YMMV / Devil May Cry 5

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Much like in 4, Nero's battle theme ("Devil Trigger") is pretty easy to misinterpret. Taken up to eleven with its "Tropical Devil Night Remix" which makes the entire song itself sound like porn music. While the lyrics below are sadly missing from this version, "Gotta let it out, Gotta let it out" and other questionable lines are still intact.
    "Devil Trigger" Chorus 1:
    All of these thoughts running through my head.
    Arm on fire, veins burning red.
    Frustration is getting bigger.
    Bang bang bang, pull my Devil Trigger.
  • Players have also interpreted V's Pre-Asskicking One-Liner against the Elder Geryon Knight as an innuendo, mostly because he says it in a calm and slow tone.
    V: I see. I know what you are. Don't worry, I'll be gentle.
• Adorkable: V. His gameplay shows that the air of mystery he presents himself with hides a much sillier side to him. His taunts, in particular, have him playing an air violin, conducting an imaginary orchestra, tap dancing, and performing Singing In The Rain.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • There's a lot of this surrounding V. By a similar token, Vergil is sometimes hit with the same interpretations because V is his human half, especially after he returned following the fusion of V and Urizen. Just how much of V's characterization got retained by Vergil became a matter of debate.
    • V seemed genuinely ashamed of his past actions as Vergil, yet when Dante defeated Urizen, he didn't hesitate to re-merge with it to become whole again. Was his goal the entire time to regain the power he had lost and take revenge on Dante? Was it simply an act of self-preservation to keep himself from crumbling to dust? Perhaps a realization that Vergil's resurrection was a far better outcome than Urizen's machinations being left unchecked? Given V's ultimate fate, we may never get an answer.
    • When V held Sparda to Dante's head in an effort to "wake him up", was he actually going for the killing blow (perhaps in an act of Taking You with Me before turning to dust)? Or was he keeping Dante alive to help defeat Urizen? The latter is often seen as a call-back to DMC3; perhaps his memories as Vergil made him remember that Dante woke up and unlocked his Devil Trigger after he was stabbed with the Rebellion, therefore, stabbing him with the Sparda might unlock a new trump card?
    • Is Vergil a Karma Houdini who regrets nothing and goes unpunished, or did the positive experiences of being V help him to realize just how pointless his lust for power was when Nero beat him soundly? To make it more complicated, V admits and realizes the gravity of his mistakes while pursuing power, but we don't get to hear Vergil himself admit it as well. The fact that he seems pleasantly surprised that Nero is his son, and the gentle way he says Nero's name at the start of their fight make him seem like he's changed his future goals for the better, but he and Dante leave for the Underworld to destroy the Qliphoth immediately afterwards, making it impossible to know for sure.
    • In the Special Edition, Vergil's EX Provocation taunt makes his Doppelganger dance to Dies Irae, causing him to strike it down afterwards. From this interaction, some fans believe that Vergil's Character Development as V helped bring out the wacky side in him just like his twin brother, but by striking down his Doppelganger after it made a funny dance, he's just keeping his stoic persona intact. Others believe that V didn't truly disappear and he's the one taking over the Doppelganger just to make it dance. A third opinion claims that the Doppelganger has a will of its own, separate from Vergil, V, and Urizen.
  • Nero also gets a degree of this. Does he challenge Urizen as revenge for taking his arm? As a way of proving himself to Dante and company? Out of guilt for losing Yamato and enabling a demon invasion? Urizen defeating Dante a month ago suggests he has little chance of winning anyway, so by pressing ahead, is he recklessly overestimating his own power, borderline suicidal, or simply desperate and out of time given the threat Urizen poses? Surprisingly, the game itself almost seems to say yes to all of them, though Nero wanting revenge is portrayed as his initial reason until later on.
  • When Dante awakens his Sin Devil Trigger, what was the change for him? Did he overcome the hatred of his demonic heritage and possible resentment toward Vergil for waking his Devil Trigger in 3, or did he fully embrace his demonic heritage rather than simply accepting it? Did Dante accept the demonic power within, or achieve a perfect balance of his humanity and demonic legacy? The scene stands out as the only example of Dante actively taking action to gain greater power, as the previous examples of gaining power in DMC3 and DMC1 were a result of outside factors, being that Vergil forcefully activating his Devil Trigger with Rebellion, and that the awakening of the Devil Sword Sparda only being possible because Nelo Angelo had half of the perfect amulet, as Dante never sought out his father's power, leading to the question if this action was driven by the desire to save Nero.
  • Did Dante know V was Vergil's human half all along? Some believe he did, explaining his general aversion towards V and why he would let a complete stranger kill Urizen, his brother's demon half, without protest, giving Vergil a chance to make up for his mistakes via his human side. Dante also knew that his brother's Yamato can "separate man from devil", so he might've suspected that Urizen has a human counterpart. This side also explains why he was so angry when Vergil did show up in person, as V betrayed his trust. Alternatively, some believe Dante was completely in the dark, not realising that Vergil's humanity had become personified, or that he doesn't know V and Urizen can still fuse again. Another alternative is that Dante did know and on some level, did want Vergil to be revived after seeing his humanity via V, yet also couldn't reconcile his hatred of Vergil, which is why at the last minute, he tried stopping V despite originally being willing to let him deal the killing blow. He was at odds over the idea and his hatred of Vergil ultimately won out over his desire to see his brother alive again.
• Angst? What Angst?:
  • The story begins with Nero losing an arm, Dante, Trish and Lady defeated and presumed dead, and the world on the brink of destruction. Despite this, Nero bounces back to his usual self within no time at all. He sums up his feelings in one sentence:
    "If Dante's alive, we'll save him. If he's not, we don't."
  • Lady and Trish also are none the worse for wear despite being captured and used as power sources for Urizen's lieutenants, thereby taking active roles in the mass murder of Redgrave City's residents.
• Ass Pull:
  • Dante activating his Sin Devil Trigger comes out of nowhere and just so happens to be the ticket to defeating Urizen. Unlike Nero awakening his own Devil Trigger, it has very little build up, foreshadowing, or emotional payoff. Dante also relied on a guess as he himself doesn't know the full extent of his keepsake sword's powers until he stabbed his chest with it. Fortunately, this new form makes up for it by being awesome.
  • Nero's reasons for deciding to save Vergil also receive little buildup. Rather than realizing his pursuit of revenge is futile and self-destructive (as he was initially fixated on his revenge against Urizen/Vergil ripping off his arm, and lost twice because of it), he instead brings up out of nowhere how it felt to be an orphan with no family and his guilt over not saving Credo in the last game, neither of which were even hinted at previously in this game. These make the opening cutscene of Mission 20 confusing for those who haven't played DMC4.
• Base-Breaking Character: Fans were split on V's origins and story. While the character himself is loved, much to the surprise of the game's creators, people are split on whether or not he should've been his own person rather than an extension of Vergil. Some argue that making him represent a half of a pre-existing character and ultimately die to restore said character is a waste of V's potential, and that more could have been done with him before being discarded. Others believe that V would not be who he is if he wasn't a part of Vergil, as his decisions, actions, personality and motivation are all results of him being a part of Vergil. The latter also argues that everything that made V great has been transferred over to Vergil, that Vergil's character development and growth were results of V being a part of him, and that without their connection, Vergil would never have accepted his humanity.
• Badass Decay: In contrast to their previous appearances, Lady and Trish's combat abilities are never depicted here. While Dante refers to them as "the most badass women in the world", all they do on-screen is get defeated by Urizen and used as living batteries for Artemis and Cavaliere Angelo (rather than fighting you themselves).
• Best Boss Ever:
  • Cavaliere Angelo is a fun boss to parry against, and he can serve as a target practice for the idea that bosses can be parried and staggered in the first place. Mission 11 sells his boss fight well by having Dante mock him if you can consistently parry his moves. The boss's knight theme and moves are also compared to Angelo Credo, someone who's already considered a memorable boss from 4.
  • The boss of Missions 19 and 20. What else would you expect from Vergil himself? Mission 19 is an utterly epic high-stakes Duel to the Death between the sons of Sparda and rewards deliberate, precise play when you dodge Vergil's attacks and hack him up. On the other hand, Mission 20 gives Nero a new Devil Trigger and an automatic regeneration of his Devil Trigger gauge (the latter effect only happens on your first playthrough), allowing you to go to town on him. The music is no slouch either; Mission 19 gets an instrumental piece called "The Duel", while Mission 20 gets an epic techno remix of "Devil Trigger" called "Silver Bullet".
  • For the Special Edition when playing as Vergil, you will fight Dante himself twice as the final boss instead. The first time is a warm up and teaser, getting you used to being on the receiving end of the Legendary Devil Hunter. His second fight though has him going all out, throwing everything he has at you.
• Best Level Ever: Mission 13. One of the few points in the game where all three characters fight in the same part of the level and therefore is the only true fully fledged Co-Op mission in the game. It's so satisfying to play with other players across the globe in a sort of implicit competition to see who can get the highest Style ranking of the three and has many players hoping that future games and potential DLC (like Bloody Palace) will include more Co-Op potential.
• Bragging Rights Option:
  • Just like in 4, Nero's Exceed mechanic is one of the most difficult aspects to master, especially in combos. Being able to activate it on demand to create flashy and extensive combos is one of the greatest hallmarks of a good player. The timing is less strict in this game, which helps newcomers in getting an easier grasp on one of Nero's core mechanics. That said, this mechanic still requires practice as you can't consistently ignite the Red Queen if you just randomly Button Mash.
  • Also just like in 4, Dante is the most complex character as he encourages the player to juggle several mechanics at once (Style Switching/Usage, Gun Swapping, Sword Swapping, and two types of Devil Trigger). This time however, Dante can create custom loadouts that can omit any weapons except his default sword and pistol combination, making him much easier for new players or those who just want simplicity. That said, mastering all of his options makes a Dante player extremely impressive to watch, with the perfect tool for every job on both offense and defense.
• Breather Level:
  • Mission 06, "Steel Impact". The previous two stages were all about V. With this one switching back to Nero, the game gives new players a chance to re-acclimate to how he works by giving him a stage inhabited only by one Breather Boss, which mostly serves to provide a bunch of weak spots to practice moves on and re-learn Grim Grip launch pads.
  • Mission 13, "Three Warriors". Coming right after the lengthy puzzle, exploration, and Urizen boss fight segments in Mission 12, this mission lets you freely choose among the playable characters in order to re-acclimate yourself with their gameplay before tackling on the three lengthy character-specific missions and boss fights after it. This can also be the shortest mission overall because the player can just ignore the enemies and focus on destroying the Qliphoth Blood Clots instead to descend as quickly as possible.
  • Bloody Palace also has a tendency to throw some of these immediately before every 10th level, partially just to ease up before the much harder fight coming up and also to potentially help in building up some Devil Trigger gauge. In some of these levels, the game would spawn mooks such as Qliphoth Roots and Green Empusas that can be easily dispatched, and drop Green Orbs when killed.
• Broken Base: While the game is adored by the fanbase, there are some aspects that have divided fans. Most examples aren't considered large enough to create a Flame War by either side of the argument despite their disagreements, though there are exceptions.
  • Two of the character music themes, while impressive, have been somewhat contentious for fans for various reasons.
    • While Nero's theme, "Devil Trigger" is very well-liked, people are split on if it suits the Devil May Cry series, with some claiming that the new genre of music helps define Nero as a separate character from Dante, while others claim that it's too far from the established power metal musical style of the series.
    • While Dante's theme, "Subhuman", is no longer The Scrappy after Capcom updated it compared to its initial version, it's still a hot topic in the fanbase. The divide is less over whether the song fits the Devil May Cry series and more over if it's a good song at all. One side claims the song is the greatest piece of music in the series, but the other side believes it's the worst song in the series, with its theme somehow betraying the games' central idea that humanity and the ability to care for others is what gives Dante an edge over his enemies.
