YMMV / Devil May Cry 4

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • Nero's theme, "The Time Has Come" (from the first half of the game's theme song, "Shall Never Surrender") can be easily misinterpreted, especially the first line, "The time has come and so have I!" It quickly gained memetic status.
  • During his boss fights, Sanctus will occasionally yell "The Savior is Coming!", which can also be interpreted like an innuendo.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: DMC4 has a unique case in which a song was open for multiple interpretations by fans. The second half of the game's main theme, "Shall Never Surrender", features a male demonic voice and a female human voice talking to each other in a somber or solemn manner (their exchanges start from the line "My honored brethren"). While it's been agreed that these lines mostly talk about love, it's been argued that the male and female voices represent either Nero/Kyrie (the game's main romantic pairs), or Sparda/Eva (the franchise's root example of love between demon and human).
• Anti-Climax Boss: Sanctus is a bit of a chump both times you fight him. His attacks aren't that hard to dodge and don't really deal too much damage to Nero, and once you break through his barriers, Nero's Buster attack does a metric crap-ton of damage to him.
• Best Boss Ever: Angelo Credo is often praised as one of the most memorable boss fights from this game. From a storytelling perspective, you fight him during an impactful event while playing as Nero, and from a gameplay perspective, he's an overall challenging boss who moves and attacks fast, can block your attacks with his shield, and is more of a boss who tests the player's dexterity than a boss who has cheap, lethal gimmicks. Nero's Buster even has several unique interactions against him. He also has a cool angelic design on top of everything else.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Dante and Agnus quoting Shakespeare before they fight. It comes right out of nowhere, has nothing to do with the plot, is ridiculously over the top, and is never mentioned again.
  Dante: And the rest is silence.
• Bragging Rights Option:
  • Nero's Exceed mechanic is one of the most difficult aspects to master, especially instant revving 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.
  • Using Dante to his full potential requires the player to master Style Switching and weapon swapping. This means having to juggle several mechanics at once, but pulling it off gives an impressive showcase of skill and stylish combos.
• Breather Boss:
  • Bael isn't a difficult boss fight, probably because he comes after a long slog through the castle collecting all the Gyro Blades. He telegraphs his attacks from a mile away, they're all easy enough to dodge, and he gives you tons of opportunities to damage him. He can become a pain in the highest difficulties though, especially when he enters his own Devil Trigger phase. These also apply to Dagon because he's just a re-colored Bael.
  • Due to not hitting too hard, being easy to kill just through whittling away with guns, and easily opening up to attacks, Echidna is one on any difficulty.
• Breather Level: Mission 5 is very short and easy. It doesn't have a boss fight, the lesser demon encounters are few, and the only objective is to find the Wing Talisman which reveals a hidden path in the castle. However, it's sandwiched between two lengthy missions that have their own tricky segments and separate boss fights.
• Broken Base:
  • The biggest point of contention in the fandom (DmC notwithstanding) likely comes from the canonical status of Devil May Cry 4: Deadly Fortune, a two-volume light novel written by Bingo Morihashi, the scenario writer for 3, 4, and 5, and his assistant Yasui Kentarou. Bingo considers the novel to be the definitive version of 4's story, but it deviates from the game's plot at multiple points and was written after he had left Capcom's employ. Because of this, it's been questioned if the novel can be considered anything more than semi-canon at best, and not all fans, (for example), are on board with certain portions of the narrative, such as Nero's mother being some nameless prostitute that Vergil had a one-night stand with when he visited Fortuna less than two decades prior (to learn more about Sparda's legacy). 5 confirms that Vergil did have a one-night stand that resulted in Nero, but never knew about Nero until Dante spells it out for him in the climax, Bingo once again as the scenario writer.
  • Capcom's idea to release Devil May Cry 4: Special Edition physically only in Japan and Asia. Some people were fine for as long as they got the game and encouraged others to import, while others demanded the physical release, especially considering DmC: Definitive Edition was given one. Capcom's official statement that the game was "too complicated" to get a physical release didn't help matters.
