History of Devil May Cry (2001 - 2019)

welcome back everybody my name is Nick 930 and to celebrate the upcoming release of Devil May Cry 5 I want to share with you the complete history of Devil May Cry [Applause] [Music] Devil May Cry is a third-person hack-and-slash action adventure title with the heavy emphasis on its gothic themes and stylized combat each game revolves heavily around its combat mechanics with high scores and grades being awarded to the player after each encounter encouraging variety and consistency the series was initially conceived as part of a thought process for an upcoming Resident Evil title back in the late 90s but because of its drastic departure from survival horror sparked into an entirely brand-new IP and has gone on to become one of Capcom's most beloved franchises however after a poorly conceived initial sequel and an unnecessary reboot fans were left if I did with the only glimmer of hope being the upcoming Devil May Cry 5 so to better understand what exactly happened to the series we're gonna need to take it way back to the series origins in the late 90s as I mentioned briefly in my breakdown of the Resident Evil game franchise the early concepts of Devil May Cry were intended for a brand new Resident Evil title back in 1999 the developers at Capcom led by Hideki Kamiya began researching gothic territories in Europe as the basis for their new survival horror location and began putting more emphasis on action to help encourage the Resident Evil fanbase to grow however after months of testing different builds and prototypes series creator Mikami convinced the team that this new take on the series would be too much of a departure and Kamiya decided that rather than scrapping the entire project and starting over they'd used these more arcade like action elements and built an entirely new game franchise all the Resident Evil related story elements were stripped away and in their place Kamiya took lose inspiration from an old Italian poem called the Divine Comedy which incidentally was written by an Italian poet named Dante many of the concepts names and ideas from this poem about the afterlife were used as the basis for the story and the aesthetic of Devil May Cry the series lead protagonist Dante was built to be as cool as possible with a long red coat flowing white hair and laid-back personality all things that Kamiya at the time thought were cool traits that audiences would be able to relate to according to Kamiya the comic design for the Devil May Cry series is based heavily on a bug that he encountered during the prototype phases for one of Capcom's other games on emu shell warlords in it it was possible to repeatedly hit enemies in the air and prevent them from attacking while being juggled the concept that not would be the basis for the combat in the Devil May Cry series but would also find its way into other hack and slash titles including the popular God of War series the group responsible for this new Devil May Cry title was renamed into team little devils and would go on to release their first title in the series for the PlayStation 2 platform in fall of 2001 in the original Devil May Cry players assume the role of Dante a young demon hunter driven by his desire to avenge his family dante possesses incredible demonic power thanks to being the direct spawn of a legendary demon knight named sparta who sacrificed himself to spare human me from a demonic reign several years later Dante's mother and brother are supposedly killed and the only thing Dante has left to remember them by is half of his mother's amulet an amulet which ends up being a major plot point in later titles Dante eventually builds a business for himself on the human world acting as a sort of demon mercenary and names it Devil May Cry after a mysterious woman named Trish arrives at his office and gives valuable information to Dante regarding his mother and brother's alleged demon killer Dante travels to a big castle on an island where most of the game takes place and he fights through waves of demons to discover the truth about what happened the pious plot is straightforward when compared to something like Resident Evil and doesn't take yourself nearly as seriously but this works perfectly for the style of game that Devil May Cry is going for with its heavy focus on fun yet challenging gameplay the original devil made Christ's gameplay consists of multiple levels each with some simple platforming puzzles and plenty of combat opportunities the platforming is often straightforward with very simple gaps spread out throughout the castle and puzzles are like the Resident Evil games and that you need to find keys to open doors and previously explored parts of the castle but the combat is where Devil May Cry deviates significantly Devil May Cry is built around an extensive scoring system for each fight and mission players will need to incorporate flawless combos with enough variety to earn the coveted stylish score designation repeating the same moves will slow the progress of your style gauge and prevent you from earning higher scores which encourages more complex and varied combat approaches as the player defeats enemies they'll be rewarded with red orbs which can be spent at various shops around the game world and in between missions to improve Dante stats first can purchase upgrades like increased vitality or can spend their orbs on additional movesets for available weapons like an uppercut for the sword to help juggle enemies horse can also activate the devil which transforms dante into a near unstoppable demon with extended combo capabilities accelerated healing and other helpful perks to push through some of the more difficult fights throughout missions players will encounter several different demon enemies and occasionally run into