  • Was the game's lack of puzzles and major platforming sections a good thing or bad thing? Pro-puzzle fans argue that 5 has odd pacing issues compared to the rest of the franchise, mostly because it's a linear gauntlet of enemies with no breaks to change up the gameplay. This leads to the game feeling rather rushed in many areas, such as Dante's return to the Qliphoth basically being a one-way trip through the ruined city that, in-universe, takes less than an hour. Puzzles or more platforming sections would've made this less noticeable. On the other hand, anti-puzzle fans argue that the puzzles in previous games did nothing but cause frustrating diversions; instead of serving as interesting changes of pace, they can take emphasis away from the combat that people play these games for. In addition, the old puzzles were either too simple and obvious, or extremely difficult and irritating.
  • The game has a noticeable aesthetic turn from the Neo-Gothic look of previous games to a more Urban Fantasy style of presentation. Alongside the more realistic visual effects, detailed and photo-realistic character models, and a soundtrack that focuses more on electronic rock over the series' famous heavy metal sound, DMC5 marks a sharp departure from the series' usual look. This has caused a minor divide in the fanbase, with people questioning if this is either DMC losing it's signature style, or an evolution of the franchise altogether.
  • The fact that Vergil's playable version from the Special Edition is still using Beowulf and Force Edge got a mixed reception. Even if Mirage Edge looks like a new variant, it's still obvious that it's just a spectral version of the Force Edge. Some love the classic weapons and expected them to return yet again, but others were disappointed that he's still using the same weapons and largely their same movesets from 3:SE and 4:SE rather than new ones inspired by his time as Urizen and V This is especially egregious in the case of Urizen, since his Bare-Fisted Monk fighting style maps perfectly onto Beowulf, to the point where someone did exactly that (spoilers).
• Captain Obvious Reveal:
  • A late-game one turns into one of these, simply because fans had been speculating on it for so long that confirmation of the theory seemed inevitable. Vergil is Nero's father. This major revelation is mentioned outright in the game, and leaves a strong impact on the characters (especially for Nero who grew up in an orphanage, while Vergil even asks Dante to confirm it during the Final Boss fight). However, this is no longer news for long-time fans of the franchise, especially to those who were aware of the hints scattered throughout the Devil May Cry 4: Deadly Fortune novel which reveals more about Nero's background prior to DMC4, the 3-1-4-2 Graphic Arts art book released several years before 5, and at least one convention panel involving the main voice actors outright confirming that Vergil is Nero's father. Even in DMC4, Dante heavily implied the connection, saying that Yamato belongs "in the family" before telling Nero to keep it. Yes, even before DMC5 was announced, many veteran Devil May Cry fans already knew the identity of Nero's father.
  • While a bit less easy to predict entirely, another late-game reveal is pretty clearly foreshadowed during the game itself. V's identity as Vergil's human half. Every long-time fan knew beforehand that the unsubtly-named V would have to have something to do with the fan favorite Vergil, considering Dan Southworth had already been known to be voice-acting for the game. By this same logic, it was also obvious that Urizen is Vergil's demon half because some fans found out that speeding up Urizen's voice lines in the early trailers made him sound like Dan Southworth's portrayal of Vergil.
  • The early trailers try to keep the identity of the hooded assailant who tore off Nero's Devil Bringer as a mystery. But to some long-time fans, it was already obvious that the hooded guy is Vergil, because he was wearing a similar dark hooded cloak in 4:SE. By checking the garage scene in a frame-by-frame basis and adjusting the brightness and contrast, fans quickly figured out that the guy is indeed Vergil because he has a pale white skin and blue veins all over his face similar to his unmasked appearance as Nelo Angelo, and his arm guard has a familiar design just like his previous appearances.
• Catharsis Factor: After getting your ass kicked brutally by Urizen, no less than 3 times while playing as Nero and even Dante, it surely feels awesome when Dante unlocks the Sin Devil Trigger, and it's suddenly you decimating Urizen. To give it a scale, Nero took one whole boss battle to destroy his crystal weapon, but Dante in his SDT form, destroys the very same weapon in just one combo move.
• Cheese Strategy:
  • If you're having trouble defeating bosses as Dante, just beat them up until they're reeling, then activate Devil Trigger while fully-charging Dr. Faust's Red Hot Night move from Gunslinger Style. Even if the boss starts moving and attacking before you finish it, Devil Trigger will make you Immune to Flinching while charging it and the full potential damage of Red Hot Night boosted with Devil Trigger will kill any boss by that point. It's not a guarantee for an SSS rank in the boss fights, but it's a pretty easy way to defeat them comfortably.
  • Unlike the previous games, Gold Orbs are no longer capped to three and can be acquired for free just by logging in daily, so dying over and over isn't a problem if you've stockpiled a lot of Gold Orbs beforehand. If you ran out of Gold Orbs, you can still revive if you farmed a lot of spare Red Orbs. The game tries to discourage you from abusing the Red Orb revival methods because their prices go up for each consecutive revive, much more so on higher difficulties. However, picking the third Red Orb revival choice (which is usually the most expensive) also creates a flash that takes away 50% of the enemies' current health aside from refilling your entire health bar. By just having a lot of spare Red Orbs, this Comeback Mechanic has been used to cheese even the hardest boss fights.
  • Compared to 4, Nero's Blue Rose packs more punch in this game thanks to its Color Up mechanic which deals substantial damage per shot even on higher difficulties, is easy to execute, can be refilled when you're performing another action, and becomes more useful when Nero recovers his demonic powers as it supplements his Charge Shots. Spamming Color Up to cheese most bosses from a distance is considered a boring and non-spectacular strategy, but it can work if you're having a hard time at melee combat.
• Common Knowledge:
  • V's familiars Shadow, Griffon and Nightmare look like, and have similar abilities as the original demons Dante defeated back in the first game, so they are mostly believed to be those exact same demons, just re-incarnated. This idea started spreading as early as V's initial trailers on 2018, back when the fanbase still had little context on why they "returned". However, this game actually reveals them to be Literal Split Personalities; manifestations of Vergil's trauma from his time as Nelo Angelo. While there's an in-game remark from Nico's Report pointing out the resemblance between V's Griffon and a demon in the past, Nico merely brushes off the similarities as a coincidence. It got to the point where both the Devil May Cry Wiki and this wiki had to separate the Shadow, Griffon and Nightmare familiars from their original counterparts in order to minimize further confusion.
  • This Vergil combo video clip by player SunhiLegend became viral on the Internet as soon as it was used in the "Vergil Status" memes since early 2022. Although the memes helped attract newcomers to the series, there was then a misconception that claims the clip was a "cinematic" or a "cutscene". Veteran DMC fans would then remind that the clip is an actual gameplay footage of the possible combos that you can do with Vergil, even if the clip itself used some game mods.
  • Not everyone realizes that the memes about Vergil sitting in a white plastic chair near the edge of the arena are all due to a mod. In the actual game, he sits in a black demonic chair connected to the Qliphoth. On platforms like Reddit and YouTube, some newcomers even admitted that they thought the white plastic chair scene was "canon", only to be corrected by other fans saying that it's simply a fan-made model swap that has quickly gone viral.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • Nero players will most likely have a Buster Arm Devil Breaker or spares of it on hand in order to deal massive damage to a vulnerable target. Even if Nero regains his original Devil Bringer and its Buster move on subsequent playthroughs, the Buster Arm's Super Buster still deals way more damage than the former. The Super Buster is also the most recommended or most popular attack against the extremely fast Furies, especially when combined with the Ragtime Devil Breaker's Slow World move.
  • An example carried over from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening - During the boss fights against Vergil, players would usually activate their Devil Trigger only when Vergil has just activated his, mostly to level the playing field because Vergil hits harder and is Immune to Flinching while it's active. Likewise, players deactivate theirs as soon as Vergil reverts back to his human form. You often see this tactic a lot in combo showcases and Let's Play videos.
• Continuity Lock-Out:
  • DMC5 is filled with franchise-wide references, nods and Call Backs to the previous games, the novels, the anime, and even the Alternate Continuity DmC, while its main story assumes that the player already has a general knowledge of the classic DMC continuity. There's a Previously on… segment to help series newcomers catch up with the lore, but it doesn't cover everything in great detail.
  • Almost everything written under Older Than They Think are also results of this trope, such as a newcomer's misconception that Dante's Sin Devil Trigger is an entirely new concept introduced by this game, but it actually existed way back in DMC2 as the "Majin Form".
  • In the last mission, Nero monologues his guilt over his inability to save Credo in the previous game. This scene can either be a tear-jerking or nostaglic moment for those who already played DMC4, but it can also come off as a sudden revelation to series newcomers who started with DMC5.
  • This trope is also the reason for why series veterans already knew that Vergil is Nero's father since it was hinted and/or confirmed way back DMC4 and its side materials even before DMC5 was released, while series newcomers were surprised at this revelation.
  • Several plot points not mentioned in the previous games are only briefly brought up in the Library section of this game (e.g. how Nero and Kyrie met Nico, or how Dante already has Balrog equipped from the start of this game's story). These are actually covered in greater detail by the Before the Nightmare prequel Light Novel. Unfortunately, the novel was never released outside of Japan, so the rest of the fanbase had to wait for translations in order to fully understand what's going on with the timeline. And as pointed out by this video, the novel explains how the nearly decades-long "ART WARKS" spelling mistake on Dante's Ebony & Ivory handguns finally got fixed to "ART WORKS", which is reflected by the guns' updated in-game models. Missing out on this detail from the novel can cause the player to believe that the misspelling was "magically fixed" out of nowhere when there's actually an in-universe justification for the change.
• Creator Worship: Producer Matt Walker has been seen as a godsend for his approachability and sincerity with the fanbase online as well as reasonable responses to fan concerns, his professionalism and love of the franchise coming through in every interview. It's common for fans to state that this is how Ninja Theory should have handled PR instead of arrogantly flipping off anyone who was disgruntled and then expecting DmC to sell well regardless.
• Crosses the Line Twice: In Special Edition, one of Vergil's taunts has him turn the Yamato back into Nero's Devil Bringer!!
• Cry for the Devil: When we get some of V's backstory, it's revealed that he is dying and is the incarnation of Vergil's cast-off humanity. All he wanted was to be protected and loved. As he is a part of Vergil, it means that this was the case with the latter as well. Vergil feeling abandoned by his family was what convinced him to abandon his humanity in the first place.
• Demonic Spiders: The Fury. Unlike its Teleport Spamming cousin Blitz from 4, it doesn't have an electrical barrier to prevent you from attacking it, but its Teleport Spam is cranked up to eleven especially when it Turns Red. In addition, its attacks pack quite a punch. Good luck in dodging its attacks and hitting it back, especially with Nero and V who have limited evasion options compared to Dante.
• Difficulty Spike: Bloody Palace gradually increases in difficulty the higher you go, but on Floor 80 onwards, the mode will adapt the Dante Must Die difficulty without warning and all enemies will gain access to a Devil Trigger state if you don't kill them fast enough.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The wounded soldier Nero talks to, nicknamed by Nero and summarily dubbed by the fanbase as "Crew Cut", is inexplicably popular as soon as the trailers arrived. It probably has something to do with him being a normal person caught in the madness of demon invasions common in Devil May Cry, becoming an Audience Surrogate in the process. Fans were enthralled to see him alive in the background of a gameplay sequence in the Gamescom trailer. The TGS trailer further alluded to him, with Nico referring to a "Soldier Boy" who told her that the city's Hell on Earth problem is spreading. In the game itself, he only shows up in Mission 1 (whether or not he's kicking after that is up in the air), but it didn't stop players from modding him over Nero or Dante's models in an attempt to make "Crew Cut" playable.
• Esoteric Happy Ending: The joke ending that happens if Nero managed to defeat Urizen is meant to be an unambiguously happy one where "everyone lived Happily Ever After", except that without his demonic essence, V's body would eventually crumble and die. It also retroactively means that without both sides of himself, Vergil would have been Killed Off for Real and will never return back from death. But on the bright side, that does mean innumerable people in Red Grave City will be spared from the ensuing massacre.
• Estrogen Brigade: While the franchise already had an existing female fanbase thanks to having attractive male characters, this game added one more to that list by introducing V. Even the series director himself, Hideaki Itsuno was surprised that "V is quite popular with girls", because it was something that he didn't intentionally "aim" for, but he still acknowledged V's popularity, regardless.
