History Characters / DevilMayCryNero

[[center: [- [[Characters/DevilMayCry Main characters index]] | [[Characters/DevilMayCryHeroes Heroes]] ([[Characters/DevilMayCryDante Dante]] | '''Nero''' | [[Characters/DevilMayCryV V]]) | [[Characters/DevilMayCryVillains Villains]] ([[Characters/DevilMayCryVergil Vergil]]) | [[Characters/DevilMayCryOther Other]] | ''Characters/DMCDevilMayCry'']]-]

* LogicalLatecomer: Played up in the final missions of ''5''. [[spoiler:Unlike every other character who have come to view the CainAndAbel rivalry between Dante and Vergil as an inevitable clash of ideologies where one will eventually kill the other, Nero was only introduced to the series with one game prior, so he has no idea who Vergil is and why Dante is so keen on fighting the latter alone. He's eventually told that Vergil is Dante's twin brother and Nero's father, which only makes Nero more conflicted because he's suddenly gone from having no family to having a father and an uncle that want to kill each other. As such, he declares the entire SiblingRivalry between the two a stupid waste of time. He unlocks his own Devil Trigger just to stop their fight and then beats Vergil himself to make them back down and focus on what's more important.]]

* The Un - Reveal: It's currently unknown, who Nero's mother is, what she looks like, her name and if she's still alive or not.
It's unknown, if she abandoned Nero as a baby or not, but if she did abandon him why she did it is unknown.

** Many of Nero's attacks are named after gambling and/or card game terminology such as Roulette Spin, High Roller, Streak, Split, Double Down, Shuffle, Maximum Bet, Showdown, Hard Way, Color Up, and Payline.
** The historic emperor UsefulNotes/{{Nero}} was a poet, just like how Dante and Vergil are respectively named after poets Creator/DanteAlighieri and Creator/{{Virgil}}.

* HeroesPreferFire: Nero wields a FlamingSword as his primary melee weapon.

* MomentKiller: He sets out to do this on purpose at the end of ''5'' [[spoiler:to Vergil. Vergil spends the entire game in his various forms to try and get his greatest duel with Dante and kill him. Vergil finally gets what he wants at the end of the game, but Nero decides to ruin it for him because it's the only way to stop either of them from dying. When Nero blocks the lethal blows, he knocks Dante out of the fight with a cheap shot. Vergil [[OhCrap can be seen losing his composure in the background watching his victory be stolen]], but quickly recovers, desperately grasping for what straws he can by deciding for himself that if he can beat Nero it means he won the duel by default, [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere but at this point, Dante doesn't care who wins anymore]]. Unfortunately for Vergil, this is an extremely poor decision, as the combination of exhaustion from his fight with Dante and Nero's UnstoppableRage just turns him into Nero's punching bag until Vergil gives up]].

* FreakinessShame: Nero's reaction to Kyrie grabbing and holding his Devil Bringer arm at the end of ''4'' shows that he's still quite ashamed of his demonic limb. [[BeYourself She doesn't care about it anyway.]]
-->'''Nero:''' Kyrie... If I'm a demon, and not a human anymore... is this what you want?\\

[[caption-width-right:250:"This baby sure can pack a punch."]]

----

->Joey Lem (''DMC: Peak of Combat'')

->'''Voiced by:''' Creator/JohnnyYongBosch (English, all appearances)

** The Bosch character Nero has the most in common with is Ichigo Kurosaki from ''Manga/{{Bleach}}''. Like Ichigo, Nero is a HotBlooded teenager who fights with a {{BFS}} and has superpowers he inherited from his non-human father. Both characters also oppose villains who dress in white and are led by a man [[BitchInSheepsClothing who is introduced as seemingly benevolent but is revealed to be anything but]] (the Order of the Sword for Nero, Aizen and the Arrancar for Ichigo). [[spoiler:Nero's advanced Devil Trigger in ''[=DMC5=]'' even resembles Ichigo's second Hollow form.]] And finally, both Nero and Ichigo have a [[HeroesWantRedheads red-haired love interest]] who wears a white dress and is voiced by Stephanie Sheh.

* HeroesWantRedheads: His main love interest, Kyrie, is red-headed.

