#we still have to go through dmc1 Dante first

[polarisbibliotheque]

Nemesis (Vergil x Reader) - Chapter 4

Nemesis

Pairing: Vergil x Reader

Summary: The Abyss opening is a rare occurrence. In his youth, Vergil wanted to harness its power, but never thought he would meet his greatest adversary along the way. Years later, the Abyss is once again open and that might call for some rather unlikely alliances.

Chapter 1 (Prologue) | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 (you are here!)

Age restriction: 18+ - there’s a lot of blood, violence, cursing and all those things people want to forbid younger audiences of seeing. Also, cosmic horror is a thing here. Procceed with caution.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: You beat each other's asses. There'll be blood and injuries :)

Author's Notes: Quite a small chapter but hey! It's been less than a week (I think) from chapter 3, so hooray! I am afraid, though, this will be the last time Vergil will appear on his blue coat glory - next appearances will be during black coat era.

What I will say, is that our beloved demon in red will probably appear on chapter 7 ;)

And I love kicking Verge's demon ass

Chapter 4

You had changed. Vergil could see it in your face – you looked sturdier, with those eyes burning like fire and resolve still in your soul. That tired protector you once were, doing all you could to save those weaker than you, had now become a skilled fighter.

Your hands gripped the silver sword with grace and technique, your chin slightly high in the air. The arrogance he met in you many moons ago was still there, but you looked more experienced – not just a warrior anymore, but a hunter.

“You have something of the Abyss within you.” Vergil’s words were slow and calculated; that serious smirk never leaving his lips. “I will let you go without the humiliation of defeat once more if you give it to me willingly.”

Your expression didn’t show how confused you were with that statement of his – after all, you went to another realm, but you would be able to feel if it was the Abyss. The book, perhaps, could be that piece of ancient energy he was talking about and, suddenly, the feather weighted heavier in your pocket.

But of course. You now had access to the best source of knowledge on the Abyss, something that blue demon also searched for. With a convinced smile spreading across your lips, you couldn’t help but to raise your head in superiority: you had the upper hand in that department.

And, for all you cared, he could writhe with the pain of never being able to access it. In a matter of fact, you would make sure he would.

“Well, well, demon…” Your voice carried all the condescendence that made Vergil’s blood boil – even if his expression remained as unreadable as ice. The demon inside him, though, wanted to make sure you, a simple human, knew your place in the natural order of things. “Whatever it is that you want from me, you will have to take it. I will never give something to you, let alone willingly.”

“Hmpf. You could save yourself the shame of being subdued one more time.” Vergil scoffed, seemingly dismissing your comment. His eyes pierced through the darkness, meeting yours with a kind of savagery that didn’t match his icy demeanor.

“Last time, I was already injured and close to death.” This time, even if you continued smiling to maintain your upper hand, you already felt your blood running hot inside your veins. Soon, you would have to remind him why humans were far superior than his pitiful kind. “I wouldn’t be so sure of your victory in a fair fight with the same conditions.”

“We will never be on the same conditions.” He almost growled back at you, still maintaining his calculating look even if his voice showed the rage under still waters. “I would have to hold back so you could even have a chance.”

“Hmpf.” It was your turn to scoff, seemingly dismissing his point. Only your heart knew how much his words and hubris affected your pride – as much as yours affected his. “It sounds like you are scared of losing to a human.”

“Enough.”

Now your words had cut through his pride like the sharp blade of the Yamato – already glistening in the dark as Vergil quickly unsheathed his sword and plunged into a swift attack.

You responded at the same speed, gracefully holding your silver sword with both hands and blocking his attack. Meeting his eyes above the blade of your swords, Vergil’s silver gaze maintained yours before both of you repelled each other and jumped into the fight once more.

You didn’t protect your knowledge of the Abyss more than Vergil attacked you to take it for himself – your swords clashed so both of you could defend your pride.

Your years of hunting showed up in your fighting. You were smarter, quicker, with enough dexterity to make Vergil focus even more on the movement of your feet and the grip on your sword. Now you had a sort of streetwise experience to match your technique – making you more difficult to read and harder to beat.

Vergil, in the other hand, had grown more aggressive. Years ago, you observed how he stalked and attacked, sometimes even seeming to think too much before an attack. Now, he had given more room for his rage, showing it through his fighting style. Still technical, still skilled beyond everyone else you had fought in your life – but with a hate that threatened to make even the sturdiest of demons bleed.

You blocked one of Yamato’s piercing attacks, making you break your stance and stumble towards one of the mahogany bookshelves. As you hit your back on it, dust filled the air and some books fell on the floor, while you kept your eyes glued on the blue devil’s form as he sheathed his sword once more.

“There’s a lack of balance on your feet.” As always, he was full of himself, lowering his stance and holding the hilt of his sword, ready for a swift killer blow. “I should’ve never been able to break your stance with such an easy attack.”

With those words, Vergil released the Yamato, unleashing a thousand of cuts in the void to your direction in the blink of an eye. If your reflexes hadn’t been quick and you hadn’t rolled to the side, you would’ve ended up in pieces – just like the mahogany bookcase, now slowly falling apart amidst a rain of cut paper and dismembered books.

“You broke it with strength, not skill.” Your voice grabbed his attention, making Vergil quickly spin to his left. You, in the other hand, had already prepared yourself: raising from the floor, you took the opportunity to kick his torso with all your strength, making Vergil roll to the other side of the hall. “You lack attention on your enemy. First lesson: never lose sight of your opponent – as you gloat how good you are, they can kick you down in no time.”

That smile. Vergil wanted to take that smile out of your face with the slap of a hundred summoned swords as he got up from the floor. What you had just done to him wasn’t just a fair move on a fight – it was humiliation.

Once again, you rolled on the floor to escape his bright blue summoned swords, thrown at you at lightning speed. Up to that moment, you had only fought with swords and none of you thought of using anything else. Vergil’s rage, in the other hand, made him slowly give in to all he had available in a fight – and soon, he would forget you were human and wouldn’t hold back anymore.

Kneeling on the floor, it was time to take your guns out and have that demon taste some of the silver bullets you carried for hunting. You shot expertly, aiming with dexterity and firing quickly – but Vergil deflected all those bullets in a move you had never seen before: spinning Yamato in front of him, everything you shot was cut in half, hitting books, papers and shelves, but never him. Vergil remained in place, barely fazed by your fire power.

You had to bring him down with your sword then.

Plunging back into battle, you yielded your silver sword as Vergil readied for deflecting your attack. He tried a counterattack, but you blocked with expertise, almost too quick for a human. Indeed, the more he fought you, the more he realized you had excellent reflexes, timing and precision – if Vergil couldn’t feel you were entirely a human, he would doubt it.

But the blood that ran through your veins smelled exactly like his mother’s – vulnerable, sweet, completely human. When he was a child, Vergil quickly learned to distinguish between his mother’s and his father’s scent – and later, he learned it was all in their blood. Eva could be compared to flowers next to the scent of a demon; Sparda was like a strong bottle of whisky, a mix of smoke and burnt wood. The worse demons, though, reeked of rotting flesh and vinegar, something quite unbearable to his nose.

You, in the other hand, had no other scent aside the sweet notes of human blood. That same flowery fragrance of Eva, whether she wore perfumes or not. You didn’t need that for Vergil to know you were nearby – and for him to know there was nothing demonic or supernatural running through your veins.

Which only made him more furious inside when your silver sword managed to wound his right cheekbone.

You froze in your place as Vergil’s hand slowly raised to his face; the crimson blood staining the tips of his long fingers. You remained in silence as his head gradually turned to you, hand still raised, blood running down his hand. Vergil’s silver stare pierced yours with rage and shock – while you had a mix of fear and pride in your chest.

After all, you managed to draw his blood. Even if his eyes promised to unleash hell on you, your heart gloated with the pride of finally hurting your archenemy. He had no reason to talk you down anymore: it was more than obvious that you were on the same level as him and that made Vergil’s blood ready to explode.

“I hope you are ready to face the consequences of your actions, foolish human.”

His eyes glowed in the dark, his teeth now sharp with fangs. You knew he was a demon, but you had only seen him as a human – for the first time, he was about to show you his real form, how he looked when he was ready to kill. His nails sharpened and you tightened the grip on your sword. However he looked, however powerful he was… Now it was time to fight him in his true form.

At least, that was what both of you had expected before the floor trembled and the walls shook with a rumble that crossed the entire city. It was like you were brought back into reality – the Abyss would soon close, and you both had been so caught up in your fight, you had forgotten everything else.

Vergil’s eyes were back to silver, his nails and teeth suddenly human, as your eyes turned to the aisle that took you back to the outside. With another rumble, a shriek echoed through the city, piercing your ears.

You had never heard a sound like that before – and, as you stared back at Vergil, you saw in his eyes the same was true for him as well.

As you stepped on the old library’s roof, you and Vergil observed the city now under the bright light of the blue moonlight. You tried to find the source of such a shriek – and it didn’t take long to locate it: near the crack of the Abyss, in the distance, a ghostly figure crawled out. It resembled a woman, with black holes for eyes and a mouth glowing in red. Its legs were useless, but its body was massive, dragging itself out of the Abyss while commanding a swarm of humanoid demons – mere dolls to its own desire.

“It cannot be…” Vergil muttered under his breath, standing side by side with you for the first time. “That creature is a Hell Puppeteer…”

“They were extinct centuries ago. The Codex Daemonica says the last apparition of a Hell Puppeteer was in ancient times; that’s impossible.” And you couldn’t believe your eyes – even if the Puppeteer dragged itself right in front of you, controlling its many demons to its will, it wasn’t supposed to be there. You had only seen it in illustrations and descriptions.

Vergil slowly turned his head towards you, eyebrows furrowed. He too had only seen those kinds of demons in books, drawings of old describing how those vile and ancient creatures had been extinct even before his father decided to escape Hell for good. As you met his smart eyes, you raised one eyebrow.

“What? I’m a Devil Hunter now, I have to know the Codex by heart.” You stared back at the horror show right in front of you. “I find it baffling there’s nothing on the Abyss in the Codex, especially if its harboring that sort of thing.”

