Everyone loves to blame Ninja Theory, despite verification from them and Capcom of what they originally drafted and was rejected by Capcom for being too much like DMC classic, for being DMC5. There's culpability all around, but people seem to gloss over Capcom to place it on NT more than anything, merely because "well, clear CAPCOM had to clean up the mess NT created" when it was Capcom that created a mess in the first place, and NT gets all the **** piled on them for doing their jobs as paid for and directed. Has there been some bad attitudes from both companies? Yes. To NT's credit, they've not probably been exposed to how rancid the DMC fandom really can be, especially since they were getting hateful death threats sent to them, and people tend not to react well to death threats over a GAME.
Look at Eva and the resulting nightmare that ended with End of Evangelion. The japanese are no better in their responses than westerners to that kind of backlash.
Itsuno? He wanted to move on, wanted to do his OWN projects(Dragon's Dogma) instead of still holding the reins that Kamiya left behind, and he was sent instead to go supervise to make sure NT followed the reboot directive for a series he seems to want to leave behind. Consider as well that most of the teams from previous DMCs have left Capcom, and you realize that Capcom had to reboot one way or another. This was inevitable. Was was DMC5 really gonn'a do? Follow Nero and create even more questions while giving no answers at all yet again? Follow Dante in Hell following DMC2, which Capcom seemed adament about avoidng because DMC2 wasn't that popular? More of the same, rehashing DMC4 just as it rehashed DMC3? That's going down the road of the very FPS games that are killing the market; just rehash with a new coat of paint, no one will notice that it's the exact same game.
NT was given an objective, yes; reimagine DMC with a more western take on the story and design to give it a fresh revival, to not rehash the same thing that Capcom was going to do. Based on Capcom's satisfaction with Nt's work alone, they DID fulfill that objective. Capcom's job then was to market and garner a viable new audience to be interested, but in their desire to market a new audience, their own marketing stradegy of "stir up controversy" backfired...that was CAPCOM'S decision, and it not only alienated a vocal group of the old fans, it also cause such a bile and hate athat any new audience was put off by the vile and flaming rage from the opposed fanbase from even looking at the game.
so..yeah, assign blame were it should lie. Nt had a job, they did it. Capcom had their own...they f**ked more than anything. They decide dto **** off the old fanbase for controvery to stir up interest. It backfired.