  • The Proud Soul System, which works as another currency system, and the only way to purchase new skills. Some argue it that works due to allowing customizability (and allows Dante to hit the ground running with a variety of upgrades as soon as his section of the campaign starts, since he is sharing his total Proud Soul count with Nero, but not sharing the unspent total). On the other hand, some say that it's frustrating due to only getting them at the end of every mission.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • When playing as Nero, being able to execute a Buster (or especially, a Devil Buster) is so satisfying to watch, thanks to the move's brutal animations. That enemy or boss who's giving you trouble becomes momentarily helpless while you take out a significant chunk of their health bar.
  • In the final mission, seeing Nero gut Sanctus without fear when the latter tries to hold Kyrie hostage a second time upon defeat is so satisfying.
• Character Perception Evolution: Nero's debut doomed him to the status of Replacement Scrappy due to being the game's lead rather than previous series protagonist Dante, who filled the role of Deuteragonist. While Nero's gameplay gained him some fans, it was the controversial reboot DmC: Devil May Cry that caused most fans to feel the hatred of Nero was ill-placed, accepting that he was at least an original character rather than Dante in the reboot, whose appearance and personality was very different from the original Dante.
• Complacent Gaming Syndrome:
  • When playing as Nero, players would mostly save up the DT gauge so that he can use a Devil Buster instead of a normal Buster because the former deals more damage on top of having more brutal animations. This is mostly evident during boss fights. In addition to this strategy, players also have a habit of mashing the shoot button to pierce the enemy with Summoned Swords during the lengthy Devil Buster animations. After all, you can't go wrong with some additional damage.
  • You can deflect the energy ball fired by the Alto and Bianco Angelos with virtually any attack in order to deal massive damage to them and quickly earn an SSS Stylish Rank for that fight, but the most recommended strategy is to shoot the ball because it's the fastest and safest method.
• Common Knowledge: The ranged Devil Arm that transforms into different weapons is officially named "Pandora", yet many players still think that it's named "Pandora's Box". The weapon's default briefcase form is pointed out as the source of confusion.
• Complete Monster: Sanctus, while appearing to be the benevolent head of the Order of the Sword, is in fact a vicious monster. Sanctus covets the powers of Sparda and Vergil and plans on using their swords to control the power of a giant godlike golem, The Savior. To do this he feeds Nero and Kyrie to it, and had Dante not intervened they would have both been digested alive; he also murders his own loyal servant Credo for daring to defend his sister Kyrie, even mocking Credo for his love while impaling him on Yamato, claiming that the only thing that matters "is absolute power." The demons that have been killing people throughout the game have been released on Sanctus's orders. When Nero fights Sanctus, Sanctus uses Kyrie as a Human Shield. Despite his holy trappings and grandfatherly appearance, Sanctus was an evil monster and one of the worst villains the series had to offer.
• Contested Sequel: Perhaps the most divisive game in the series, in part due to the results of the game's Troubled Production, 4 is held in a split between fans who consider it among the series' best alongside 3 and 5 and those who consider it one of the weakest titles alongside 2. Detractors don't like the title mainly due to Nero being a Replacement Scrappy for Dante at the time (before the former came into his own in 5) and due to the high amounts of Backtracking and Recurring Bosses. Fans, especially more advanced players, hold 4 in high regard thanks to the gameplay tech that's only found in this game due to the depth that mechanics such as Nero's Exceed and Dante's Style Switch and Weapon Swap provide.
• Continuity Lock-Out:
  • Fans who are sticking with only the games' lore might be confused on why Lady and Trish are already well-acquainted with each other in this game even though they never met in the past three games. This characterization is actually a reference to the 2007 anime adaptation that depicts how Lady and Trish first met.
  • Beating the game unlocks a Previously on… video that summarizes the stories of the previous three games. Not only are the summaries condensed enough, the games are also previewed by release order and there's only a short passage that mentions Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening as a prequel game. These can throw series newcomers out of the loop because the first four Devil May Cry games actually have an Anachronic Order.
• Demonic Spiders:
  • Blitz. They're more like Demonic Beetles, really, but most players can agree they'd rather fight an actual boss than one of these. They're fast, can teleport, deal a considerable amount of damage that can stun you, and before you can melee a Blitz, you need to take out its lightning barrier by using your firearms. Unfortunately, they're far from the only examples.
  • Chimera Assaults are especially annoying. To put it simply, on higher difficulties, simply trying to get near them is potential suicide. Mission 14 puts them in the same room as Faults for extra frustration.
