E3 2018: Nero's Got a Score to Settle in Devil May Cry 5

@humanity: It's definitely true. The initial impressions of Nero and the game at large were generally pretty terrible. I didn't even like it in the beginning! It took a year (2?) before I watched some commentated video of people playing Nero and I realised how cool and unique stuff like Exceed, charge shot 3 and Calibur made him feel. That's why I think Nero isn't nearly as reviled anymore, because with time he has grown on the people that gave the game a second chance.

@tobbrobb: I'm somewhat surprised that to this day DmC is so reviled by the fanbase. Much like me enjoying Nero in the past from the get-go, I thought DmC was an excellent game in it's own right that did a lot of things better than the original trilogy (not counting DMC2 here). The fact that to this day people are this negative about it strikes me as odd. The combat has depth, it's just different. You can watch some videos on YouTube of Japanese players doing all sorts of really insane combos in DmC, you just have to dig deeper into it. To each their own of course, but I wonder how many more years will have to pass before fans come around on DmC much the same way they came around to Nero.

@ilserpente: why would they wanna make the king of character action be made by a sub par developer

What? Did either of you actually play DMC4? Why is there so much befuddlement online about Nero acting the literal same way he did in 4? He was a disrespectful mouthy punk from the very beginning. He shares zero qualities with DmC Dante except they both have short hair. Dante in that game was an unlikeable scumbag whose idea of a clever comeback was almost always just "fuck you." Hilarious. I will never understand why so many people give that game such a pass for being the ultimate angry white boy edgefest. Seriously. Play it again. Pay attention to the dialogue.

The combat actually looking like it's not braindead simple and there being some levity and charm is a pretty stark contrast imo.

Nero's great and deserves his spot. A lot about DMC4 was a mess but the thing they nailed the absolute hardest was Nero's combat, and I'm beyond excited that he's back. People who actually give a shit about and get good at the old DMCs pretty much universally like Nero, but the loudest people were the ones complaining the hardest right up front, so if you only ever interacted with 4 on a surface level around launch all you ever heard was "nero sucks he's dante-lite backtracking lol fuck this game" or some variant thereof, similar to the "DANTE'S HAIR IS BLACK FUCK THIS GAME" crowd who poisoned any discussion on the (many, many) legitimate flaws with DmC.

DmC is a bad game in many ways. It tries way hard to be super serious in a series that is build on cheese. The gameplay is incredible dumbed down. DmC even when you dig super deep has NOTHING on DMC3/DMC4 which are the standard. Call me again when there is a true style tournament of that game.

This is what DMC combat should be.

Also, people disliked nero as a character but once they found out the cool tricks with the gamplay, they came around it pretty fast. This will not be the same for DmC which over time gets more and more disliked even by people who praised it in the beginning. It did 1 thing better and that was no backtracking, but there it ends.

... Dante?

I liked DmC better than most core Devil May Cry games, but I didn't like it so much that I'm actually that broken up that they went back to the core franchise.

@assirra: There are people out there that can certainly do very impressive combos in DmC

@wolfhazard: Yeah, especially how Nero looks like DmC's Dante and as much as I love the series DmC has been my favourite

This just shows how trivial it is to stay airborn and how utterly broken the aquila weapon is. No need to know how to play the game where you can just do a combo that simultaneously brings literally every enemy in a 10 meter radius directly in front of you.

@TechnoSyndrome: ok well then nevermind I guess.

I would love to see Hideki Kamiya get another crack at the series he started. It's not like Capcom has a great track record with the series. Two of the four games they've handled have been completely forgettable.

Those were the good ol days. I miss me some old Dante.

@tshngo: Nero was bordering on DARK SOUL FULL OF LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHT levels melodrama. And, oh yeah, basically a Dante palette swap in terms of appearance.

I will never understand how mouthy Capcom Dante=greatest character of all time (as long as you read all the manga and watched the anime, because 4 games isn't enough to define a character) while mouthy Ninja Theory Dane=tryhard edgelord. People seem to misremember Dante's earlier appearances.

Show me anything DmC Dante does that compares to this.

@brunothethird: Facts

@assirra: DMC definitive edition on steam fixed some of the combat problems. Gave the game a lock-on, retweaked some weapons and 60 fps. For me it was a much more enjoyable game to play but still not a great combat game by DMC standards. Unfortunately they weren't able to patch out the insufferability of new Donte.

@TechnoSyndrome: I'm not...sure what you're trying to say here? I mean if we're going to define what's "cool," we'll be here all night. It's funny, but it wouldn't have fit with DmC's tone. Capcom Dante is corny as hell and always has been, and I don't mean that as a bad thing. Frankly, the worse thing they tried to do was make him less corny (DMC2, anyone?) and melodramatic. But he was still a cocky shit-talker, particularly in 1 and 3, which is why I said earlier appearances.

DmC Dante is too, just in a different way. Much in the same way that the video you linked wouldn't have fit in DmC, the Blowhard News Commentator boss fight wouldn't have fit in Capcom DMC.

@undeadpool: The only times Nero ever got actually serious were when his girlfriend was in danger, which is understandable. Any time she wasn't involved and it was just him bantering in the cutscene before the boss fight he was disrespectful and talked shit, which I feel is different to Dante's playful showboating and DmC Dante's "fuck you fuck you fuck you."

I was by no means proclaiming Dante as the greatest video game character to ever appear on-screen. But when the company making this reboot I already don't think looks that great starts talking all this shit about original Dante, going so far as to make a bunch of uncool homophobic jokes in their GDC presentation before launch, it certainly isn't helping endear me to your new guy, who, at that point, I believe still looked suspiciously like the director of the game.

Also: sniper abortion.

You said you don't get what's so great about old Dante, I showed you a fantastic scene from DMC4 and asked you to show me a scene from the reboot that's as good as it. Pretty straight forward. Dante's "put a spin on this" is one of the better jokes in the reboot in my opinion but it doesn't hold a candle to a lot of the stuff in 4, and nothing else in the exchanges in that fight is all that special. And I don't see why Dante being less fun in DMC 1 and 2 matters when they tried to reboot well after 3 and 4 established his new character.

@tshngo: I'm not going to defend any homophobic jokes, cause I straight-up don't remember that (but I'll defer to you), but the in-game jokes about OG Dante felt MUCH more like a response to the rabid, frothing backlash. And I'll forgive a bit of cheeky self-insert references considering how ubiquitous that is across all media.

@TechnoSyndrome: I never said I didn't get what was so great about him, I absolutely love old Dante. I was just baffled that people hated DmC Dante seemingly because he was a snarky shit-talker, much like Old Dante was in the previous games (as I referenced). And Dante being less fun was another point about the tone of DmC having largely the same tone as more recent games (3 and 4) but with a different spin on them. This may have also been a case of me reading too much into this, remembering old conversations from DmC's announcement. My original point still stand: the tone of this feels a TON more like DmC mixed with Capcom DMC (referring to both these games in a single conversation is a logistics NIGHTMARE) especially redneck Totally-Not-Marissa-Tomei.