DMC4 Enemies Are The Most "Tangible" In The Series

[Goldsickle]

I replayed through the entire series and I notice that in earlier games, enemies always have their own specific physics, like how when you weaken a Shadow, it's a floating ball over a puddle of black ink.
You can nudge it a bit but that's that.
The Sins are just floating masks with deceptive cloaks and once the masks are destroyed, they're gone.

In DMC4 however, almost all the enemies are designed to allow launching and aerial combos.
Even if Mephistos and Fausts appear as clones of the Sins or Fallen, they have a "tangible" form that allows you swat around and launch into the air for an air combo.

The Blitz's basic mechanic is like that of Shadows in the first game except that when you remove their shielding, they become a combo-able enemy, with physics similar to a more resilient Frost.

Even the bosses of DMC4 allows launching and combos, such as Credo and Sanctus.
You couldn't launch Vergil into the air when you fight him in DMC3.

Another thing worth mentioning is how the "tangibility" carries over to DmC, where they make sure almost all the enemies have physics that makes them very combo-able.

 

[Viper]

It's a nice observation, but I don't know what else to say besides that it's just an upgrade in gameplay and these things tend to happen with newer titles, or so I heard. Especially when the game includes a guy whose biggest defining trait is a special arm with which he can grab far away stuff and let out his frustration on enemies.

 

[Redgrave Kyo]

Highly disagreeing with the Blitz part. You can't hardly combo it. The only thing that can stagger it in the air, technically speaking, would be an air Buster from Nero.

 

[Goldsickle]

Especially when the game includes a guy whose biggest defining trait is a special arm with which he can grab far away stuff and let out his frustration on enemies.

Yeah, that might be the biggest factor.
Making the enemies vulnerable to being reeled in or grabbed.

DmC also has similar mechanics, so that might also explain why the enemies needed to be "tangible".

Another thing I'd like to point out is how the enemies have more "depth", like the enemies in DMC1.
In DMC3, you mostly encounter enemies that have one or two gimmick (Pride swings its scythe, Lust dashes from afar, Sloth teleports, etc.).
But in DMC4, the enemies have more depth to them, like the Angelo's multiple attack formations, alternate strategies like damaging Mephistos and Fausts directly without removing their cloaks, how the Scarecrows can actually parry you and so on.

This kinda makes me wish that DMC4 has "Enemy Files" like in DMC1, so more people would know that you can actually Snatch a Gladius out of Angelo Agnus's hands.

Highly disagreeing with the Blitz part. You can't hardly combo it. The only thing that can stagger it in the air, technically speaking, would be an air Buster from Nero.

True, you can't air-combo the Blitz but its shield-less form is still more "tangible" than the Shadow's "orb over a black puddle".

You can launch the Blitz upwards, giving you some time to charge up certain moves, like Showdown.

 

[Jack500]

I'm guessing DMC 1 wasn't designed with freestyle combos in mind, it takes a more Zeldaesque approach to combat

 

[DreadnoughtDT]

DMC1's whole thing was that nearly every demon was some form of spirit inhabiting a physical form. Marionettes possessed puppets, the Sins and Deaths possessed masks, Beelzebub possessed flies and beetles. Even the miniboss tier Kyklops was a pile of possessed earth and rock.

After that though, they started to shy away from that premise. The Frosts are no longer demon-possessed ice, but demon soldiers sired by Mundus in the same vein as the Blades/Assaults. The only enemies in DMC4 that still follow the "possessed everyday object" thing are the Scarecrows, which are just humanoid burlap sacks fitted with crude executioner blades and filled with possessed trypoxylus, which are a genus of beetle.

 

[Viper]

DMC1's whole thing was that nearly every demon was some form of spirit inhabiting a physical form. Marionettes possessed puppets, the Sins and Deaths possessed masks, Beelzebub possessed flies and beetles. Even the miniboss tier Kyklops was a pile of possessed earth and rock.

After that though, they started to shy away from that premise. The Frosts are no longer demon-possessed ice, but demon soldiers sired by Mundus in the same vein as the Blades/Assaults. The only enemies in DMC4 that still follow the "possessed everyday object" thing are the Scarecrows, which are just humanoid burlap sacks fitted with crude executioner blades and filled with possessed trypoxylus, which are a genus of beetle.

It would be rather hard to explain why would demons go through the trouble of possessing something when the demon gate is wide open. Only enemy we see before the gate opens are those Scarecrows.
And then there are artificial demons mixed in, which kinda look like possessed objects, in a way that they are Agnus's own patent of magically crossbreeding animals and weapons.