Ello everyone, first time poster here. I figured after reading a good portion of this I'd contribute. Generally, I think Kam hit the nail on the head for me and I wish the replies to their answer were more... civil. I will preface this by saying that I am not at all a fan of DmC. My reasons are focused mainly on the story and gameplay, so this will affect my bias. I will try to entirely avoid the one scene with the sniper shot, since I think it's been over discussed. The entire scene in context makes no sense, to me, when it comes to writing, since Mundus somehow can BLAME DANTE AND KNOW HIS FETUS SON IS DEAD BUT NOT NOTICE VERGIL. Interestingly enough though, MOST of the characters were not a problem for me. I actually liked them. My rationale is pretty much thus.
If we take context of story aside, and focus only on the characters, Vergil of DmC just seems weak, and not physically. All the characters in the game that had some delving into that felt interesting and convincing. I could BUY Mundus as a demon, I actually LOVED this Dante over the previous ones. He had depth. Vergil, on the other hand, in his entirety felt lack luster. The Vergil of DMC3 I will admit is one of my favorite gaming characters. But DMC, at least in my view, didn't try to make that depth. You ended up making more assumptions on the characters and their motivations then you were ever given. The Vergil in that world made sense because you had to imagine his drive, just as almost as everyone else's. You may get bits of backstory here and there, but nothing solid. You don't know his motivations what-so-ever, and NEVER do. Someone in this thread with the "Goldmember" comment added world domination, but its never stated. There are absolutely no hints to his motivations or purpose. Everything about him HAS to be conjecture, outside his overall demanding want for power. He is mysterious and LEFT mysterious. The ending scene solidifies this idea in DMC3, as when Dante asks Vergil why he wants power, He DOESN'T give an answer. While the writing is not at all brilliant, you at least get a sense that between each game, the writers PURPOSELY leave things open so you have to assume or imagine some history or interest.
DmC is the COMPLETE opposite. You are fed a story. There is purposeful history learned, flashbacks, character dialogue that applies depth. The Vergil in this new DmC is PURPOSELY not to be left to the imagination, you learn as much about the character as you NEED to in order to reach a conclusion about who they are. That is what DmC was trying to add for each character, and I am generally fully okay with this. Stories that are WRITTEN to have depth often make enjoyable games. One of my favorite games is Thomas Was Alone, which hinges so much on its characterization and story to make it good. But they didn't accomplish a good story. In fact, every complaint from almost every reviewer IS The story.
TO prove my point, the new Vergil pretty much states everything. Laid out. Right at the end. In an incredibly boring way. In fact, he MORE SO states that he wants to take over the world than DMC3 Vergil ever did. Kat was literally sitting their listening. You had absolutely nothing to guess about or imagine. As far as dialogue goes, Vergil is the most blatantly obvious about his motivations the entire game. Even from a subjective standpoint, you HAVE To assume he wants SOMETHING from this by how he treats humans. It's unbelievable foreshadowing. Even Mundus' want to rule humans has more mystery than Vergil's, or even Dante's, motivations.
Character wise, he's cracked up to be this intelligent, brilliant planner, hacker, and schemer. But really almost all his decisions are reactionary, or his entire plan involved Dante. I will TRY to avoid the fact that Vergil himself was so overwhelmingly stronger than every other boss in that game that, from a gameplay standpoint, makes no sense story wise that he would need your help at all. In fact, because the only thing Vergil in all his work to hide from Mundus was hack a damn control console. You are TOLD the point was to get an eduge on Mundus, but he is virtually useless against him. And as far as schemes though, they wanted to get Mundus away from his portal, but he HAD NO CLEAR PLAN TO DO THAT UNTIL DANTE MET THE INFORMANT. IT WAS DANTE HIMSELF WHO FIGURED IT OUT, NOT VERGIL. All you know of Vergil's plan at any point was to kill Bob to destroy the TV network, and get rid of the soda, which in the end mean absolutely nothing, because you just kill Mundus anyway.
In the end, you still have a character who's motivations are your typical world order, secret organization villain. Bond Villains, since someone brought this up, WANT money, and power, to control other countries and resources, either for their countries, or they were insane, or to have world control. Vergil WANTS to take down Mundus, not stated for revenge as it feels the build up suggests, but so he can control the world himself...Not for a power trip, but because he thinks humans are dumb, and frail, and will kill each other? Why the Hell even take down Mundus to begin with then? Belittling the fact he doesn't at all describe how he'd even be CAPABLE of ruling the world, WHY would he take down someone doing what he wanted to already accomplish to begin with if the power itself gives him no sense of satisfaction? He ONLY gets his want of power in the DLC, which story wise was unbelievably atrocious, to which he'd go at all ends to kill his mother for no bloody reason? His motivations end up making no god damn sense. The only argument he gives is that they wouldn't enslave but respect their subjects, but on the grand scheme of things this means nothing. Vergil and Dante have NEVER known a world where humans were not ruled by demons, so how would he at ANY POINT know how they naturally are? Vergil in DMC3 at least has rationale connected to his goal for his dislike of humans; they generally ARE weak in that universe, with only Lady being a major exception. From the standpoint that all you know is that Vergil appreciates power and hates the weak, it makes sense why he doesn't care about their lives.
From a pure design standpoint, I actually dig the jacket. However, I have one issue with it; no one else in that entire universe dresses that way. At all. Even Dante's Jacket is something you can get away with. If the character is alone and not being interpreted with the story, that's pretty okay. I'm fine with that. In a story context, as a character who TELEVISES HIMSELF IN THE VERY SAME JACKET WITH THE MOST NOTICEABLE COLLAR IN HUMAN HISTORY, I have an issue with it. I also just hate his face, something is just hugely off about it. His face looks wwayyyyyy tooo frat boy. Outside that, I digged it. I thought the sword was nice, his posture and animations were good, and voice was solid. If they had fixed the face and made the jacket make sense in the universe, I'd be chill design wise. In fact, if they just took Dante's friggin face and put it on his, or just used his old face model, I'd be fine.
I will generally avoid guidebook descriptions of both characters, because arguments get confusing for both sides, especially since mistranslations occur. Vergil, at no point, is described to be honorable in DMC3. He just considers firearms to "not be fitting of a warrior." I don't know where people get that argument from. Having a mentality of only swords does not make you honorable. He rather appears to be more stoic, which gives off an air of honor. That is all I can assume.
I have realized I wrote a thesis, but I wanted to get that off my chest, haha. I certainly can respect people appreciation of DmCs characters, ESPECIALLY Dante, so I do not mean to get into a long winded argument, but the appreciation of a character who's entire existence essentially faults the story more so than Kat's, I just don't get.
So glad you responded in that manner.