“Indeed. The entry on the Abyss is unsatisfying to say the least.” Vergil turned his attention back to the problem you had in hand. It was the first time he heard a human mention the Codex – when he was a child, Sparda made him and Dante study it thoroughly and he was proud to say he knew it by heart. Just like you, apparently. “Although, it also doesn’t have much on extinct species like the Puppeteer.”

“Well… It’s time to figure out how to kill that thing, then.” You took a deep breath, sheathing your sword and reading yourself to run towards that creature in the distance. Vergil just stared back at you once more; you just sighed in response. “I don’t expect a demon like you to do the right thing, you guys have no honor. I was hired to save the people in the city and at least try to keep it in one piece and not allow it to go to hell like mine was. You can do whatever you want, I’m fighting that thing and I’m killing it. When I write it on the Codex Abyssae later, you can have a read and learn something then.”

Taking the emergency stairs, you started climbing down the building while Vergil closed his eyes and took a deep breath. You had to be the most unbearable human he had ever met in his whole life.

Because the most unbearable being was his stupid little brother.

As your feet touched the streets, Vergil simply landed by your side with a swift jump from the building, ready to walk with you.

“Bold of you to assume I am going to allow someone like you to write a Codex Abyssae.” He scoffed as you started making your way towards the Puppeteer.

“Huh. I do carry something of the Abyss with me, remember?” You teased with a cocky laugh, making him stare back at you with eyes so sharp they could rival the Yamato. “Don’t go thinking you’re the only one interested in the Abyss. Whenever you think about entering it, I’ll be there to stop you and close it for good.”

“And you dare say humans have some kind of honor.” He rolled his eyes, keeping his own pace and forcing you to catch up – you seemed to be able to stand by his side without effort, though. “With such hasty judgment, I doubt your research will have a good result.”

“You assume too much too quickly. I wonder what kind of judgement you have.”

Vergil scoffed back but made no comment. You were both researching the Abyss for two opposite reasons – while he wanted to harness its power, you wanted to close it. You would only join forces for one time to defeat that Hell Puppeteer; after it was over, you would go back to being archenemies.

There was nothing that would stand between Vergil and his search for power. Not even the scent of flowers.

**

To be continued...

[midnightkolrath]

Quick thought ideas on a DMC2 remake potential

Thinking about DMC2 recently and how a remake could benefit into making the story MUCH better than how it unfortunately ended up (due to the messy development of the game but alas). These are just things I've thought about off the top of my head on how they could easily benefit from remaking 2 and putting in much needed reworks and additions because man this game has potential still if redone right. I threw these on Twitter recently, but I'm giving abit more expansion here. I'm sure there's more ideas, but this is all I've gone to throw on the floor for right now.

Give Argosax an actual personality that matches their description of being a demon lord and rival to Mundus in territory terf war. They also have a cult like Mundus, as DMC2 has highlighted, so...surely they need to be represented better as a threat, yeah?

Make Arius much more of a threat. He’s a sorcerer, so have him FLEX that alot more. He made Lucia and the secretaries, who're artificial demons, and he ends up taking in Argosax's power...so like...keep him abit hammy if you want but make him the SCARY kind of hammy.

Potentially have Dante and Lucia’s campaigns be steamlined into one consecutive storyline. Alternate as the story goes on like in DMC5. I feel like since the two campaigns were mostly, iirc, copy paste parallels...they could just have the two stories basically run side by side. Give Lucia's side more room to be more unique.

Have more lore for the Protectors (The group Matier and Lucia belong to). They fought Argosax and worked together with Sparda, so like…an added crumb of flashback or so wouldn’t hurt imo. I'm not asking for like a whole big thing on it, just... [pinches fingers together] abit more.

Have Dante and Lucia interact abit more. Lucia being outted as an artificial demon is something I feel can have more connection there. A ‘Devils Never Cry’ moment, if you will. As cheesy as it can be seen nowadays, the series IS named after it. Well....moreso the fact that any demon encountering Dante 'may cry', but you get what I mean. Plus, its stated Lucia has a crush on Dante....so like...give that more to lean on? I'm not saying they have to build to anything actually happening, as we know how Dante is, but juuust enough, you know?

Have Dante’s brooding be more akin to, say, how the first DMC anime handled it. I feel like he was a good balance of ‘Man I’ve been through shit’ tiredness but still ‘I got some snarky humor and understanding towards others’.

The obvious rebalancing of weapons so it isn’t just GUN 24/7, but they can be cheeky and add an achievement referencing that, sure why not.

Maaaaybe add styles. Though acrobatic Dante with the movement he can do in this game, while silly, is still kinda fun. Trickster DOES have its roots from this game, as an inspiration.

Give the bosses in this game personality, please I am begging. They’re barely, if at all, memorable because they’re plain as hell. Remake them, replace, idc, I just want that boss banter.

Speaking of, make the Argosax fight less a pain and maybe better utilize that fact that it reuses the DMC1 bosses. I feel like we can go more body horror on it, esp if Argosax gets more a personality. Like…Argosax’s title is literally Argosax the Chaos, go crazy on that.

Speaking of Argosax having potential...did you recall that they casually flip genders in the second form they turn into? To me, you can make that unsettling in the sense that you can make Argosax sound more unsettling. Like the idea brewing in my head is to make it sound like more than one person speaking at once...like a legion. Or akin to how the true final boss for Sonic Frontiers was handled voice wise. Like I said, you can REALLY potentially run more with the fact that Argosax has 'Chaos' in the title.

[noteofnaught]

On Vergil's "mother's eccentricity"

起源一个问题。

然后写这些东西。

翻译还是那位，有错误或者问题请联系我。

欢迎各种讨论。

Originating a question.

Then write these things.

Translation or the one, please contact me for errors or questions.

All kinds of discussions are welcome.

本文前部分只使用DMC3的资料。基于大部分关于母亲死亡部分的回忆只存在于漫画，实际游戏内并没有提及，所以只要也以漫画为主。的。

The first part of this article uses only information from DMC3.

Based on the fact that most of the memories of the part about the death of the mother exist only in the manga and are not mentioned within the actual game, so as long as they are also based on the manga.

维吉尔那一天在经历在漫画里面有一定程度的描述，而且通过是恐惧来展示

Vergil's experience that day is described to some extent within the manga and is shown through is fear.

从上面的画面中可以看到，虽然被攻击的很厉害但他依旧在反抗，但在第二张图里面他看到着火的房子，无论认为那一声但丁是属于他喊出来还是母亲的喊出来的，显然都展示了房子被烧，而屋子里面还有人这个事实。

随后第三页他被钉在自己坟墓之上，他没有跟之前一样反抗，而是像失去反抗的意志。结合第二张图可以得出，燃烧的房子给予他巨大的冲击，让他丧失希望与反抗的意志，随后被更多攻击所伤害，然后恶魔问他：更なる恐怖を 望むや否や？（想要拥有更多的恐惧吗？）

维吉尔这一刻回答是这样的：今さら……こんなものを見せて 何がわかる（事到如今……给我看这个，想让我明白什么？）

这个恶魔显然知道维吉尔在恐惧什么并刻意询问自己的猎物，是否需要更多？自己就像一个贴心的主人/狩猎者，温柔对待他。

而维吉尔的回答也认证，着火的房子显然与他的恐惧有所联系，这些幻象就是他所恐惧的东西。

我们都知道房子里面有他的家人，他在那一天被恶魔所伤害并失去他的家人。

现在让我们回到漫画的开头。

As can be seen in the above picture, although he is attacked very badly he still resists, but in the second picture he sees the house on fire and whether one thinks that the cry Dante belongs to him shouting out or his mother's, it clearly shows the fact that the house is burning and that there is someone inside it.

Then on the third page he is nailed above his own grave, and instead of resisting as he did before, he looks like he has lost the will to resist. Combined with the second picture it can be concluded that the burning house gives him a great shock, causing him to lose hope and the will to resist, and he is then hurt by more attacks, and then the demon asks him: 更なる恐怖を 望むや否や？ (Do you want to have more fear?)

Vergil's answer at this moment is this: 今さら......こんなものを見せて 何がわかる (What do you want me to understand now that ...... has shown me this?)

This demon obviously knows what Vergil is afraid of and deliberately asks his prey if he needs more? Like a caring master/hunter himself, he treats him gently.

And Vergil's answer also authenticates that the house on fire is clearly linked to his fears and that these visions are what he fears.

We all know that the house contains his family, whom he lost that day to the demon.

Now let's go back to the beginning of the comic.

这一块墓碑显然写着伊娃的名字。那一天，他们家里着火了，按道理来说被燃烧后的尸体是无法根据外表来进行辨认的，但墓碑上的名字很明确的表明死者的身份，至少下葬的人是知道死者的身份的。伊娃是否有尸体呢？显然是有的。

阿卡姆与维吉尔一段对话中我们可以得知，伊娃是尸体有可能并不是被燃烧后尸体。

This tombstone apparently bears Eva's name. On that day, their house caught fire, and it is logical that a burnt body cannot be identified by its appearance, but the name on the headstone is a clear indication of the identity of the deceased, or at least that the person who buried it was aware of the identity of the deceased. Did Eva have a body? Apparently there was.

We can tell from a conversation between Arkham and Vergil that it is possible that Eva was a corpse and not a burned body.

在这里阿卡姆提到，虽然家里着火了但死因无法定夺，并在她尸体附近找到许多羽毛与鳞片，好像有什么野兽在那里斗争过，这里也明确提到，她死亡场所是家里。

既然是无法定夺那就意味着尸体并不是烧焦后的尸体，如果是烧焦后的尸体很容易被认为是火灾烧死的，当然也可以说，不知道是被烧死还是某些东西争夺过程中所死亡的。

这个女人是否就是伊娃并没有说清楚，但我们默认知道是伊娃，她现在并非一般意义上死亡案列，描述中看起就像卷入一场斗争，导致死亡。

当然在漫画后半部分，但丁说道母亲是被恶魔杀死的，维吉尔的回答是他知道。

Here Arkham mentions that although the house was on fire the cause of death could not be determined and finds many feathers and scales near her body as if some beast had struggled there, and here it is also clearly mentioned that the place of her death was the house.

