Vergil's Downfall DLC Review (PS3)

[Chaos Raiden]

NOTE: This DLC's filesize on PS3 is 1888 MB. Fast Internet connection speed is highly recommended to download this DLC.

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Take control as Vergil. ​

This DLC features six playable Missions where you can control Vergil, Dante's twin brother. Unlike Dante, Vergil has his own unique set of moves involving his signature weapon, Yamato. As in the main game, you need to progress in the game by defeating enemies and completing some platforming sections. Without spoiling much stuff, I can safely say that the story of the DLC takes place after the events of main game.

Unlike Dante, Vergil lacks selection of weapons compared to him. However, he has a number of exclusive and devastating moves that will allow him to kill enemies stylishly like Dante, such as his Spiral Swords and Doppelganger abilities. Vergil also has access to both Angel and Demon abilities, where he can utilise even more attacks using his Yamato.

Level designs in this game are pretty much the same as Dante's levels in the main game, where you can explore to collect stuffs such as Health Cross Fragments and Lost Souls, fight enemies, and use both Demon and Angel abilities to complete platforming sections. There are three new enemies encountered in the game, and they are unique only to this DLC.

It is also noticeable that the game has no music by Combichrist or Noisia. Instead, this DLC uses music composed by Jason Graves, a veteran music composer that is popular for his Dead Space scores as well as the recent Tomb Raider score.

There are few things I like in this DLC, but there are many things that I dislike as well. Using Vergil is pretty cool, and it is regrettably that he did not have his own game. He also has some stylish and cool moves to use, as well as classic moves from the original Devil May Cry series such as Rapid Slash. Music is pretty good overall, and the replay value is pretty good if you want to tackle the game's other difficulty modes such as Vergil Must Die! difficulty or Son of Sparda difficulty.

However, I felt that this DLC is lacking of story content. It was pretty short, and the DLC does not have enough story content to flesh out Vergil's personality to the fullest. Although Vergil's development in this DLC is interesting, I felt that it is still lacking since it does not explore much of his background story. The game's completion time is pretty short, where it can be completed under an hour if you are an extremely good player. Another thing I dislike is the comic-style cutscenes. I understand that the usage of comic-style cutscenes are to save filesize of the DLC, but I felt that those comic-style cutscenes are simply unattractive, particularly due to the artworks shown in the cutscenes.

I can only recommend people to buy this DLC only if they like to play as Vergil, and also if they have a lot of money. Although this DLC might not worth the price since it can be completed under an hour, it has good replay value due to inclusions of collectibles and other difficulty modes. Due to it's short completion time, I would have preferred if the DLC is included with the main game for everyone from the start. If you actually just want to buy this DLC to see what happen to Vergil after the main game's events, I highly suggest you to look up for Youtube videos to see what happened to him, unless you have lots of money to spare or if you are a story completionist. It is a good DLC for any interested DmC players, but it is not a must buy.

Score: 7/10

Pros and Cons

Pros
- Playing as Vergil is cool.
- Lots of neat moves to use.
- Good replay value for a DLC.
- Good character development of Vergil.

Cons
- May be overpriced for some people.
- Very short DLC.
- Story is too short.
- Unattractive comic-style cutscenes.

 

[Ruisu]

1 GB? lol
MGR demo had like 4GB or so. Had to spend literally the entire day to download that son of a very good creature.

Downloading my Vergil's Downfall today if possible. I'm still annoyed by his final form being permanent instead of a new devil trigger, and that we don't get Vergil in Bloody Palace.

 

[DarkSlayer54]

I can't agree with "good character development". I thought it was horribly done. Everything seemed sloppy with the hollow Dante/Vergil. It seemed like the simplest excuse to massively change Vergil, and he went through his development way too fast. One second he was like "I feel betrayed", to "I don't give a damn about anything". It's mainly the scenes with Kat and his Mother that made me kind of facepalm... I just couldn't wrap my head around it. For Vergil to change that quickly, it's just silly imo. Especially since Dante's betrayal was what caused everything... it makes Vergil seem very weak-minded, which goes against what I understood from DmC's story.
I haven't played the actual DLC yet... so I can't really say anything about the gameplay, but I'm sure I'll love it. DMD seems super challenging, especially since I can't rely on the DT and Demon Dodge to get me through it.

