The original. The greatest. The best-developed, the most redeemable, the most honorable...
DMC1 Dante.
He has the best design, he has the look and personality that Hideki Kamiya, the
creator of the character and the series itself intended, and has been fleshed out as a character in ways that all three of his succeeding depictions have outright failed to do. Simply put? He was a
character. Not a painful attempt at a bishonen protagonist, not some late-90's Skater douche, but a character first. He displayed experience, caution, determination, honor, disdain, anger, and yes...
cockiness, but IN REASONABLE DOSES.
And given how this design and this approach to his personality have been attempted (regardless if whether or not it was successful) in the anime and Project X Zone's 1
and 2, it's safe to say that this Dante is the one Capcom likes utilizing,
Bring him back to
DMC5, get rid of that talentless hack Bingo Morihashi before he recycles every lame joke and boring trait he used in
DMC's 3-4, and restore Dante to his former glory. If they can't do that, I say chuck him out and focus on Nero, since he acts more like Dante should than the latter has in ages.