A fantastic DMC player, zSenzy, recently asked me a question. He asked me what my thoughts were on how Capcom has treated Dante as a character since DMC4 and also on the recent DMC anime news.
Let's Take A Small Journey Back In Time..
In my opinion, marketing has never been one of Capcom's strong points—especially after 2006. Instead of being open, they led people to believe that Dante would be the main protagonist of DMC4. First, the DMC4 Dante E3 trailer ( which I used in Eternal Legend) and the TGS teaser. We were given all kinds of promises, for example, that DMC4 would have more weapons than all the previous DMCs combined.
DMC4 E3/TGS Teaser
We next saw the new DMC4 logo, which contained a blue figure that everybody assumed was Vergil at the time.
Vergil being the center of a DMC game wasn't anything new, we had just had that type of game in DMC3. He was more popular than ever and had made his debut as a playable character in DMC3:Special Edition. So although I still thought and assumed Dante would be the guy, it didn't worry me as Vergil being more of a focus could only mean good. People rightfully thought we would follow up with what happened to Vergil after DMC1.
Shortly it was revealed that it would be a new character called Nero. We got a TGS trailer and a detailed page breakdown of Nero in Famitsu. It was uncovered that Dante would be the antagonist, and through the detailed page, we learned that Nero would be simplified having just one melee and one ranged weapon along with the Devil Bringer. There was no confirmation on whether Dante would be playable at that time.
Side character Vibes? After a Comeback? Confusing...
Admittedly, I was a bit bewildered because this was from left field. Dante had just made a successful comeback from the disappointment that was DMC2. Why would they do this? In DMC3, Dante had access to 6 styles and 10 assorted weapons. I had played and connected with this character for 6 years at that point, so, another character taking the lead - well...it was a bit confusing. But the community chose to give the game a chance and so did I.
The DMC4 Demo was released and to be honest, I was thoroughly disappointed. I made a video titled DMC4 Sucks: Nero is for noobs. It got mixed reactions, with some in the community agreeing and some not. But, the good part of that video is that it got the attention of a Gamespot employee who wanted high-level gameplay of the game for their impending review. My video quality was bad at the time, so I got the best of the best of that era via phantombabies.net to pitch in. This deserves a whole blog on its own, so I'll save the details.
Finally, very close to DMC4's release, Capcom revealed that Dante would be playable and that the style system would be returning. They also revealed that style switching would be a thing in DMC4 - something that many of us expected but had no idea what form it would take. In the resulting hype, people created all kinds of ludicrous control schemes.
In my opinion, I understand why they decided to be hush-hush about Dante considering the story of DMC4, but Capcom did a terrible job handling this. Number one it was communicated way too close to release, and we weren't given a true breakdown of the styles. We got some okay gameplay videos, and I noticed certain moves were missing and called this out to the community. In return, there was a bit of drama involved that left a bad taste in my mouth. I'll go over that when I continue the lost history of DMC3 blog.
With nothing to go on, and a total reversal to how open they were with DMC3 and how many hardcore players got access to play the game and give us a feel and breakdown - we were operating in good faith on Dante with DMC4. When the game came out, I'll be honest, I didn't warm up to Nero.
I understood the point of Nero. He was for beginners.
Reaction To A New ArRival
Nero was basically Capcom's reaction to God of War's success. A lot of people don't remember, but the original God of War came out the same month and year that DMC3 did in North America. I used to crap on the game at the time, but its success was undeniable. DMC3 may have brought the series back from extinction, but it didn't sell nearly as well as its new rival.
Obviously, Capcom is a business, so I imagine seeing a brand new "action game" come along and do better financially was a bit of a shocker. And then, God of War 2 knocked it out of the park. The game is "accessible" with it being relatively easy to get into - something that DMC3 is not. Plus, Kratos has a "grab button" that simplifies combat to a degree. So, Capcom seeing this, took ideas.
I knew then, and even now to a degree that Nero wasn't for me. Don't get me wrong, I respect high-level players who master the character and take him to the next level. But personally, he's never been a character that interested me as much as Dante. (But to also be fair, no other character in the series does, including Vergil from a gameplay perspective) I was rushing through his sections so that I could get to Dante.
DMC4 Dante First Impression Summary
Then I got to Dante.
Before we start, try to think of this from a different point of view. Put yourself in my shoes. I know some hardcore players love DMC4 Dante. But this is coming from somebody who at the time had put in a boatload of time into DMC3 Dante.
Going from 3 to 4 can be a jarring experience. That is somewhat how I'm sure 4 Dante players felt when playing 5 Dante for the first time. Plus I was young at the time and not so forgiving.
The process went like, ok, he's nerfed but let's see what happens when I level the styles up - again. Ok, I have access to all his weapons - that's it? Ok, I've finally leveled up all the styles - that's it? Where's wildstomp? Where's freeride? Where's multiple trickster dash? Where's wallrun? Why is fireworks so floaty? Where are the environmental interactions like poleplay? What happened to Royal Guard's cancelability? Enemyhike - eh? I can only play him for 7 missions? (Again, there's more - but I'll leave it for later)
It was... a very sobering moment. One that kinda drained my love for the series for a while.
It took a while for me to realize and get past the fact that Dante was a side character in his series. I mean, in a way with the original game, they had kind of prepared us for it. Dante has a line to Mundus about saying hello to his son when Mundus returns. However, that payoff never happened and what we got instead with Nero wasn't fulfilling in my opinion.
Thoughts On DMC Anime Voice Casting News
Now, Capcom, Netflix, and Adi Shankar have revealed that Johnny Yong Bosch will be voicing Dante in the new DMC anime. I'll start with this, I like Adi overall. I think he is really good at what he does. The Castlevania Netflix anime is truly top-tier, though he made a lot of changes to the characters. I like Johnny as well. I admit, he took over for Zack in Power Rangers so 😅😅😅...I didn't quite warm up to him until Power Rangers In Space. I'm also a fan of his Kurosaki Ichigo dub.
I believe that for Castlevania, it was easy for me to accept the changes Adi made because I'm not as connected to the franchise as DMC. I'm not too happy that Johnny was chosen to voice Dante. I believe that Reuben Langdon, despite whatever he believes, should've been the guy. He's been Dante for 20 years now, even though now he's quit acting. But okay, let's say he's retired for real. Then I believe you should get somebody new.
Why? Johnny is a great voice actor. Among the best. But his voice is synonymous with Nero (And Ichigo, Broly, Vash, and Zero...but hey, we're talking about DMC!). Fans of this series will immediately recognize it and Nero will pop up in their head when they're supposed to be thinking about how cool Dante is.
Dante.
That said, I have a theory on what this show is. I believe there is a reason why Adi chose Johnny and why his Dante design looks closer to Nero than the Dante we know and love. Although I'm not a fan of the decision, I'm willing to give them a shot.
Who's The Man?
I'll end it with this. It's time for Capcom to give Dante back his spotlight. He's been in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Marvel 3 and Infinite, Viewtiful Joe, plus more. When deciding which character from the series to put in other games, they always chose a certain somebody. So, I believe they know who is the soul of DMC and who everybody thinks of when you talk about the game. It's the man in red.
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