 

[Dante Redgrave]

It's become my opinion...not fact, since likely neither NT nore Capcom will ever confirm one way or another...that the entire reason Vergil's Heel-Turn and very nasty edged Fall was pretty much dictated by Capcom that "this must happen, Dante and Vergil MUST fight at the end of the game, and Vergil MUST become an irredeamable villian through the game or it's follow up expansion."

Because if there was not that directive, then Vergil could have gone in an entirely different direction. They could have played up the brothers being brothers, working together, and then down the line, the differences in their philosophies causes that schism, but still leaves a heroic side to Vergil. Instead...it was pretty much "well, because Vergil is the evil twin in the original storylines, he HAS to become the evil twin here."

And I think how rushed it was as more to do with Capcom than most people would tend to think...plus the fact we've had admission in the past from DMC3's writing and production team that they were never fond of Vergil's character...or rather lack there of...

 

[XDmC12345X]

It's become my opinion...not fact, since likely neither NT nore Capcom will ever confirm one way or another...that the entire reason Vergil's Heel-Turn and very nasty edged Fall was pretty much dictated by Capcom that "this must happen, Dante and Vergil MUST fight at the end of the game, and Vergil MUST become an irredeamable villian through the game or it's follow up expansion."

Because if there was not that directive, then Vergil could have gone in an entirely different direction. They could have played up the brothers being brothers, working together, and then down the line, the differences in their philosophies causes that schism, but still leaves a heroic side to Vergil. Instead...it was pretty much "well, because Vergil is the evil twin in the original storylines, he HAS to become the evil twin here."

And I think how rushed it was as more to do with Capcom than most people would tend to think...plus the fact we've had admission in the past from DMC3's writing and production team that they were never fond of Vergil's character...or rather lack there of...

Well i think they wanted to stay true to the character but give him a reason to hate dante, to need power. And have it be explained in the game not "oh because he couldnt protect his mom ehen all he ever says is i need more power". But in this we see him as a character who wants good but goes too far from it and becomes what he wants to stop.

 

[Steve]

Great review! I'm just playing through Vergil's Downfall for a second time on the Son of Sparda difficulty right now, and must say that I'm really enjoying it. Shame that there's no option to play the Bloody Palace mode as Vergil.

 

[Judgement]

Score: 7/10

Pros and Cons

Pros
- Playing as Vergil is cool.
- Lots of neat moves to use.
- Good replay value for a DLC.
- Good character development of Vergil.

Cons
- May be overpriced for some people.
- Very short DLC.
- Story is too short.
- Unattractive comic-style cutscenes.

Not a bad review. I apreciate your for the most part non bias. I think the best way to respond to this now after reading it all is to respond to your very well put out pros and cons.

Pros- as you said:

-Playing as his is definately interesting
-There are many moves to use even if he only has one weapon set there is much to do and many combinations\
-Very much so
-Not sure on this, he just keeps becoming more delusional though it is stil development yes

Cons- as you said:
-It is quite short however one mission in VD to me felt like 2 in the regular DmC
-I liked those cutscenes actually however they did definitely skimp out on any cgi with Vd, though there was still some nice CGI there.
-Overpriced? it was 1/5-1/6 the price of the actual game for most right? for 1/3 of the game for that price isn't too bad I'd say plus it's harder and has many things in it what DmC is lacking in gameplay.

Edit: Updated my post. Meier is right

 

[Meier]

^There is a CGI cutscene.

