Should Dante, Trish and Lady Have Been Left Out of DMC4 Entirely?

[windleopard]

I can see Capcom's logic in keeping Dante, Lady and Trish in 4 as they were already facing some backlash for Nero but I feel including them ended up hurting the story more than it helped. Not that the DMC franchise is known for great storytelling but DMC 4's didn't even seem to be trying and I think one of the issues is the need to include the previous three protagonists.

Dante basically just steals Nero's thunder as the protagonist. and thus invites comparisons to Dante they do not need. Lady does nothing of note other than telling Dante about the order and is just there for fanservice (in every sense of the word). Trish's inclusion is handled the worst. She does nothing to stop the Order's plot, in fact she furthers them by giving them Force Edge. Worse, Sanctus deduces her identity before she even does anything of use. We don't even get a token scene of her protecting citizens during Sanctus' attack.

Instead of relying on the old characters, Capcom should have let Nero stand on his own, at least for his debut game. Maybe after this you could bring in Dante and the others and have them meet for a possible DMC 5. But for DMC 4, there presence did not help.

 

[V's patron]

Comparisons btw Dante and Nero would have happened regardless of his presence. A better way to deal with that would have been to make Nero more distinct as a person. He's just another smart-aleck demon hunter with white hair and that just made me want to play as Dante more.

Honestly people would have prefered to play as someone they knew so a vergil or lady game would have been more popular. Or even have Dante growing in Fortuna and returning when he's older would have been more exciting.

The easiest way to bring Nero in would have been to make him Dante's kid who comes to check in on him and finds lucia instead. Within the first five minutes you set up why you should care about him and you give context to DMC2.

There is alot of cut content for DMC4 so maybe they would have had a bigger role. For ex, we know that dante was suppose to have his own bosses and have a trip to hell.

I'd probably make Vergil a bigger role in the game's plot and make his connection to nero more clear.

 

[windleopard]

Comparisons btw Dante and Nero would have happened regardless of his presence. A better way to deal with that would have been to make Nero more distinct as a person. He's just another smart-aleck demon hunter with white hair and that just made me want to play as Dante more.

Honestly people would have prefered to play as someone they knew so a vergil or lady game would have been more popular. Or even have Dante growing in Fortuna and returning when he's older would have been more exciting.

The easiest way to bring Nero in would have been to make him Dante's kid who comes to check in on him and finds lucia instead. Within the first five minutes you set up why you should care about him and you give context to DMC2.

There is alot of cut content for DMC4 so maybe they would have had a bigger role. For ex, we know that dante was suppose to have his own bosses and have a trip to hell.

I'd probably make Vergil a bigger role in the game's plot and make his connection to nero more clear.

I have to ask, why Dante's kid instead of Vergil's?

Speaking of Lucia, I find it interesting that we still have some references of sorts to her in DMC 4. The Angelo demons have a similar design to her Devil Trigger and Gloria's fighting style resembles her own.

 

[V's patron]

I have to ask, why Dante's kid instead of Vergil's?

Speaking of Lucia, I find it interesting that we still have some references of sorts to her in DMC 4. The Angelo demons have a similar design to her Devil Trigger and Gloria's fighting style resembles her own.

It's easier to set up and you could have Nero actually be raised by Dante, leading to a different angle. He is defined by the relationship he has with his father so seeing how he would act as one is interesting to me.

Nero as Vergil's kid is still doable but people had a hard time accepting the idea so i chose something easier.

Granted DMC4 could have done a better job with that reveal.

People were against the love story as it was the sole focus so balancing it out with nero questioning his identity would have been better. Re6 pulls this off more effectively with Jake and Sherry.

 

[Goldsickle]

I don't know if it was mentioned but was playable Trish and Lady originally intended for the vanilla DMC4?

 

[windleopard]

It's easier to set up and you could have Nero actually be raised by Dante, leading to a different angle. He is defined by the relationship he has with his father so seeing how he would act as one is interesting to me.