  • Alto Angelo. Its lesser brethren, Bianco Angelo, can't fight back if backstabbed, but an Alto can and will teleport in retaliation. It's impossible to land a Buster on an Alto unless its shield is down, and like Bianco, it cannot be snatched. ^note At least trying to use the Snatch on them doesn't hurt you or anything; the game just treats them like a grapple target from the platforming sections.
• Designated Hero: Trish, for giving the most powerful weapon in the game to the Order, allowing them to wreak havoc much faster than they would have originally. The only thing possibly keeping Trish a hero in this game is that she's sided with Dante and posed as The Mole under the guise of Gloria.
• Difficulty Spike: Secret Missions are set on "Son of Sparda" difficulty even if you're playing them on the easier "Human" or "Devil Hunter" difficulties. The spike isn't noticeable at first and won't matter in some puzzle-related missions, but it can be surprising in combat-based missions.
• Disappointing Last Level: Dante's share of missions feature excessive backtracking and recycled bosses, and when you switch back to Nero for Mission 19, you're treated to a return of the dice game from Mission 6 combined with a Boss Rush. The second half of the game, though not without its enjoyable moments, is generally agreed to be much weaker than the first because of the lack of originality. Later interviews confirmed that the second half re-used the previous levels because DMC4 was underfunded and rushed to follow a schedule.
• Event-Obscuring Camera:
  • The Fixed Camera angles can be confusing depending on where they are placed, but usually, the camera faces the door where you just came from, so you have to walk several steps further when you enter a room before knowing what you're about to deal with.
  • The Advancing Wall of Doom section with Echidna has the camera facing the thing that's chasing you from behind, which makes it a bit hard to anticipate the path ahead.
• Fan Nickname: See here.
• Fanon:
  • Vergil's prologue cutscene in the Special Edition shows him walking between a crowd in Fortuna. Despite his face partly being concealed by his robe, a woman dressed in red stops in her tracks and takes a short while to glance at Vergil. It has then been speculated that this "woman in red" is Nero's mom.
  • The all-black Palette Swap Mirror Boss of Dante fought on the 101st floor of Bloody Palace is believed to be a Continuity Cameo appearance of Doppelganger the Deathvoid from Devil May Cry 3: Dante's Awakening.
• Franchise Original Sin: This game is mostly criticized for its excessive use of backtracking, even though DMC1 and DMC3 have a lot of backtracked segments as well. At least they were more tolerable in the previous games because their backtracked segments mostly change the previously-visited environment and open up new areas. But in DMC4, the backtracking is exacerbated because it's also combined with the Level in Reverse trope. Even if Dante's levels feature some changes in the environment, they generally consist of going through Nero's levels in reverse order, with the only new segment being the aerial boss fight against the Savior. As revealed in later interviews, the levels were reused because the game went through a Troubled Production.
• Game-Breaker:
  • "Distortion" is a technique that allows you to deal massive damage by properly timing your Devil Trigger transformation during melee attacks. For instance, carefully using Vergil's Concentration Gauge coupled with Devil Trigger and Beowulf empties the entire health bar of The Savior within 2 seconds as soon as Vergil's straight punch hits the boss's most vulnerable spot. This can also be performed during some of Dante's moves, with "Distorted Real Impact" being the most popular choice in the DMC4 fanbase.
  • Because Dante wasn't tested in-depth due to the game being rushed, he has several gameplay exploits that turn him, a character who already has a high execution barrier, into something that can only be likened to a death machine. One of the cornerstones of his inhuman mobility and combo potential revolves around a mechanic referred to as "Inertia", wherein jump-canceling specific moves with horizontal momentum (e.g. Sky Star, Killer Bee, Full House) in a certain way will cause Dante to drift through the air in various directions. From there, you get to techniques like "Guard Flying" (a.k.a. "Flying Guard"/"Sky Running"), where canceling inertia-generated movement with his Guard will cause Dante to zip around the air at the player's whim. A similar but distinct trick is "Star Rave", which involves canceling the first hit of Swordmaster's Aerial Rave with Trickster's Sky Star, then switching back to Swordmaster and jump-canceling into another Aerial Rave—all in one fluid motion—for a potentially endless loop. Needless to say, your index fingers and thumbs will require A LOT of training.