The fact that it is inconclusive means that the body is not a burnt body, which could easily be attributed to a fire, or, of course, to something that was burnt or fought over.

Whether or not this woman is Eva is not made clear, but we know by default that it is Eva, who is now not a case of death in the usual sense, and the description looks like she was involved in a struggle that led to her death.

Of course in the second half of the comic, Dante says that his mother was killed by a demon, and Vergil's response is that he knows.

同样这个知道发生在阿卡姆与维吉尔的谈话之后，也就是说，维吉尔也有可能是在阿卡姆情报之后才得知，伊娃并非烧死的而是非正常死亡，极可能卷入一场斗争之中。

无论如何这都不影响一个问题，那就是立伊娃墓碑的人显然是知道伊娃的身份，并为她建立一块墓碑。

但我们无法从剪影上得知，站在墓碑前的人是谁，因为维吉尔在遇到恩佐之前发型与但丁是一样的，所以只能通过别的办法去猜测这个人是谁，但丁在DMC1小说有明确提到，他那一天离开，并没有将母亲的尸体进行下葬，随后修改自己名字，那更没有任何机会去给自己母亲立一块墓碑，那如果但丁是拜祭自己母亲，他不会带上拜祭需要的东西吗？哪怕是一朵花？不会蹲下来吗？

但剪影上的人是两手空空的，没有带任何东西只是站在墓碑前面。

那么这个人很有可能不是但丁而是维吉尔。

当时维吉尔以为自己家人都死亡了，为了追求超越父亲目的又回到了曾经的故乡，然后他看到母亲的墓碑却没有但丁的墓碑，那自然是没有的，因为但丁还活着呢，也没有他，我想也自然也是没有的，毕竟他还活着，也没有留下尸体。

在这里最符合逻辑/最有可能出现的逻辑极可能是但丁为母亲立了墓碑，但丁与母亲那一天很可能没有死去，母亲带着但丁离开，并抛下了他。

随后从阿卡姆口中的得知，母亲有可能是保护弟弟过程中死亡，因为她死亡地点是家里，而不是家门外，她母亲有可能是一直在家里呆在房屋内没有外出，一直守护着但丁所以才让但丁安然无恙活下来。

因为如果母亲没有一直守护着但丁，那但丁很有可能会像他当天所遭遇的那样，或者已经出来找他了，而且母亲甚至没有让逃生之后但丁来寻找他的打算，因为但丁显然没有找过他。

如果说自己是以为他们都死亡了，那母亲与弟弟又是为什么呢？因为觉得他死了吗？还是不想要他了？母亲死后留下尸体，但自己不是没有尸体吗？尸体也不打算找了吗？可是，妈妈的尸体却找了，为什么不找我的？为什么母亲也没有让弟弟来找自己呢？比起自己，弟弟更重要吗？

在这种逻辑之下，母亲更偏爱但丁的想法就可以形成了。

当然如果仔细去观察，会发现这些想法其实回避一个问题，那就是母亲有可能是来寻找他途中死亡的，比起打之内心去相信母亲为寻找他而死亡，他看起来更愿意去接受母亲没有那么做。

这也是正常的情感。

人的大脑是有保护机制的，当某些东西过于超过他的负荷的时候，会出现回避情况。

当然你要指责他害死母亲，要赎罪吗？

还是要指责他必须为母亲的死亡负责呢？

无论那一个显然都不合适，而且伤害不止维吉尔甚至是伊娃。

VoV里面其实也有这种想法雏形。

在故事中，老人家曾经说过维吉尔“又”离家出走。

显然这不是他第一次。

而维吉尔最后一次离开家门，伊娃也没有起身去寻找他，即使她看起来想要挽留他。

伊娃不能起身去找维吉尔理由也很简单，因为她同样不能单独把但丁一个人留在家里。

或者她认定维吉尔会自己回来的，并不需要担心或者费心思去找。

无论是那一个，她再也无法找到她的孩子了。

Again this knowledge occurred after Arkham's conversation with Vergil, which means that it is also possible that Vergil only learned after Arkham's information that Eva had not burned to death but had died an unnatural death and was most likely involved in a struggle.

In any case this does not detract from the fact that the person who erected Eva's tombstone was obviously aware of Eva's identity and erected a tombstone for her.

But we cannot know from the silhouette who the person standing at the tombstone is, because Vergil had the same hairstyle as Dante before he met Enzo, so we can only guess who this person is by other means. Dante has explicitly mentioned in the DMC1 novel that he left that day and did not bury his mother's body and subsequently change his name, that is, much less have any opportunity to erect a tombstone to his mother, that If Dante had been paying his respects to his mother, would he not have taken with him what he needed to pay his respects? Even a flower? Wouldn't he have knelt down?

But the man in the silhouette is empty-handed, standing in front of the tombstone without anything.

So it is likely that this person is not Dante but Vergil.

At the time Vergil thought his family was dead and returned to his former homeland in pursuit of a purpose beyond his father, then he saw his mother's tombstone but not Dante's, which naturally wasn't there because Dante was still alive and there was no him, which I suppose is also natural as well, after all he was alive and didn't leave a body behind.

The most logical/likely logic to emerge here is most likely that Dante erected a tombstone for his mother, that Dante and his mother probably did not die that day, and that his mother took Dante away and left him behind.

It is possible that her mother died protecting her brother, as she died in her house, not outside it, and that her mother stayed in the house and did not go out, watching over Dante and keeping him alive.

For if her mother had not been guarding Dante, then Dante would most likely have done what happened to him that day, or would have come out looking for him, and her mother had not even intended for Dante to come looking for him after the escape, for Dante had obviously not looked for him.

If he had thought they were all dead, what was his mother and brother doing? Because they thought he was dead? Or did they not want him anymore? The mother had died and left her body behind, but didn't she have a body herself? Was the body not going to be found either? Yet, my mother's body was found, so why not mine? Why didn't mother ask my brother to come to herself either? Was my brother more important than myself?

With this logic, the idea that the mother favoured Dante could be formed.

Of course, if one looks closely, one can see that these ideas avoid the question of the possibility that his mother died on her way to find him, and he seems more willing to accept that she did not do that than to believe in his heart that she died looking for him.

This is a normal emotion.

The human brain has a protective mechanism and when something is too much for him to handle, avoidance can occur.

Surely you want to accuse him of having to atone for the death of his mother?

Or are you going to accuse him of having to take responsibility for his mother's death?

Either one is clearly inappropriate and hurts more than just Vergil or even Eva.

VoV actually has a prototype of this idea in it. In the story, the old man once said that Vergil had run away from home "again".

Apparently this is not the first time he has done so.

And the last time Vergil leaves the house, Eva doesn't get up to look for him, even though she seems to want to keep him.

Eva could not get up to look for Vergil for the simple reason that she could not leave Dante alone in the house either.

Or perhaps she decided that Vergil would come back on his own and not need to worry or bother looking for him.

Either way, she would never be able to find her child again.

以上全是我的推论

非常个人意见的

All the above are my inferences

Very personal opinion's

[blooddrop-palace]

- Master Post of DMC fics by Rubixa Seraph -

(Come leave a comment, even a ❤️ comment will make my day!)

Series: Reignite the Flame

[Mostly canon-compliant series, with my take on who Nero’s mother is, and why she disappeared. At the same time, it looks like Dante had a daughter he didn’t know about, and she very much wishes to meet him.]

Hell Froze Over, and We Shall Reignite It - [Multi-chapter, ongoing]  Post DMC5, where Vergil, Dante, and Nero collectively find that their family is bigger than they thought. They find Nero’s mother down in Hell, and Nero finds a cousin. Yes, Dante, you do not have the high ground regarding the whole “you have a kid and didn’t know it??”

Could Have Been a Fever Dream - [One Shot, NSFW 🌶️] A little background on how Vergil met Sera, and that one spicy night they had together.

Edge of Infinity With You - [One Shot, NSFW 🌶️] A little background on how Dante met Kassy, and the whole night of fun they had.

FANART: Seraphina Valkyrie Character Design

Series: Fortune Favors the Bold

[Eva lives, and the twins grew up in Fortuna and are Holy Knights AU.]

Sons of Fortune - [Multi-chapter, ongoing] An AU where Eva, Vergil, and Dante collectively survived the attack from Mundus, and moved to Fortuna, where Vergil and Dante grow up in a more stable environment. The twins will get to have a place to call home, and even more people to love and make family with. Lots of family fluff, and I think this qualifies as a kid-fic. 

Practical Birthday Gifts -  [One Shot, NSFW 🌶️] “And there was only one bed!” trope. Dante x OC (Kassy) and a spicy night. Of course, this was indulgent smut. 

FANART: Holy Knight Vergil and Dante Sparda Plushie for Nero

Series:  This is Not an Office Rom-Com

[Office AU, no supernatural things, everyone is human. Slow burn drabbles of reader!insert working at the office and will slowly find themselves in a three-way relationship with Vergil and Dante.]

Crayon Rainbows After Rain - [One Shot] “Prequel” to the start of the series, as a bit of background to the AU and family setup of our cast.

I Owe You Lunch - [One Shot] Reader spills two whole lunch containers, that had a sticky note on it saying it belonged to Dante. Little did you know, just buying him lunch wasn’t the end of the scenario...

Espresso Sized Facts - [One Shot] Reader teaches Nero (who is on summer break and visiting the office) how to use the company’s espresso machine. You learn a bit more about drink and dessert preferences of the Sparda family. And you still don’t know who Nero’s and Vitale’s dad is.

Other Works and Series:

Scales, Feathers, and Eggshells -  [Multi-chapter, ongoing] 1k (roughly) word per chapter challenge! AU where Nero is 1/4 human, 3/4 devil, and 100% cute! The story of Vergil and his devilish mate raising a little hatchling.

Shattered Mirrors Repaired With Gold - [Series, WIP] This is the “What if Dante and Vergil’s positions were switched?” AU. Except I haven’t finished writing that part yet. Instead, you have two stories about Credo and Noel right now. Who is Noel? Not-actually-Nero... Dante’s daughter left in Fortuna. Yep.

The Danger of Doppelgängers - [Two-shot, WIP] The Noir AU DMC zine may not have made it to production stage, but I still have something to show for it. This was my piece, and I have a follow-up in due time.