* CoolGun: Blue Rose is a double-barrel over-under revolver where the caliber is about that of the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.500_S%26W_Magnum .500 S&W Magnum]] which shoots out two bullets at once, that he fires usually with one hand. The weapon's [[FlavorText blurb]] says that the 2 bullets of each shot fly one after another; one to penetrate the demons' hides and another to deal the damage (akin to Dante's Ebony & Ivory).

** The DLC-exclusive "Pasta Breaker" Devil Breaker. Its primary function is less as a weapon, and more to aid Nero in eating his pasta. In gameplay, its main attack is the weaker version of Punch Line, and its Break Age move is a weaker version of Overture's. But while weak, the attacks deal a lot of hits and keep the enemy stunned for a few seconds, opening them for his other attacks. It also changes how the Devil Breakers are swapped around.
** The DLC-exclusive "Monkey Business" Devil Breaker. It's a reskin of his Helter Skelter and functions just as similarly, but with a goofy "banana bunch" look and goofier effects during its attacks.

* MechanicallyUnusualFighter: ''[=DMC4=]'' marks the debut of Nero, the first playable character in the [[VideoGame/DevilMayCry series]] who has an emphasis on new mechanics never seen in the prior games, such as the ability to [[EXSpecialAttack enhance his swordplay on-demand]] (Exceed), he's also the first true [[GrappleMove grappler archetype]] of the series thanks to his Buster mechanic, and his [[SuperMode Devil Trigger]] functions differently as it supplements his attacks with extra strikes instead of directly boosting his damage.

** [[ExaggeratedTrope Taken to an extreme]] [[spoiler:if the player manages to defeat Urizen in mission 8, as that causes an early ending and Dante never gets to have a rematch against Urizen. And it can go even further if the player defeats him in the prologue, preventing the entire game from happening.]]

* NoMoreHoldingBackSpeech: A variant in ''5'', as he had already decided on his motives; he was simply declaring it aloud. Having failed to save [[MyGreatestFailure Credo]], Nero is [[spoiler:determined to stop Dante and Vergil, his uncle and father, respectively, from killing one another, and as he declares this, he manages to not only regenerate his lost right arm, but unlock his true Devil Trigger.]]
-->'''Nero''': I couldn't protect Credo. To this day, I hate myself for not having enough strength. But this time is different, I swear! ''I'M NOT LETTING YOU DIE''!!!

* {{Oni}}: While Dante's Devil Trigger makes him look like a Western-styled {{Satan}}, and Vergil's resembles a [[DraconicHumanoid Western Dragon]], Nero's [[spoiler:matured Devil Trigger at the finale of ''5'' makes him look like a Japanese Oni, complete with horns and facepaint.]]

* OutsideContextProblem: Becomes this for [[spoiler: Vergil at the end of ''5''. Vergil has spent so long fighting Dante that when Nero shows up, he's completely blindsided by him. Nero's power-focused fighting style and raw strength are something Vergil's never fought before, which is only compounded by his exhaustion from fighting Dante. The result is that Vergil spends the entire fight being manhandled by Nero, and driven to his knees multiple times.]]

* ParentalAbandonment: Nero was abandoned in Fortuna at an early age by his biological parents, and his adoptive parents end up dying from a demonic attack in his early childhood. Growing up, Nero never met his father, [[spoiler:Vergil]] (they had a brief exchange in [[spoiler:Nero's mind during the ''Deadly Fortune'' novelization when he's activating his Devil Trigger through the Yamato, but Nero doesn't know his relationship to Vergil at that point]]), and his mother's identity is unknown. This situation is later played with in ''5''; [[spoiler:Vergil never knew his visit to Fortuna had resulted in Nero, neither find out about their parent-child relation until the end of the game... and we still don't know anything concrete regarding Nero's mother.]]
* PerpetualPoverty: Nero suffers from this to a lesser extent, as it's mentioned in ''Before the Nightmare'' that he and his lover Kyrie adopted three orphans after the events of ''4'' with what little funds they have going towards them.

* ThePowerOfLove: In ''4'' and ''5'', his desire to protect his loved ones such as Kyrie awakens tremendous power within him. He spells it out at the end of ''4'', claiming that what made Sparda so powerful was that he had a heart that could love others. In the endgame of ''5'', [[spoiler:his desire to keep his father and uncle from killing each other awakens Nero's own full Devil Trigger. As a bonus, he regains his right arm, which is now fully matching the rest of his form, whether human or Devil Trigger.]]