more challenging bosses that will require expert knowledge of the game's combat controls if a player is defeated in combat the revived with any available yellow orbs that they collected or are forced to reload from their last save file according to Kamiya the game was designed to be challenging but still targeted a casual audience visually Devil May Cry was an impressive-looking title especially for 2001 environments were fully rendered as opposed to the typical pre-rendered backdrops capcom had previously used for its best and evil franchise and they were nicely detailed with various props and textures the color palette was limited but this helped to bring out the highly stylized nature of the game and Dante's bright red coat was easily distinguishable during the more frantic fights Devil May Cry was received exceptionally well sitting in that around 94% of metacritic major journalists like Eurogamer praised the game's solid gameplay mechanics story and overall fun experience though many knocked the game for being too challenging with some claiming that it may have been done to prolong the ultimately short game length either way Devil May Cry was a huge success and remains the highest rated entry in the series and its success prompted Capcom to begin work on a sequel development for Devil May Cry 2 was played with several problems first Kamiya and team little devils did not return to create the sequel and in fact weren't notified about plans for a sequel until is well into development capcom instead assigned one of their less experienced devout Mysterio's to work on the project while Kamiya and his team worked on more valuable Capcom IPs then only a few months prior to Devil May Cry twos planned release Capcom executives stopped by to check in on the size of the project and found that it was nowhere near the love of quality that it needed to be at for release they brought on Hideaki at sooner to try and fix the mistakes made but the overly ambitious scope of the project made it impossible to fix within the allotted time and the result was ultimately disappointing Devil May Cry 2 would release in 2003 despite its cruelly unfinished State and would go on to be the biggest misstep in the franchise in Devil May Cry 2 players again assumed the role of Dante who was tasked with stopping an evil tycoon from taking over the world with demonic artifacts and that's pretty much it the GameSpot has explained in only a few sentences towards the beginning and a majority of the experience is completely dialogue free Dante's show off personality is completely gone and in its place is a dead silent protagonist that wears her red coat and jumps off walls now and again the whole backstory about Dante's family the amulet Trish everything that made the original game special was nowhere to be found thankfully Devil May Cry 2's gameplay mechanics remained mostly the same as the original game and with a few changes Dante could now have eight attacks with a separate evasion button rather than need to hold down the aim button and then jump to the side like the original title some of the new animations that accompanied this move were pretty cool like a wall flip that could be linked seamlessly with the combat first could also swap between firearms without having to go into the inventory screen which also helped to keep the combat more fast-paced and double jumping and firing your guns in the air resulted in an awesome aerial shooting animation unfortunately those are about the only things positive that can be said about the combat design all the controls remain mostly the same with players able to slash enemies with their sword juggle them and suspend them in the air by firing dual pistols while the challenge from the original game was lost and he's were not nearly as aggressive and sometimes ignored the player completely and the variety and enemy types was lacking making it feel like a repetitive process some of the bosses had some decent designs to them especially a massive demon that spawns from the side of a skyscraper but then there's terrible bosses like this possessed helicopter that just hovers around and shoots two Rockets now and again it's actually incredible how unfinished this game still feels to this day in response to some minor backlash in the original game regarding the inability to play as a female protagonist like Trish Devil May Cry 2 introduced the ability to play a series newcomer Lucia who had her own unique weapons move sets and even campaign to play through unfortunately her campaign was practically the same as the Dante campaign with reused environments and slightly different pathing for objectives other elements like puzzles and platforming returned but were rare and often poorly explained double May Cry 2 also looked worse visually while the environments and scale were much larger in the sequel the strict development time prevented the designers from properly detailing the environments to match the quality of the first game allowed the arenas felt vast and empty hurting the overall quality of the presentation still there were a few nice improvements like Dante's Moore natural looking hair facts and the smoother animation work for his many flips and rolls Devil May Cry 2 received mixed to poor critical reception many complain that the combat was not as polished and took note of the less detailed level environments others disliked the shift in direction for Dante's character and felt the game was missing the term that made the original so great though all this criticism aside it's incredible that the game ended up in the state is currently in its uno was given roughly four months to get this game in a working state and a few of the improvements like the new dodge option and mid-fight weapon switching were nice additions while it wasn't