Through the Lens of the Beholder -  [Multi-chapter, ongoing] Photographer!Reader, slight canon divergence (for reader's existence), following your photo-filled journey with the cast through DMC5. You will ogle all of the cast. All of them.

Kaleidoscope Worlds - Prompt Fills  All of my tumblr prompt requests go here. The first chapter has a table of contents detailing what prompts, with general tag-summaries. 

Checkmate Fate - [Series] Some indulgent canon-divergence, of what if Vergil and Nero’s mother reunited between the events of DMC3 and DMC1. Various flavors of family reunion fics. 

Blessings of Family - [Series] A “what-if” AU to my Reignite series, where Dante does get to know about Snow’s existence, and does his best to raise a happy family. A drabble-esque series outlining how much his family would mean to him, and how it affects how he welcomes Vergil back, post DMC5, among more family fluff.

Full Course - [Series, NSFW 🌶️] Don’t ask how we got here. Just know that this is where we are: Reader and Vergil acts on the idea of giving Nero a sibling. Nero has to process this news. Dadgil plus Spicy stuff. I blame tumblr for this one.

Hierarchy of Kings -  [Multi-chapter, ongoing]  I am prone to falling into multi-verse hell. This is an AU with Vergil meeting Roy King, an OC of mine. It’s a different flavor of world from Reignite, and is supposed to be all fluff-indulgent. Vergil needs a friend to have heart-to-hearts with, and if that friend becomes boyfriend, why not? 

Two Undergrads and a Cat - [One-Shot, 2020 Secret Santa Gift] A Reader x V “before established relationship” College AU fic. 

How to Ensure Survival When You Are Caught By the Most Dangerous Devils From Topside -  [One-Shot, NSFW 🌶️] A devil!reader insert story of getting some feral love in your favorite two devils’ nest. Absolute kink-fill. Please check tags for more details.

A Perfect Love is Not Picky and To Catch a Fleeting Presence - [One-Shots, NSFW 🌶️] My spicy contributions to the digital “after dark” Jackpot Dante zine!

DMCWeek 2020 - This links to a post of all 7 fics with their titles, themes, and summaries.

Headcannon Posts:

[I don’t do these often.]

🌶️ NSFW Alphabet J and V

🌶️ NSFW Alphabet X, D, and K

‘Useless’ Talent head canons

Sera and Vergil gift-giving thoughts

Kassy and Dante on hand-holding and declarations of love

[dmcofficial]

i really love how dmc approaches the relationship between human and demonic selves, especially in the light of it acting as contrast to how regular, average people struggle to accept parts themselves, the beautiful, the ugly, the parts that are both. dante has the most development simply bc he's the longest running protag of the series but also he's had games entirely dedicated low-key to his developing relationship and eventual acceptance of his human and demonic sides, even tho i think his are more clear cut (dmc1 & dmc3) meanwhile nero (dmc4 & dmc5) and vergil (dmc5) have more subtle and almost cramped development in a way

[ranting abt dante, vergil, & nero's character development throughout the franchise under the cut bc this also got rlly long,,,]

dante is interesting post dmc3 just bc he's both written 2 b a continuous character w no real conclusion to his character in order to continually write him into dmc games and content, BUT he still reaches SOME conclusions to character arcs in dmc1 and dmc3, and afterwards we see how those conclusions have aged with him— aged is the important word there, because changes in dante's character are both from the perspective on nero (his villainous aura at the beginning of dmc4) and the simple fact that where a lot of characters don't actively age and mature the same way real people do, in video game media especially, dante DOES and this changes how we would expect him to react in games liek 4 and 5

i think part of the reason the dynamic between vergil and dante has shifted by dmc5 is not only bc of vergils speedrun development in the same game, but also because you could reasonably say that while vergil expects a fight w him similar to their past fights, you could argue he is also a little bit unsettled with how dante's changed in the time theyve been separated. because despite how they tend to mirror each other as children and their journey thru dmc as a franchise can be framed as the same One character put thru different yet similar traumatic events, vergil even remarks about it at the top of the qliphoth, that difference here is that by dmc4 and DEF dmc5 dante has evolved past that where vergil is just beginning to really see it.

dante has had the time to process it. he went thru all this development years ago. it's had time to sit with him and age and ferment. dante is now tired, almost apathetic. he's disinterested with life and the cards he's been dealt with. at least in dmc4 and between dmc1 and 4, the anime too, he was sort of. rueful and upset about it? but he's seemed to move past that at this point. he is a character who has done everything there is to do. there is nothing and nobody who can challenge him, and even the concept doesn't catch his full attention. vergil is a trigger topic, it sets him off instantly, probably because vergil is the only constant in his life that will live as long and is as impossibly stubborn as dante is.

he doesn't chase vergil because he's necessarily hurting people with the dmc5 red grave massacre or trying to end the world in some great fashion and dante will have fun or at least get a thrill from defeating him or dying trying— cutting thru urizens forces are a pain in the ass and a waste of time. he wants the main course. he wants to be done with it. not to say he wouldn't have fun fighting, but he doesn't get the thrill he does when he's younger anymore. he wants to end their feud, seeming to be with the intention of making up with him even if he's come to terms with vergil's pride being what will force dante to kill him in the end

fighting with vergil in the underworld afterwards, having someone like him to keep him company, to share those experiences with, it's everything he needed and more i think. the repairing of their relationship, the new partner in a life none can truly relate to. i mean, both brothers treat nero like a child, he's the closest either of them can get to someone who understands, but nobody will understand truly like they will

vergil meanwhile, decides very young that power is all he needs and it will solve all his problems. and you know, at the time maybe it does. but eventually, when forced to admit it isn't, when put between dante and more power despite it being a hollow motivation, he chooses power and the end of dmc3 to the events of dmc1 happens.

dmc5 is unique in that v is forced to retrace vergils steps. they're put through the same paces: he is put in a position of fear after his 'birth', he chooses life, and then goes hunting for power to keep himself alive afterwards. but not only does he have his familiars to balance him out in a way vergil never had (and that dante has in trish and lady,) but his demonic tendencies can't overwhelm him, he has room to grow and accept and come to realizations he can only reach as a clear headed human. he is able to actively use empathy and sympathy, even against his will. he realizes that power isn't everything. that the atrocities he's committed in the name of his own growth in power are just that, atrocities. that he feels regret for what he has done. that he wants to find away to atone for those actions.

he is forced to accept the strengths and weaknesses of his humanity, but also the same coin's other side, the horrible things he's done in the past, the horrible things his demon self is currently doing unchecked, and v resolves to change that even at the cost of his human outlook, even at the gravity of his actions being leveled against vergil in all their horror. he learns to accept that part of himself, both parts, everything bad he can commit with his two hands, but also with nero, nico, his familiatr, the good that can be done. the weeds that can fight to grow through the cracks.

nero spends dmc4 learning how to be a demon. hes force to learn how to deal with and manage his demonic changes. for a few weeks he has his demon arm, when he previously believed himself to be entirely human, and is then forced to come to terms with his yamato trigger and all the changes that brings. he even promises to himself, having grown up on a hyper religious island that loathes demonkind and reveres sparda, that even if humanity learns to hate him and fear him, he will still stick to his steadfast morals, his drive to achieve his goal of saving kyrie and greater fortuna. i also think a lot of dmc4 is nero becoming comfortable with his true nature. he comes into himself in dmc4 as a mouthy, demonic-warped demon hunter with a bad attitude in contrast to the bored, slightly tempered teen who broods in church even as kyrie attempts to wrangle him at the beginning of the game

dmc5 i think is nero's human game in the sense that he's forced to relearn how to be human. he spends five+ years as a demonic freak of nature, powerful on an island of human people with no demonic power. he's downright untouchable. after losing his bringer and his powers, he's forced back to square one, human again. i think dante believes nero is deadweight in the sense that nero is weak again, without any kind of demonic power and will get himself killed easily fighting urizen despite his hybrid resilience that still lingers. nero is angered by this— by his weakness, by the fact that he promised dante to keep the yamato safe and had it stolen from him, by his lack of agency. dante wasn't even going to tell nero, v, some random-ass goth, had to fetch him. he feels he isn't enough anymore, and dante's words are poorly timed— they sting particularly hard i think, considering he is nero's only unofficial family at the time, and family is his soft spot.

i also think nero coming to terms with vergil and dante being his father and uncle respectively takes up a lot of this arc of his– he is forced to grapple with what family means to him, what he is willing to do for family, when his only relationship with family has been his experiences as an orphan with strange white hair and a bad attitude in fortuna of all places, fostered by kyries parents who seemed to only take a liking to him at first for how much he resembled the Savior™. kyrie and credo were his only family after they died, and it's kyrie who reminds him of his own beliefs, in his own love and stubborn, headstrong dedication and determination for the well being of his found family, even as that found family suddenly includes actual blood family. he also has to try and understand dante and his perspective, who hid this from him. maybe out of fear of disappointing him, maybe out of concern of how he would take it, maybe because he thought nero was better off with the family he found than with the knowledge of how much bloody weight he carries, the heavy history of their family, didn't want to give that weight to him.

nero sort of learns here that seemingly good people do bad things for the right reasons. sometimes bad people do bad things because they think it's the best of the shitty choices. sometimes bad and good people just don't exist, and there's no good choice. he learns unwavering forgiveness, unconditional and true. all of these lessons he's lost between dmc4 and 5

[gennarenee]

My Devil May Cry Game Ratings

Alright so I finally finished playing all the Devil May Cry games (barring DMC2 and DmC), so I wanted to write out my thoughts and reviews of the games in order of my favorite to least favorite. I played the games in the order of 5, 4, 3, then 1.

#1: Devil May Cry 5

DMC5 was my introduction to the series. I first watched a whole play-through of the game as background while I was working on a research project, but it looked so fun that I bought it on the steam summer sale and I loved it as much as I thought I would. The combat is intricate and fun, and I’m still discovering new tricks and play-styles (I think I’m on my third play-through of the game??). I love V’s character, but on my first play-through I didn’t know the story of the DMC universe, so I was disappointed when he turned back into Vergil. Now that I’ve played through all the games though, I love the story even more and I understand now how V is an important step in Vergil coming to terms with his humanity (also I love Vergil too now). Having played the other games too I can now see all the references this game makes to the previous games as well which is really cool.

