Those who are familiar with the Devil May Cry franchise have likely heard about the newest installment of the series coming from Ninja Theory LTD, and heard about it, and heard about it, and heard about it. . .you get the picture. Generally there's been a lot of outcry from the fans, many along the lines of "They changed it now it sucks!" and "Ruined forever!" though some fans are taking an objective "Wait and see." stance regarding the whole thing. I am one of those who fit into the last category.
Now don't get me wrong, as a fan who's been hooked on Devil May Cry since the release of the first game, I was taken a bit by shock when I saw the teaser trailer for the new installment. Yes, Dante, well, doesn't look like Dante to be bluntly honest, however, people do look different when they're younger, but is he really younger? A few fans have asked this, according to interviews the DmC game is meant to be a reboot and re-imagining of the series. However, it is also stated in an Eurogamer interview with Alex Jones that this Dante is ". . .the same Dante - just younger." Alex Jones also states "We're looking at a retelling of his origin story." which certainly caused this old time Devil May Cry fan to raise an eyebrow.
Any who paid much attention to the storyline of the previous Devil May Cry games should have noticed the little hints and references to Dante's past, they were few and far between, yes, but they were there. By calling this a retelling of Dante's origin story, however, it has a lot of people thinking they mean for DmC to be a replacement for Devil May Cry: Dante's Awakening. Perhaps calling it a retelling was a poor choice of words, that or people think that DMC3 was his origin story, when it wasn't, not ever close. Now this is purely opinion, so take it as you will, but I think they're aiming to go farther back than that, not to when his demonic abilities were awakened but to the root of what made him take the course he did instead of, say, ending up like Vergil (Which Vergil's pretty awesome, don't get me wrong!) and showing how he rose above his childhood losses to become the smart ass, iconic character he is in the other games. At least that's what I hope, I'll say this now, I'm giving this new installment a chance, but if they mess it up you better believe this redhead will be the first to give them a piece of her mind and then some.
Anyways, I have a few of my own theories regarding the game, not enough to be solid yet so I'll spare you that ramble. Moving on to another point, one that sticks out at me a bit: Dante's new look.
OK, first off, the new look is an awesome character design overall. . .but not for Dante. The hair thing, that can pass (I think the white tuff of hair is his demonic heritage showing at maturity, but that's just a theory) that I'll not throw a fit over. The more slender body build, eh, believable, we can't have expected Dante to always have had six-pack abs. The smoking habit, eh, I'm a smoker so that doesn't bother me an ounce (makes me wonder if it's menthol or normal cigs though, just joking. . .mostly). The shorter jacket design, while it does make me go "Where's his damned coat! That jacket's a wanna be!" I can let that slip, after all, while the long red coat is a trademark of Dante's style, with it or without it, Dante's still awesome. The red irises makes me go "WTF?" and I'm expecting a good explanation for that one when the game comes out, there better be a good reason for Dante to not have his normal ice blue eyes just for consistency's sake. No, none of those changes bug me too much, what does bother me however is the change in his facial structure, the bone structure is off, young or not one's facial structure doesn't change too drastically. Look at the cheek bones, they're too prominent even for Dante, his jaw is a little too narrow, the rest of his face in general is too narrow, the upper face they matched pretty well, I will say that, eye shape, brow ridge and the like match, but it's mostly the lower face that doesn't. Though, as someone who works with 3D on a near daily basis, I will say that it's hard to make a newer model look like an older one while still making use of the detail newer technology allows, but these are structural differences, not shaders, material settings and polygon load issues. It could be fixed if they took the extra time to, but then again not everyone looks at 3D characters as critically as I do. Though if what I've been seeing online is any indication, I'm not the only one who's noticed these differences.
That said however, thus far we do have only one trailer to go off of, and a teaser trailer at that, something made to intro a new release and get people talking about it, and boy are the ever talking about it! Remember when Devil May Cry 4 came out and everyone thought they made Dante into an antagonist before promptly freaking out? This whole outrage is reminding me of that fiasco, and in truth, seems like the teaser trailer is doing it's job. Fans debating it, postings about the trailer all over the web, blogs (this one included), people making parody photos, topics popping up left and right on game forums, man, talk about free advertising with just a single trailer! Smart business move on Ninja Theory and Capcom's part there, because we all know that this mass freak out is going to cause older fans to keep updated to see what the hell they're doing to the series and all the commotion about it is going to make some non-fans curious and they'll end up poking their heads in to see what all the fuss is about. Advertisement wise, causing an uproar is a genius move, it's less they have to spend to get word around about the new game. However it is still yet to be seen if they're playing it out for advertisement or not, though considering how vague the developers are being about what's really going on, when just saying what's the deal with this would stop the freak out, I'm pretty sure they're using the outcry as free advertising at this point.
Though, I'll end this blog with this, I really hope that I'm right on this, because if I'm not, well, then it'll be Capcom and Ninja Theory's loss, you don't bite the hand that feeds you, and yes, they may be big cooperations, but without the fans, without the consumers, they're nothing. I hope for their sake that they're thinking this through properly, otherwise, well if they piss off the fans and consumers come launch day, there'll be hell to pay.