as critically acclaimed as the original Devil May Cry 2 still sold well and a third entry would give Capcom a chance to set things right after the poor reception to Devil May Cry 2 Capcom decided to take the French as more seriously and looked back at what made the original game so much more critically successful the environments were scaled down to allow for greater detail the gameplay was made to be more challenging yet rewarding and Dante's personality returned to be more in line with the original game they heard Ruben Langdon to take on the role of Dante both for the voice-over and motion capture performances however Langdon wasn't given proper direction and how to portray the character and instead decide to make the character his own resulting in what has been referred to as the best portrayal of Dante in the series Devil May Cry 3 contracts what the naming convention of the title might suggest is a prequel to the original game players assume the role of a much younger Dante as he faces off against his estranged brother Virgil and a mysterious tower that rises from the middle of a city Virgil is Dante's evil twin brother who decides that the only way to prevent a tragedy like his mother's death from happening again it's become an all-powerful demon to accomplish this he attempts to join the two halves of his mother's special amulet which when combined can unlock a gate to hell most of the part of Devil May Cry 3 is intended to set up the events of the original Devil May Cry while also giving the developers a chance to more properly export the relationship between Dante and his brother but it also helps to reestablish doubt these personality making him less of the brooding silent boor from Devil May Cry 2 and more of the cookies show off that fans fell in love with in the first game Devil May Cry 3's gameplay was also improved with better camera placement and a tighter focus on pulling off scaled combo chains the large scale of Devil May Cry 2's level design was abandoned and in his place were more claustrophobic combat arenas first canal swap both firearms and primary weapons on the fly with unique new weapons being awarded to the player after defeating difficult bosses first could also swap between six different combat styles each benefiting a certain type of play style like increased dodging capabilities or better swordplay this enhanced combat system a lot for smooth transition area combos that not only look cool but we're necessary to master in order to progress even slightly in the game Devil May Cry 3 is often referred to as the most challenging entry in the series enemies are more aggressive and varied and the game stops holding your hand within the first couple of minutes even on the game's easiest difficulty in experienced players will have some difficulty getting through one of the first main bosses as players explore the massive tower they'll encounter puzzles platforming obstacles and more difficult combinations of enemies key based puzzles returned as a more prominent feature and required careful study of level environments to avoid getting lost and bosses were more complex with multiple phases and narrow dodge windows the game's visuals were also improved with highly detailed environments more object props and smoother animation work each location was unique and interesting and the smaller scale environments allowed its suno's team to properly decorate the backdrops to give more depth wedding properly lit each scene giving subtle hints to the players to guide their focus while also helping to bolster the atmosphere Devil May Cry 3 was met with high critical acclaim with many praising the return to form for the series and the improvements made to the player customization and combat controls it iake had suna refused to let Devil May Cry dubious legacy and successfully restored the franchise to its former glory soon after Devil May Cry 3 released Capcom set their sights on to the next generation consoles the fourth entry to the series would aim to be even more ambitious than before thanks to the power of these new consoles with even more refined combat enhanced visuals and even a brand new main protagonist afraid that this new character might upset longtime fans Capcom made sure to preserve Dante and his cocky persona for the later half of the game and built the series newcomer Nero to be almost the same only with a few slight changes to help him stand out everything about this new entry seemed like it would be a huge mistake especially with wounds from games like Metal Gear Solid 2 and it's strange second act still fresh but in 2008 kept Emily's Devil May Cry 4 and it would not only be a well made game but would also go on to be the highest entering the entire series and Devil May Cry 4 players assume the role of series newcomer Nero due at first glance looks pretty much exactly the same as Dante he has the same goofy white hair long trench coat and cheesy one-liners and yet he still feels different in some ways this is due in part to his established relationship with his girlfriend curie a there's more charm to near that sets him apart from his older counterpart but not enough to overshadow the lead character and his legendary status in the series the game's plot is arguably one of the more well developed and interesting of any of the previous games Nero who arrives late to his girlfriend's Opera performance witnesses Dante assassinating who appears to be an innocent leader of a sermon Nero is tasked with hunting down Dante and capturing him but throughout his journey he has several run-ins with the alleged killer and begins to question his own allegiance about half the game follows Nero as he runs around slaying demons and fighting bosses much like the Past Devil May Cry titles but the later half the game swishes the