Overall 10/10 this is my new favorite game and has beat out Bayonetta as being my favorite game of all time.

#2: Devil May Cry 4

As previously stated, I’m a huge Bayonetta fan, so you can imagine my excitement at all the parallels between this game and Bayonetta (aesethically, story-wise, etc.). However, DMC4 is definitely not a finished game, so I’m actually glad that Bayonetta basically stole the concepts of DMC4 and made them better. 

The start of this game is my favorite out of all the DMC games. I love the scene of Kyrie’s performance in the church while Nero battles demons in the street, and I think this does a really good job of setting the scene for the game. Fortuna is aesthetically beautiful, and the game’s music is fantastic (I’ve had “Out of Darkness”, “The Idol of Time and Space”, and “Shall Never Surrender” on repeat for the past few weeks). Having finished DMC1, I can see now too that Fortuna, Fortuna castle, and the enemies take a lot of inspiration from Mallet Island in DMC1. 

Combat wise, I loved playing as both Nero and Dante. After playing DMC5, Nero’s combat felt a bit lacking, but nevertheless I had fun smacking demons around with the buster arm. I adored playing as Dante, and I enjoyed his combat style more than Nero’s. HOWEVER, this brings me to the game’s biggest flaw: while Dante is super fun to play as, his levels are absolutely awful. Instead of creating a new area for Dante to explore while trying to save Nero, the entire 2nd half of the game is spent backtracking through all of the Nero levels. Like seriously Capcom?? I was aware of the backtracking before playing this game but having basically half of the game backtrack through the first half is ridiculous. The areas themselves also felt disconnected. Fortuna, Fortuna Castle, and the jungle all were interesting areas on their own, but it doesn’t make sense going basically from Italy, to a frozen mountaintop, to a jungle, all on a single island. 

All in all though, I’d give this game a 7.5/10. While repeated sections were annoying, the combat was fun and I love the aesthetic of the game and its soundtrack. Also Nero and Kyrie’s relationship is adorable.

#3: Devil May Cry 1

This might come as a surprise, but I enjoyed DMC1 more than DMC3 (but I’ll get to this more in the next section). 

First, I’m glad I played all the DMC games in reverse order. When I first picked up DMC1 after completing DMC5, I was shocked with how awful the camera system and general gameplay was, so I put down DMC1 to replay DMC5. However, when I came back to DMC1 after playing all the other games, I had become adjusted to the lack of features in each game, so I no longer felt as annoyed with the camera and gameplay. In fact, I enjoyed the gameplay a lot more than I thought I would. I imagined that the game wouldn’t live up to today’s gaming standards, but I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed the combat. I missed having access to the different playstyles of future games, but this Dante’s gameplay almost felt like a mix between trickster and gunslinger, so his combat style was not as empty as I thought it would be. 

Much like DMC4, I also really enjoyed the aesthetic of this game. Having played DMC4 before DMC1, I almost had “reverse nostalgia” for the scarecrow enemies and the castle aesthetic. I also really liked the level designs. While the levels in DMC4 felt disconnected, I could see the areas (castle, canyon, coliseum, pirate ship, etc.) all existing on one island together. In terms of bosses, I wish that there had not been repeat fights. While I loved seeing V’s familiars having a role in this game (again, “reverse nostalgia”), I could’ve done with a couple less Nightmare and Nelo Angelo fights. 

In the end, my biggest complaint about this game is that it’s too short. I started this game at 5pm yesterday, and I’ve completed it in under 5 hours. While the game is short, it felt like there was almost no plot until the very end of the game when you fight Nelo Angelo Vergil. I wish they would’ve expanded upon the story and included more information on Sparda and Eva and Dante and Vergil’s childhoods, but I understand that this game was the first in the series and made in 2001. 

Overall, I’ll give the game a 7/10. While I can’t imagine myself replaying this game (especially since there’s no other playable characters besides Dante), I had an overall pleasant time playing this game.

#4: Devil May Cry 3

First, while DMC3 is the last game on this list, I want to clarify that I enjoyed all 4 games, and this game is almost tied with DMC1. However, there are just some choices in the game that made this game a less enjoyable experience for me. 

Combat wise, while it took me some time to adjust to only having one style at once, DMC3 has my favorite weapon set out of all the games. I loved played with Cerberus in DMC5, so I was excited to have the opportunity to use this weapon again in DMC3, and the same goes for Beowulf and Kalina Ann. While I didn’t use it that much, I also adored the Nevan weapon, and it seems like a perfect weapon addition to the game series (if only we could’ve seen something similar in DMC5!). I also enjoyed the story of this game. It was nice getting more of a backstory on Dante and Vergil, and Dante definitely grew as a character by the end of the game. It was also nice finally seeing Lady’s backstory. Arkham/Jester annoyed me, and one of my favorite parts of the game is when Vergil basically goes from “I need to begin the all important ritual” to “Okay we need to get rid of this clown ASAP”.

But, what this game makes up for in storytelling, it lacks in general gameplay and aesthetic. The game’s aesthetics almost felt bland, and many areas in Temen-ni-gru were just brown/grey stone. I also wish the early enemy design went outside of the “grim reaper” aesthetic. While I know others have different opinions on the matter, I feel that DMC3′s aesthetic was very one note, and suffers from the opposite problem of DMC4. In terms of gameplay, I felt that most of the item quests did not make sense and were unnecessary. For example, many of the doors require orichalcum to open, but randomly finding a piece of orichalcum on the ground doesn’t make sense story wise. I remember a level specifically where you have to drop down to the library to find a key item, but the library is even before the start of the level.

Compared to this, the item quests and backtracking in DMC1 made sense. For example, finding a key in a room in a castle to use on another door in a castle makes sense. Even weirder item quests, such as finding the trident to open the door, make more sense than DMC3 missions. While I do not know what orichalcum does or what it is, in one of the rooms in DMC1 there is an item with 3 holes in it, and it makes sense that the trident item gained later on would go in this space.

Finally, one of my biggest complaints about this game is the boss battles. Now I might just suck at video games, but it took me way too long to defeat some of the bosses on Devil Hunter. For example, it took me longer to figure out the Vergil fights than it did for me to complete DMC1. Bosses like Beowulf also sucked due to relying on the smaller eye hitbox. In contrast to DMC1 as well, these bosses were at the end of a level, as compared to being a separate mission, so if I wanted to leave and come back later, I’d have to replay the entire mission first. 

Overall, I’ll give the game 6/10. Will I replay it? Possibly, I know I can play as Vergil, so it would be fun learning his moveset. However, a game’s aesthetic is almost more important to me than gameplay (that’s just a me thing), so I’m not sure that I would enjoy playing through the levels again due to their lackluster design.

Ending Thoughts

And that’s my rating on (almost) all the DMC games! While some of the gameplay in the earlier games was annoying, I definitely love this series, and I plan on reading the extra novels/mangas outside the game (I’ve already watched the anime). Hell, I’ll probably read some William Blake and the Divine Comedy itself.

Let me know what your ratings are! I’d love to hear everyone else’s lists. 

[skvaderarts]

Hiraeth Chapter 18: Venture

Masterlist can be found Here!

Chapter Eighteen: Venture

Notes: I have embarked on a self-destructive quest to collect every one of the DMC books. I never realized there were about fifty of them, especially for dmc1 since those comics have different cover variants. I have like 7 active bay orders and three Amazon deliveries scheduled for just this month! This is a self-inflicted hell that I was not emotionally, mentally, or financially prepared for, and somehow I still don’t regret it. Is this what insanity looks like? Oh yeah, the story. Moving on…

(-~-)

A few days later…

The city was bustling as always, roads paved with cobblestones and asphalt traversed by a steady stream of vehicles that cut a swath through the city, forming the metaphorical circulatory system synonymous with a metropolitan city of this size and magnitude. A cool but familiar breeze swept in from the coast, passing through the harbor, through the buildings, and down the street, causing nothing more than a minor inconvenience to anyone who was present outside of their vehicles or homes. But in spite of it all, things had somehow changed since they’d left not more than a week ago, their trip to Vie Du Marlin cut short after just a few days. And now that they were back, not a single one of them could place what had shifted during their departure, but it was something that they noticed nonetheless.

In truth, Lucia couldn’t remember how many years it had been since she’d been to Dante’s stomping grounds. From her recollection, it had been about a decade. Seemingly every time that she left her home, it was at her longtime friend’s behest, and that wasn’t something that she minded in the slightest. She actually enjoyed traveling despite the fact that she never got the opportunity to do so very much in her day-to-day life, especially if it meant that she had to leave the island. This was a welcome change of pace, even if she didn’t really know what she was doing there.

Without even needing to be told that something wasn’t right, she knew. It was just something in the air, a certain atmosphere that had fallen over the entire place that she couldn’t put her finger on. But she knew and she knew that everyone else around her knew and just wasn’t saying anything about it. Maybe everyone else just assumed that everyone else also noticed and didn’t feel the need to bring it up. Or maybe they were all trying to ignore it for some ill-defined reason that she couldn’t comprehend. Either way, there was most certainly something going on, and she didn’t know what it was, but what she did know was that she didn’t like it very much at all. Nope, not one bit. But she was still here and she wasn’t going anywhere until she didn’t need to be there any longer.

As they rounded the corner near the central park that contained the Dark Knight Sparda’s statue, a jolt in the van snapped her out of her absentminded thoughts. Everyone in the van was just so… quiet. For some, it was the kind of quiet contemplation that you might involuntarily undertake during a car ride, simply basking in the silent ambiance. But aside from V and Sirrus, she didn’t get the impression that that was why everyone else was silent. Dante was reading some sort of magazine that she didn’t recognize, and Vergil just seemed to be the sort who didn’t know how to relax to save his life. Everything about his posture seemed to make him and everyone else around him uncomfortable, and she was somewhat sure that he didn’t even notice that. At least Nero and Nico were moving a little from their positions in the front seat as they carried on, otherwise, she would start to worry that at least one person in this van was actually dead.

