I recently finished my first play through of DmC: Devil May Cry on Nephilim and I really enjoyed it. I also died many many times, which is embarrassing.

Anyway, I liked the story and I see many similarities between the DmC world, America, and a little V for Vendetta. If you don't like politics, click away now.

Real-life References

Silver Sacks

Silver Sacks is an international investment firm owned by Mundus. He describes the scope of his power and influence as controlling the world through debt and he even has the president under his control, no doubt being able to denounce him through Raptor News.

I present: Goldman Sachs, an American-based multinational investment firm. First, the name is a strong reference. Second, they are both investment firms. On the other hand, I don't think their CEO, Lloyd Blankfein, is a monster. Goldman Sachs received attention ever since the 2007 Great Recession.

Goldman Sachs is listed as one of the companies that is too big to fail, where it is too deeply rooted in the workings of the economy. Anything bad that happens to one of these companies will affect the economy as well; thus in a sense, they have too much power. These companies are also extremely wealthy, and the difference in level of income between them and the rest of the country is enormous. The Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 highlighted the income disparity; where in 2010, the top wealthiest 1% of Americans represent over 20% of the total income of the American people.

Raptor News Network

First, Raptor News Network website.

Raptor News makes me think of Fox News. The blonde female newscaster is very loud, similar to Fox's many female newscasters who are all blonde and loud.

In DmC, Bob Barbas, the newscaster, likes to a paint black and white picture in their news, an "us versus them mentality". Bob claims the moral high ground. He props himself and his beliefs on a pedestal and denounces the people who he disagrees with, like Dante and The Order, slapping a multitude of labels on them, with "terrorist" being a favourite. Raptor News actively distorts facts and present them with unabashed force and certainty. This serves as a propaganda to turn the people against Dante and The Order and to confuse them to aid Mundus in controlling the people.

Bob Barbas

Bob Barbas is a servant of Mundus. He seem to represent several personalities within the Fox News' network but I can't really point out any particular one, though I heard that Bob is supposed to be Bill O'Reilly. Also, I'm not sure about Bob's comb-over, all the personalities in Fox have a good head of hair. In DmC, Vergil sent Dante to kill Bob, which mirrors the events of V for Vendetta where V killed Lewis Prothero, the "Voice of London" to silence the spread of propaganda.

Bob's catchphrase, "just doing god's work", seems to be a reference to Goldman Sachs' CEO, Lloyd Blankfein's response to the outrage at their enormous profits during the Great Recession where many people lost their jobs. Blankfein's excuse is that the profit was simply the result of how a bank functions. To Blankfein's credit, he later retracted his comment.

Virility

Admittedly, I'm not sure about this. All I can think of is the Slurm drink in Futurama. In the Raptor News' website, Raptor News is actively advertising Virility.

Virility is described as making humans docile, keeping them controlled, and preventing them from questioning Raptor's propaganda.

Vergil and The Order

The Order is a small group of rebels who commands a formidable intelligence gathering network. They produce videos where Vergil wears a mask and uses a voice distorter to expose the truth behind Raptor News' lies. Vergil himself is skilled in defeating security systems. This seems to be a nod to V for Vendetta and the hacktivist group Anonymous. Also, the logo for The Order is very similar to the logo for Anonymous.

Gallery

About DmC

Dante

I think the new Dante is okay. I won't call him horribly bad, but he is a little different from the classic Dante. Classic Dante is a tough guy badass who knows he can't lose and acts as much, basically the male power fantasy. New Dante is cynical and I think he is slightly more relatable. He was an orphan and he grew up fighting against demons. He became rebellious and saw no direction in his life, having zero guidance and being labelled a bad guy.

Kat was sent to recruit him to the Order. Initially, Dante was annoyed by Kat's determination but eventually recognised her sincere effort to befriend him. Dante also empathized with her past and acknowledged her effort in helping him and Vergil defeat Mundus. Dante also developed a desire to protect Kat. At the end when Dante talked to Mundus, he realised that he can't be human because wasn't able to understand humans. A person in Dante's position could've provided a reason for humanity's freedom, but Dante wasn't able to do so.

Vergil

New Vergil is a lot different from Classic Vergil. Classic Vergil is cold and calculating but New Vergil is more talkative and his brotherly love for Dante is more pronounced. Also, Vergil seem to like guns; he shot Lilith and gave Dante the 2 new guns. The similarity is that Vergil sees himself as being above humans.

One thing I don't like is that Vergil seem to be less powerful than Dante. During the fight against Mundus, Vergil could've teleported when Mundus wanted to crush him, but instead he asked for Dante's help. Besides that, I thought Vergil was presented well.

Kat

Kat is the girl. She's the opposite of Trish and Lady who were awesome fighters. In fact, Kat is shy. Her shyness was most pronounced in the opening scene of Mission 2 after Dante entered Limbo. Kat showed all 3 signs of her liking Vergil, holding her elbow, chin down, and looking up at Vergil. She later explained that Vergil rescued her from her dad, and she became attached to Vergil ever since. Kat's devotion to Vergil went so far as to risk her life to help Vergil rescue all the data from The Order's database, keep Vergil's identity secret from Mundus, and finally to beg Dante to not kill Vergil. Kat's strength is truly amazing.

Mundus

I liked Mundus. Especially the intro scene; after the phone talk, he holds his hands up like he's saying, "see what I did there? I'm invincible". When Mundus explodes in rage, he obliterates the environment in an obscene display of power. Finally, when Mundus meets Dante for the first time, Mundus sounded utterly broken when he asked Dante why he killed Lilith. That was an amazing moment for me seeing that an invincible overlord can be completely destroyed mentally.

Combat

I miss Royal Guard. In exchange, we get Demon Evade which loosely mimics Royal Guard's block and release mechanic where a perfect dodge increases damage output for a brief period. I find it awkward to use Stinger's new command (forward x2 attack) so I dropped the use of Stinger and all abilities with that command. I also miss Air Trick, but Angel Lift (and to a lesser extent, Aquila's Caliber) became its replacement.