action over to Dante he was on a quest to stop an insidious plot again much like Devil May Cry 3 the plot of Devil May Cry 4 is not in the right order chronologically as the title would suggest Devil May Cry force events take place prior to the events of Devil May Cry 2 only further adding to the absurdity the gameplay from Devil May Cry 3 returned but with several new additions that play into Nero's unique capabilities first can now more easily juggle enemies in the air with more fluid melee combos and the use of Nero special Devil bringer arm the devil bringer can also be used to grapple around the environment at specific points expanding the platforming slightly though both the platforming and puzzle solving were still a very minor part of the experience despite the improvements to the game's combat design Devil May Cry 4 featured less in the way of actual boss fights and the typical deep enemy variety there are still some well-made bosses but they're not nearly as challenging or memorable as the first or third title prayers could still collect red orbs from enemies but only proud souls a new currency awarded based on the players final score at the end of each mission could be used to purchase upgrades and abilities also unlike Devil May Cry 3 players aren't awarded new weapons after defeating bosses at least not with Nero after the game swaps over to Dante the gameplay resembles the experts and Devil May Cry 3 very closely with multiple combat styles and new weapons being awarded through progress but new to Devil May Cry 4 was the ability to seamlessly swap the combat there creations with the press of a button rather than needing to change them at various checkpoints like before thanks to the next generation hardware Devil May Cry force graphics look significantly better than the original three titles the environments while still small and corridor based now featured beautifully rendered backdrops that weren't possible before wedding was also improved with some levels taking place in full daylight as opposed to the series typical nighttime or late evening settings this meant that there was more global illumination and more enhanced shadowing effects features that weren't as prominent previously the overall scale the experience felt like a noticeable step up visually though the originals dark gothic aesthetic was beginning to shift towards something else Devil May Cry 4 was met with positive reviews with many praising the improved graphics take controls and well-crafted story while seemingly a recipe for disaster Capcom's inclusion of nero was a resounding success with many fans happy with the vocal performances even if the writing tended to be cheesy at times the only real complaint that seemed to be shared by several different journalists at the time was that the game's pacing and level design often forced players to backtrack too frequently still Devil May Cry 4 managed to sell well past expectations making it the best-selling title in the entire franchise and would even go on to influence the design of other popular action-adventure games like Bayonetta now if you haven't already noticed the footage that I've been using here for most of these titles is not from the original PlayStation 2 versions of these games they instead come from the re-released PC version of the Devil May Cry HD collection first released for the seventh generation consoles in 2012 this HD collection included the original three games with higher resolutions and more consistent frame rates but it's otherwise mostly the same with only very minor differences that only true fans would ever notice while a decent touch up to the classic series the HD collection and its subsequent release for the Xbox one ps4 and PC didn't offer anything new but this release was likely a step made to lessen the blow from the massive shift the series was about to make with their next main installment in 2010 capcom took to the stage to announce a partnership with the creators of heavenly sword ninja theory and creating an entirely new Devil May Cry experience in order to compete with other titles in that genre Capcom decided that the series would need to be more accessible to a larger audience substituting the challenging and complex combat mechanics for something more streamline simplistic allowing all players to enjoy the extensive moveset of Dante and his demon killing antics ninja theory was given the go-ahead to completely redesigned the Devil May Cry franchise with a fresh take on the series protagonist Dante that would forever divide fans the games environments were made to be more dynamic and alive and the game story was given him much more Western narrative approach in DMC the more common name given to the reboot to help differentiate it first experience an entirely new storyline that shares many similarities with the canon plot of the series Dante and his brother Virgil are still both brothers born of a legendary demon Knight named Sparta who portrays an evil demon Ward named moon des however unlike the original canon storyline Dante and Virgil start off his allies attempting to defeat mooned is together and are driven apart after Dante learns of Virgil's two intentions it's a much more simplistic take on what's essentially the same story though it is missing a lot of what made the original series special one of the most divisive changes made to this reboot was to Dante himself Dante's personality and character design were completely reworked as Ninja Theory attempted to make him more grounded and belayed Abel DMC's combat mechanics fall similar to the counterparts offered an entirely new experience tailor-made for a more casual audience combos no longer required expert timing and precise directional button inputs to perform correctly and could now more easily be strung