• Even Better Sequel: The game has received universal praise among critics and fans alike, more so than the previous numbered installment, and going toe-to-toe with Devil May Cry 3 as the top entry of the series. Common points of praise are the game's new additions to Dante and Nero's movesets, the interesting (if a little cumbersome) playstyle of V, the beautiful graphics brought by the RE Engine, and the level design that trims the fat of the previous Devil May Cry games to good effect.
• Event-Obscuring Camera: Some fights against gigantic bosses are made more challenging because of the camera angles, especially when you're locked-on. It's more prevalent in this game than in the previous games because the camera here would always face and focus on the boss, so your character can be off-screen when fighting Nidhogg, or the camera would look down when you're jumping near Urizen during his third boss fight.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • The primary antagonist, Urizen, got quite a bit of love for his display of power in the trailers, most notably breaking Rebellion and absolutely decimating the heroes effortlessly. Surprise, surprise. He's Vergil!
  • Of course, full-power Vergil with his badass Sin Devil Trigger, mastery of the katana and stoicism still make him cool like he did in the previous games.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • Though the debates are mostly focused on the lore and story, one brewed with DmC: Devil May Cry because Capcom went back to the original continuity rather than continuing the reboot's storyline.
  • Comparisons and debates between Devil May Cry and God of War already happened before, but the most strutted examples surfaced a decade later because gamers have been comparing God of War (PS4) and Devil May Cry 5. It's still heavily-debated on which game has a better combat system or story. The public or critical reception of both only fueled the fire, as GoW had a higher Metacritic score than DMC5 and it won Game of the Year on 2018 when the latter won a more specific Action Game of the Year on 2019.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • Even if the final cutscene shows that Dante and Vergil are still fighting demons in the Underworld, some of the main menu cutscenes unlocked after beating the game depict them relaxing in the Devil May Cry van, implying that they might eventually return to the Human World and spend time with the other characters as a whole family. In fanworks, these cutscenes attract several Slice of Life possibilities wherein Dante is usually imagined as a Memetic Troll who would annoy his brother, while Vergil is usually imagined as a socially-awkward father who tries to bond with his son Nero to make up for lost time.
  • Nero took offense to the "dead weight" remark several times in the game, so fanworks like to focus on this specific trend by having the other characters (usually Dante) continue to mock Nero as a "dead weight" even if the demon invasion is already over.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • What exactly happened to Vergil after his final defeat as Nelo Angelo but prior to appearing at Nero's garage?
  • Although the Visions of V and Before the Nightmare spin-offs already covered some backstory and lore that aren't shown in-game, some fanworks like to imagine expanded backstories and prequels that focus on miscellaneous stuff that the protagonists were up to before the demon invasion, such as the day-to-day life of Nero, Kyrie and Nico in their home/garage when they're not occupied with the Devil May Cry business.
  • This game finally confirms on-screen that Nero is Vergil's son, so Backstory fanworks surrounding Nero's infancy are common. These fanworks also take and expand some details mentioned in DMC4 and its Deadly Fortune spin-off, alongside the popular fanon wherein Nero's mother might be the red-clad woman from Vergil's opening cutscene in 4:SE.
• Fan Nickname: See here.
• Fanon:
  • Many fanfic continuations have V continuing to exist in Vergil's mind as the physical embodiment of his conscience. When the Special Edition reveal trailer shows Vergil summoning V and his familiars again with his "World of V" attack, some players consider it as a nod to those fanfics.
  • A common fan theory mentions that Nero saw Dante as a father-figure or a mentor-figure. He probably looks up to Dante, which is why he's so affected when Dante suddenly called him "dead weight" despite their last friendly interactions from DMC4. In this game, the most likely reason for the "dead weight" comment is that Dante and V felt Nero is too weak against Urizen because he lost his demonic powers, but someone had to be harsh in telling Nero about it even if the latter is offended. This theory also tries to justify Nero's reactions; Dante was the only remaining male adult who's in good terms with him by the end of DMC4 and a dialogue against the final boss of this game hints that he was seeking acknowledgement for his capabilities. When this game revealed that Vergil is Nero's father, some fans say that it doesn't contradict this theory because it still means that the two brothers are equally-important family members to Nero; he accepts Vergil as his father, and he probably views his uncle Dante like a father.
• Fountain of Memes:
  • Ever since it was shown at Microsoft's E3 2018 conference, the announcement trailer alone brought more memes to the DMC franchise, as seen on the meme subpage. Nero's lines and especially the lyrics of his "Devil Trigger" song are the commonly-quoted things when the hype for this game was still fresh.
  • Come The Reveal and Vergil became the DMC5 character whom most of the memes are quoted from. Though it was expected by some fans because Vergil was already a fountain of memetic quotes since DMC3, it's partly because this game made his quotes spread further to other related fandoms. It was more noticeable after the game's Special Edition arrived with "Bury the Light", Vergil's theme song. From 2020 onwards, the song's lyrics such as "I AM THE STORM THAT IS APPROACHING!" get brought up easily when someone talks about anything that reminds them of Vergil.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • There seems to be some crossover between Doom Eternal and Devil May Cry 5 fans. There is quite a bit of fanart portraying Dante and Doomslayer as friends.
  • Devil May Cry 5 fans also blend well with Sonic Frontiers fans, as, alongside Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, all three games are linked through the addition of extremely hype "status songs" for phenomenal boss fights^note  Devil May Cry has "Devil Trigger" and "Bury the Light", Metal Gear has "Rules of Nature" and "The Only Thing I Know For Real" and Sonic has either "Undefeatable" or "Find Your Flame", opinions vary. To that end, fanart of Jetstream Sam, Vergil and Super Sonic being friends has made the rounds.
• Game-Breaker:
  • While it is tedious, there's a fast Red Orb farming method if you want to easily max out on everything you think you can get away with.
  • Quadruple S is probably Dante's single strongest skill. It allows you to temporarily enter SDT for a short amount of time with none of the gauge being drained, unless you choose to remain in SDT for more than 3 or 4 seconds. This is long enough to get off one of SDT's exceptionally powerful AoE combos, which can deal massive damage to everything and can be crazy helpful for Dante Must Die. However, it requires you to be at a SSS Style Rank when you activate it, which can be tricky for new players or people playing the harder difficulties. Skilled players, however, can absolutely decimate the battlefield with this, and lock down anyone who comes near them.
  • The Devil Sword Dante might not seem like this at first, but the weapon has so many incredibly insane mechanics that it firmly rests here. For starters, Dante's movelist gets significant upgrades while wielding this weapon; his Swordmaster Aerial Rave on Rebellion and Sparda becomes his default air-sword combo, while Prop Shredder gets naturally integrated into his moveset. Not only does this increase Dante's versatility in the air, but it also makes way for the deadly Swords Formation technique. Dante's new Swordmaster movelist involves him sending out summoned swords ala Vergil, allowing you to extend combos and provide attacks at long-range. He can even throw out a Round Trip using these summoned swords that still allows him to keep using the Devil Sword Dante, making the weapon a solid crowd control tool. By spending two bars of Devil Trigger gauge, Dante can cause these swords to assist him in battle for a short period of time, with each Style gaining their own use of the swords; Gunslinger fires them out as automatic enemy-seeking missiles, Trickster increases Dante's movement even further (including allowing him to triple jump and Air Trick twice in a row), and Royalguard improves DT generation per block and reduces incoming damage. Swordmaster also gains some added utility by causing the blades to mimic Dante's strikes regardless of what weapon is currently equipped, effectively allowing him to hit twice per attack while the buff is active. The blades also change for every single one of Dante's attacks, almost always providing him with some kind of useful utility for the move, like holding enemies in place for Rising Dragon. What makes this so effective is that thanks to the style being generated in using Swords Formation, it's very easy to recoup the DT gauge spent to activate the ability and thus continually use it over and over. All of this adds up to a weapon that, in the right hands, doubles Dante's damage and causes him to generate massive amounts of style points while decimating anything that comes near him. What keeps it from completely breaking the game is that Damn You, Muscle Memory! is in full effect while using it and the weapon's most sophisticated tricks are Difficult, but Awesome to effectively pull off.
  • Nero's Knuckle Bringer skill allows him to reset an enemy's knockback and hit-stun during a combo. While this sounds simple, the move has a huge number of opportunities for comboing, and judicious use could theoretically allow you to juggle someone forever. This move is so strong that it's only available during New Game Plus, and actually using it can be hell on the fingers.
  • Dr. Faust's Red Hot Night move is a powerful attack that summons Red Orb meteorites to drop on Dante's enemies. Normally, it's a pretty devastating move, but the fully charged version can one-shot even bosses. The only catch is that you need an outrageous amount of Red Orbs to use the full potential of this attack.
  • The game's Online components give out Gold Orbs (extra lives, essentially) like candy, even if it's only by starting the game up. It's pretty common to have about 20 lives in stock, making it relatively easy to brute force through the game if you don't care about your rank.
  • An often overlooked but frighteningly powerful Gunslinger move is the Double Kalina Ann's "Mega Cascade" attack. It's wholly impractical to bust out in the middle of combat due to its insane wind up time, but if charged up while demons are still coming out of their portals, it will result in them meeting a massive, continuous laser blast with kickback so intense that not even Dante can fully control it. The ability will not only make short work of shields and chew though health bars, but place it well and it will likely get Dante up to an S rank from nothing, giving him a head start on getting him into a position to use Quadruple S. Dante will even snark after doing it.
    Dante: Don't try that at home, kids!
  • Vergil in 5:SE or as DLC for last gen consoles/PC. Despite the nerfs to his Concentration gauge in how fast it builds up and how much is lost upon being hit, it's still very easy to build up a lot of Concentration just by walking around and Tricking towards enemies. As long as the player is mindful of their Concertation Gauge, Vergil's attacks will do massive amounts of damage very quickly, and the addition of frame-perfect Judgement Cut chains means that you can apply damage from all ranges. While Vergil has lost his standard Devil Trigger and replaced it with Doppelganger, many would argue this is actually a straight upgrade, since Doppelganger further boosts Vergil's own already-impressive damage output and can be used as an efficient source of crowd control. His "World of V" skill also allows him to instantly recover some health, have a brief moment of invulnerability, and deal some respectable damage, all at the cost of his Concentration Gauge being emptied. But as already mentioned, it's still easy to recover Concentration in this game, which makes his "World of V" skill spammable and efficient even on the harder modes. To seal the deal, the developers gave Vergil not one, not two, but three different kinds of Limit Breaks that all draw from his Sin Devil Trigger gauge. Judgement Cut End will eradicate almost everything onscreen after a short charge window, Hell on Earth is a powerful boss-killer, and Deep Stinger lasts for a long time, builds a ton of Style, and makes you completely invincible for the entire duration of the move. The only things limiting him from trashing the entire game is that playing him efficiently makes him Difficult, but Awesome, and that his mobility is limited if enemies can block his Mirage Blades, which are necessary to successfully Trick him towards opponents. It says something that the most common complaint about him is that you only really get to enjoy him on Son of Sparda and above, because he kills everything too fast on lower difficulty levels. True power indeed.
• Goddamned Bats: Green Empusas are squishy but they heal other demon types, so you'd most likely want to Shoot the Medic First when they are around; otherwise, they can undo all the damage you did to a target if they aren't quickly killed. Unfortunately on higher difficulty modes and Bloody Palace stages, they come in swarms and usually focus their healing on the strongest demon in the field, which can make fights against Queen Empusas harder than usual. Fortunately, Green Empusas will never heal other Green Empusas, so the game still ensures that you can pick them off no matter their number.
• Good Bad Bugs: When playing as Vergil in the Special Edition, his Doppelganger clone might not despawn properly on rare and random occasions, which includes having Vergil's DT gauge emptied when he uses his "World of V" skill. The transparent blue clone would overlap with Vergil's character model but won't mimick his movements and gets stuck on its idle standing animation or basic jumping animation instead. Accumulating at least three DT bars to summon the Doppelganger again fixes it out of this glitch.