Moments later, they hit another bump in the road, more than likely harder than they should have. Lucia felt herself lurch forward slightly, looking over towards the front seat as if doing so would give her an answer as to why they were driving in the manner that they were. When she didn’t find what she was looking for, she turned her attention back towards Dante and his silent book reading. He’d changed too much from when she’d last seen him; from when she’d first seen him, in that regard. But one notable change that she could now identify was there was one that she was happy for. The everpresent sorrow that she’d once seen utterly consume him wasn’t at the very forefront of who he was like it had once been. It was still there, but he seemed to be at peace in some regard in a way that she’d never seen. She wondered if Vergil noticed as well. After all, he had to be part of the reason for that change. Although she didn’t really know the entirety of the history between them, she knew enough to see that his return from wherever he’d been all this time was influential on Dante. She wasn’t sure if that was a good thing yet, but it had come with a few perks that she appreciated on his behalf.

She was happy to see him happier.

Leaning over to peek over his shoulder, she managed to inadvertently draw his attention away from whatever he was reading. The devil hunter in red looked over at her with a questioning look, lowering the flimsy, well-worn magazine and raising a curious eyebrow. Clearly, she wasn’t trying to be sneaky in any way, shape, or form, but her curiosity was still something that he didn’t expect, and that was enough by itself to garner the attention that she was probably trying to attract in the first place but was just too polite to request. It was as understandable as it was entertaining, and the youngest of the Dark Knight Sparda’s twin sons wasn’t at all bothered by it.

“Lookin’ for somethin’?” He said almost sarcastically, trying his best to hide his amusement from her. He’d forgotten how enjoyable it could be to be around Lucia. For one, she didn’t stab him when he got on her nerves, not that he was sure that he’d ever managed to actually do that. She was too polite most of the time to even really say anything, though he was pretty certain that she was still irritated with him about how long he’d left after they’d defeated Argosax and Arius. One day he’d have to fully make that up to her. After all, here she was, helping him out anyway. No hard feelings. You didn’t find friends like that every day. At least she was in a better place personally than she had once been way back when they had first met. Dante had at least grown up knowing what he truly was, even if he didn’t like it at times. Finding out after the fact had to be pretty jarring… 

The Demonslayer’s attention turned to Nero and V for a moment. Nero had grown up surrounded by demon fanatics who literally worshiped his grandfather as a god without knowing who he truly was, and that had left an undeniable impact on his life. But even still, he’d managed to overcome the cards she’d been dealt and turn out alright. V though… he was immensely complicated. Dante didn’t know the entirety of either of his nephews’ pasts, but something told him that V had gone through more than a few dark experiences in his youth. There was just something obtuse about him that he couldn’t place, and he knew it came from what he didn’t know about him. And from what he knew, none of his experiences with the supernatural had exactly been positive, let alone good go him. He couldn’t help but wonder what he thought about all of this. The past was complicated for everyone in their family, much like the present. He hoped the future wouldn’t be more of the same in that regard. Once Belial was out of the picture, they could go from there. It was all just so much to take in all at once, wasn’t it?

Sparing a quick glance between Lucia and the rest of the members of the team that were currently in the van, he remembered something about the last time he’d visited Lucia’s homeland. He’d have to go back and visit that place when all of this was over and they finally got the chance to take her home. Sometimes he really missed Cerberus. He’d been a good stinky little pooch, and an even better weapon. The new one was great and all, but there was just something about the original that it couldn’t top on a personal level. He’d lost a lot over the years, and he’d given even more away, but that was one thing that he’d known that he needed to do at the time that he’d come to regret later and he still did. But that’s what life was, wasn’t it? A series of regrets that you either did or didn’t recover for, normally due to well-intentioned actions that came back to bite you. He and Vergil had both been fools in their youth, just like everyone else. They were just a different kind of fool than everyone else around them in most ways. All then needed to do now was move past that now. Easier said than done.

“No, not really. Well, kind of. Are we in a hurry?” Lucia said politely, tilting her head in Nico’s general direction. She hadn’t asked many questions before agreeing to come here, so much of what was going on was a mystery to her. But what she did know was that Dante needed her help, and she was going to give it to him. He’d always been there to help her when she needed it most, and she wasn’t the type to backpedal on those who needed her, especially when they so rarely asked for her help in the first palace.

Dante gave her a blank look for a moment before the metaphorical lightbulb came on in his head. Oh, that’s what she’d meant, wasn’t it? That made sense enough. “Oh, you mean- no, Nico always drives like this. It’s just kinda her thing. Probably should have told you that before you got in the van. My bad.”

Lucia blanched. She drove like this every time they went somewhere?! How was anyone alive still?! Why didn’t literally anyone else drive? Did they just not care anymore?

Vergil glanced over at them both as they rounded the last corner and pulled into the parking spot out front of the office, a hard-to-read look on his face. “There are several things you should have told her before asking her to come here, her driving being towards the bottom of that list. But I don’t think that would have changed her answer. There is clearly more than a little history between the both of you.”

The younger of the two scoffed. “Oh, Brother. You have no idea.”

Lucia glanced between them both, chuckling awkwardly under her breath. Goodness, these two were something else, weren’t they? Despite the fact that they were identical twins, they seemed to have quite a hard time talking to one another. It was almost as if there was some form of residual bitterness or resentment between them that they were working towards getting over. She wasn’t going to ask. They would tell her if they wanted her to know. But she got the impression that whatever this was between them had once been even worse than it was now, so at least they were probably making progress. And they did seem to have one thing in common: they were both really good at saying what was on their mind, at least to one another. She wasn’t sure that was a good thing, but it was something. What on earth had happened between the two of them to make them this way?

Moments later, the van came to a full stop. V put his book away and turned to face them, a slightly perplexed look on his face. He’d only been half paying attention to what they were talking about, his attention clearly elsewhere. But even still, he could just feel the awkwardness in the atmosphere, and that by itself was enough to put him on alert. How many fights could he and Nero possibly break up between the two of them in one month?! It was slightly ridiculous.

Exiting the van, the group traveled inside the office, noting that the lights out front of the office were once again not on. The moment that he caught sight of this fact, Dante cursed himself eternally. How had he managed to forget to pay the bill again? He’d actually done it on time for once in his life the last time that the bill had come around out or the fear that Nero would do it again with the money that he didn’t have or that he’d once again be behind on the bills. Nero had spent a sizable amount of money to help get him out of that hole, and he’d totally let it slip his mind.

A cursory glance back at the rest of the crew as he walked up the stairs gave him a mixed bag of results. Half of them didn’t seem to notice, and the other half that didn’t seem to have an easily accessible response to it. Maybe they just didn’t care? After all, it was evening. Maybe the sign had just been turned off or something and he was overreacting? It was entirely possible that one of them had hit the switch on the way out of the door when they’d left, especially since Vergil lived there now. He had noticed that his twin was significantly more fiscally minded than he was, and actually seemed to pay attention to how much the bills were going to be. One could only hope that the power was actually still on, or he was going to have to have a very awkward conversation with his twin. He could only hide the books from Vergil for so long…

Upon entering the building, Dante flicked the switch to find that the power was, in fact, actually off. Damn it. Of course it was. He walked over to his desk as the others filed in behind him, pretending not to notice that the lights weren’t on. Maybe if he just didn’t bring attention to it no one would-

Before he could even finish that thought, V stepped through the doorway. Upon noticing that the lights were not on, he stepped out of the way of anyone who might be walking behind him and reached for the switch, flicking it into the on position. He glanced up towards the ceiling and, upon realizing that neither the fan nor the lights were going to actually come on, he looked over towards the desk in the middle of the room that Dante was so fond of sitting at. This was at least the second time that he’d come over to his uncle’s house and the power hadn’t been on. He was starting to think that Dante might have some sort of problem with paying the bills, or just didn’t like to be able to see in his office. Maybe he could see in the dark or something? Was it just willful defiance on his part?

“Dante… your power is off again,” V said calmly as if he had half expected to stumble into the office and find himself in the dark. After all, Morrison had used part of the money he’d made when they had first met to turn on Dante’s power. He hadn’t forgotten that little detour on the way to start the contract. “Did you forget to pay the bill again before we left, or did you just not care since no one would be here?”

The older demon hunter looked over at his nephew, dying inside a little bit. Vergil gave him a mildly disapproving look, folding his arms as he closed his eyes for a moment and exhaled heavily. A moment later, he opened them, now seemingly frustrated as it probably occurred to him that this had to be at least the second time that his twin brother had failed to pay the utility bills on time. He looked as though he was going to say something to his younger twin, but Lucia entered the building a moment later, halting his words. It seemed that he didn’t want her to hear whatever it was that he had been planning to say, so at least for the time being, Dante would live to see another day.

“Let’s call it the second one, and not the first one, hu V?” Dante said, responding to his nephew’s inquiry. The younger man hadn’t meant to throw him firmly under the bus in the manner that he just had. Probably. But that didn’t change the fact that he was now going to spend the remainder of the day under Vergil’s unflinching watch until his twin got a satisfactory answer as to why the bills hadn’t been paid. In fact, it could be longer than that if the power wasn’t immediately turned back on. As soon as Vergil realized that he couldn’t do anything meaningful to entertaining himself in the dark, he was officially a dead man walking.

Being the kind person that she was, Lucia did, in fact, notice that the lights were no on, and she had heard V’s statement, but she didn’t feel the need to say anything to him about it just yet. She’d pick fun at him about his apparent lack of ability to keep the power on at a later date. For now, she was content as she was. It wasn’t as if she was afraid of the dark or anything like that.

V nodded, turning his attention to the couch. Call it jet lag, but he suddenly felt very tired, and he wasn’t entirely sure as to why that was. He needed to sit down and catch his breath for a moment before doing anything else. Not that he had anything in particular that he needed to do besides going home and getting a good night’s rest. He wondered if either of their guests were staying with Dante for the night. After all, Vergil was in the spare room. They could sleep on the couch, but that seemed a little uncomfortable. And then there was Nero’s house, but that only accounted for one of them. So a hotel, then? Or maybe…

“Have you decided where you’re going to stay for the next little while, Lucia? Or for that matter, are you headed back to Magnolia’s house, Sirrus? It’s getting to be quite late, isn’t it?” V said as he reclined on the couch, waiting for their responses. He already knew what he planned to say, but he wasn’t entirely sure why he’d decided to do what he planned to do.