 

[DarkSlayer54]

I put around 10 hours into VD... beat Nephilm, SoS, VMD, and Heaven or Hell.
I have to say... total disappointment. The levels are boring, 10 hours in... and I'm already tired of the levels. With the exception of Mission 5, they all share the same look.... and mission 6 is literally just mission 1. Instead of having everything look the same, they should have made each mission unique. Maybe have the first mission a completely intact level, while Misison 6 would be how it currently is. Dark, depressing, and gloomy. The missions inbetween could have been out of place like Mission 5. Just something that looks nice. With the storyline of the DLC... I really don't see any reason for the lazy level design. Logic isn't really a factor here.

It's a huge shame. Vergil is fun to use, and I absolutely love mission 5 (hollow vergil). Without a doubt my favorite boss in DmC... I like using Vergil, but having to play 5 missions that all look the same is a huge buzzkill.

On VMD, all the problems really shine. From the camera, the lock on, and to moves... everything feels unfinished. The camera isn't worst... but its a bigger problem in VD due to the platforming. The lock-on is also a bigger problem now since Vergil is a faster character. Some moves, such as Judgement Cut are performed to easily. I found that many times I would accidentally do a judgement cut when I meant to do a simple slash despite a relatively quick tap on the button.

I like that there aren't any colour coded enemies, but I really dislike the wasps. They're not horrible, but I find it really annoying when you can't teleport to them. That small design really annoys me... It always makes the game feel unresponsive when they won't react to my teleports.

I didn't go into any detail... I have to put more thought into the specific things that kill it for me, but overall it's just not that good. If I were to give it a score, it would be a 4/10. There's so much they could have done... but really, all I've been able to see while playing is lazy work. It's completely seperate from the main game, there are no additional concept arts, no bloody palace, 6 missions, 5 of which share the same theme, and the story felt like it was just slapped together.
Like yeah, for 8 bucks... the content is there, but that doesn't make the DLC any better.

 

[Sparda's rejected son]

Does Vergil have a double-jump? 0_0

 

[vergilthedemonking]

No, he hasn't. But he has trick up which is even better in my opinion

 

[LysseC]

It's become my opinion...not fact, since likely neither NT nore Capcom will ever confirm one way or another...that the entire reason Vergil's Heel-Turn and very nasty edged Fall was pretty much dictated by Capcom that "this must happen, Dante and Vergil MUST fight at the end of the game, and Vergil MUST become an irredeamable villian through the game or it's follow up expansion."

Because if there was not that directive, then Vergil could have gone in an entirely different direction. They could have played up the brothers being brothers, working together, and then down the line, the differences in their philosophies causes that schism, but still leaves a heroic side to Vergil. Instead...it was pretty much "well, because Vergil is the evil twin in the original storylines, he HAS to become the evil twin here."

And I think how rushed it was as more to do with Capcom than most people would tend to think...plus the fact we've had admission in the past from DMC3's writing and production team that they were never fond of Vergil's character...or rather lack there of...

I had the same impression too, but more with DmC Mission 20 than with VD.

I can't agree with "good character development". I thought it was horribly done. Everything seemed sloppy with the hollow Dante/Vergil. It seemed like the simplest excuse to massively change Vergil, and he went through his development way too fast. One second he was like "I feel betrayed", to "I don't give a damn about anything". It's mainly the scenes with Kat and his Mother that made me kind of facepalm... I just couldn't wrap my head around it.