• Harsher in Hindsight: When Dante's boss battle with Cavaliere Angelo was shown off by IGN, the cutscene after the battle showed V tripping up trying to catch up to Dante, making some people chuckle and think that V is arthritic. This scene becomes less humorous when the game makes it apparent that V starts falling apart bit by bit at this point.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Devil May Cry 4, released in 2008, ends with one scene where Nero asks Dante if they will meet again, to which Dante replies with a hand wave as he departs. 10 years later, Devil May Cry 5 was announced which features both devil hunters and a third new one who turns out to be the human side of Dante's brother and Nero's father.
  • Also from 4, Credo's final moments has him requesting Dante to save Nero and Kyrie, an act that can be interpreted as a desire to save a family member. Near the end of 5, Nero recalls the pain of him and Kyrie losing Credo (whom Nero treated as a brother). This memory of Credo's death once again urged a kin of Sparda to save his family, as it serves as Nero's final motivation to stop the Sibling Rivalry between Dante and Vergil.
  • Trish stopping V from falling despite knowing his real identity is already heartwarming on its own, but one could also say that, in a way, Eva saved Vergil after all.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • One of the announcements made at Microsoft's E3 2014 press conference was Scalebound, a now-cancelled game that was developed by PlatinumGames and featured a protagonist named Drew who was more or less inspired by Nero. Fast-forward to E3 2018, and not only does 5 get announced at the same company's conference, but the game features Nero with a new appearance and hairstyle that resembles that of Drew.
  • Parts of this game are downright hysterical when viewed in the context of the 2013 reboot:
    • DmC: Devil May Cry's Dante has some of Nero's characteristics; being a young, rebellious, hotheaded devil hunter who gets Character Development throughout his game and even has some of his moves. Here, Nero looks like a recolored version of him fitted with a mechanical right arm, a possibly well-intended nod to the reboot.
    • Because the reboot had been controversial among fans of the classic continuity since its trailers were released in 2010, said fans have been hoping for a true sequel to the numbered series. This caused a long-running hype in the Internet. In light of 5's existence, some even wondered if releasing DmC was a business strategy or "publicity stunt" by Capcom to increase the hype not only for this game, but the online exposure of the whole Devil May Cry franchise as well.
    • At the infamous DmC presentation event at GDC 2013, the art director for the game, Alessandro Taini, in the midst of the topic of his belief that the original Dante was "too flamboyant", said he tried to imagine the original Dante in a Western movie, and the result was Brokeback Mountain. Five years later at NYCC 2018, one of Dante's new weapons revealed at the event is Dr. Faust, a demonic cowboy hat that uses Red Orbs as ammo. Fast forward to this game's release, and cue Dante performing a very flamboyant, Michael Jackson-esque dance in Dr. Faust's introduction cutscene.
    • Remember the infamous Cluster F-Bomb exchange between Dante and Poison in DmC? Well, not only does Nero look like him in this game, but when Nero says it, it activates his Devil Trigger in his fight against Vergil and signifies that Nero means business!
    • The reboot began with Dante and Vergil reforging the brotherly bond that had been missing since they were kids and working together to stop the Big Bad through much of the game's story, only to end with the two becoming enemies due to the tragic results of Vergil's resentment and ambition. Here, Dante and Vergil both start off the game as enemies and work together to stop the Big Bad through much of the game's story simultaneously due to the tragic results of Vergil's resentment and ambition, and end the game reforging the brotherly bond that had been missing since they were kids. In general, the whole idea that the utterly divisive attempt at a Continuity Reboot concluded with Vergil's Downfall and the much-beloved return of the original series ends with the course-correction of Vergil's character. Come the Special Edition, the chorus of "Bury the Light" sums it up best:
      "I am reclaimer of my name!"
  • In 4, Dante calls Sanctus an "old fart" during the latter's orchestrated demon invasion to be Fortuna's "savior" and makes fun of his old age during their encounter. In 5, he has aged radically and fans are making fun of it.
  • One of the most memetic and narmy cutscenes in 4 is "Agnus Redux", where Agnus and Dante do an over-the-top Shakespearean performance by exchanging hammy theatrical quotes in the style of Hamlet, accompanied by dramatic lighting effects. 11 years later, Dante performs a Michael Jackson-style performance in front of Nico, with colorful stage lighting. He just entertained the father and the daughter with a "classic" and a "modern" performance, respectively.
  • 5 was developed with the RE Engine, the same game engine that was used for Resident Evil 7: Biohazard and Resident Evil 2 (Remake) which was released before this game. Now remember when the whole Devil May Cry series was born from Resident Evil 4's first prototype? It even gets hilarious as in RE7 one of the bosses, Jack Baker, wields a pair of chainsaws modified into a pair of chainsaw shears. Here, Cool Old Guy Dante has Cavaliere, a motorcycle Devil Arm that can be split into a pair of giant chainsaws.
  • The fact that Nero can use the Mega Buster becomes this when one remembers his voice actor provides the voice of Zero. Even more hilarious is that Zero also had an arm cannon but forewent using it to make him distinct from a gameplay standpoint until Mega Man Zero, where he used a sword and gun interchangeably, and that the first game Bosch voiced Zero in had him visit the world of Mega Man Zero and quip (albeit without any voice clips) "I'm Zero, not Mega Man Zero." In addition, Zero's DLC costume in Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 is Mega Man X.
  • The Mega Buster is even funny outside of a Mega Man context; one of Dante's biggest influences is famous for having an Arm Cannon, yet it's Dante's protege Nero who gets one instead. Even funnier, when Nero regrows his arm, Nico redesigns her Devil Breaker to fit over his new arm, which is essentially the inverse of what Cobra does (a prosthetic left arm that hides his Psychogun).
  • Before he was officially revealed, the only indicator of V's appearance was his enigmatic back shot from the poster with dark hair and longcoat, leading many to compare him with Noctis from Final Fantasy XV. When V's appearance was officially revealed in the TGS trailer, many were disappointed that he did not resemble Noct at all, but instead bizarrely, Kylo Ren. However, V's playstyle showcased later in the TGA trailer turned out to be startlingly reminiscent of Noctis's, making use of summons of both creatures and weapons, mixed with in some Teleport Spam to get sneak attacks in.
  • When "Subhuman" was released, it was criticised, among other things, for being advertised and considered more fitting for the reboot Dante more than the classic Dante whom it was made for. Upon release, it's been noted that the song once again fits another character, this time being Vergil, with the focus on "Omega" as Vergil's title is "The Alpha and the Omega", being "Subhuman" reflecting how he always considered his humanity to be a weakness and would be proud of being less than human, and "You cannot kill me" reflecting the character's Joker Immunity. This led to further jokes that the composer had no idea who they were writing a theme for.
  • In the Special Edition of 4, Trish has a move called "V Divider". It's quite an interesting attack name at first, but in this game, V and Urizen are the human and demon halves of Vergil. In other words, Vergil is divided in two.
  • One of the more famous parody images for Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening was an edit◊ of the poster for The Santa Clause 3 with Martin Short's Jack Frost in Vergil's position. Come the announcement trailer for this game, and many have joked about Nero looking like Jack Frost from Rise of the Guardians. Like father, like son.
  • This is not the first time a protagonist played by Bosch had as his final opponent a villain played by Southworth.
  • Way back in the day, during the playthrough of the DMC series on Yo Videogames, Max jokes that Kyrie's gift to Nero is going to begin vibrating due to the box having a mysterious length. As it turns out, Max accidentally predicted the Sweet Surrender arm.
  • For most of the series, despite being voiced by a former Power Ranger, Vergil behaved more like the Japanese counterpart of his previous character, who did not have as much redeeming qualities as Eric and was more blatantly opportunistic and power-hungry. And then after he's beaten and travels to the underworld with Dante, he gains a friendly rivalry and dynamic not unlike Eric has with his former bitter rival Wes at the end of the show and beyond.
  • Before this game came out, a death metal band named Bury the Light made a song called "Deadweight".
  • Whether out of pure coincidence or perhaps Itsuno looked to the series as inspiration, it's amusing to see that the Branwen family in RWBY predicted the same Big, Screwed-Up Family dynamics as the Sparda family here, with Yang being a hot-blooded Demon Slaying Cyborg who lost her arm to a known katana-user (like Nero), Qrow being the Cool Uncle who feels he's Blessed with Suck and can't bring himself to form any meaningful connections with anyone because of it (like Dante), and Raven being the Aloof twin of Qrow and the missing parent of Yang, who uses a Dimensional Cutter katana, using a Freudian Excuse as a means to secure more power, hiding how broken she really is inside and constantly remains at odds with Qrow due to their opposing worldviews (like Vergil).
• I Knew It!:
  • Interview excerpts from the 3142 Graphic Arts artbook hinted at direct a sequel to DMC4, such as page 211 where the series' scenario writer, Bingo Morihashi, said he wanted to utilize Nero again as the star of a hypothetical DMC5 game. This just fueled the fans' expectations, and is confirmed years later when the game is finally revealed.
  • Rumors of a new DMC game in development began when it was reported that Hideaki Itsuno, director of the mainline games since 2, was working on an unnamed project. This was fueled further by a picture of Reuben Langdon and Johnny Yong Bosch in motion capture suits.
  • The HD Collection being re-released on 2018 (6 years after its initial release) led to speculations of Capcom drumming up interest for something DMC-related on E3 2018. The collection consisting of the first three games from the original continuity also convinced fans that Devil May Cry 5 would be announced soon as a return to the classic games' lore. These were proven true, as DMC5 was indeed announced on E3 2018.
  • Vergil's back and V was his human half? Quick, everyone pretend to look shocked.
  • Some fans noticed that Urizen sounded a lot like a digitally-modified or slowed-down version of Vergil, leading to speculation that the two were related in some way. This was ultimately proven correct.
  • Fans called Nico being Agnus's daughter the second Capcom released her character bio.
  • Granted, it's not like there was a lot of debate on the subject from Devil May Cry fans, but the late-game reveal that Nero is Vergil's son (and by the same token, Dante's nephew) didn't exactly catch many people off-guard.
  • It was easily guessed that Vergil is going to be Promoted to Playable in a Special Edition of this game because it already happened on both DMC3:SE and DMC4:SE. Surprise, surprise, there's a pattern now.
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • While very few players would complain that the final boss is Vergil again, some were annoyed by the fight playing rather similarly to the fight with him at the end of DMC3. He has gained some new moves, but most of his skillset is the same as the last time Dante properly fought him instead of having a brand new skillset to deal with.
  • Though this topic led to a Broken Base, some fans were disappointed that the Special Edition's playable Vergil still uses the same three weapons he used in the Special Editions of 3 and 4 instead of having new weapons that could've represented his time as V and Urizen. He has a newly-named "Mirage Edge" sword, but it doesn't fool anyone as it's just a spectral version of the Force Edge.
  • In a straighter example, many were disappointed to find out that Vergil's final boss in Bloody Palace is still Vergil, considering that he gets a unique boss battle against Dante in Story Mode and never gets to face off against Nero.
• Les Yay: Nico comments that Lady has a "smoking hot body" (not that she was looking or anything). Likewise, in the prequel novel, Nico thinks Kyrie is so beautiful she's a rare sight.
• Like You Would Really Do It: The game ends with Dante and Vergil taking a One-Way Trip to the Underworld to seal the portal that threatens to overrun the human world. Nero is left to guard the human world alone, and Lady and Trish begin working at Devil May Cry after Dante has been missing for weeks. Though this game was also advertised as the Grand Finale of the "Sons of Sparda" storyline, fans are doubtful that Dante and Vergil are really gone, especially since both of them had been seemingly trapped in the Underworld before but found their way back.
• Magnificent Bastard: V, the human half of Vergil, is a charming, William Blake-poetry loving man with a penchant for getting people to do what he wants even when they are suspicious of him. Introduced in the prequel novel having mugged a man to hire Dante, V seeks to defeat the Demon King he has dubbed "Urizen" while secretly planning to merge with him when he is beaten. V falls back on numerous insurance policies when things don't go his way, namely bringing Nero to back up Dante against Urizen and seeking the Devil Sword Sparda as a trump card. Persevering even as his body falls apart, V has Nero bring him to Urizen as his dying request, succeeding in his plan and "recompleting" Vergil, being more than happy to kill (or be killed by) his brother Dante in one last duel. While often ruthless in his plans, V is genuinely remorseful over his past actions and develops into a better person by the end of the game.