Lucia sat down on the other end of the couch, taking in the space she currently occupied. This was certainly different from the last place she’d visited when she’d come to wait for her friend before. She didn’t remember the address from before, so she wouldn’t be surprised if this was actually a brand new office. “Actually, no. I have not thought much about it. I should probably figure that out, especially since I have no idea how long I will be here. Why were you asking?”

Sirrus concurred, leaning over the back of the couch as he looked between the two of them. Now he was curious as to what V was getting at. “I had considered leaning on her a little longer against my better judgment, but she likes to keep her guest room available for emergencies. I am no such thing. I suppose a hotel would be the natural choice with no other options presented to me. Why?”

V shrugged nebulously, suddenly uncomfortable with being the subject of their shared attention. “I was going to… did you… I have several spare rooms. I believe there are five bedrooms in my new residence, and I live alone. For whatever reason, the specifics of that number escape me at the moment.”

The man with the red hair chortled slightly, tilting his head to one side. “You don’t remember how many bedrooms your new house has?” disbelief was evident in his voice as he spoke, but he tried to keep how funny he found that to himself. Was V alright? He seemed somewhat frazzled. “Regardless, I’d be more than happy to accept your offer. At least you probably have electricity.”

Lucia made a sound somewhere between a chuckle and a snicker. “You're probably right. V, you seem like the responsible sort. I’d be happy to keep you both company, if it’s not too much trouble.” Lucia looked over towards the desk, noting that Vergil was leaning against the wall, giving Dante a menacing look from behind his back. Dante was clearly pretending to not notice, but she could practically feel him pouring sweat from where she sat on the other side of the room. Oh, dear… “Seeing a little bit more of the city sounds like a nice idea, and if I was to go with my gut, I’d say that Dante isn’t long for this world. His brother seems quite upset with him… again.”

The young white-haired devil hunter nodded. “Oh, I’m almost certain that you’re correct. I don’t suspect he will last the night. I have no desire to witness a murder.” he turned towards Nero to gain his attention. The younger of the two was standing next to the front door, leaned against the wall much as he had been when he’d first arrived there himself. “Nero, care to join us?”

Nero snapped out of the apparent daydreaming episode that he’d been taking part in and nodded, practically ready to jump at the idea of not being at the office any longer in than he had to be, especially with how dark it was becoming and how likely their father was to fly off into a murderous rage at any moment. “Shit, I thought you’d never ask. Let’s get the hell out of there. I’m not in the mood to deal with this crap tonight. Nico, start the van. We’re leaving. Now.”

(-~-)

Supposedly, I’ll be out of town sometime this week, but I’m not sure. Don’t worry, I’m not going super far. This isn’t the time for a vacation in like a different state or something. It’s just a short 2-3 hour road trip to go see some stuff and head home. Most of the time we will be in a car. But you know how you have that one friend who makes plans with you and then literally always cancels them? Yea, this is that friend. He’s pushed this back about three times now, so we will see. Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter! See you Friday!

[satoshi-mochida]

Some thoughts on my last Gamefly rental, Devil May Cry HD Collection.

Devil May Cry 1

DMC1 was changed in production from Resident Evil 4, and I can see some of the more classic RE mechanics still here: some fixed-camera angles that tend to change at awkward points(which was kind of disorienting when it changed angles in the middle of hallways or in some boss fights, like Nelo Angelo, but has been improved in the later games), the transition for going through doors(not the ‘slowly opening the door’ one, the ‘zoom in’ one), and a horror atmosphere(even more so later on).

Though I never got super good at it, I think I picked up on the gameplay in this one and others pretty easily, though they don’t really give you any tutorials until 3. That was only a real pain for me when you NEED to use High Time to deflect shots back at a statue, and I didn’t know this until I looked it up. It IS in the moves menu, so it is slightly on me as well for not checking through those. 

The location for the game, Mallet Island, was a stage in Project X Zone 2, so it was cool seeing it in full.

Devil May Cry 2

I kept hearing the game was bad, but based on everything I’ve seen and heard, I was expecting a LOT worse. It felt like it had improved in some ways(like more open areas so the camera isn’t as much of a pain), but was weaker in others. It feels like the weakest of these three, though.

Dante starts with some abilities he had to learn in the first game, like the Air Hike and Stinger, which is nice; I hate not being able to double jump.

Some issues I had with it: no indicator of your location on the map screen aside from the room you’re in flashing(DMC3 is like this too, but it’s not as much of a pain to navigate since it’s not as dark), not too challenging(on the starting difficulty, at least), and when locked onto an enemy, you ALWAYS attack in their direction(lock-on was improved in 3). Also, the combat feels...more loose, maybe(?), compared to the other two.

Stage 14 for Dante was the worst for me; the stage is very dark and it was hard to see a wall you needed to jump over(hint). The stages afterwards and endgame made up for it, though.

I liked Lucia; she’s better at aerial fighting than Dante, and I liked her story. Hope she is able to come back again.

Devil May Cry 3

“People said DMC 2 was too easy, so we should probably make the next one more challenging.

DMC 3 Developers: Hold my beer.”

To be fair, they made the Japanese Hard difficulty Normal Mode for us, for some reason. I switched over to ‘Easy’ mode after getting frustrated for a while.

It was cool being able to play through the game as Vergil, but I wish that, aside from ONE new cutscene, and all the others being MIA, you weren’t just playing through Dante’s story as Vergil. He does have several differences from Dante, though: he can’t use Air Hike(double jump), has all of his weapons from the start and doesn’t need to choose between two melee weapons at once, letting you freely switch between all 3, and only has one Style to level up.

Combat feels the best in this one compared to 1 and 2, imo, and the VA work is much improved. The several different Styles are a nice way to change up Dante’s moves(though I wish this version had the anytime-Style-switch that the Switch version had so I didn’t need to wait to change it out), though I usually stuck with Trickster.

One thing from this game compared to the first two I also like? MUCH more talking. There are many stages in those two where there isn’t much talking at all(aside from battle grunting). Might have been for atmosphere though, and that’s fine. This seems to also be when Dante full-on became the wise-cracker we know him as(he had his moments in 1, I think, though).

It’s too bad you can’t play as Lady in this game; she’s pretty cool. I think she is playable in DMC 5, though.

I’m sure many other people can go into more detail about game mechanics and such between the three, but I’m not too good at that sort of thing. ^^;

I’ll get to renting DMC 4/5 down the line; I had played a VERY small bit of the former way back when(back when we actually had a Blockbuster), but 1, the disc was kind of scratched, I think, and 2, my 360 was dying, so I only was able to beat the first stage. Gamefly has the PS3 version, though not the PS4 version, unfortunately.

In contrast, I don’t think I’ll try DMC: Devil May Cry. I’ve heard plenty about it, and not good things(mostly story-wise). ^^;

Next game being sent is: Little Town Hero.

[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.

[noteofnaught]

Dante's memory of his mother

Fiddled with what I had written earlier.

The translation was done for me by deepl (translator).

Please let me know if you think it's strange or if there are any mistakes.

The above is purely a personal opinion

Feel free to discuss and exchange.

Dante's memory of his mother

Dante's memory of his mother, or rather that night, seems to have been formally depicted once in DMC5 since DMC1.

So let's start with the DMC1.

In the DMC1 novel, there is a scene depicting Dante recalling the events of his mother's death.

「母さん、母さん……ねぇ、母さん！」

幼子が、地に倒れ伏した母親の身体を揺さぶり続けている。母親の息がすでに絶えていることは、誰の目にも明らかだ。

だが幼子は──すでに自分でもそうとわかっているのだろうが──無

駄な努力を止める気配はない。

「兄さんもいなくなっちゃったんだ！ 母さん！ ねぇ、母さん！」

亡骸からは未だ、温かな血が地面へと広がり続けている。

幼子は半狂乱だった。

We can see in the description that Dante tries to wake his mother up next to her dead body, even though he realises that she is dead but he is still trying to wake her up. This is a reluctance to accept his mother's death, a normal emotion and attitude for a small child to have.

And the second half of his sentence [兄さんもいなくなっちゃったんだ!] It is as if he had searched for his brother, but his tone is one of powerlessness, of helplessness, of feeling negative about the outcome. So here I want to convey not so much that he has searched for his brother to no avail, but a sense of powerlessness about the situation. He tries to wake up his mother in this way.

It's close to one: Mom, wake up. My brother is not here/is gone and I don't know what to do/I'm scared, please get up Come on.

And then in the scene of Neal's death, Dante recalls this as Neal's sacrifice to protect him, just as his mother did that day.

After that he heard the voice of his father's sword, and out of fear and insecurity he was completely drawn to it, thus obeying its words and changing his name until he gained the power to fight against it.

Then, in the battle with Gilvi, when Gilvi stabbed Dante and was covered by the necklace, Dante's internal activity was as follows.

He credits his mother with protecting him (again) as a child.

Where the mother sacrifices herself to save/protect Dante this is consistent with the DMC1 in-game scene. In DMC1 Dante has a similar line after Trish sacrifices herself to save him. This is the diagram from Precious Tears, with Japanese and English, but both Japanese and English convey that Trish sacrificed herself to save him, as did her own (Dante's) mother.

This is in line with the content of the DMC3 comic.

In the DMC3 comic, Dante has a nightmare at the office after his encounter with Vergil, a dream that is not in fully recreated form but like a fragmentary form.

Here the mother has more dialogue than in DMC1, and it is obvious from the comic's footage that there are huge hands behind her that are about to crush her, and Dante reaches towards her as if to retain his mother, who is feeling very scared, while her mother shouts for him to hurry up and hide/hide and not come out no matter what happens. She is then crushed by the huge hand. In the next panel we can see that the demon looks like a bird and says the terrible words "all die". like it is glowing, and on the next page you can also see the huge three foot shadow on the ground, which also looks like the claws of a bird, and the door behind it is the image of burning, while a long shadow is drawn under his feet.

Of course, we know from the comic that Arkham says there was a fire that day, and Vergil's fearful recollection of the house being on fire makes DMC5 even more certain that it was indeed on fire. The glowing eyes, the long, thin shadows and the subsequent bloodstained house in the comic give the impression that something ominous, unsettling and alien is about to happen.

