My thoughts on DmC

[Director Bison]

I've never bothered to find a legit source for this, but the game was supposedly only 40% complete due to time constraints and Capcom wanting to rush out with an action game on next-gen consoles before the competition, if you're willing to believe that.

It does sound like some BS that a dev would say when fans aren't happy with a product but, looking at certain aspects of the game, I truly believe it was severely incomplete. For instance, it's incredibly strange that Dante has twice (or or less, it's been a while for me) as many moves and many more weapons than Nero, but only half as many missions.

That doesn't make the game any better, of course, but I don't think it should be seen as a shortcoming on the developers part.

the way i see it they had some of the game done but then capcom cut there dev time
so they used the time they had to polish the game play as much as possible

at least that what i think happend

 

[Axon49]

I think that's exactly what happened, plus some rewrites of the script and whatnot I'm sure.

I doubt that they managed to keep the original story intact if the game was really so far from being finished.

 

[Demi-fiend]

Those "script rewrites" happened because fans wanted Dante more than Nero. DMC4 was originally going to be all about Nero (with maybe a Dante "skin" like Vergil was -- in the sense that he would have all the same missions, I mean) -- but when the devs heard that Nero wasn't wanted (or at least, not as much as Dante), then they changed it drastically to suit fan demand.

See, fans were afraid of change even before the DmC debacle... people just need to remember what happened -- also, the Xbox 360 port sparked fan rage like you wouldn't believe -- they even petitioned for it to be only on the PS3 again -- and said that they would boycott it if their demands weren't met. Wow.

 

[Axon49]

Maybe at some point they did that, but I meant that getting rushed through development caused rewrites, probably long before they were in the "do we include Dante or not?" stage.

I also find it sort of hard to believe that Dante was an afterthought and only included because of fan demand. The depth of his combat and his importance in the story makes that really hard to believe honestly, but maybe these were things decided very early in development.

Then again, weren't the very first images released for DMC4 of Dante? I can't believe he wasn't going to be included at all in that case and I doubt they didn't originally intend for him to be playable.

I think it was only ever said that Nero would "take the lead," but never that Dante was completely out of the picture.

 

[Demi-fiend]

They most likely teased Dante, switched to Nero (because it worked for Raiden in MGS2 -- it sold a lot, despite the fan rage), then switched back to Dante at the last minute.

There were script rewrites even before the Nero thing? No wonder we had to wait 3 years (DMC3 was in 2005) for half a game. Unbelievable.

But they did change it at the last minute to include more of Dante. Like I said, he was probably only at the very end of the game, but then they changed their minds and decided to include more of him when they got closer to the release date.

But whoops, there was also all those rewrites to deal with, so when you get right down to it, it's a miracle that DMC4 wasn't a complete trainwreck.

Oh wait...

http://i.imgur.com/J2J8d.jpg

Face it. They had no idea what to do with the character -- not after all those rewrites and "will they/won't they put him in" development phases they went through.

Also, Bayonetta channeling -- you can see it when Dante plays around with that damn confetti -- DMC1 (and even DMC3 Dante) would be so ashamed if they knew this was how they would turn out.

It could've gone a lot better with a good pre-production schedule. Instead, it looks like they couldn't decide what was best for the game.

Good gameplay (which wasn't as good as DMC3 btw) doesn't make up for it's many shortcomings. That's just how it is.

4 Melee weapons (not counting Yamato because one combo/aerial move is not a weapon) and 5 styles compared to DMC3's 6 weapons (Vergil's Beowulf is great but I won't count it) and 7 styles -- no contest.

I don't know why people keep saying 4 is better than 3. I really don't. Guard-flying, multiple styles,rampant jump-canceling, and all that nonsense be damned. It's not better. Not in the least.

Besides, DMC3 style switching mod, so there.

 

[Captain Xin]

See, fans were afraid of change even before the DmC debacle... people just need to remember what happened -- also, the Xbox 360 port sparked fan rage like you wouldn't believe -- they even petitioned for it to be only on the PS3 again -- and said that they would boycott it if their demands weren't met. Wow.

Oh yes, the petition that wanted the game to be only in PS3 again, seems to me some people are just that "determined".

I hate internet sometimes.

 

[Demi-fiend]

I hate the internet sometimes.

I hate the internet always.

 

[Captain Xin]

Oh wait...

http://i.imgur.com/J2J8d.jpg

Oh how I hated that scene.
When I was a college kid, I actually kinda liked it, but the more time flew by, the more I hated it.

Now I just Imagine this happened in Capcom during the development of those cut-scenes.

"Hey boss, World Cup just went by not too long ago, should we use some of the references in our new game?"

"Do it."

"Oh, and some of our staff are actually Die-hard Anime fans, should we make a reference to every Anime they watched and make them into our game?"

"Do it."

"Hey boss."

"Do it."

"You just went on fishing again, didn't you ?"

 

[Demi-fiend]

"You just went fishing again, didn't you ?"

I'm going to assume "fishing" means "truckload of bad acid" in this case LOL.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Your post reminds me of Nostalgia Critic's "porn it" phrase at 37:00

 

[Axon49]

It could've gone a lot better with a good pre-production schedule. Instead, it looks like they couldn't decide what was best for the game.

Instead Capcom cut development short, you mean.

I'm pretty sure the dev team wanted Dante to actually have his own levels, and therefore the cutscenes would've probably been quite different since they just wouldn't have made sense in different environments. I imagine that once the crew got the news, they had to polish up what assets the had and work with them to piece together a full game. It probably completely killed whatever the original story was.

On top of all of this, Kobayashi claims that the PC and 360 ports multiplied their workload by about 1.5.

So, to me, comments like "they didn't know what to do with Dante" and "the devs got lazy with the level design" (which is the main complaint I hear) and whatnot are just kind of heartbreaking. They wanted to do more, but they just weren't allowed to. They were asked to do too much in too little time.

Then when the game still sold better than any previous title in the franchise, Capcom still wasn't happy and wanted twice as many sales as the game got. :banghead:

I liked DmC, but I find a sweet irony in the fact that Capcom wanted DMC4 to sell twice as much as it did, and then made DmC which ended up with just over half of DMC4's sales.

Did I mention that they gave DmC an extension in it's development time? :laugh:

 

[Foxtrot94]

I like the DMC4's Dante better than any other game in the series, actually.

 

[Foxtrot94]

I liked DmC, but I find a sweet irony in the fact that Capcom wanted DMC4 to sell twice as much as it dand then made DmC which ended up with just over half of DMC4's sales.

"A fact that tickles irony's judgement."

I'm sorry pal, but I couldn't hold myself from quoting that line LOL

 

[Axon49]

I really like him too. Not sure he's my favorite though, but only because it's so hard for me to pick.

Usually whichever Dante I played as last is my favorite. :happy:

^ I totally read that in Agnus' voice. :laugh: