Devil May Cry

"Someone thought I actually would like these people."

Clearly the games were all designed with you specifically in mind.

He did manage to hold off the Savior's punches in DMC4 with just his sword, after all.

Pffffffffff. Not just that. He ran all over the Savior like a fucking Sonic level. The Enemy Files dared to call that piece of crap statue a god? Millenia worth of demonic energy and spirit matter, my foot. Mundus was more of a threat.

It seems like I might be one of the few people that enjoyed the original DMC more than its sequels.

For me, the combat in the original was the best: the moves had a weight to them that the rest of the series hasn't managed to replicate, and enemies needed to be taken on with more strategy than the rest of the series did. Critical hits were a huge part of some combats, like against the Sin enemies (like Scissors and Scythe) and the Blades, all of whom could be killed in two hits as long as you knew what to do. I also found the boss fights, even though they were against the same enemy multiple times in most cases, had enough variety from fight to fight to keep it interesting.

For me what makes me not play DMC 1 much is that the Button Layout is horrible.

"Clearly the games were all designed with you specifically in mind."

As a gamer, I'd imagine so.

edited 8th May '10 3:25:10 PM by IndigoDingo

I love the original best, frankly.

.... Your avatar picture keeps changing everytime I look at it, Schitzo.

Anyway, has anyone seen the animated series?

I;ve seen clips of it. It looks cool, but it had a terrible ending and there was no devil trigger from what I've heard. oh well. Hell, Dante looks like Alucard in that series though. Even if Alucard came first.

Frankly, I just kinda prefer Devil May Cry to Bayonetta. Yes, both games have their strengths, and yes, Bayonetta is, mechanically, even more refined in some respects. But Bayonetta's obsession with what borders on softcore porn, its frankly terrible writing and mediocre cinematography, its fixation on titanic bosses, and its heroine being both often unlikable and inscrutable in her motives and damn near invincible all were definite downsides. The torture attacks also felt...off in a goofy game like Bayonetta.

I think the series may have potential, but it needs a better writer. Also, I am sick of "God Is Evil, kill his/her angels! They're fakes!" That stopped being edgy about five years ago.

By contrast, Devil May Cry isn't a perfect series by any means, but even as shallow as its plot is, it's still more comprehendable, more logical, and populated by often more likable characters than Bayonetta, who is not nearly as badass or sexy as the game seems desperately trying to convince us she is.

More logical? AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA—

okay. Hop into the Just Bugs Me page sometime. Tell me all those plot inconsistencies, retcons, and just plain bad writing are at all coming from a logical story. The series' canon is a fucking trainwreck.

@Demongod: Yeeeaaaahhhh I'd rather forget the anime had a 8th and 10th episode, personally. That, and that they replaced a perfectly good Enzo with Morrison. That, and that Dante is suddenly in debt with women running him into even more debt for no real reason other than maintaining a running gag about his Perpetual Poverty. That, and that the show didn't end with a bullet to Sid's head in the first episode considering his shtick is the exact same one as Arkham's, Arius's, and Sanctus's... what is that, like the entire anime series? Well, shit.

Look, in the simplest sense, Devil May Cry has a reasonably consistent explanation for why the badguys are badguys- the demons want to take over the world and kill innocent people. By contrast, Bayonetta essentially asks you to take its word for why the antagonists are antagonists.

The plots of individual games make a decent amount of sense in Devil May Cry. I'm not saying they're brilliant, because lordy knows they aren't, but they're at least more comprehensible than the moving train wreck that is Bayonetta's plot.

Because the main bad guy is a self-centered Jerkass of a Sage and has no problem sacrificing innocent people, the Cardinal Virtues equally have no problem with wiping out entire towns just to take out one person, and it's all to revive some God that will remake the universe upon completely awakening, ending the world as we know it and turning three realities into a mish-mash of... stuff?

Lord knows there's something hard to get about that.

"Look, in the simplest sense, Devil May Cry has a reasonably consistent explanation for why the badguys are badguys- the demons want to take over the world and kill innocent people. By contrast, Bayonetta essentially asks you to take its word for why the antagonists are antagonists."

Yeah, it's not like the angels want to revive god and have manipulated human society for years just to achieve that.

It's not like revival of said god would kind of wipe out all of existence(killing everyone) in order to create a new one....

edited 12th May '10 7:47:26 PM by Jotun of Boredom

-highfives Jotun-

And it would be great of them if they'd actually bothered to explain, concisely and clearly, these things on screen. As it is, the only evil thing we ever see an angel do for much of the game is...try to kill Bayonetta with a great deal of collateral damage, which is a little more understandable when you consider she is a one-woman army capable of destroying just about everything in her path.

As it was, it was like "Ok, Balder's a dick; let's kill him. Awesome. Wait, God? Wha? I'm so confused!"

edited 12th May '10 8:23:53 PM by Roland

Yeah. Destroying both the Umbra and his own clan, knowing the world would be thrown off balance, was just peachy.

While we're at it they:

Murdered Luka's father, attempted to murder Luka, destroyed two highways while people were traversing it, sent out a cardinal that NATURALLY CAUSES TORNADOS, allowed Jeanne to send out a barrage of missiles onto a heavily populated city(he probably gave her the controls in the first place), tossed a skyscraper at you(there had to be people there, the lights were all on), and destroyed the tallest tower in the city while their human minions were still inside.

Mundus on the other hand took over an already derelict island....and I guess he stabbed Trish and Gryphon....that's it? Oh wait no, he totally made Trish wreck Dante's store; Christ, what an asshole.

You're really reaching if you want to talk about writing in games like these.

edited 13th May '10 4:10:53 AM by Jotun of Boredom

Correction: Mundus didn't stab Trish, he Agony Beam'd her. Correction Correction: She did that to herself just by standing there as it was coming. Seriously, she stood there for the one second it would have taken for it to reach her when she could have just jumped out of the way, or teleported.

Now let's talk kill counts.

Balder committed atrocities in the name of Jubileus. That's already been counted. Jubileus, meanwhile, is powered specifically by human sacrifices and you can see caskets (shaped like people) draining what looks like blood and channeling it straight to her like food. ... Right. She's killing people simply by being inactive and needing to be fed.

As for Mundus, in the first game, Dante thinks that Mundus was responsible for Eva's death and the separation of his family after that, so along with Trish and Griffon, I guess killing Eva would score Mundus an extra point. Yet, Mundus barely acknowledges her except for two lines:

Dante: Why my mother?
Mundus: That useless being? Look, if you need a mother, I can create it, as many as you'd like. Just like I created Trish.

So we don't know if he actually killed her or if he's just taking the credit for someone else's thing, or gloating about the fact he can create shit which doesn't necessarily mean he destroyed it the first time.

Anyway, if Mundus wanted to really be a dick he would have made a worldwide assault on every town even if Sparda and/or his family wasn't there, just to strike fear into the people he's about to take over, but no other game has a town with people lamenting that they were attacked by demons at around the same time that Dante did. So apparently he only attacked Dante's family and no one else, then sat on his ass for 20 years until Trish lured Dante into an empty island that exploded upon his defeat.

So his kill count is... what, three people, and Dante's office? Four people with Nero Angelo being an enslaved Vergil and all? Except Eva is unknown, Griffon failed him, Trish came back for no reason, and Dante killed Nero Angelo, not Mundus.

That makes it... two. Two people he's killed. One which is unknown, and one that we saw get toasted and apparently we're supposed to feel bad.

My god, what an asshole.

edited 13th May '10 7:14:50 AM by ^_^

What baffles me about calling Bayonetta a game with a bad plot is the implication that games usually have good plots. Its not even extraordinarily bad, even. The direction on the crazy action scenes makes up for that. Besides, complaining about a plot on not only a videogame but a hack n' slash game is like complaining that the characters in a porn have unrealistic motivations.

There are one or two games with good stories.

The problem is that they're:

1) very few and far in between.

2) never mainstream. At best word of mouth gets a few people on the internet to try them.

As far as action games go though, I can't think of any good plots. One or two are almost adequate I guess.

I liked Devil May Cry 3's because it embraced that a serious storyline would not work with the game, and God of War's kind of worked until they got to the last game. Bayonetta's storyline is more or less on the same level as Ninja Gaiden's.

God of War's worked until the second game.

Everything from there snowballed hitting the Climax with time travel. And then somehow got worse with the third game.

edited 13th May '10 9:25:38 AM by JotunofBoredom

@Jotun,

If you'd paid attention, you would have noticed the part when I said that Balder was when the game made sense. It took a while, granted, but then the game just threw in an unnecessary boss battle with God with no clear explanation of Jubileus' threat; it was just "Here, have a final battle with God. In space. For some reason." And the battle wasn't even that cool, compared to Balder!