Indeed, I do not think that Vergil's character development was poorly handled in VD. On the contrary, I find it very well done, to the point of being the best character development in DmC.
Even if it may seem rushed at first, his sudden revolting against Kat is perfectly justifiable imo, and exaclty at the pace they set. This shift from, as you say, "I feel betrayed", to "I don't give a damn about anything" attitude is the reaction of a man who is facing his worst weaknesses and finds a (ill) way to deal with them.
If we think retrospectively, we can find hints in DmC to the fact that Vergil may be suffering from an inferiority complex towards his brother. He is shown to be weaker than Dante: Vergil is never shown fighting until the very end, he needs Dante's help repeatedly during the battle with Munuds, and then we have the flashback in which Dante helps him on his feet when they were children, which is notably repeated in the final cutscene in Mission 20. When a similar association is repeated in Mission 1 of VD, well, that just screamed "inferiority complex" to me.
Add the fact that, as we recollect from other cutscenes in VD, Vergil had always had the impression that Eva loved Dante more than him, and his reaction to Kat's words becomes very clear. What "Kat" does at the end of Mission 2 is giving voice to his inferiority complex. She mocks him, while praising his brother. She forces him to look at his failures. She tries to break him.
And she succeeds. When faced with his insecurities and fears, Vergil breaks. Taken to the point of no return, he reacts violently. He shuts his feelings out as the only way not to be crushed by them. He finally acts on his hidden desire to be better than his brother (and to do that, he needs more power).
It's a violent reaction, the reaction of a man who has to find a way to survive himself, and has to find it quickly, under the pressure of one attack after the other. Facing one's own worst fears would require time for reflection, a time that Vergil is denied. Had his reaction not been so sudden and violent, it would have lacked credibility imo, and that's because the roots of his "downfall" had already been planted since Vergil was a child. That's why those flashbacks of his childhood with Dante are so essential to understand his character development.

Having faced similar insecurities issues myself, I can tell that I was completely immersed in Vergil's journey through VD. I could totally relate to him, I felt bad for him because I knew from personal experience how it felt to face such issues. And I can totally understand his violent reaction, beacuse I had a similar one, although in a waaaaaay smaller scale.
The mechanism behind it is really simple if you think about it: something hurts you badly, and you react by curling up like a hedgehog. Something hurts you, and you feel the need to hurt it back, to keep it away from you.
"Kat" tells you you'll never be like Dante, and you kill her because you need her to shut the hell up.
You feel inferior to your twin brother, you kill him because you need to demonstrate to everyone, in primis yourself, that you are better than him.
Because if you don't make Kat shut up, if you don't demonstrate to Eva (but in reality to yourself) that you're stronger than Dante, you'll simply be crushed by the feeling of being worth nothing.
And the reaction is sudden and violent, and surely exaggerated, because it's like an explosion when the suffering simply becomes too much to bear.


So yes, maybe it's a pity that NT wanted (or was told) to make the irredeemable villain out of Vergil, but at least they did a very good job in imagining his path to his fall, imo.

The only thing I can say against them in this regard is that, although the idea behind it was really good, I had the impression that the practical realization of it in the cutscenes and generally in the DLC was rushed, like NT wanted to release it too soon and did not have the time to give it all the care that it merited.


(That said, I compliment Chaos Raiden for the review, and just shut up about gameplay issues, because I'm so noob.)

 

[Sparda's rejected son]

No, he hasn't. But he has trick up which is even better in my opinion

Damn you Capcom/NT!!!

Soooo I saw the cutscenes on Youtube.... Yeah, could somebody explain to me what that bad acid trip was trying to say?

 

[Loopy]

Damn you Capcom/NT!!!

Soooo I saw the cutscenes on Youtube.... Yeah, could somebody explain to me what that bad acid trip was trying to say?

You mean the plot?
Okay. Vergil either is dead and goes to hell or this all goes on in his head when he's injured and passed out.

He enters their weird world which I assume is a hell of his own creation. Eva tells him he is dead (not sure if it's real Eva). Vergil nearly escapes, but Dante stops him.

His doppelganger steals his amulet and convinces Vergil that his heart is broken and he needs to fix himself to gain true power by confronting his own personal demons (Kat, Dante and his mother). He confronts Kat, how Vergil feels that she likes Dante more than him, and his treatment of her; but then she becomes a demon and he kills her-at the same time killing a part of his humanity.

Then he confronts his insecurities of Dante being the favourite child and how Dante was always better than him. So then he kills Dante and thinks he is now the strong twin and the true son of Sparda.

Finally he confronts his mother who does not taunt or tease him, but tells him that he was loved and that his power was given to protect humans. Vergil throws it all back at her and leaves her to her fate, thus destroying another part of his humanity.

After, Vergil returns to his doppelganger who says his heart is now complete and he has ful power.

It's all a ploy by his dark half to gain full control of Vergil's body. But in the end Vergil is stronger, reabsorbs his other half, but at the same time is now more demon than before.