  • Vergil in 4:SE has several powerful tools that can make a quick work of certain scenarios:
    • From a platforming standpoint, Vergil now has the ability to collect orbs at a distance by hitting them with his Summoned Swords. This renders the challenge of retrieving most hard-to-reach orbs scattered throughout the game completely moot due to the sheer range at which the Summoned Swords can travel.
    • Air Trick, Lunar Phase, and Rapid Slash can turn any fight against the Alto Angelo, Bianco Angelo, and even Credo Angelo into a joke; Air Trick allows him to quickly close the distance of enemies that zip around the battlefield, his Lunar Phase can decimate anyone who's blocking with a shield when it is spammed (as this attack doesn't stagger him that much, and it has a very fast recovery animation when it's blocked), and his Rapid Slash makes him attack through enemies even if they're blocking.
    • His Spiral Swords ability is strong enough to shred the cloaks of the Mephistos and Fausts in just a few seconds.
  • Lady is designed to fight at a distance in a game where most enemies are designed around playable characters who fight at close-range. Her inherent flaws are supposedly her lack of a Devil Trigger and no accompanying health regeneration making her significantly squishier than her demonic allies; and her very limited close-range options. Those might sound like good trade-offs for her gun combat, but almost nothing in the game can deal with the fact that she just sits across the room and mows everything down, and even up close, her fully-charged shotgun blasts deal ludicrous damage.
  • Because of its wide Area of Effect and extremely fast attack speed per hit, Trish's Round Trip with the Sparda is the best way to quickly farm the Red Orb Crystal Chunks. Just a single execution of the move can net you more than 20,000 Red Orbs in less than 10 seconds if you use it as the starting attack, and you can earn more if you supplement the Round Trip with Trish's lightning-powered melee attacks.
• Goddamned Bats:
  • The Chimera Seeds. Blady Planty thingies that just love to attach to other monsters so they can hit you by surprise and interrupt your combo. And that's just the tip of the iceberg, since on higher difficulties, pretty much every mook is attached with one of these.
  • Faults appear beneath you in order to swallow and teleport you to a confined space where you must defeat other demons before you can return. A single Fault is easy to kill (usually with just one Gilgamesh combo), but several of them on the same area is just annoying, especially if you are also fighting other enemy types. When you do manage to avoid one Fault's grasp by jumping, another Fault will likely swallow you when you land.
• Goddamned Boss: There's a terrible boss in the form of the first fight against Agnus (or rather, the glass window blocking him from you). Waves of Gladius fly out, and you're supposed to grab them and use them to break the glass. On lower difficulties, it's not too bad, but on higher ones, it's a nightmare. In theory, you're supposed to grab a Gladius before it attacks you — or just shoot it and then grab another — whilst dodging the ones you can't. In practice, your lock-on controls won't know which Gladius you want, they attack fast enough that you can only dodge so much, the floor constantly charges with electricity so you're limited by your dodging space, and it's entirely possible to be stun-locked and lose half of your health in one go.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Just before Nero acquired his spectral Devil Trigger in Mission 6, it was mostly assumed that he was merely "unconscious" after Agnus stabbed him, due to the game framing it like he was simply closing his eyes before waking up soon enough when he hears Kyrie's voice in his head. More than a decade later, the "History of DMC" video in Devil May Cry 5 reveals Nero was actually "killed" during that time, before he was revived by the Yamato itself.
  • Nero starts out resenting his Devil Bringer, but comes to appreciate it as it proves instrumental in defeating the villains. In 5, the Devil Bringer is torn off by Vergil who also takes back the Yamato sword which Dante gave to Nero as a gift.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: Midway through the story, Dante fights Nero for the rightful possession of the Yamato, saying that it has to "stay in the family" (the weapon belongs to his twin brother Vergil). At that point, Dante witnesses Nero summoning the Yamato and his spectral Devil Trigger for the first time. By the end of the game, Dante lets Nero keep it permanently instead as a gift. Later installments such as Devil May Cry 5 would outright confirm that Nero is Vergil's son, while Dante already had his suspicions about it when they first met, but was more certain when he saw how the Yamato reacted. This retroactively means that Dante allowed Nero to keep the Yamato in the end because he already realized that Nero is his nephew during their second battle.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • In the Special Edition, Trish has an attack called "V Divider". It's quite an interesting attack name at first, but in Devil May Cry 5, the new playable character V and the new Big Bad Urizen are both revealed to be a Literal Split Personality of Vergil. In other words, they are Vergil divided in two.