Nero as Vergil's kid is still doable but people had a hard time accepting the idea so i chose something easier.

Granted DMC4 could have done a better job with that reveal.

People were against the love story as it was the sole focus so balancing it out with nero questioning his identity would have been better. Re6 pulls this off more effectively with Jake and Sherry.

Did the love story get that much focus? I felt like it was kind of incidental honestly.

I don't know if it was mentioned but was playable Trish and Lady originally intended for the vanilla DMC4?

Don't know about that. I recall reading somewhere they weren't initially intended to be playable in the Special Edition.

 

[V's patron]

Did the love story get that much focus? I felt like it was kind of incidental honestly.

Granted it became more prominent in the later half but it was his main goal in the story and in the artbook the main reason he was in the order at all.

He doesn't care about fortuna, he protected it because kyrie loved the place they say.

I guess taking out Dante's portion might have helped Nero by giving him other goals. But with him they should have tackle his origins more clearly than they did the game. They just did a one line of dialogue confirmation through Sanctus.

 

[Goldsickle]

Don't know about that. I recall reading somewhere they weren't initially intended to be playable in the Special Edition.

I did remember Itsuno mentioned about the bosses needing to be made compatible for the newer characters, like if you use Lady, the boss will be 'Lady-compatible'.

What made the boss compatible to certain characters is not specified.

 

[DragonMaster2010]

Trish and Lady, maybe, but not Dante. Dante is the star character and having him replaced would've caused a big ruckus. Plus, Nero isn't a strong enough character emotional-wise to be the new star of the series. Especially coming off of the cocky, arrogant, take-no-**** version of Dante we got in DMC3.
And yeah, there's be far too much comparison to Dante with Nero, and it won't be for the greater good. Especially with his Kyrie crying scene.

 

[RadiantWolf]

Trish and Lady perhaps, Dante no. I do, however, feel that Dante should not have been playable. He should have been a battery to the Savior instead of Nero and we should have played Nero the whole way through. This would have cut down on the backtracking and made the story way more cohesive.

 

[HeroOfTime]

I would of preferd two story's like in DMC 2 or the DMC spechiel edition a story for Nero and one for Dante kinda like their original idea i heard about

 

[berto]

In terms of story, no, Dante being removed and having the whole game revolving around Nero wouldn't have improved it any. Just think about him as a character. Yeah, he has the attitude but he's way too similar to Dante to have it be considered his own. As a matter of fact, the producer of 4 mentioned how when it was announced a lot of people asked him why Dante looked so young not realizing he was an entirely new character all together.

Aside from that, what else does he have to offer? Kyrie, actually. That is the extent of his character and motivation. Not once did he seem to take any meaningful action without somehow spinning it back to how it would affect her. About the only thing he did that wasn't related to her was to chase Dante, which, granted, pretty much propelled the first half of his part of the game but as we went there was almost literally nothing he did that didn't involve her. He has no drive outside of her nor does he have any personality, traits or quirks uniquely his and that doesn't make for an interesting character.

The developers mentioned how much Kyrie was a driving force for him, and anchor, that without her he couldn't care less for humanity at all, that he'd provably wander off to hell... to do what, I don't know, because as he is he has no character traits outside of being a Dante clone and a pretty poorly written little lover boy there is not much, if anything, else to him. Maybe he'll open a bar.

As for Trish and Lady, cameos are nice but Trish was basically shoehorned in to the full game. You can tell because her presence had no impact in the actual game outside of cutscenes which didn't mean squad when you get down to it because if you skip all the cutscenes you'd never know she was there. They should've really just kept her out of it because when really think about it she did nothing except give them the sword which only aggravated things and I'm sure the writer had some actual purpose or logic in mind behind that poor decision, I don't know, the novel might've mentioned it but I haven't learned enough Japanese to know what that was.