Did I miss anything?:/

 

[Stylish Nero]

It's become my opinion...not fact, since likely neither NT nore Capcom will ever confirm one way or another...that the entire reason Vergil's Heel-Turn and very nasty edged Fall was pretty much dictated by Capcom that "this must happen, Dante and Vergil MUST fight at the end of the game, and Vergil MUST become an irredeamable villian through the game or it's follow up expansion."

Because if there was not that directive, then Vergil could have gone in an entirely different direction. They could have played up the brothers being brothers, working together, and then down the line, the differences in their philosophies causes that schism, but still leaves a heroic side to Vergil. Instead...it was pretty much "well, because Vergil is the evil twin in the original storylines, he HAS to become the evil twin here."

And I think how rushed it was as more to do with Capcom than most people would tend to think...plus the fact we've had admission in the past from DMC3's writing and production team that they were never fond of Vergil's character...or rather lack there of...

Defeats the purpose of the reboot heh. In the end Capcom, would want to appeal to the old fanbase as much as possible with this new reboot and doesn't believe in NT writing skills enough to pull in new fans or people...which is the problem if Capcom wants to appeal to the old fanbase a DMC5 would be the proper answer not make a reboot that a MAJORITY if not practically all of them didn't want in the first place and you end up driving away newcomers (not their is much) who weren't interested in the old DMC but sees this new DMC is practically like the old DMC.

In the end DMC and DmC are still owned by Capcom and are still Capcom's games NOT Ninja Theory. Capcom have the right to give as much freedom to NT to do what they want.

Face it DmC fans, DmC is pretty screwed due to these sales. Either Capcom will bring back DMC or they'll turn DmC into DMC just to bring back the old fanbase....well it could be a positive it could either that mean just actually having full control of the combat and turn it into DMC4 (combat wise) but better (hopefully) and let NT handle the story, characters, and stage design or taking full control of everything (story, characters, and all) or handing it over to Platinum/Kamiya, if Capcom is smart....and I'm not saying they should but considering a majority of hack n slash/action games fans love PG....WAY more than NT and the fact is PG games just sells more and PG made DMC game is what 95% of the fanbase have wet dreams about probably even ignoring the fact its DmC not DMC with the other 5% not caring who makes a DMC game as long as its good or looks good....or great.

DmC and RE6 proves that fans aren't going to buy something because its a DMC and RE game in title and I hope Capcom learns that.

Lets face it, Capcom loves money. Fans are walking dollar signs. Loose them what do you have? A lot of lost money and not much gained to repair the damage. It seems that NT was dead set with one direction and Capcom was OK with it but after TGS 2010 and the fan backlash, Capcom has been doing everything to make sure fan feedback was positive for the game.

 

[Loopy]

Face it DmC fans, DmC is pretty screwed due to these sales. Either Capcom will bring back DMC or they'll turn DmC into DMC just to bring back the old fanbase....

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe DmC and DMC will be sitting on a shelf for a loong time while Capcom work out their next move. Or maybe both games will now be cancelled. It's been too long for DMC5 to be made and for people to get back into it. I loved the old DMC games, but it's just been too long. Honestly, I like DmC now and want that to be continued more than classic DMC. I just don't see where they could go plot wise with DMC5. The last part of the story chronologically was DMC2 with Dante's fate uncertain in hell. To continue that would be an end to all of it.

handing it over to Platinum/Kamiya, if Capcom is smart....and I'm not saying they should but considering a majority of hack n slash/action games fans love PG....WAY more than NT and the fact is PG games just sells more

I doubt that would happen. Kamiya left Capcom under bad terms from what I hear. So I don;t think he'd want to pick up one of their games and develop it.

but considering a majority of hack n slash/action games fans love PG....WAY more than NT and the fact is PG games just sells more and PG made DMC game is what 95% of the fanbase have wet dreams about probably even ignoring the fact its DmC not DMC with the other 5% not caring who makes a DMC game as long as its good or looks good....or great.

