WolfOD64
That Guy Who Hates Fox McCloud
It’s kind of hilarious how people go out of their way differentiate the original and rebooted iterations of Dante, when in fact, they’re almost exactly the same in the way they’re presented. The Old Dante was cocky, arrogant, and pictured himself as quite the lady-killer…and so did the New Dante. The Old Dante dove into danger to satisfy his demonic, adrenaline-seeking nature…so did the New Dante. The Old Dante didn’t initially trust anyone outside himself (evident in Dante’s Awakening with his treatment of Lady), mostly because he had so much misplaced faith in his own abilities…just like the New Dante does with Kat and Vergil in the beginning of DmC. Both of them even showed signs of maturity after some development. Nephilim Dante embraced a cause outside himself by the end of DmC, and cast aside his lecherous and partying persona for some much-needed responsibility. Dante in DMC4, while retaining the playful nature of his Dante’s Awakening counterpart, went about his mission and operated with a slightly more professional manner and a less hot-headed, more calm and cool attitude (evident in the way he constantly lectures Nero to be less high-strung).
The only thing different between them is the style in which they display their similarities. They have a very different way of talking, dressing, and fighting…but those are mostly synthetic and artificial differences. Letting things get in the way like OG Dante using corny catch-phrases and New Dante using the word “****” is like complaining about the New Sonic having green eyes and longer legs instead of the black beady eyes and plump belly he sported during his Sega Genesis days.
The reason that DMC Dante and DmC Dante are different can’t be just be attributed to where each one was developed, and by who…it’s when. Both interpretations of the character are very much the product of their time. Only in the late 90’s (which is when the character and concept was conceived while in its premature, soon-to-be-cancelled “Meta-Resident Evil 4” state, before some shrieking imbecile reminds me that DMC1 was released in 2001) could a leather-draped, cheesy pun-spewing, simplistic action hero characterized by his massive sword, loner’s confidence and love of pizza could someone like Dante be a successful protagonist that caters to the avid gaming market of the decade. Even DMC3’s Dante mimmicks what was “cool” back in the mid-2000’s—he even spins a demon’s head on his finger like a basketball, head and literally skates on an enemy’s corpse like a pro skater. And DmC Dante? He sports a shorter haircut, is wearing a modern hoodie, and talks and has the mannerisms of your average, modern-day punk attending a British anarchist rock concert. I guarantee you, if Dante had originally been conceived in this day and age, he would have been swearing just as much as the DmC one (which is funny, because he already swears to some degree in both the Kamiya novels and the anime, the latter of which is 100% canon). And it’s not like Hideki Kamiya is the epitome of class and is above vulgar humor…some of the dick-jokes and needless profanities in Bayonetta 2 are enough to make a sailor blush.
(So—so, wait. DmC gets all the flak in the known universe for being immature and spewing profanity, but when the long-coveted Bayonetta 2 turns around and does the exact same thing, with even worse writing and context, and it’s suddenly okay? Your integral DMC fanbase at work, people).
One of the big reasons Dante has been inconsistently portrayed and the subject to numerous personality swaps is to cater to whatever is popular or cool. Capcom repeatedly stated that they wanted Ninja Theory to make a Dante that would be considered “cool” for Western audiences—and that’s the key word here:
“Cool.”
The appeal of Dante isn’t his character—it’s the idea of the character. His original conception was to be a cool, confident character that the player didn’t relate or emotionally invest in, but aspired to be: a protagonist confident and strong enough to combat invincible odds, to make the player the badass in the red coat.Kamiya’s whole idea was to give the player a sense of entitlement, power, and strength…which was the mentality that contrasted with the sense of helplessness and fear characterized by the Resident Evil series, and precisely why Devil May Cry wasn’t fit to be an entry in the series and was made its very own franchise.
THAT is the reason behind Devil May Cry’s entire existence—to fulfill one with a sense of badassery and raw power, the sole appeal of hack-n’-slash games as a genre. Nobody picked up a PS2 controller back in 2001 to play as Dante for his stupid puns and horrible voice-acting, anymore than they upgraded their PC’s to play the latest Duke Nukem game for its “engaging story or compelling character development.” People played it to feel like a death-defying, bullet-dodging, demon-slaying hard-ass. Dante only stopped being a power fantasy in the later games, when Capcom decided to commit one of the stupidest mistakes in their lives (that didn’t involve Mega Man), and actually give the series a story. The emphasis on cinematics in DMC3 and 4, as well as that abysmal attempt at an anime, were very prominent signs that the Staff at Capcom were trying to piece together some kind of tied-together mythos and narrative. Oh, they tried…and they tried hard. And whether they succeeded in that endeavor is entirely subject to debate.
But they were building a lore and a universe, establishing a world and characters…and fans got attached to them, regardless of my or anyone else’s differentiating opinions are on it. So it makes sense as to WHY people were disappointed with the blatant changes in DmC, and I’m not saying they’re wrong for being emotionally attached to the original Dante and universe.
But DmC was still made to fulfill the longtime purpose of the DMC series: to give the players that sense that they were controlling someone “cool.” Dante is still the wise-cracker…he’s still pretentious and snarky in the face of his enemies, and he still boasts the confident swagger and excitement for battle like the old one does.