• Memetic Badass:
  • Due to its ability to somehow be everywhere and not be damaged, Nico's van is considered the toughest thing in the Devil May Cry universe. Some people have even speculated that it's a Devil Arm.
  • With the Special Edition, Vergil's power is associated as the absurd cause of some external events, so there were jokes about him being so powerful, he's never playable in a vanilla version, or how he's so powerful, he needs a next-generation console and a 10-minute song. However, these memes were mostly limited to text-based jokes and comments.
  • Some memes have also exaggerated Vergil's abilities because of his katana. DMC5 now depicts the classic continuity's Yamato as a Dimensional Cutter that can create portals out of nowhere by slicing the air. While the on-screen portal-opening had been limited to locations within the same classic DMC universe, memes joke that Yamato can also open portals to other universes or worlds of third-party media, games, and anime. This is mostly seen on the crossover fanfics, and the "Vergil's Daughter" trend.
• Memetic Loser:
  • Nero is this thanks to the "Deadweight" meme.
  • Fans consider Cavaliere Angelo as one of the best boss fights in the game because most of his attacks can be parried. But with the abundance of combo videos on Youtube fighting him to showcase the game's parrying and Counter-Attack mechanics, Cavaliere Angelo is joked as a parrying/Royalguard Style "target practice" over time, becoming one of the most "bullied" bosses alongside Vergil.
  • Prior to the Special Edition, Vergil is somehow hit with this due to being objected to various bullying from players in Youtube, especially since both Dante and Nero can pull off ridiculous and humiliating tricks against him (Vergil being a prideful person doesn't help). Thankfully, this status died when the Special Edition is announced, elevating Vergil back to Memetic Badass status again.
  • Both Nero and Vergil are considered a pair of Memetic Losers thanks to a bonus art calling Vergil "another deadbeat dad". Fans quickly caught up with the "Deadbeat Dad and his Deadweight Son" meme.
• Memetic Mutation: See here.
• Misaimed Fandom: V ended up getting a better reception than the game's directors imagined he would. While the creators didn't want people to hate V, they imagined that the reception to him would ultimately be rather lukewarm. Much to their surprise, V ended up being very popular among the fanbase.
• Most Wonderful Sound: Thanks to the game's sound design, all playable characters have unique sound cues associated with the optimal versions of their techniques and abilities:
  • Nero's MAX-Act sounds noticeably higher-pitched than a regular EX-Act.
  • Dante's Royal Block and Royal Release have weightier audio than the regular variants.
  • V's Touch and Move skill has a different, lighter sound than the Gambit by itself when executed.
  • Vergil's Just-Frame Judgment Cut is louder and has different voice lines than the regular ones.
  • Universally, any time a character parries an attack, complete with a satisfying metallic clang, which usually stuns the enemy and creates a great opening. Some enemies, like the Sin Scissors, can be killed in one attack during this opening.
• Money-Making Shot: The opening scene where Nico's van rolls in mid-air and Nero fights the Empusa in slow-motion while the staff credits are being shown on-screen. It's entirely reminiscent of the slow-motion opening credits from Deadpool (2016). Capcom used this a lot in the pre-release marketing ever since the first trailer, and it's even shown twice in-game; first as the intro video when you idle in the title screen for a while, and second as the proper intro cutscene for Mission 1.
• Narm:
  • Nero's scream right after his Devil Bringer is amputated by the mysterious attacker can come off as a version of the famous Wilhelm Scream.
  • The fact that Nero's Devil Trigger activates as soon as he screams "Fuck you!" to Vergil can come off as somewhat silly to those not expecting it. On the player's first playthrough of the game, there's even a one-time cinematic close-up of Nero Flipping the Bird as he does so to heighten the effect.
• Narm Charm:
  • On the other hand, players have also compared Nero's "Fuck you" very favorably to Dante's in the reboot, as they feel that this game handles its Precision F-Strike properly and enjoy the Catharsis Factor of Nero using his newfound ability to deliver an overdue beatdown.
  • "Pull my Devil Trigger" can be interpreted as a reference to the mysterious attacker literally pulling Nero's Devil Trigger by yanking his Devil Bringer out from its joint (as Nero's demonic powers are stored in that arm). However, it is so amazingly and fetchingly memetic that you barely realize it anyway. And as mentioned above in Accidental Innuendo, it is easy to misinterpret the phrase for something else naughty.
  • Based on comments from the Gamescom 2018 trailer, Dante's motorcycle transforming into two spinning chainsaw blades is utterly cheesy and 100% awesome, until you realize that such weapon still fits because Dante also used other Impossibly Cool Weapons in the past.
  • Although Nero's Devil Breaker arms are awesome to look at in photorealistic graphics thanks to the RE Engine, there is something off-putting about how the Breakers change shape to form different weapons, bordering on being creepy with a touch of headscratching cybernetics and physics, much more so with Rawhide (a whip) and Helter Skelter (a drill). However, they get a pass for being cool technology anyway, just like some of the old stuff that the series has shown before.
  • Dante using a stuck demon covered in blades to shave his beard off. It's silly, but it's a clear demonstration of his wacky devil-may-care personality.
  • Dante breaking into a Michael Jackson routine, crotch grabbing and all, when he gets the Dr. Faust Devil Arm from Nico is a new record in terms of cheesy goodness, even for this series.
  • When Urizen consumes the elusive Qliphoth fruit, he makes an "om/nom" vocalization. Although such sounds are expected, the scene is made even more hilarious if one pitch-shifts his voice back to Southworth's normal Vergil voice.
  • Vergil's horns in his Sin Devil Trigger form look like demonic exhaust pipes emitting flames, especially when the camera focuses on them. However, the horns are also engraved with the same lines as the ones on Yamato's hilt, which means that they still thematically fit his overall design.
• Never Live It Down: Dante calling Nero "dead weight" and Nero's rather overdramatic response to this unintentional insult have been fodder for fans.
• Obvious Judas: It's pretty obvious that V is actually Dante's Evil Twin Vergil, to the point that he outright admits it to Trish halfway through the game. He's suspiciously aware of everything that's going on, has the same Mystical White Hair and demonic powers as the rest of Dante's family, and flat-out warns Dante at the start of the game that Vergil's Not Quite Dead. Plus there's a Theme Song Reveal, as his battle music literally has the lines "devil in my blood" and "split myself in two".
• Older Than They Think:
  • Some may think that the prior mainline games' initial Anachronic Order (3 > 1 > 4 > 2) was revealed by Capcom for the "first time" because of the announcement and pre-release marketing of this game on E3 2018. However, any official resemblance of a timeline for the prior games was already present in the Devil May Cry: 3142 Graphic Arts artbook that was released several years before DMC5 was unveiled on 2018; it's even right in the artbook's name.
  • J.D. Morrison went through a Race Lift from a fair-skinned Caucasian man in the 2007 anime, to a dark-skinned man in this game. While this is specifically a first for the Devil May Cry series, those who are also fans of Street Fighter have pointed out that it's not exactly the first time Capcom did a race lift with one of their characters. Birdie was also initially a fair-skinned Caucasian in the first Street Fighter game, but was retconned to being black when he next appeared in the Street Fighter Alpha series.
  • After seeing Nero time-freeze an enemy in the trailer with his Ragtime Devil Breaker, a lot of fans started comparing that to Bayonetta's Witch Time, the game being from the same creator of the Devil May Cry franchise. The time-stopping ability has been in every game in one form or another; the hidden Bangle of Time in 1, the Chrono Heart in 2, the Quicksilver Style in 3, and the Chrono Slicers in 4, Dante's Demon Evade ^note Which acts similar to Witch Time with an attack damage buff after executing a perfect dodge. and his Devil Trigger in DmC.
  • Some fans saw 5's dynamic music as new or innovative for the series or the Stylish Action genre as a whole. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat combos added more to its music, capping with vocals. The Killer Instinct reboot for the Xbox One also has dynamic music where the music would intensify and skip around to different portions when a player used a Shadow Move, combo, or a Combo/Counter-Breaker. If those don't count as "stylish action" or if one is just sticking to Devil May Cry, the dynamic music still debuted in DmC, and similar to 5, the music would get louder or vocals would kick in when getting S rank or higher on the style meter. Then there are games like Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and NieR: Automata, where the music changes based on how far/close an enemy is to you, or when the a boss is going through different phases in a fight, as well as during Bullet Time finishers in Metal Gear.
  • A common reaction to Cavaliere is "Holy shit—is he fighting with a motorcycle?!", in response to Dante using it as a melee weapon. While this is the first game where doing so has been "playable", this is not the first time Dante himself has done so. In 3, Dante smacks some demons around using an ordinary motorcycle as a nunchaku. Cavaliere is simply giving fans a chance to finally use one themselves.
  • The setting being a modern city is seem by some as a nod to DmC's setting of Limbo. However, that wasn't the first time the series has gone into this setting as Devil May Cry 3 also starts in a city. The latter in in fact shares even more with 5 as both involve the heroes in a city that's suffering from a direct demon invasion, and both involve giant tower that appears in the middle of the city (the Qliphoth in 5 and the Temen-ni-gru in 3). There is also the city of Vie de Marli in Devil May Cry 2, which had a corporate skyscraper that acts as a catalyst for a demon invasion. Though that city had an odd combination of being vintage and modern.
  • DMC5 turned Vergil's regular Devil Trigger into a Doppelganger mechanic, which is retrospectively reminiscent of his DmC counterpart's Devil Trigger mode. It makes sense because the classic Vergil never had a moveset-mimicking Doppelgänger Attack mechanic prior to the reboot, but it's easy to forget that DmC Vergil's Doppelganger actually takes cues from Dante's Doppelganger Style; an after-image being summoned by expending the DT gauge, and the ability to alter the after-image's input lag already existed in DMC3.
  • DMC5 and Visions of V make it clear that Vergil is a Badass Bookworm, best exemplified by his human half V quoting a lot of William Blake poetry. However, his bookworm trait was already hinted at way back the Special Edition of DMC3. In the opening cutscene of his mode from that game, Vergil is first seen reading a book in a library.
  • Dante's Sin Devil Trigger can be mistaken for something introduced in this game, considering its importance to the plot, but it actually debuted in Devil May Cry 2 under a different name, Majin Form.
  • The Legendary Dark Knight mode isn't a new concept introduced in the Special Edition of DMC5, as it was already present in the PC port of the vanilla DMC4. This misconception was also present in IGN's preview of the Special Edition, making it a case of Cowboy BeBop at His Computer and IGN had to pin a comment to correct their statement.
  • The Deluxe Edition has a black-haired Palette Swap of Dante with the color scheme of his DmC counterpart, but DMC5 is not the first time the classic continuity made this reference; the same palette swap was available on the Special Edition of DMC4.
  • The demon invasion brought forth the Qliphoth, a demonic World Tree that harvests human blood in order to nourish itself and produce fruit. However, DMC5 isn't actually the first to use the concept of a literal blood-sucking tree; In Japanese Mythology, the "Jubokko" is a youkai tree that grows in battlefields where many casualties have suffered, and it grabs anyone who gets too close and drains them of their blood.
• One True Threesome: DMC5 gave rise to Nero/Kyrie/Nico. While Nero and Kyrie are shown to be going steady since their Relationship Upgrade at the end of the fourth game, Nico (Nero's mechanic and partner in the field) is known to both dote on Kyrie and cast her lot in with Nero/Kyrie. Couple that with a few scenes that not only highlight how close Nero and Nico are when they aren't bickering but also suggest Nico might be carrying a torch for Nero as well.
• Pandering to the Base:
  • Not only does this game mark the return of the classic continuity as a response to win back the fans who wanted the original lore and characters instead of the DmC: Devil May Cry continuity, the sheer abundance of this game's references to past Devil May Cry media has led to players calling Devil May Cry 5 as a "nostalgia game" that caters more to the pre-existing series veterans instead of the series newcomers. This is pointed out as a huge factor to the game's Continuity Lock-Out effect because the story of DMC5 can only be easily understood if the player is already familiar with most of the plot points established in DMC1, DMC3 and DMC4.