And that's because NT don't have many games under their belt compared to PG.
And having PG make DMC is not one of my 'wet dreams' as you put it. That's a baseless assumption. I love Bayonetta, but I do not want to see Dante like that.
As for selling more games, Bayonetta did not do too well sadly and is only getting a second outing because Nintendo saved it. Wish it had sold more...

 

[Sparda's rejected son]

You mean the plot?
Okay. -SNIP_

OH!! Ok thanks now I get. Now that I understand what I saw, it was meh. Why don't angry siblings ever hug their mothers, you know damn well that deep down inside that's really what they want.

 

[Loopy]

OH!! Ok thanks now I get. Now that I understand what I saw, it was meh. Why don't angry siblings ever hug their mothers, you know damn well that deep down inside that's really what they want.

He just has the classic 'Mommy never hugged me enough as a child' problem, coupled with an inferiority complex If only Eva had huged him more, maybe this would never have happned.:troll:

 

[Sparda's rejected son]

He just has the classic 'Mommy never hugged me enough as a child' problem, coupled with an inferiority complex If only Eva had huged him more, maybe this would never have happned.:troll:

Lol. Its amazing what a hug can do. Vergil said his wing dang doodle is bigger than Dante's so Vergil should be the happiest person alive, he's got it all. What more does he need?! :troll:

 

[Stylish Nero]

Maybe, maybe not. Maybe DmC and DMC will be sitting on a shelf for a loong time while Capcom work out their next move. Or maybe both games will now be cancelled. It's been too long for DMC5 to be made and for people to get back into it. I loved the old DMC games, but it's just been too long. Honestly, I like DmC now and want that to be continued more than classic DMC. I just don't see where they could go plot wise with DMC5. The last part of the story chronologically was DMC2 with Dante's fate uncertain in hell. To continue that would be an end to all of it.

Its never too late. Fans are still highly excited for a DMC5, DmC with the HD collection if anything sparked more interest and not only that as long as DMC is still in the media or relevant (thanks to DmC). The DMC name still hold more regards than plenty of games Capcom brought back that were on a much longer hiatus (Bionic Commando, Darkstalkers, and DuckTales. Plus who says it got to be after DMC2? We don't know how far DMC2 is down the timeline and Capcom seems dead set on ignoring it.


I doubt that would happen. Kamiya left Capcom under bad terms from what I hear. So I don;t think he'd want to pick up one of their games and develop it.

It doesn't have to be Kamiya. PG has plenty of other talented directors Kenji Saito (MGR), Masaki Yamanaka (Anarchy Reigns), and even Yusuke Hashimoto who is making Bayonetta 2. Plus that was a long time ago, Kamiya could've probably gotten over it plus he even praised DmC and even talks about the original Dante coming back (???). After Wonderful 101, Kamiya doesn't seem busy.


And that's because NT don't have many games under their belt compared to PG.
And having PG make DMC is not one of my 'wet dreams' as you put it. That's a baseless assumption. I love Bayonetta, but I do not want to see Dante like that.
As for selling more games, Bayonetta did not do too well sadly and is only getting a second outing because Nintendo saved it. Wish it had sold more...

I didn't say you were in the 95% did I? Plus its not a baseless when I hear it everywhere from a lot of different people. Regardless Bayonetta sold more than DmC did for being a new IP and they have very large name recognition in the gaming industry among players and journalists. Many people just refers to them as the "Makers of Bayonetta" sadly. Many people were hyped up for MGR because it was being made by PG and that game got more hype from individual journalists and gaming tabloids than DmC...mostly due to presentation and developer history. I've seen Bayonetta get 10s, has any of NT games get 10s and was already nominated as action game of the year. Bayonetta has literally became the standard of which most modern hack n slash games are judged by (except for God of War oddly) and I mean someone from Gamespot said DmC was the best action game since Bayonetta. Plus Bayonetta is Bayonetta and is a girl. The worst Kamiya can do to Dante is make him like DMC4 Dante or Viewtiful Joe.