Of course, from games like Resident Evil 5 and 6, it’s fairly evident that Capcom has a questionable sense of what Western audiences think is “cool” nowadays. Thank the Nine Divines that for whatever fallacies the New Dante and DMC lore suffer from, it still came off as less forced and phoned-in than the characters and premises of THOSE games. Just picture what DmC would’ve been like if Capcom had made the game in-house, and went out of their way to Westernize the game for a North American audience from THEIR point of view.
And the hilariously-ironic thing about that statement is that a lot of DMC’s developers worked on Resident Evil 5 and 6…even the writer and producer of DMC4 and the Anime, Hiroyuki Kobayashi. Kind of funny how that works…
If you hate DmC for all the ‘different’ things it brought to the table, then you can thank Capcom for that. They wanted to make the game different in an attempt to Westernize DMC’s “cool” factor by handing it to another developer. Instead of acting like DmC is the most atrocious, unplayable, horribly-written mess of a game since Shadow the Hedgehog, try leveling your torches and ballista at the people that were actually responsible for changing it in the first place. To them, Dante and Devil May Cry isn’t something to preserve, or loyally portray, or even keep consistent (given how lazily inconsistent Dante’s portrayal has been throughout the series, to say nothing of the convoluted lore)….it’s something to make them money. They don’t love or respect the series nearly as much as their fans or the series’ creator does.
You aren’t alone. I also belong to the small, rapidly-shrinking minority that enjoys both the original series as well as the reboot, and I both defend and recognize the flaws in both….which is problematic, because the apparent, unwritten sin of the DMC fanbase is to recognize ANY flaws with the original series, and even CONSIDER defending the reboot.
No, of course not. That’s why Keiji Inafune said TWO ENTIRE YEARS before Dragon’s Dogma’s release that Devil May Cry 5 would have a “Western feel” to it. There’s no way Capcom actually sat down beforehand and went ahead with DmC as a full decision before choosing a developer suited for the task. That would be something stupid…like, pfft, developing a game, or something…
And that Ninja Theory, oh man…they were the ones who pushed DmC onto Capcom. That’s why they jumped at every darting opportunity to make “Devil May Cry 5, with 5% more improvements” instead of making a full-blown reboot with as much change as possible.
You’re completely right. DmC wasn’t DmC until Ninja Theory was involved...what on earth were those people thinking? They robbed DMC from Capcom and changed EVERYTHING without permission.
So, wait...you're saying that since Dante has physical contact and complete accessibility with the real world while he's trapped in Limbo, when the game makes a point of showing that he can't even touch the normal spaces of the dimension with his Demon Whip unless she sprays her Wiccan Substance on it? You know, when Kat is cornered by a SWAT Team, and she has to hastily spray a microscopic rift for Dante to yank a shelf down on top of him?
And if Dante could physically touch ANYONE in the physical world, much less save them, WHY IN THE UNTOLD SATANIC HORDES OF HELL would he NOT BE ABLE to so much as HOLD KAT'S HAND AND PULL HER TO SAFETY when a SWAT Team bursts into Vergil's Library, and BEATS HER LIKE A BRAZILIAN SOCCER PLAYER BEFORE HIS VERY EYES? You think if he could touch and access anything in the real world without using a rift that Kat creates, he'd let Mundus' forces bruise her like a summer peach instead of rescuing her?
This isn't a matter of being empathic or being a protector--he CAN'T ACCESS the real world while trapped in Limbo. God, man...did you even play that far into the game, or did your nostalgia-scorched eyelids prevent you from seeing anything past the title screen?
Yeah, kind of like the way DMC4 Dante goes back to being his snarky, careless self mere seconds after a dying Credo just dissolves out of his arms...
or how nonchalantly stands on a high cliff and claps his hands like a drooling idiot while innocent people below are just being massacred by an onslaught of demons that just emerged from the recently-opened Hellgate.
Sure, Sanctus's Savior and Angelos fly in to kill off the incoming demons, but did Dante jump in to intervene before they arrived, while Scarecrows and Mephistos paint the Fortuna streets with the blood of women and children? Nope. Not even a grimace, or emphatic reaction. Just smile and clap...
Yeah, you're right. You know how a protector acts?
He doesn't offer a sigh of remorse as he waltzes outside his office, only to find the Teme-ni-gru erected in the middle a colossal wreckage of demolished houses and even a schoolbus. He doesn't search for survivors, or check the rubble for injured, or even---and I'm casually just throwing ideas about, here---finding and protecting surviving humans from the incoming demon hordes, or even get them to safety.
Dante’s always been an ideal protector…that’s why he sits in a dingy office enveloped in pizza boxes and Playboy posters, waiting the humans subjected to any kind of demon menace that are in need of protecting to not only survive said attack, but live long enough to dial a ****ing phone and call him for help in the form of a JOB. Oh, and they need a password, too. Not "help me", or "there's a blood-thirsty demon in my house impaling the arteries of my loved ones on a scythe", no...that's not "stylish" enough. How 'bout something more catchy, like "Devils never cry"?
I'd feel safer living under the protection of a diabolical mass-murderer like Vergil than a dim-whitted putz like Dante, who claims to be devoted to protecting the human race...but only as long as he's contacted by a phone call.
) is so funny. Nice!