  • Thanks to DMC5, Vergil finally returns in the main story. However, series veterans believe that this happened simply because he is popular in the fandom and many wanted him to return. This reaction mostly comes from the lore-minded fans, especially since this game's story never explains in detail how he actually survived his demise as Nelo Angelo and the explosion of Mallet Island in DMC1, or what he was doing offscreen in the following years prior to this game.
• Polished Port: Just like how it was done with DmC, this game has proper support for customizable keyboard-and-mouse controls, making it comfortable to play for PC gamers. This is in contrast to the PC ports of the first four Devil May Cry games which are criticized for their control schemes not having proper mouse support. ^note In those titles, all in-game camera and combat controls are mapped on the keyboard, and the user interface and tutorials display PS2 or Xbox buttons instead with the assumption that you're going to play with a controller
• Praising Shows You Don't Watch: Since 2020, this game had a Newbie Boom due to the additional memes and online exposure brought by the Special Edition featuring Vergil and his Image Song "Bury the Light". On video hosting sites like YouTube, this also created a trend which involves music fans reacting to "Bury the Light" , then praising it (and other DMC5 songs) for being awesome even if they later admit not having played the game yet.
• Realism-Induced Horror: As noted in the tearjerker section, once you peel away the awesomeness and hype and start questioning Dante and Vergil's motives, their long-awaited rematch becomes this once you realize it's little more than two brothers trying to kill each other because that's the only they know how to interact with one another anymore.
• Refrain from Assuming: Vergil's battle theme is titled "Bury the Light", not "I Am the Storm (That Is Approaching)", despite said line being the first line in the chorus, and despite being featured a lot in memes.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
  • A musical example. After "Subhuman" was trashed to hell and back, eventually forcing Capcom's hand in publicly removing it after controversy surrounding vocalist Eddie Hermida, the song's vocals were redone by Michael Barr to alleviate these complaints. Fan response heavily leans towards being positive, as even without prior issues involved, Hermida's voice was often pointed out as the reason why the original "Subhuman" was considered a failure, with Barr providing a much more fitting performance.
  • Out of all Dante's recurring styles from the previous games, Gunslinger has long been the weakest. This isn't to say Gunslinger is bad per se, it's just that Dante's other styles often dwarfed it in utility and effectiveness. Swordmaster is extremely straightforward and gives Dante a ton more tools to dish out damage and extend combos, Trickster is hellishly overpowered with its dodges and teleportation capabilities, and Royalguard flat out makes you invincible if you can master it. Meanwhile, Gunslinger grants your firearms new capabilities and gives them some new utility, but ultimately can't measure up to any of the other styles thanks to your guns being tools to extend combos rather than your main sources of damage. 5 gives the style a number of healthy buffs, including giving every firearm a move that absolutely destroys enemy health bars and generates tons of style points. Changes to Coyote-A's move list in the form of new dodging moves and the addition of Kalina Ann II and Kalina Ann Double allow a Gunslinger Dante to crowd control much more effectively than before. The style also has access to the two GameBreakers mentioned above, Red Hot Night and Mega Cascade. As a result, Gunslinger Style now has the highest damage output out of Dante's entire roster aside from Sin Devil Trigger and performs its role as long-range damage dealer and crowd control specialist much better than before.
• Scrappy Mechanic:
  • Devil Breakers as a whole are seen as a cool concept, but one that suffers from poor design choices:
    • The fact that Nero automatically equips the last Devil Breaker he picked up, that Devil Breakers have limited actions^note Several only have two unique actions, a standard action and Break Age, rather than having the directional inputs Dante's styles use, that they can only be swapped by destroying the currently-equipped type, and that they can be destroyed by taking damage (whereas Dante can switch between his weapons and Styles on the fly) are usually cited as the most frustrating features in the game.
    • Destroyed Devil Breakers aren't returned at the end of a mission or when restarting from a checkpoint, and have to be bought again (unless you're willing to start missions unarmed and rely on On-Site Procurement for obtaining them). This means the player effectively loses currency every time they use their Break Age attacks or swap to the next breaker mid-mission, which can discourage new players (especially those saving up Red Orbs for permanent upgrades) from experimenting with the system. It also means players are frequently wading through menus and loading screens to buy replacements.
    • Even worse, the command to destroy Devil Breakers is mapped to the L1/LB button (which every other character uses to activate Devil Trigger), which only adds insult to injury. This only gets worse when Nero regains his Devil Trigger ability for the Final Boss. There, it replaces his Devil Breaker system and is mapped to L1/LB, just like in 4. But once you get to carry both the Devil Bringer and Devil Breaker abilities into all subsequent playthroughs and New Game Plus, Nero's Devil Trigger then has to be activated with a press of the D-pad, leading to a big pile of Devil Breakers you accidentally blew up trying to Devil Trigger. The plus side to this is that, by this point, the cat's out of the bag in regards to Nero's new Devil Trigger, and all controls are remappable, so there's no reason not to reassign the function back to L1/LB. Still, this was a lot of hassle to put players through just to avoid spoiling the ending.
  • In New Game Plus, the inability to play whatever character they want on any level rubs some players the wrong way, since the vast majority of stages omit one or both of the other protagonists. Since the game lacked "Bloody Palace" mode at launch, this meant that anyone eager to buy, test or show off new moves and combos for their favorite character on a higher difficulty had to play through Story Mode with everyone else first. This isn't so bad for Nero, but is definitely a pain in the ass for Dante fans.
  • The game's Style rating system is fine on Devil Hunter and below, but starts to become a problem for Son of Sparda and above. It works by having your final style score calculated based on the damage done per attack, multiplied by your current Style ranking. Thus, a single highly-damaging attack at a high Style rank can get you hundreds of more points than multiple weak attacks at low rank. This becomes a problem due to "rank dilution", wherein your Style score is slowly dragged down over the course of a level by participating in low enemy-count optional encounters. Since your final level score is aggregated over the course of every encounter you participated in (despite only one or two major encounters showing up on the end of mission screen), fighting weak mooks without getting a high style ranking causes your rank to be aggregated out. This means that you can open the mission with 5000 or so Style points and then almost immediately drop down to the low 4000s thanks to fighting fodder enemies in-between big encounters and failing to get your Style high enough to where killing them is worth it. This leads to a somewhat counter-intuitive practice of entering a level and skipping the vast majority of encounters to get a higher rank, and can be compounded in certain Missions like 8 or 10, where there are very few enemies per encounter. Since you need to get 5500 points in order to S rank a Mission on Son of Sparda and 6000 on Dante Must Die, rank dilution can absolutely kill your run and drag your style points down hard.
  • Compared to the other characters, V's gameplay can feel less responsive and satisfying because of several odd mechanics tied to his familiars and control schemes. At best, this means effectively playing as V is Difficult, but Awesome.
    • Since your familiars have to be summoned first and run into position before attacking, there is often a delay between pressing the attack button and your attack going off, which can make combat feel more laggy and imprecise, especially if your familiars get stuck on scenery.
    • V himself can also get stuck when attempting "Checkmate", a finishing move required to defeat foes, and it can be interrupted by enemy attacks if it's a particularly lengthy one.
    • Stalemating is another contentious mechanic; due to being a Long-Range Fighter, V can battle enemies at no personal risk to himself. To balance this, each of his primary familiars (Shadow and Griffon) have their own health bar which forces them into a state of hibernation called "Stalemate" if it's depleted. Problem is, in addition to his own health, V also needs to watch his two familiars' health bars instead of paying full attention to the battle, as it's easy for them to "die" from just a couple of hits at higher difficulties or late game. Because of this, V has a unique risk of losing the ability to fight back if a battle goes poorly. Such risk is absent on other characters; even if a fight goes badly for Dante, Nero and Vergil, they can still fight back with just a pixel of health remaining, but V can become a sitting duck in comparison. Once Shadow and Griffon are both stalemated and Nightmare isn't available to revive them instantly, he's stuck running away until at least one of them can be revived.
    • The fact V's double jump and his equivalent to Dante and Nero's dodgeroll rely on Griffon and Shadow to be active means his movement options become much more limited if either is is Stalemate (though thankfully he never loses the basic jump and its generous invincibility frames). Using either dodge will also require calling the familiar into position, interupting any attack that it is currently performing and meaning V has to be careful how he moves while charging attacks. This is more of a problem on higher difficulties where familiars will go down very quickly if they take a hit.
    • The style system also appears to have difficulty dealing with the multiple sources of damage V puts out. The result of this is that on lower difficulties players can amass high style scores simply by mashing buttons without even getting close to enemies.
    • His lack of high power kill moves and limited healing means he struggles on higher difficulties, making him something of a Crutch Character. He also lacks any timing-dependant abilities such as Nero's Exceed or Dante's Royal Guard, resulting in less advanced mechanics for skilled players to experiment with.
  • Once again, similar to DmC, restarting a checkpoint counts as a death or using an orb revive. Even if the abundance of checkpoints in DmC was criticized because it made the higher difficulties of that game susceptible to brute forcing and Save Scumming, the implementation of checkpoints in DMC5 is still questionable sometimes. Because most missions (such as Mission 7) have very few checkpoints, restarting from a checkpoint is almost pointless as the previous checkpoint can take you back to the beginning or near beginning of the stage. The player is better off restarting a mission if they died or were attempting a no-damage run. On top of that, the game has Loads and Loads of Loading, which makes restarting missions even more of a nuisance anyway.
  • Certain missions in the game (such as 6,7, and 8) all do away with the character-specific battle themes and instead play generic combat music that is nowhere near as cool for no readily apparent reason.
• Scrappy Weapon:
  • Compared to the Devil Sword Sparda and Devil Sword Dante, there is no real reason to use Rebellion anymore outside of personal preference, for a Self-Imposed Challenge, or its Round Trip for limited combo potential, as the Sparda deals increased damage and has a further-reaching Round Trip while the Devil Sword Dante has everything the other two swords have along with some attacks as powerful as the Sparda and an additional five moves unique to the weapon. It's a shame considering this is Dante's personal Iconic Item.
  • On Nero's side of things, the Buster Arm Devil Breaker is sometimes considered underwhelming by some fans due to its redundancy with another feature, claiming that it doesn't offer him any additional movement options and its Break Age is simply an enhanced, less-interruptible Buster attack (a move he'll eventually be able to use even without a Devil Breaker). What this overlooks however, is that the Break Age version of the Buster does greatly boosted damage compared to the normal version, making it an excellent way to deal massive damage to stunned bosses or Furies, meaning it still retains its usefulness once Nero regains the Devil Bringer.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Apart from the series-wide examples, killing enemies with taunts became a prevalent gamer challenge in DMC5 because several taunts deal damage to enemies upon contact. For example, as soon as more players discovered the Easter Egg where Dante pauses and dances along if you use playable Vergil's EX Provocation taunt, there's a trend which involves defeating Dante using said taunt as a finisher. This requires reducing Dante's health to just a sliver beforehand, then hoping the interaction to play out as expected.
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: Compared to previous installments (2 notwithstanding), 5 seems to have a gentler learning curve as on the default "Devil Hunter" difficulty, only the bosses will likely do any significant damage to series veterans. The plentiful amounts of Green and White orbs scattered on the stages, as well as the buff to vitality regeneration provided by Devil Trigger, help with this. Some of the old gameplay mechanics carried over from the previous games are also easier to execute in this game, such as Nero's Exceed mechanics and the parrying mechanic in general having less strict timings. It's also easier to stock up on Gold Orbs here because they can be received for free just by logging in daily.
• Sequel Difficulty Spike: That being said, this is the first game in the series to not have Vital Stars, Devil Stars, and Holy Water, so players who never cared about item usage tanking their ranks no longer have the easy method of stocking up on consumables in advance, cheese enemies, or heal up during the more difficult fights. While you can revive yourself by using Red Orbs, the price goes higher for every attempt anyway, making it a more expensive alternative if you don't have any Gold Orbs left. On harder difficulties such as Son of Sparda, the Green and White orbs on the stages are greatly reduced, while the amount of Red Orbs needed to heal up after being defeated are greatly increased.