  • Nero's hair is thick enough to almost cover his left eye. Dante's appearance in Devil May Cry 2 also had some bangs that almost covered his right eye. That's quite a bit of a mirrored resemblance considering the fact that this game mentions Nero as a descendant of Sparda. Then in DMC5, V, the new character who has a thick hair with bangs, is actually Vergil's human half, while that game finally confirmed Nero as Vergil's son. This caused fans to retroactively compare V and DMC4 Nero's hairstyles then realize that the son looked like the father in a very specific way.
• Ho Yay: In a Mission 1 cutscene, Dante and Nero wrap their legs around each other in mid-air. It's primarily a Rule of Cool moment that allows them to minimize the openings of their attempted point-blank shots. However, some players saw these motions with an erotic subtext. This is best summarized by the reactions of Unskippable.
  Unskippable: Uh.. Woah! Wow, that's a little.. Uh.. Woah... kind of erotic. I kinda feel like we shouldn't be watching this. / You know guys, the sexual tension is not doing anyone any good. We should really just get it over with.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • Series newcomers were interested in knowing Gloria and her role in this game, especially when DMC5 added a Palette Swap of Trish as a nod to her time disguised as Gloria.
  • Some DMC fans play the Special Edition of this game because it's the first time where Lady becomes playable. Trish and Vergil were playable in older DMC games, but fans are also interested to see their updated movesets here.
• Memetic Mutation: See here.
• Narm Charm: Dante's costume in this game, which includes ass-less and crotch-less chaps, though given how stylishly "American" Dante's design is perceived by fans (despite being pretty anime-influenced for a guy who seemingly lives in the States, though that's not necessarily a strike against him) and how over the top his antics are in this game, it works as a whole, though perhaps not as well as his other outfits (the first and third games in particular). His "cowboy" outfit also features slight Italian touches, which happen to match how Fortuna's Gothic architecture draws inspiration from The Renaissance.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Nero's stylish reloading trick with the Blue Rose is remembered as the series' "first" instance of the Unorthodox Reload trope. While it's easily memorable (likely due to it happening in Mission 1), Lady performed an Unorthodox Reload in DMC3 as well, using several guns and magazine clips falling from mid-air.
  • Dante's "What the hell is this?" scene from Devil May Cry 4 became a popular meme template, though this wasn't actually the first time he said that exact same line. He also asked it as a reaction to Lady inviting him to deal with a biker gang's situation in Episode 2 of Devil May Cry: The Animated Series. Viewers who watched the anime after being familiar with this game or the meme have also found out that Reuben Langdon's delivery of the line is almost the same in these two scenes!
  • In the Special Edition, Vergil's expanded moveset and mechanics actually take some cues from his DmC counterpart, such as his "Trick" techniques now requiring the target to be impaled with a Summoned Sword beforehand, and his "Judgement Cut" now having a stronger "just frame" variant. However, not everyone realizes this tidbit and thus assumes the "Perfect Judgement Cut" originated from 4:SE, for instance. This is pointed out in a retrospective analysis video of DMC4; it's not an easily-known fact likely because it's from DmC, a controversial entry in the franchise.
• Padding: A major criticism is directed against the boss fights, or specifically, the amount of times you have to fight the same bosses. Berial, Bael/Dagon, Echidna, and Angelo Agnus are each fought three times in a single playthrough, but without any significant variations to spice up their succeeding fights (Dagon is just a recolored Bael, but he fights exactly like his blue-colored counterpart). The last instances of these fights also take place on the Boss Rush section of Mission 19, a stage that's already considered a Disappointing Last Level. Fighting them again on New Game Plus playthroughs, in the other character campaigns, and in Bloody Palace can become so tiring. This criticism sometimes extends to another boss; when playing as Dante in the Bloody Palace, the final boss... is Shadow Dante. There's no A.I.-controlled boss version of the other playable characters, just another Dante fight.