together with more traditional button presence Dante could still attack with issued sword and also switch to his pistols to help suspend enemies in the air new to DMC are the two new combat modes angel and devil both of which can be easily swapped between using the corresponding beer triggers these move sets allowed players to make use of special weapons like a scythe or an axe grappling enemies towards Dante or sending them flying away it's a much more accessible gameplay experience overall and the visuals are some of the best in the series using the Unreal 3 engine ninja theory created an entirely new aesthetic for the classic hack-and-slash franchise with their depiction of the games limbo based environments the game made liberal use of dark reds and blacks to bring up the hellish tones of the plot and the environments themselves were more alive with demons often possessing objects and sang them flying around Dante it's an impressive looking game but an obvious departure from the Gothic tones that the series was known for while fans weren't admittedly not happy about the simplified gameplay complete retcon of the story and we design of Dante in his world DMC managed to earn positive scores all round on par with both Devil May Cry 3 and 4 reviewers praised the improved control scheme the unique art design and even appreciated the new take on Dante while it's sooner himself a part of the work that ninja Terry put into Devil May Cry the series would not continue on with this rebooted storyline and will continue where they left off but their next main installment after the Devil May Cry reboots commercial success series veteran Hideaki and suno Express potential interest in going back to the main series and developing an official Devil May Cry 5 over it soon Owen Capcom remains silent about this for years with many fearing that Devil May Cry was gone for good but after several rumors began to surface Capcom officially confirmed a true Devil May Cry 5 with the original Dante character design linear hack and slash gameplay and continuation of the story after Devil May Cry 4 Devil May Cry 5 takes place in between the events of Devil May Cry 4 and Devil May Cry 2 with Dante once again hired to investigate a demonic disturbance only this time he's joined by his new partner Nero who's simultaneously investigating a strange hooded character who stolen his Devil bring her arm nears engineering friend Niko helps to fill the void by building him a robotic arm called the devil breaker which makes up a book of the new gameplay mechanics Devil May Cry 5s gameplay at least based on the demo that's available to play now resembles a lot of the elements introduced in the past few games players will smoothly string together combos while earning red orbs and spending points on more combat upgrades to help deal with the tough bosses many of the combat controls from Devil May Cry 4 return including the uppercuts and dodge designs distancing itself from the previous Devil May Cry reboot and it's more simplistic control scheme new to Devil May Cry 5 is the devil breaker a robotic arm for Nero that can be upgraded and customized for more unique attacks attacks can be swapped between seamlessly during combat and used to help boost the variety score and deal with different threats these attacks are limited however with things like the rocket arm requiring extra ammunition from breasts stops or run the game world Devil May Cry 5 will also feature Dante but the demo I played on the ps4 didn't feature any of that yet visually Devil May Cry 5 looks beautiful and is targeting a smooth 60fps on all platforms character models are significantly more allistic than they were before and the lighting and overall aesthetic of the experience is much darker in tone I'm excited to really dig into the visuals of this game and provide a full visual comparison when I get my hands on it but if the resin evil to remake is anything to go off of I'm sure Devil May Cry 5 is going to be a beautiful looking game Capcom has struggled for years to really understand what it is the general gaming population wants having created so many incredible game franchises and then seeing other genres of games from other studios making significantly more for less it's understandable why studio executives have pushed to have games like resident evil and Devil May Cry try and target more casual audiences it's a symptom that extends beyond Capcom and has resulted in a lot of favorite franchises falling apart but unlike many of those studios capcom has managed to bounce back with monster hunter Resident Evil and now more recently Devil May Cry the series has gone from being the result of several rewrites to Resident Evil 4 to being one of the most influential hack and slash action adventure games in the industry this series almost collapsed after the disaster that was Devil May Cry 2 but its uno and team little devils managed to write the course and deliver some truly well-made action-adventure games and I'm looking forward to seeing what they have planned for the fifth main entry but what do you guys think are you excited for Devil May Cry 5 which games in the series were your favorite let me know in the comments section and be sure to stay tuned for detailed comparisons and a full review in the coming week also please consider becoming members of my patreon your support will be greatly appreciated and don't forget to Like and subscribe for more videos posted every week

Channel: Nick930

Views: 100,250

Keywords: devil may cry 5, devil may cry, DMC, History, legacy, final trailer, anime ost, all bosses, Dante, Vergil, Nero, Retrospective, all weapons, abridged, behind the scenes, battle, theme, Capcom

Id: pJ0sl6xBqbc

Length: 24min 22sec (1462 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 02 2019