• Sequel Displacement: DMC5 was noted to be the best-selling game within the DMC series, something that Capcom acknowledged on March 2020 by placing the game in their "Platinum Titles" list, where it overtook the previous holder of that title, DMC4. Fans already expected this to happen because the Sequel Gap meant that 5 would be the newcomers' gateway to the franchise.
• Shocking Moments:
  • The trailers succeeded in bringing the hype:
    • The E3 2018 announcement trailer itself, signaling the return of the Devil May Cry series after years in dormancy. Compounded by the fact that, instead of being revealed at Sony's E3 press conference, which almost everyone expected due to E3-related leaks, it was instead revealed earlier at Microsoft's press conference. The reveal of Nero's new look, and what happened to his Devil Bringer (someone yanked it off) also got the attention of fans. Lastly, the entire trailer features no Dante, until the very end, in which he blazes towards the screen on a motorbike yelling "Woohoo! YEEEAAAH!!!"
    • Pretty much the entirety of the TGS 2018 trailer: the first line from Dante is him answering "Devil May Cry" to a phone call, to his gameplay where he shows off the various Styles, a new Devil Arm with two new modes, a boss fight, and his revamped Devil Trigger just to name a few.
    • The revelation of Dante's newest Devil Trigger from the GA 2018 trailer that looks to be a combination of Majin Form from 2 and the unused Perfect Devil Trigger from 4.
    • The final trailer features a moment in which Urizen threatens to summon the heroes' worst nightmares, and a shattered glass effect is produced. As it flies by, Vergil is revealed. Similarly, the fact we see Eva in the RE Engine was completely unexpected.
  • Post-release the game itself delivered many more:
    • Starting the game with Dante losing against a foe is already a powerful moment, but then we undergo a month-long Time Skip to find out that all three of our veteran Devil-Hunting heroes (Dante, Lady and Trish) are presumed dead, things have gotten much worse and Nero seems like the only hope remaining.
    • Dante's demonic motorcycle, Cavaliere, that can be used as a weapon AND transforms into a pair of chainsaws.
    • The reveal that V is Vergil, and that Rebellion and Yamato have polar-opposite reactions to demonic hybrids create a series of "Holy Shit" moments, such as that Urizen is also Vergil, as well as Dante's brand new Sin Devil Trigger—with which he defeats Urizen.
    • The finale, which contains moments such as the final return of Vergil, the reveal that V's familiars are physical manifestations of Vergil's trauma from being Mundus' puppet, the confirmation after years of speculation that Nero is Vergil's son, another spectacular Dante versus Vergil duel, Nero activating his Devil Trigger and then forcing both his uncle and father to stand down, and Dante and Vergil setting aside their differences to save the world.
    • Special Edition features an alternate version of Dante and Vergil's final duel. But while Nero interrupts in the canon game, Vergil's version of the duel instead hits its climax without Nero's intervention. Dante and Vergil cross each other's paths, "Bury the Light" kicks in, and at once it becomes clear: This is it.
      Vergil: Everything ends, Dante. Even us.
• Signature Scene:
  • Nero's "I'm not letting you die!!" moment quickly became the scene that defines this game (and to some, the franchise as a whole). Not only is it visually stunning, emotionally resonating, wonderfully acted and brilliantly scored, it also marks the moment when Nero seizes control of the Devil May Cry franchise and his own destiny. By unlocking his Devil Trigger and blocking both Vergil and Dante from killing each other, he puts an end to the overarching Sibling Rivalry plot of the series, becomes an independent hero in his own right, and supplants Dante as the person the audience is meant to root on to save the day. The development team even admitted that this moment was the first thing they envisioned, and then designed the entire game around it.
  • The Wham Shot of Vergil's return as a result of V stabbing Urizen with his cane. The fake sky slowly shatters like glass while Vergil stands in a blue pillar of light with his back turned against Nero and Dante... And then, Vergil turns his head sideways to face them, causing a shocked expression for the other two. It's such a memorable event that Capcom extensively uses this scene for the Special Edition's trailers and promotional material, even if Late-Arrival Spoiler be damned.
  • In a much less serious light, Dante receiving the Faust hat in Mission 13 and then dancing like Michael Jackson quickly got a lot of traction from the fanbase as confirmation that, yes, this was the Devil May Cry we knew and loved.
• Signature Song:
  • "Devil Trigger", the song from the E3 reveal trailer, which also serves as Nero's in-game battle theme. To wit, it has its own music video and was the #1 rock song in the UK at the time of its release.
  • "Bury the Light", Vergil's Image Song from the Special Edition, also became a hit that's easily associated with this game, thanks to the various memes surrounding it.
• Spiritual Adaptation:
  • Due to V's playstyle, some fans had noticed that DMC5 is as close as we're gonna get to a Chaos Legion sequel, or the closest to a JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Stylish Action game.
  • This game story makes it the closest we are ever going to get to a Tree of Might game. The plot and story structure are very similar. The hero's evil counterpart eating a supernatural fruit from a World Tree that takes the lives of living things or humans to gain strength.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: "Abyssal Time", the Elder Geryon Knight's theme, has portions that sound like "Rules of Nature" from Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance. Similarly, "Blazing Muscle", Goliath's theme, has portions that resemble "Collective Consciousness".
• Tainted by the Preview:
  • While fans were ecstatic to see a true sequel to the classic series, some did not appreciate it for having the atmosphere akin to that of the 2013 reboot such as the drastic modern city Art Shift and Nero looking like that reboot's Dante. It got to the point where fans jokingly refer to the game as "DmC: Devil May Cry 2".
  • King Cerberus' theme, "Roar, Roar, Roar!". While the song is very impressive and fitting for the boss, shifting between different styles for each of the heads, this was largely ignored due to it not being a remix of Cerberus' DMC3 theme, "Suffer", which was considered one of the best songs in that game alongside "Devils Never Cry" and Vergil's theme. It didn't help that the opening notes of "Suffer" were teased right before the boss fight, which makes this example a strange case of a song tainted by a preview of another song.
  • "Subhuman" was hit by this trope hard. While the general consensus of the song is not as hostile, more or less, on release, it was torn apart due to the music video for the song being practically ineligible, being a misrepresentation of Dante, the composer callously dismissing those that didn't like the song, and worst of all, the lead singer sexually grooming a minor. While the biggest issue was addressed, for many it wasn't enough to save the song.
  • The Special Edition got this treatment when it was revealed that it was exclusive to the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X, with everyone who owned the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC versions only getting Vergil's campaign as paid DLC and not the Legendary Dark Knight and Turbo modes. Even more so for PC players is that Capcom wasn't going to add in raytracing to the PC version, despite the nature of PCs allowing people to buy the components necessary to get raytracing to work on them. The absence of the Legendary Dark Knight mode and Turbo Mode feature is also jarring to some fans who were expecting their inclusion on the PC version of DMC5 on the basis that the original PC version of DMC4 had them way back 2008.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Devil May Cry 2 only receives a blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance within the story recap segment, with even the slightly less contentious anime not only having more screentime dedicated to it, but also the retention of characters like Patty and Morrison.
• That One Achievement: "Worthy of Legend", which requires you to get S rank on all missions on all difficulties except for Heaven or Hell. That's right, you have to play to nigh-perfection on five separate playthroughs, even on Hell and Hell difficulty, where your character is a One-Hit-Point Wonder. Have fun!
• That One Attack:
  • When fighting Urizen in Mission 12, from time to time, he'll send out a green-tipped vine to home in on your character. If you're in the air when it goes after you, you probably won't have enough time to get out of the way, and will take the damage almost instantly. If you're on the ground, your only hope to avoid it (short of Royal Guard, which requires good timing or Devil Trigger) is to dash away from it immediately, and then move back towards it so that it can't double back on you. Needless to say, the timing on this is pretty difficult, and if you move back towards Urizen too early, it might still be able to reach you. Add on top of this is that Urizen might be using other attacks which you now also have to avoid, and you're going to lose a lot of health if you don't.
  • Malphas is otherwise a fairly simple boss to take down, but her bird half's turning black and repeatedly attempting to ram into you, is the bane of a lot of first-time players. During those phases, touching the bird at all deals a ludicrous amount of damage and knocks you in position to be rammed into again. The rams can also be surprisingly hard to dodge, due to the bird altering its path, and it forces you to be defensive, as hitting Malphas with melee is near impossible until that phase ends.
  • Vergil has a move where he summons a Sin Devil Trigger Doppelganger that's as hard as SDT Vergil himself, which pretty much forces the player to be on the defensive the entire time it's on the field. This only applies to when Dante faces him however, as Nero can take care of the Doppelganger more easily with his Buster.
• That One Boss:
  • Vergil takes the cake, as usual. On Devil Hunter, he is a steep rise in difficulty from the already tough boss fights against Urizen and V's familiars, but his fight with Nero is usually seen as a far easier alternative to his fight with Dante. This is until Son of Sparda, where his fight with Nero is cranked up several notches on the difficulty scale. For starters, Vergil will remain in Devil Trigger the whole fight unless you die, which means you have to slowly chip his health bar out. At least his DT is no longer Immune to Flinching and getting comboed the way his past incarnations were. Even then, his attacks do ridiculously high damage, and can seriously trip up even the most dedicated of players. And then his Dante Must Die appearance makes all these facets several times worse.
  • In Vergil Mode, Dante returns the favor from the main game. In Mission 19, he fights like the player would with full access to all of his styles, but not only will he use Royalguard Style, he takes advantage of the Royal Block skill (which means he has perfect timings on his blocks). The last thing you want is to get hit by Royal Release, which is hard to dodge and on advanced difficulties, will eat through at least four bars of Vergil's health. Then Mission 20 happens and Dante starts using his entire arsenal and his Sin Devil Trigger. You're in for a hell of a fight, especially if you can't keep Vergil's Concentration Gauge up.
• That One Level:
  • Mission 18: Awakening. While the mission is fairly short, it's a series of miniboss fights against V's familiars, all of whom can tear you a new one with fast and hard hitting attacks. If the individual encounters with them don't kill you, the final fight against all three of them coming at you at once just might. At the higher difficulty levels, skillful usage of Sin Devil Trigger is a must if you want to get an S rank on this mission, let alone passing it.
  • Stage 70 of the Bloody Palace, a battle against three Furies at once. Most players find fighting one Fury difficult, but just wait until you have three of them overlapping their attack patterns, warping around and stabbing you from every angle. One tip is to pan the camera so it only shows one Fury at a time, since they don't attack from off-camera (like most enemies), but with how much they move around it's sometimes unavoidable.
• That One Sidequest:
  • Finding the optional collectibles/unlockables (a Blue Orb Fragment, a Purple Orb Fragment and a Secret Mission seal) in Mission 16 can be a hassle because all three are on mutually exclusive paths and in a level that's mostly vertical, leaving a large room for error. Specifically, the Blue Orb fragment requires the momentum of Cavaliere's aerial attacks and Trickster's air dash to reach, the former of which requires outside-the-box thinking to figure out, while the Secret Mission requires a fully upgraded Gunslinger (and even then it doesn't guarantee that you'll pass easily).
  • Secret Mission 10. The player has to get to the Blue Orb fragment without touching the ground while playing as V. It sounds easy on paper, but the game requires specific steps that a player must do to reach it, alongside performing them at precise moments that if not performed correctly, cause you to fail the mission. You have to get a running jump on a small ledge, then use V's Checkmate to keep momentum, followed by using his Gambit move, and then ending it with using Griffon to glide over and drop onto the orb. If a single step is missed in any specific amount of time, you'll touch the ground too early, or hit the walls and jump back from them. Its also possible to overshoot the orb since the camera will make it hard to see where you can land. It also doesn't help that if you have V's Quickplay skill, you can accidentally sabotage yourself on the running jump if you don't do it right, since he might instead use his dash, causing you to lose the ability to jump properly. Finding the Secret Mission itself can be quite hard too, as Mission 14 is a fairly complex maze of passageways that make finding it hard to navigate.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • While still considered an Awesome Boss in his own right, when compared to his aggressive play and Mirror Boss status to Dante in Devil May Cry 3, Vergil is more passive, toned down, and generally easier and pattern-focused. This makes sense for Nero, who basically has no matching mechanics for such a fight and thus the changes to the style would make sense, but for Dante, this means that there's less parallel's in their styles and attacks beyond both of them packing Sin Devil Trigger and Dante being able to create floating swords with his Devil Sword Dante. This is, however, more or less only relegated to the easier difficulties; Sons of Sparda and Dante Must Die Vergil is very comparable to his his DMC3 counterpart in terms of difficulty and behavior.
