Before I continue, let me just reiterate that I'm not associated with Ninja Theory nor Capcom. These posts represent my views and not theirs.
Thanks, Final Offer!
I was working on another project when the first trailer came out, but I saw the development and thought it looked cool. I anticipated some reaction due to his hair being black, but not to the extent we saw. When I joined the project I already knew what the reaction was and I felt the pressure to work harder and harder to make the best game possible.
Thing I would like to change? I think I would change many, many things on both the main game and DLC. Haha! For example, the Hunter would have no cutscenes during gameplay. His special attack intros would all be done in gameplay. Unfortunately we would need a new system to handle these transitions. Would have loved for him to teleport through smoke on harder difficulties! Would have added more attacks!!
I would add more attacks for Poison, especially attacks you cannot parry at the back of the arena. In the final version you can get her into a loop if you stand there and keep parrying. I don't like that she has an obvious weakness like that. On DLC, I would like to change the cutscenes to 3D rendering, as these failed to communicate the story in the best light. I would've liked to have the Hollow Dante fight, which was planned but dropped. Anyway, many many things that I would've changed.
I would always choose to play Vergil!
Thank you for your words. I think the game is far from perfect, but you are right. Combat games like DmC are rare nowadays.
If a DmC movie would be great? Of course I think so.
I didn't get to meet Combichrist.
I love everything I did and love what I'm doing now, which is more writing and directing for film. But who knows, I might come back to videogames in the future. Right now I'm enjoying playing videogames instead of making them.
Frostmourne,
No hostility among us. I don't know who the other person his, but I have no interest in generating conflict.
Not everyone likes the coloured enemies, me being one of them. Did you noticed we removed them in Vergil's Downfall?
Regarding the difficulty, in all fairness, I think we needed a few more months to get the balance perfect. Balancing so many difficulty modes at once is very, very hard. There were also many elements of the team balancing their own parts, like different bosses, and it was tough testing all difficulties plus gathering and studying data in the timeframe we had.
Yes, I was responsible for giving the creative direction for Vergil's Downfall.
Ok, let me address the Bleach "references". In all honesty, I had never, never watched or read about Bleach. I wrote the story and half way through development someone on another team came over and said "I'm a massive Bleach fan, I can see that you made a lot of references!" I was like, no, I didn't.
So... the Hollow characters came upon reading this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hollow_Men
Which seems to make a lot of references to Dante's Inferno itself (the original inspiration for DMC).
The Hollow people in Vergil's hell represent parts of himself, not necessarily ties to someone, but parts of his personality. More on this below.
Maybe Bleach used the same references? Hard to tell, by the time I was made aware of this I was so committed to telling Vergil's story that I just followed through and didn't care about it.
Love Soul Reaver! One of my all time favourite games. Anyway, as I said above, there are things I would change about the DLC, but it was the best we could do with the time given.
mrrandomlulz,
Thanks! Haha!
TWOxACROSS,
Well, as I said above, these Hollow characters were meant to represent parts of Vergil's personality, not necessarily emotional ties. Hollow Kat represents humanity, not necessarily a connection to Kat. When he "kills" her, he is in fact killing part of himself. If you think about it, Vergil is the end is half dead because he killed all these parts of himself. It's never said out loud, but he becomes Nero Angelo, or the Angel of Death, the one that can walk among the dead and the living.
That is the real Eva, who's been doomed to a life in hell. Rejected by the angels, who saw her as a traitor after the relationship with Sparda, she was banished and placed there for all eternity. Vergil pays her a visit.
Someone else wrote the main game, so I can never be certain about this. In my view, Vergil had discovered his devil trigger very early on in his childhood. Dante awakened during the events of DmC.
Loopy,
Initially, the trade would take place on a bridge, with a train going under it. Lilith would transform right after the Trade and jump down on the moving train. Dante would chase her on the train and kill her. Incredibly, if you look at the new Bayonetta 2 trailer, you will see a boss train mission that is very similar in concept to what we wanted to do. Looks awesome!!
Vergil'sBitch,
Vergil is definitely not dead at the end of the DLC, he has been reborn. I always thought of him being half dead half alive, and with the unique ability to walk among both dead and living.
Hollow Vergil represents a personality trait of Vergil, SELF DOUBT, which he kills. Do you see how confident he becomes after killing Hollow Vergil?
Anyway, Vergil becomes Nero Angelo (I refer to him as Nero Angelo because it translates better to Dark Angel, or Angel of Death) and returns to the world of the living. I actually wrote a possible opening for a sequel so I could write Vergil's Downfall and trace his future better.
Not sure that's an early concept for Vergil, but the face was tweaked to match the actor, David. So maybe that's why he looks a bit older?
Thanks for the nice comments, guys!