• Polished Port: The original PC version, which not only runs very smoothly on a wide array of systems and has some adjustable graphics options, but puts higher-end systems to the test with the "Legendary Dark Knight" mode which fills the screen with enemies. Unlike the PC port of DMC3 which was a Porting Disaster as a result of Capcom outsourcing the porting job to another developer, this is quite the breath of fresh air for PC Devil May Cry gamers when it comes to port performance.
• Replacement Scrappy: Many fans saw Nero as one before this game finally came out, fearing that he would completely replace Dante as the main protagonist. But after the release of DmC: Devil May Cry, most agree that the hate was ill-placed, and that Nero has come into his own in later games such as Devil May Cry 5.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: As soon as people learned that Nero was going to replace Dante as the lead for DMC4, they hated the new character, but grew a soft spot for him when seeing him in action. DMC5 has helped Nero come into his own more than ever, with his fresh new haircut, fashion sense, and robotic arm widening the gap between him and Dante even further; this Nero's hardly the same character as before. Nero was also accidentally rescued from the heap when DmC was released. For example, the Gaming Brit took back every negative comment he said about Nero when seeing Dante's characterization in the reboot.
• Scrappy Mechanic: The Dice Game is a mini-game that you are required to play in two missions, but it becomes tedious because of the Random Number God nature in rolling the dice and the length of the mini-game itself. Even if the player knows how to manipulate the dice using Nero's Buster and force a specific number to come out, the length of the mini-game (which takes in factors such as the animations and the board size) is still a concern because the overall completion time is counted in your mission ranking. It's telling that when Hideki Kamiya (the director of Devil May Cry 1) used DMC4 as a research material for Bayonetta, he Tweeted that the "Dice thing is SHIT."
• Sequel Difficulty Drop: DMC4 is considered to be easier than DMC3. From the playable characters alone, Nero has a powerful grapple move, Buster, that can quickly take a significant chunk of the enemies' health. For Dante, he can now access all of his weapons and styles in real-time, and they are much easier to manage and upgrade compared to the previous game locking him to one style at a time. The Western release of 3 being infamously difficult also contributes to this in retrospect.
• Signature Scene: Dante suddenly appearing in the Mitis Forest and quoting "What the hell is this?". It's the most memorable part of the game even after several years, partly because it's another Devil May Cry meme reaction clip that spread to other fandoms. The meme saw a resurgence in 2020 when it was used to express bafflement over certain characters appearing in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate before Dante. And when the Special Edition of Devil May Cry 5 arrived on the same year, this scene is also referenced as a game clear art for the latter, with Dante doing a nearly-identical pose like what he did in 4 while Nero and Vergil are casually taking in the scenery.
• Spiritual Adaptation: The original PC version (and later the 4:SE version on both consoles and PC) on Legendary Dark Knight is considered as Capcom's attempt at a Dynasty Warriors game.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • Nero's battle theme, "The Time Has Come", sounds rather similar to Rob Zombie's "Reload", which appeared on the soundtrack to The Matrix Reloaded. Fitting, as both franchises and the artist came into prominence in the early 2000s.
  • "Frozen Frog" uses a synth wail that is also used in "Drop Out" from DDR Extreme, and Chaotic Inferno Zone Act 3 from Sonic Rivals 2. It was also sampled in Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for the cries of Dialga, Heatran, and the Garchomp evolution line.
  • The latter half of "Shall Never Surrender" uses a drum beat that was also sampled in Bionicle Heroes for the Matoran Enclave.
• Tainted by the Preview: Nero's mere existence as a love-struck, foul-mouthed replacement for Dante got many people up in arms. And even though most fans warmed up to him over time, that negative first impression still remains for some.
• That One Boss: Quite logically, Dante will kill an inexperienced player countless times. Using cheap moves, incredible combos, and with few openings to attack him, he will brutalize the player all too often. It's partly because his A.I. has computerized accuracy; he can react to and counter your attacks as soon as you input them.
• That One Level: Mission 10 will make you hate lasers because they can be difficult to dodge. And that's just before fighting Dante, who fights like an experienced player would.