  • While the change in music was well-received with Nero's "Devil Trigger" theme as it allowed him to become more independent or distinct from Dante, many fans weren't happy with the direction taken with Dante's "Subhuman" theme as it shifted from a high energy industrial style of music to a more aggressive metal core style, along with having lyrics that were considered wildly out of character with Dante's established character. It wasn't helped when the composer of the theme rejected any criticism towards the song upon release, or by the fact that the previous composer of Dante's themes, Shawn "Shootie HG" McPherson, expressed enthusiasm towards returning to the series,◊ with the majority of fans agreeing that they would prefer him to return and compose for Dante rather than not.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
  • Lady has a brand new character design and model, but the extent of her role in the plot is to be defeated at the beginning and used as a Living Battery for Artemis, and to warn Nero of the emotional trauma she suffered as a result of the events of 3. This also applies to Trish, who doesn't fare much better as a Living Battery for Cavaliere Angelo, and has a brief conversation with V after he tells her his backstory. Both of these examples stand in stark contrast to Dante's claims of them being "the most badass women [he] knows" in a series that's usually good about adhering to Show, Don't Tell, and not having them as playable characters in this game following the Special Edition of 4 just adds salt to the wound.
  • To a lesser extent, some people feel this way about Kyrie. Unlike in 4, she doesn't even appear on-screen in this game, and only during the last mission at that. And instead of her having an honest, heartfelt conversation with Nero about his sudden discovery that the Big Bad is his father, Dante is his uncle, and they're trying to kill each other, as well as his feelings of inadequacy and failure at trying to protect Credo, she just gives him some generic "follow your heart"-type advice and calls it a day. While it's understandable that working in a physical on-screen appearance would be hard since she is just a normal person and thus has no reason to be there, but at least letting her appear in flashbacks or during any moment to show her off would have given her a slightly bigger impact.
  • More so from a meta-perspective, but Vergil. Prior to the Special Edition's announcement, a lot of people are disappointed that not only is Vergil not a playable character in the base game, but also because Capcom apparently had no further plans for DLC and thus didn't seem interested in rectifying that situation. On the other hand, people were also speculating that they may be saving playable Vergil for either DLC or yet another Special Edition because it's been a recurring trend since DMC3, so it took a long time to know if these statements are true. But as it turned out, the latter crowd was right, and Capcom confirmed that players would end up having playable Vergil in a new Special Edition AND as a DLC for the regular edition.
  • "Crew Cut", the soldier that Nero saves in the very first mission is very popular among the fanbase because he could've easily been used as an Audience Surrogate. Many feel that the series is missing a normal human to contextualize the craziness of Dante's day to day life. As someone was sent in to fight, Crew Cut could better establish the perspective of normal people who were being caught in the demon invasion of Red Grave City. Since he's a soldier, he already has reason to be there and could've been a recurring character as you get deeper into the city with all 3 protagonists. Hell even a few more lines to Nero conveying what's going on would've been satisfactory.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Urizen captures Lady and Trish and turns them into his generals. You'd think this would result in dramatic battles with Angelo armour-clad versions of the "most badass women in the world" and severe angst on their part once they're rescued and learn they've been forced to commit mass murder, but no. Instead, they're just used as batteries or vessels for random mini-boss demons who don't share their appearance, personalities or direct fighting styles (only semblances of their fighting styles that even require Fridge Brilliance to understand). The girls don't even speak, are unconscious the whole time, and show zero ill effects or guilt once rescued.
  • After the first level, Nico mentions that the demon invasion issue is apparently spreading and affecting everywhere, not just a few parts of a single city. This presents a unique opportunity to have more of the world shown to the players, such as perhaps in their quest to defeat Urizen, the heroes have to journey to different cities to stop certain demons from taking root, thereby weakening Urizen further. This isn't too hard to do given how the game establishes forms of teleportation exist, and there could be ways the heroes have to travel, or at the very least, end up in other cities via said method. Instead, only one city is ever visited and the idea of the entire world being hit affected is only used as a passing comment to make the situation seem more dire. It doesn't help that the latter missions are set in the Qliphoth.
  • Urizen's mass murder of an entire city goes scarcely mentioned, with Red Grave mostly acting as a set piece. In relation to the above, this would've been a good way to showcase Dante and Nero's care for the humans who get caught up in the occasional demon attacks that plague this world. Annoyingly, almost none of this is conveyed in the game's story proper.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic:
  • Dante comes across as arrogant and condescending from his behavior towards Nero. While it is true that Dante is honestly concerned for Nero due to knowing that the Big Bad all along is his brother and Nero's father, Vergil, and wants to spare him the pain of killing the latter, he still acts like a prick. His constant insistence that this is "his gig" makes it look like he's being an asshole and doesn't seem to be taking the situation seriously enough to let others help him. Justified as it was, Dante calling Nero "dead weight" also felt like it came out of nowhere just to give him and Nero something to argue about, as it seems out-of-character for Dante to use that sort of insult against someone he respects. Fans also felt that Patty deserved better after how much of a connection and sibling-like bond they had in the anime—sure, a birthday party doesn't seem like something Dante would care about (Word of God clarifies that he was willing to celebrate with her more privately), but refusing to even talk to her or give a straight answer on their phone call makes him look like a dick. Lastly, his hate-on-sight reaction toward Vergil seems very odd, considering the respect he'd felt toward his brother in previous games. He's right that Vergil deserves to have his ass kicked, or at least give up the Yamato as punishment, but the way he mocks Vergil for having the audacity to come back to life is not like him at all.
  • On the other end, fans have been mocking and derisive towards Nero constantly throwing being called "dead weight" back in Dante's face for the entire game. As stated, it's understandable that Nero felt disrespected and that Dante should have been honest sooner, but even after Dante explains his actions, Nero continues to be angry about it. This combines with Nero's overconfidence in his ability to defeat Urizen without his Devil Bringer and Devil Trigger (which the Devil Breaker doesn't really compensate for; Nico's entry for the one-armed Nero in the Gallery is her none too subtly calling Nero an idiot for rushing into battle without his good arm) to make Nero seem like an immature kid desperately trying to seek acknowledgment from someone... which he partially admits to in his fight with Vergil.
• Underused Game Mechanic:
  • The co-op aspect of the game is a neat way of allowing players to see each other in the background, creating a real sense of the characters being active. But while it helps to create some amount of consistency in the story, only two levels in the game have the characters fight together, and the second mission is a very short level (debatedly the shortest level in the game) despite allowing players the chance to potentially have all three characters fighting together online. Its neat, but some feel its inclusion is underused despite offering a unique spin on the gameplay.
  • Purchasing the Vergil DLC unlocks "Vergil Mode" for the main story. This allows you to play the entire game as Vergil, regardless of mission, and even comes with a unique fight against Dante at the end of the game. Almost everyone who's played the game wonders why a similar mode isn't available for Dante, Nero and V, since all three characters have playstyles that are only barely uncovered by the end of the game. In particular, V only gets six missions where it's possible to play as him, where Dante gets eight and Nero gets ten. Even worse, two of Dante and Nero's missions are boss fights, meaning that Dante only really gets six missions to run through and Nero gets eight. Couple this with the fact that certain matchups are impossible for characters depending on the gameplay mode (for instance, V never fights a Fury in any of his missions and can only encounter them in Bloody Palace), the ability to play as one character for the entire twenty missions on offer would've greatly added more to the existing replay value of the game.
• Ugly Cute: Despite being a gigantic demon, Goliath can look rather cute due his Belly Mouth.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: 5 runs on the RE Engine, the tech that powers RE7 and RE2 Remake. While the increased realism in the characters' faces shows this, the crazy new effects of the Devil Breaker demonstrates a side of the RE Engine that couldn't really fit in with RE7. All sorts of explosive lighting effects are emitted by the Devil Breaker while the game runs at a steady 60 FPS, which is impressive for all the insanity.
• Watch It for the Meme: This game brought a resurgence of interest into the Devil May Cry franchise as a whole and spawned some memes that spread to other related topics and groups, thus attracting the curiosity of newcomers who never played any Devil May Cry game before (which also helped the franchise in forming some Friendly Fandoms). Vergil-related memes that were popularized by DMC5 are common reasons for this. For example, some Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd fans try out this game because others were comparing Yae Sakura and Kamisato Ayaka to Vergil, while more Like a Dragon fans saw interest in this game since 2020 because people were suddenly using Vergil's "Bury the Light" Image Song on clips of Joon-Gi Han, a character who originated from Yakuza 6 who has the Fan Nickname of "Korean Vergil". These newcomers also overlapped with those who just wanted to know why gamers are associating white plastic chairs with Vergil, or why the phrase "I Am The Storm That Is Approaching" is used in several video clips.
• Win Back the Crowd:
  • Hideaki Itsuno said at the E3 reveal that 5 was made for the fans who had been clamoring and pleading for a continuation of the mainline continuity after the controversial DmC. With a combat system looking much closer to 4 and the return of Johnny Yong Bosch and Reuben Langdon as Nero and Dante, respectively, it slams into this hard and fast.
  • After the massive outrage caused by what DmC did to him, the sight of the real Dante returning at the end of the E3 2018 announcement trailer was a shot of pure, unbridled ecstasy for the fanbase.
  • An odd example, but many fans were pleased when news came out that the story of the game takes place after the events of 2 and 4 (the chronological game order is 3 → 1 → 2 → 4 → 5). ^note Originally, 2 took place after 4, but the developers decided to change that during the development of 5. This helped in winning back the lore-minded parts of the fandom in two ways:
    • Considering how the franchise has danced around the story implications and cliffhanger ending of the second game (to the point where its status as canon was questionable), there's been much relief that the story is finally progressing past it. When 2 was moved out of the way, the fandom finally had a clearer idea of what exactly happened between 4 and 5, bringing more fans who are interested in the games' overarching lore now that it's less confusing.
    • Dante's sudden personality shift in 2 made fans wonder how it could be justified at all if the player is just sticking with the games' lore, and such discussions opened a lot of different interpretations. When the original series timeline placed 2 directly after 4, it was even more difficult to explain the personality shift to the point where it was so tiring to be discussed in the first place. Most fans find the newer timeline to fit a lot better, as Dante's angstier, stoic personality in 2 could be explained as depression stemming from a reaction to his brother's supposed final death in 1 and his return to his playful, cocky ways in 4 as a result of meeting Nero and discovering that he still has family out there. Even if the "Depressed Dante" narrative became known as a popular fan theory, the updated timeline helped in making his characterization on all the previous games cohesive in retrospect, bringing more fans who are interested on Dante's entire characterization, and not just for his gameplay mechanics.
• The Woobie: V, once you learn the full extent of his Backstory and motivations. He is the discarded human half of Vergil who is doomed to fade to dust without the power of his demon half to sustain him. He gets weaker and weaker as the game progresses, but pushes forward through the process of his gradual, painful death to make it back to his demon half Urizen, where he can do a Split-Personality Merge and live on as the recompleted Vergil. In other words, his only two options in life were either a Death of Personality by remerging with his demon half, or a painful regular death by crumbling into dust, meaning he had no chance to really live as his own person. Additionally, he carries over the sad traits that Vergil's human side already had, such as feeling that his mother had abandoned him to die, and that only power can give him the strength he needs to protect himself and others. He isn’t even really a Jerkass all things considered, despite the mistrust other people had of his motives, making him a clear example of this.
• Woolseyism: Instead of the literal translation of "True Devil Trigger", Dante and Vergil's ultimate transformation is named "Sin Devil Trigger", which gives it religious connotations, fitting for its demonic nature.

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