** There is also EX-Act, the ability to gain one Exceed gauge instantly by pressing the Exceed button at the ''exact'' time of a sword attack.
** ''5'' adds more punny names on his Devil Breakers and their abilities if you read them from certain perspectives; "Brake Age" is the general term for his new [[LimitBreak powered moves]] that cause ''breakage'' to the arm when used. "Break Away" allows Nero to ''break away'' from an enemy's attack at the cost of a Devil Breaker literally ''breaking'', the "Punch Line" Devil Breaker deteches the arm to ''punch'' enemies and allows Nero to deliver a powerful [[{{Shoryuken}} uppercut]] as its Break Age, the Ragtime Devil Breaker slows down ''time'', while the Monkey Business Devil Breaker has a ''banana'' motif.
* RageBreakingPoint: Nero was never really calm to begin with and is normally HotBlooded, but whenever something emotionally triggers him enough, he oftentimes let's his anger loose in a more chaotic way. In ''4'', this happens when [[spoiler:he failed to reach Kyrie in Mission 9; Nero is left alone crying and repeatedly punching the ground to vent his rage]].

** In ''5'', he can use the Gerbera Devil Breaker to propel himself to a direction with the recoil from its blast. If done close to an enemy, this can also deal damage. The DLC-exclusive [=GP01=] version allows him to propel himself upward when used in the ground, and straight down when used in the air.
* RedEyesTakeWarning: Nero stares down Agnus with these upon activating his Devil Trigger for the first time in ''4'', complete with ThemeMusicPowerUp, PowerEchoes, BattleAura, and a BadassBoast. It happens again when [[spoiler:Sanctus (who's controlling an Alto Angelo at that time) escapes with Kyrie, leaving Nero to deal with some {{Mooks}} to vent his rage on.]] The red eyes, along with the blue aura and voice distortions, are also applied in-game as hallmark features of Nero's Devil Trigger in ''4''.
* RedOniBlueOni: Nero is meant to be a synthesis of both Dante and Vergil, as evidenced by how his clothes incorporate both brothers' red and blue colors. As for his interactions with other characters; he's angry, brash, cocky and prone to emotional outbursts in ''[=DMC4=]'', so he's a Red for most of the time but with a slight mix of levelheadedness in a few cutscenes. In that game, Dante also spends a boss fight getting Nero to cool off. This trope is continuously zig-zagged in ''[=DMC5=]''. At first, Nero is hot-headed compared to the level-headed Dante, but the plot later on makes Nero play the straight man to larger than life characters like his lackadaisical badass [[spoiler:uncle]] Dante and WrenchWench MadScientist Nico. Notably, his hue of blue is royal blue instead of cyan - he's literally a warmer Vergil. ''5'' shows that Vergil is also a blue counterpart to Nero, although this is only seen in [[spoiler:the final boss fight between the two]]. Lastly, Nero is more aggressive and direct than the calm and thoughtful V.

* TheCameo:
** His ''[=DMC4=]'' version appeared in a [[https://twitter.com/JWonggg/status/1164718928146206721 support card]] in ''VideoGame/{{Teppen|2019}}'' before his ''[=DMC5=]'' version was announced at TGS 2019 as a post-launch hero for that game.
** His ''[=DMC5=]'' version is an event-only character alongside Dante and V in a [[{{Crossover}} collaboration]] with ''VideoGame/ShinMegamiTenseiLiberationDx2'' from March 14, 2019 until April 3, 2019, and later a playable character in ''TEPPEN''.

* IronicEcho: Dante calling Nero "dead weight" after the disastrous first battle with Urizen serves as Nero's biggest motivator throughout the game, desperate to prove himself [[spoiler: due to lingering guilt over failing to save his adoptive brother Credo in the previous game. In the finale, after awakening to his Devil Trigger and intervening in Dante and Vergil's DuelToTheDeath, he cuts off Dante's chewing him out with the same insult (since aforementioned duel was Dante's only solution to the Vergil problem) paired with an OffhandBackhand, then proceeds to kick Vergil's ass to defuse their fatalistic blood feud, resolved that he will NOT lose any more family.]]