• That One Sidequest: Secret Mission 8 requires you to perform Royal Block 5 times consecutively. It can throw off a first-timer by surprise because the objective text is actually misleading as it doesn't tell you about the "consecutively" part. This means that getting hit or mistiming Royal Block will reset your objective counter to zero. The enemy type in this mission can make things harder as well; you're faced off against Mephistos in Son of Sparda difficulty, you have to learn the perfect timing in at least three different attack variations, and the pace can become a waiting game because the Mephisto can be idle for a few seconds. Overall, this secret mission is a pure test of skill, but it's necessary if you want to obtain the "Nothing Left Unsaid" achievement and collect all of the Blue Orbs to fully upgrade your vitality.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: For PC players who are heavily used to Vanilla 4, the mass plethora of technical changes in Special Edition (including, but not limited to, the bloated file size, messed up gamma values, requiring a fan patch to fix that and to disable motion blur, as well as the forced upgrade from DX 9 to DX 11, which drastically reduced optimization across all Windows systems) were not well received, and not even the rebalanced gameplay and added characters was enough to salvage this release. This only got worse when Capcom removed the ability to purchase the original version of Devil May Cry 4 from Steam, leaving players with Special Edition or nothing unless they were willing to go to questionable means to download the original release.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • As mentioned by Sanctus, Nero is eventually revealed to have inherited the power and blood of Sparda. What's the reaction of the cast? Nobody cares. Dante mostly ignores it, Kyrie never learns it, and Nero doesn't react too much on it, especially when he and Kyrie were being absorbed into The Savior when Sanctus revealed it. All anyone gets out of this plot point is Nero acquiring Yamato and accessing his Devil Trigger in Mission 6, and having the right to inherit Yamato in the finale. Outside of subtle hints, the game itself never explained how exactly is Nero a descendant of Sparda, though it took some supplementary materials and a sequel for the answer to be revealed.
  • Vergil's inclusion in 4:SE was likely an attempt to rectify Vergil Mode in 3:SE, itself being an example of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot in a different way, namely giving players a look at what Vergil was up to in Fortuna prior to the events of 3. Unfortunately, it's just as woefully brief as the new story material added in 3:SE; all that we get are a brief shot of a suspicious woman who looks at Vergil in the prologue, and Vergil's monologue in the ending cutscene summarizing his experience as he leaves Fortuna.
    Vergil: Well, I can't exactly call them misguided. But soon, they shall know this devil's power. A power greater than they ever imagined, the power of a son of Sparda.
• Underused Game Mechanic: The Chrono Slicers' time-slowing effects are mostly used in the laser hallway puzzles; there are only few rooms where you could activate a Chrono Slicer to slow down the nearby enemies and freely beat them up while the effect lasts. It doesn't help that Chrono Slicers are stationary objects found only inside the Order of the Sword HQ, and that there are no tutorials mentioning how the enemies are also slowed down when a Chrono Slicer is activated. These limitations are often contrasted to the Gyro Blades - mobile structures found in the Fortuna Castle and Mitis Forest, and have segments clearly demonstrating their offensive nature against the enemies.
• Unnecessary Makeover: Lady was changed from an appropriately moody teenager with a slight tomboyish Catholic Schoolgirl-esque moe look (due to purple spandex shorts and her 'skirt' being made of ammo for her guns) in the third game to... just another busty woman with a Navel-Deep Neckline and flawless skin, having her dress less modestly than Trish and her Gloria disguise. Her minimal role in the game's story didn't help either, so fans were surprised at her DMC4 role focusing more on Fanservice appeal. Fortunately, this is rectified in DMC5 where her proportions and clothing style return to what they originally were in the third game.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: 4 was released near the beginning of the seventh gen but still looks really damn good, on top of running at 60 FPS in an age where people would rather ignore playability and performance for the visuals.
• Watch It for the Meme: Dante's "What the hell is this?" quote became a meme in other related fandoms as a disapproval reaction to a surprising news. It was used a lot in the 2020s as a reaction to some Super Smash Bros. Ultimate character announcements such as Byleth, so naturally, some DMC newcomers' first exposure to the franchise was a meme template from a decade old game. This led to them trying out the game in order to understand the context on why Dante is being surprised at a rainforest's view.
• What Do You Mean, It's Not Political?: The Order of the Sword seems like an obvious Take That! against Christianity, but the game's director, Hideaki Itsuno, denies the connection.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: For this game, Dante upgrades his wardrobe to include cowboy boots and chaps◊. The guy's one step away from becoming the new Shawn Michaels.