For me it would be simple, mix DMC with Dark Souls 1 Atmosphere.
Have Dantes shop as a hub from where you start main missions, those missions would graually unlock parts of the world. And let us explore that world outside of missions to unlock blue orbs and stuff. Also make it so that there are secrets specific to other playable characters (if there are any).
If we got the classic weapons back (Sword, Gauntlets), then give me the ability to change their skin to different other weapons we already had in the series (like in DmC with the weapon skins). That way we could customize the look of Dante a bit better.
TBH, this sounds much like the first DMC, it kinda got that feel; yeah, the progress is pretty much linear, but there's something here and there to explore while you do missions, it even had inter-mission passages to give you some time to do the secret missions and some little exploring without hurting your ranking on a mission. I don't mind exploration in a hack'n'slash game if they don't make it mandatory or too important to get the full experience (i mean, at least most of the weapons and upgrades must stay in the "main" part of the game, that is combat-oriented, it's really annoying to just lose some weapon because you don't checked that dark corner in the game); but they can go with another incentive for players to explore the game world, like tidbits of the lore, new bosses that only becomes easy-acessible (in a boss rush mode, for example) after you defeat them for the first time in the game world, missions that grants some trophies or **** like that, but nothing that would really hurt too much the core of these games, the combat.
Why does everybody just assume that? It was already stated in interviews that DMC4SE was a project with very limited budget and not a lot of time to put it to use. Therefore they had to go and implement the content they found the most worth it in the long run with those resources. Therefore they most likely thought that having three new characters each with his own mechanics and advanced techniques to master grants more replay value than just one - Vergil - playable in a short campaign.
If anything, they should be to blame for not bothering giving clear answers in Vergil's cutscenes, which are almost completely meaningless. They should have focused on that instead of shooting a fighting scene and yet another vague hint at Vergil being Nero's father.
Also, I don't know how many of you are into this kinda stuff, but modeling, texturing and animating three characters ain't really a joke.
So, all that considered, the word "lazy" is not really the one to use in this instance. Which unfortunately doesn't make the lack of a campaign any less disappointing. Just saying that I don't really think it was out of laziness.
I agree with all this "laziness" thing. Add up that hack'n'slashers like DMC4 have fine-tunned systems working in together that must be pretty hard to make work properly and don't screw up in the final balance (even more with 5 characters), not to mention tweaks in level design for all the characters to be playable in the missions , which requires testing, and consequently a good deal of time and rework through what goes wrong (and certainly, know how programming goes, something WILL go wrong). But yeah, Capcom dropped the ball once again with these cutscenes, everyone was hoping for a conclusion about all this Nero-Vergil relation, and we get a bunch of nothing, at maximum a "hint".
Now, for my list of things-i-want-to-see-in-DMC5:
- Keep Nero as the casual-friendly character , but added layers of depth to his mechanics that is unique to him; this include more devil arms to change on the fly, more moves possible with his devil bringer (they could potentialy use a style system for him, but i don't think this would make his playstyle more unique). I think it would be cool to take an approach similar that of Bayonetta: make Nero combine devil arms (dual handling them too) instead of having him changing guns and devil arms, make each combination of devil arms have a unique moveset (KINDA like how Force Edge + Yamato is for Vergil, but with the ability to make combinations on the fly); but also make possible for him to use each moveset separately on the fly, with a system similar to style system (pressing the directional buttons to single-handle or dual-handle), make he always have access to Yamato through that system too, just like Dante does. Add the possibility to restrain how much devil arms he carries to still make his gameplay casual friendly and don't enforce this complicated mechanics onto new players.
- Lots of characters. Would love to see all the cast that is in DMC4SE returning completely, even if for the most, they are exactly the same; also if they receive relevant changes, make it an option to use an old version of the character that's outright copy-pasted from DMC4, for example: if you liked Dante's devil arms and styles in DMC4, you can choose the "DMC4 version", same goes for each character that have his gameplay changed.
- Would like to see the Dante with the same mechanics, only changing his devil arms, if possible it would be cool to have plenty of devil arms to choose 3 of them; much like DMC3 did.
- Story-wise, i don't have much to ask. Trying to bring Vergil back would be cool, explaining Nero's story is mandatory, like others already said: make Dante go through a lot of places in Hell, it's time he becomes the "new Sparda", a legend himself, and defeats the entire Hell alone (or with a little help from Vergil and Nero, besides?); just like his father. It would be cool if all characters had at least very short campaigns of their own, even if they don't make actual cutscenes for them but at least explain things with text nd static art as you progress through the campaign, telling more about their personal stories or events aside from the main game; but keeping the possibility of playing with them on the main campaign much like both SEs did.
- Take the lesson from Ninja Theory and add a damn training mode and popular community mods (using DMC4 mods as reference) to the console versions. I was surprised they didn't do that with DMC4SE, it's not that complicated to add some immortal and inactive monster for you to try out things more confortably; hell they could even give you options to manipulate in this training mode like slow motion, making enemies freeze in the air, record and replay things, that sort of stuff, turning the training mode into a real "lab" for players to explore the mechanics, fighting games already do a lot of that kind of thing.
- It's mandatory for it to run at a solid 60 fps on all systems.
- MAKE A BOSS RUSH MODE, i don't know why it never had a boss-rush mode.
- I would like to see an experiment with co-op, but i really don't think DMC fits too well for this kind of gameplay; i mean, i can't think myself about a good way to implement that without turning the game into something that's too easy or boring. Some hack'n'slash games succeeded in making online co-op a cool experience, like Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 and Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor's Edge, but the playstyle of this games is very, is very different compared to DMC, even if in the same genre. But still, why no experiment with this?