The cartoon after that also shows us Dante waking up with a jolt, his face covered in water, looking at his hand but with only a drop on his end finger, giving the illusion that he has pulled a hook with someone. There is no sweat on his body, however, and of course there are problems of expression in the painting, so it is not painted.

But it is also true that these same fragmentary memories and dreams give Dante unease and fear.

Well, the memory, the feeling of his mother in Dante's vision so far is the following: his mother told himself to hide and not come out, and sacrificed himself to save himself. It is the great selfless motherly love that belongs to Dante.

Although it was a great mother's love, the memory of that day still makes Dante feel uneasy and afraid. The last memory his mother leaves Dante with is the one that tells Dante to hide, and implicitly the will to let him live. If we add the DMC1 novel to the mix here, it is at this very moment that he is drawn to his father's sword.

Again within these memories and fragments, the mother is rendered unknowable to Vergil, meaning that we do not or cannot see in Dante's recollections that the mother ever went looking for Vergil, if not for the presence of the phrase [兄さんもいなくなっちゃったんだ!] we would not even know in this recollection of Dante that he knew that he had a brother. What we can see or what Dante perceives in his vision is that his mother loved him so much that she died in the process of protecting/saving him.

However, it is also a writing device that can be lifted off as suspense.

But again, this doesn't do any damage to the image of Eva as a great mother, because based on what happened that day, the great mother had to choose to save/protect (potentially the closest to her or that she could find) one child and had to give up the other in the face of force majeure. Dante also never said before DMC5 whether his mother loved Vergil or not, whether she ever sought him out or whether she cared for his brother as well.

What we see in Dante's vision is basically what Dante can know, but it doesn't mean all of it. After all, comics or game scenes have an obligation to show us the scenes, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the characters actually see all the textures. We, as players/readers, are a kind of God's eye and we can notice things that are not right or different (also a storytelling technique) but as protagonists we are not necessarily fully aware or in the same position as us.

I think if you have seen suspense films, you will also often see that kind of bridge, we all know that this bomb is going to explode this person to kill that person, although there is that kind of explicitly shown in the footage, but the protagonist is still unaware of the appearance, many viewers are in order to pinch a cold sweat, for this reason anxious hope that the protagonist quickly realize.

And DMC5 gives us a formal depiction of that day, not through snippets like a nightmare, you can see in the game's overstory description that it says Dante dreamed of what happened before, which means this time you are shown real memories.

After all, a nightmare is not necessarily a real memory, it is a condensation of a certain memory. Sometimes we have a nightmare like dreaming of a giant cockroach because we are afraid, so we reproduce and amplify this fear in our nightmares, so that a small cockroach we see in the house becomes enormous in our nightmares, the giant cockroach is not necessarily real but the fear is real. Of course, we are not talking about the formation of nightmares here, but only about the fact that nightmares and some fragments of our memories with fear and anxiety may be a recreation of what we felt and what existed at the time, but not necessarily a completely real recreation.

In the DMC5 Eva process screen.

There is a slight difference between Japanese subtitles and English subtitles, or even Japanese dubbing.

The overall meaning is actually similar to the DMC3 manga, Eva is all over Dante not moving and telling him to hide/hide, the only difference is that she says more words to make Dante forget his past and forget his name and start a new life from scratch/not being Dante but another person to start over. All also contain the mother's wish for him to live well.

The difference is that in the Japanese subtitles, Eva clearly expresses the possibility that she may not return and so tells Dante to listen well to what she says next, whereas in English it is expressed as I promise you will return.

In the English context, although the mother says she will come back, she immediately reverses the 'come back' in the next sentence, saying that she knows it will be difficult, but you're old enough so you'll have to do this if I don't come back. They both mean the same thing, a mother who knows she might not come back and tells her child what she will do if she doesn't come back, as if making a pact with her child: we agreed that if I don't come back, you will remember to do this, I know you can do it.

If you look closely at the animation of the process, you can even see Dante's hand trembling on the cupboard door, he is very scared.

And the BGM here also happens to be called: More Fear

And of course it is here that we first see Eva looking for Vergil, and it turns out that Eva has looked for Vergil! This doesn't exactly match the information we got on Dante's side earlier.

But are you saying that the DMC1 message contradicts the current message? The DMC1 novel only mentions that he cried next to his mother's body, not that she said anything to him before she died, after which he became obsessed with his father's sword out of fear and terror. And his father's sword statement is the same as his mother's deathbed statement but in a very different series.

The meaning of the mother's words is very clear, the words are all about the desire for her child to live well and to stay away from these things that will hurt him, a good expectation and blessing for her child and the expectation and belief that her child will be able to do so.

「今はその名を隠し、目を眩ませ、逃げ延びよ」

“Now go incognito, confuse the enemy and flee far away!”

The overall meaning of the phrase is that it is dangerous to hide the name, confuse the enemy and run away, and the phrase even takes the form of a command that the child must do what he says.

It's a phrase you'd put in the context of a superior to a subordinate, a captain to his teammates, and in the context of a tense battlefield man telling you to run fast is perfectly fine and appropriate. But Eva's words could only be said by a mother to her child.

When all the memories are linked together, our facts about Eva become a little more complete, and at the same time what effect does it have on Dante?

If his mother only died saving him and he hated his father for her revenge which is quite reasonable, this has to be a blowback from his father's enemies. What is necessary to mention here is what Dante's mindset was regarding DMC1 killing the Black Angel.

In the official publication of the 3124 collection, Dante is said to have killed the Black Angel with "no thought", a word synonymous with "remnant", which is generally translated into Chinese as: regret.

And the DMC1 how-to book has a direct description of his ideas.

Dante is talking here about Mundus killing his mother and brother.

This is not the same as what we generally think of as objective perception. In the game we see over the course of the game, the Black Angel looks as if he still has a heart, so naturally we think there is still salvation, after all, he is still alive.

But here Dante does not think that it was his own hand that killed the Black Angel, but that Mundus killed Vergil.

Of course we can parse this to mean that killing the man who was Vergil means, but even so within this passage of Dante he is not one of the reasons for Vergil's death, he has no responsibility in Vergil's death and is not responsible for any act occurring in the process, but rather Mundus should need to take full responsibility.

In other words, it means that even if it was he who killed the Black Angel in the course of the battle, then he is not responsible for it, but Mundus is responsible for it, because it was Mundus who arranged it, and how could he have killed it if he had not arranged it there, it was not his problem, it was Mundus' problem.

than what we generally think of as objective factual rational logic going into the judgement: although Mundus turned Vergil into a black angel like that, he himself didn't recognise the killing, more or less he was responsible for it or felt particularly guilty that he didn't recognise it.

Dante's logic leans more towards total emotional logic: It's all Mundus' fault!

And in DMC5 just as Vergil used to think it was a matter of not having enough power, now it's a matter of having too much power, and now that Mundus is gone, not recognizing Vergil (V) for killing Vergil can only be his active choice, not a passive one, and it can only be that his responsibility has nothing to do with Mundus.

Returning to the mother, what arises is in fact the same question. If before it was his mother's great love for him, which was selfless and exclusive to him, now, at this moment, her love is equal, not just his but also his brother's. The "he" whose mother sacrificed herself to save him in the flashback (DMC5) is not really a "he". His mother's did not hesitate to rush out to save her brother, knowing the danger.

Of course we must also mention nell, arguably the designer of Dante's double shot.

In the novel, Thor wants Neal to commission and pay a deposit for a double gun for himself, one of which is a secret-made gun he stole from a robbery, and the other is the same type of medieval gun that Neal himself received.

nell is so good to Tony, as is clearly described in the DMC1 novel, because Tony looks so much like her child, and her love for her child is projected onto Tony, and she holds on to her job before she eventually dies, not only because of her love for Tony but also her love for her own child, and more so for the work ethic she has taken on this job and should complete.

But all the same, the person she missed most on her deathbed was her own child, something Tony could never replace, nor could he if he wanted to, which of course didn't mean that nell's love for Tony was false, nell's love for Tony was also real, indeed it was love, it was precisely because of the person of her own child that nell loved so deeply that Tony was loved by her.

Whether it is nell or the mother Eva, their love for their child is not solely Dante's alone and only his, or why they love Dante/Tony, it is because they both love their child, and if they were not such, then Dante would naturally not be loved by them.

His mother's protection and sacrifice is something he feels and desires, something that is personal and emotional for him. It also explains Dante's statement to Trish in DMC1 that "his mother died to protect herself", because Trish, like his mother in his feelings and understanding, has what he calls a "heart".

Of course, because DMC1 is entirely Dante's vision of storytelling (DMC1 is Dante's story), his mother is human in Dante's eyes, and Trish acts like his mother to protect him, or even Dante's ideal mother, so Trish is also a person with a "heart", as to how Trish feels or if that is the case. We will not discuss this issue here.

Surely the mother did not save Dante? This is necessarily a negative, but was it to save him that his mother died, or to hold back the demon who tried to kill him so that he could escape? Again, that is a negative. Wouldn't his mother have done that in that situation? That too is a negative. Wouldn't Dante have wanted his mother? No. Must Dante have never been afraid of not wanting his mother to stay by his side to give him security and protection? Did Dante only want to protect his mother and never wanted her to stay by his side to protect him? All the information above seems to be in the negative.

DMC5 is simply a reinterpretation and addition of information from the past, the only thing overturned is Dante's belief that his mother died to save himself.

This message provides us with an explanation of the origin of Dante's hatred for his brother, as is often the case in many films and novels, in which he blames the child for the death of his beloved wife, even though it was not the child's fault, and believes that if it had not been for him, his wife would not have died. He stubbornly believes that his mother died to save him, not to save his brother, and not because of this he is unable to love his brother; he acts as if he wishes he could have the mother's love all to himself.

For if we are to acknowledge the fact that his mother died to save his brother, we also have to acknowledge something else, and that is that he equally did not want to be left/abandoned by his mother.

Of course, this is not a contradiction or a conflict; it is only natural that a child should be afraid and want to protect his mother, and it is equally natural that he should want to protect her.

The above is purely a personal opinion