: Devil May Cry Reflections

I’ve been revisiting the original Devil May Cry trilogy. What a great couple of games, and also Devil May Cry 2. 

Oh, I kid. Sort of. I will say that this is the first time I’ve really given DMC2 a fair chance, and in so doing I’ve found more to like about it than ever before. But I’ll save that for my DMC2 reflections. 

Devil May Cry was my bread, my butter, and most definitely my jam back in the fall of 2001. I looked forward to it for months before its release, drooling over the Preview spreads in PlayStation Magazine which touted the game’s stylish mix of sword and gunplay, which even let you juggle enemies in midair with your bullets. What a concept. 

I even preordered the game, because back then there was such a thing as your “neighborhood game store,” and those game stores were often poorly stocked, such that there was a very real possibility they would sell out of any decent new game the day it came out. Still, this was the first game I ever wanted badly enough to preorder, and I still hold on to the receipt to commemorate my adolescent obsession.

Once in hand, the game did not disappoint; quite the contrary, I liked it so much I even brought it along on a road trip to my friend’s family’s lake house. And there we were, just a bunch of seventeen-year-old guys huddled around a CRT, farming for Red Orbs in the haunted library instead of enjoying the last days of summer outdoors. (Don’t worry, we spent some time on the lake too.)

It’s easy to think the original Devil May Cry would be hard to revisit given how much the combat has evolved in the years since, but the first game still holds a charm all its own. In fact, I come away from this latest playthrough a little sad that the Itsuno sequels didn’t preserve a little more of the first game’s soul, even though I love them on their own merits ("love" may not be the word for DMC2, but I'll figure that out in the next blog).

For one thing, I don’t think the subsequent games or the Ninja Theory spin-off ever quite recaptured the Dante character Hideki Kamiya and his team established here. I don’t think it’s that Kamiya and his “Little Devils” were particularly fastidious about their characterization; Devil May Cry ain’t exactly a Scorcese flick. I think it’s just that their Dante was born on a clean slate, and they were free to toss together whatever ideas in the world appealed to them. The result was a miraculous stew of whimsy, disparate influences, and, I’m sure, happy accidents. Remember, the entire idea for Devil May Cry was the result of a misfired shot at a new Resident Evil.

Subsequent Devil May Cry games, meanwhile, were stuck trying to replicate Dante, and more often than not in this series he feels like a forced embodiment of a list of adjectives like "cool" and "cocky" instead of an organic vessel for those traits. As much as I love DMC3 and even many of its crazy cutscenes, they sure dumbed Dante down to a hooting, tumbling distillation of pure id. He says "party" so many times it's like he knew some Japanese dev had listed it as a "key word" on the game design doc. 

But in this first game he’s just the right amount of cocky, just the right amount of serious, and he’s dapper. In this more than any of the sequels, he feels like a professional whose devil killing prowess is a skill for sale. He’s a gothic detective who, despite the occasional quip, is still empathetic and vulnerable. In fact, this is practically the only time Dante shows vulnerability until DmC. And all of this is established in the game’s still very strong first scene, which also heavily evokes old pulp detective noir, with its sexy neon and feet on the desk. 

Then there’s the action, which has aged, but not terribly. Part of me believes that Dante is capable of fewer acrobatic feats in this game purely because he isn’t dressed for it. “Look, I didn’t really intend to be running on walls and swingin’ off poles today. Get me out of this three-piece suit and into a male bra strap and I’ll bust whatever moves you buy me.“

What the game does present is still terrific, and feels akin to hardcore action games of the 2D age. You’re given relatively few tools, but with those tools you are capable of a surprising variety of approaches to a surprising variety of challenges. I found myself thinking of games like Alien Soldier or even Castlevania, always on the lookout for the most efficient strategy or secret technique to power through each encounter, and constantly uncovering clever little tidbits. Here are some of the ones that surprised me:

-Dante’s wearable outer-space gun, the Nightmare ß, doubles the attack power of any punch performed with Dante’s left hand.

-Every normal move using the Ifrit gauntlets can be charged for up to 4x damage. However, every move also has a secret “just release” timing. Releasing the button with perfect timing will yield a 6x damage bonus. It demands single-frame perfection and there is no visual indication when you succeed, so you just have to watch the enemy’s health. That said, the damage bonus grows incrementally up until the perfect 6x bonus, meaning if you’re one frame off, you’ll get like a 5.99x damage bonus. Weird! This all stacks with the Nightmare ß bonus, to boot.

-The Taunt button is touch-sensitive! Cashing in on a feature Sony had only just invented, Dante can choose between a “light” taunt or “heavy” taunt, which differ in animation length (i.e., riskiness) and the amount of Devil Trigger recovered.

-Several of the enemies have specific weaknesses that allow you to kill them in a single hit. The Sin Scissors, for example, will die from a single handgun bullet to the face if you first deflect their scissors.

-Phantom, the magma-filled scorpion-spider, will kill himself in your final encounter if you let him jump on the large window beneath your feet five times. On the fifth jump, he’ll crash through to a spiky, spiky death. There is no practical reason to kill him this way considering how seldom he does the jump attack, but killing things in impractical ways is in fact the elevator pitch for Devil May Cry.                      

Lastly, I must say something about how impressive the game’s environments continue to be, some sixteen years later. It was just a few years ago that I first glimpsed the incredible, oil-like concept art of DMC1 background designer Yasuko Shimodo. 

At the time, I was surprised at the style, which was fantastical and hypnotic, but seemed more akin to the kinds of stuff you see on Dungeons & Dragons book covers than anything in the first Devil May Cry. Revisiting the game, though, I was taken aback by the frequency with which the camera pulled back to allow me to take in epic, evocative, eerie, intricate landscapes, and I found myself recalling the concept art after all. The “living cave” section stands out as particularly intricate and beautiful and weird. So much so that I made it the new header for Lacquerware. 

In conclusion, DMC1 still great, still not obsolete. I will play this game again and again for as long as I have functioning eyes.