So, no, Nero alone wouldn't've enough to hold the whole game by himself, even if they did add more weapons and mechanics to make up for what he doesn't have, and with Dante being so popular after 3 it wouldn't make sense to not have him, nor would it have gone over very well with the fans. Trish, on the other hand, should've stayed a cameo, specially when she's the second character to pull the shtick of being another major character in disguise. That just made her and Gloria feel like cheap throwaway characters.

 

[Lain]

No, the story was already bare bones enough as it is. :|

 

[V's patron]

It could work if you replaced Dante and the rest with Vergil and make his return and connection to Nero the driving part of the story. Sanctus and the order could still be villains but Vergil's the main antagonist like what happened with him and Arkham in DMC3.

His relationship with Kyrie would still exist but as a subplot.

 

[aoshi]

I felt dante's existence was a must cuz he has been the protagonist of previous 3 games. But trish and lady tagging along didn't bother me. DMC games have always had a small cast and it was a matter of detail that previous games lacked. For example, we never saw civilians who we were to protect from demon invasion but we did get to see civilians in DMC 4.I really wished for wider cast when i played DMC 3 and DMC 4 having it only increased my love towards the franchise.

 

[V's patron]

I can see Capcom's logic in keeping Dante, Lady and Trish in 4 as they were already facing some backlash for Nero but I feel including them ended up hurting the story more than it helped. Not that the DMC franchise is known for great storytelling but DMC 4's didn't even seem to be trying and I think one of the issues is the need to include the previous three protagonists.

Dante basically just steals Nero's thunder as the protagonist. and thus invites comparisons to Dante they do not need. Lady does nothing of note other than telling Dante about the order and is just there for fanservice (in every sense of the word). Trish's inclusion is handled the worst. She does nothing to stop the Order's plot, in fact she furthers them by giving them Force Edge. Worse, Sanctus deduces her identity before she even does anything of use. We don't even get a token scene of her protecting citizens during Sanctus' attack.

Instead of relying on the old characters, Capcom should have let Nero stand on his own, at least for his debut game. Maybe after this you could bring in Dante and the others and have them meet for a possible DMC 5. But for DMC 4, there presence did not help.

In the original concept art he was meant to be more of a detective so bringing that back would help here. Dante provides an inticing incident for the plot but having Nero dig into the order would also work to get the plot started.

In fact i think having how nero gets his arm would have made for a good opening chapter. It sets up the mystery of how he got his powers and you could better setup his dynamic with Kyrie and Credo, making what happens between them more impactful.

 

[DoomSlayer87_Sss]

Trish and lady , more so lady I wouldn't have minded being left out.Dante however is a must , it just isn't DMC without him for me

 

[LordOfDarkness]

I think it depends on the circumstances. For instance the story and how they handled Nero. When DMC 4 was first announced and we started hearing more things, I was genuinely annoyed with Nero as a character. Because to me, Nero was just wannabe Dante. And I didn’t like that at all. Perhaps if there was more to him as a character and more to the story overall that didn’t require Dante, then maybe it would’ve been okay to leave the other characters out. But that’s not the case, so it would’nt have worked with just Nero alone. That would’ve been a lot shorter game because there was nothing else going on.

So, if there was more to Nero and the story as a whole then maybe it could’ve worked. Considering there wasn’t, it wouldn’t have.

 

[BlackAngel]

Honestly, the plot of DMC4 is horrible and should be scrapped entirely. And DMC4 should've been about Sparda since we know so little about him, other than fighting against his own kind to protect humanity. That would be an interesting yet amasing story to tell, instead of Nero who has no purpose in the franchise.

 

[DarkSlayerVergil]

Honestly, the plot of DMC4 is horrible and should be scrapped entirely. And DMC4 should've been about Sparda since we know so little about him, other than fighting against his own kind to protect humanity. That would be an interesting yet amasing story to tell, instead of Nero who has no purpose in the franchise.

Honestly I could do without playing as Sparda also Nero would have more purpose if they simply didn't include Dante in 4 and let Nero have his own solo story.