RE: the various atrocities the angels cause over the course of the game; a fair number of them are just trying to kill you. Furthermore, RE: the Umbra's extermination, if I recall correctly: A: the Umbra had an equal hand in the whole backstory war, and B: they were winning until the Lumen and their allies sicked the Muggles on them, and C: well, even the game itself admits the Umbra gain their power through bargains with primarily evil entities that damn them to Hell. From the POV of, you know, most people, that would theoretically make them valid targets.

I'm just saying that the game made the mistake of assuming that angels and devils are interchangeable and thus it doesn't have to explain why they're the antagonists. Which, even in a hack and slash game, is a weakness. Combine that with the other issues I have about Bayonetta- its relatively weak cast (including Jeanne, who I really want to punch), its fixation on sex and its out-of-place torture attacks, and the fact that, well, its heroine is not nearly as likable as the game thinks she is- and I have to say I think Devil May Cry is the stronger franchise.

edited 13th May '10 2:27:31 PM by Roland

Ahh, but roland, the problem with your last statement is that Bayonetta only has one game compared to Devil May Cry's 4.

Jubileus threatened the entire world because she was going to combine the trinity of realities which would have resulted in EVERYONE DYING!

How is that not a threat? Would you rather her destroy all of existence and then fight Bayonetta? OH WAIT!

Oh and hey: Just because they were trying to kill Bayonetta doesn't mean they didn't pretty much commit genocide on a town or two. The fact that they think so little of humans just shows how much of a collective asshole they are.

A) And? The war was PLANNED by Balder. He not only expected casualties, he NEEDED casualties for his plan to work. He fostered the genocide of two groups(one of which he was apart of) because he needed them out of the way.

B) Oh and the Lumen? They were tools too! He's the only one of them to survive. The Umbra weren't just winning the war, they just plain wiped out the other side. Just according to Balder's keikaku.(translators note: keikaku means plan)

C) WRONG. Demons are Chaotic NOT evil. In fact most of them just act like animals. Read a few demon compendium entries. There's even one about a demon that not only appears in the human world nonviolently but is actually willing to help humans if they help it out in return.

Neither side is good; Angels are just more subtle, organized, and manipulative.

And what, are you actually claiming witches are evil? Guess what? Lumen and Umbra were supposed to work together to keep the world in balance before the war. The Umbra literally gave their souls for that purpose. A completely selfless act. How is that evil?

And no shit humans would make witches a valid target. Fear and discrimination! They made a threat of a benevolent group that had protected their very existence since the beginning of time. Oh but unjustified genocide? That's okay. They were all, like, dark and stuff anyway.

The humans attacked because the angels convinced them that they should fear witches. That's why witches are looked upon as evil THE HUMANS WERE MANIPULATED INTO THINKING THAT WAY! Here have a link to Lawful Evil. The game literally says in the intro that the history of the clans had been long since erased from the records of time.

Are you seriously trying to make witches look like the villains here?

And the worst part is, ALL OF THIS IS DIRECTLY STATED. It isn't in a bunch of subtlety written hints; It's right in your face.

edited 13th May '10 2:45:09 PM by Jotun of Boredom

A and B) Just in case anybody missed it:

Father Balder is the main antagonist of The Game. He is also Bayonetta's Father, although she rejects him for the destruction he has caused. He is the last remaining member of the Lumen Sages, a clan that belonged to light whilst the Umbran Witches belonged to the dark. However, he violated the chief tenet of both the clans when he and an Umbra Witch bore a child together. He was also the one responsible for starting the chain of events that lead to the Umbran Witch Burnings.In addition, Balder is the one who holds the Right Eye of the World.

His ambition is to revive Jubileus, The Creator, so that a new world can be created in place of the current one.

His first appearance in person is on Chapter XVI in which he explains everything to Bayonetta (about the fact that he was the one responsible for the events that lead to the Umbra Witch Hunts and how he used Jeanne to lure Bayonetta to him and to awaken The Left Eye of the World). He also revealed that he was also the one responsible for the death of Luka's father.

C)

"Phantasmaraneae nests upon a sea of magma, deep within the furthest reaches of Inferno. Rarely seen upon the face of the Earth, even sightings of the demon in hell are a seldom event, leading to its name, which means phantom spider.

While having the frightening appearance of a spider, it is a curious beast, and should one have the good fortune to encounter the Phantasmaraneae, one should treat it with care and respect, in hope of receiving rare treasures and secrets in return." - The Book of Infernal Demons.

For the rest... yeah, Jotun already handled that. Antonio's Notes explain everything from the mundane to the magical, honestly. There's not even a need to explain.

edited 13th May '10 4:24:57 PM by ^_^