Open letter to Ninja Theory and Capcom, concerning DmC.

Dear Ninja Theory and Capcom.

This is an open letter to you regarding the DMC reboot.

Firstly, does the Devil May Cry franchise require a reboot?

It is an almost 10-year franchise which invented and popularized the Stylish Action subgenre, it’s recognizable, carries a large fanbase and has had an influence on many other games and spawned numerous imitations.
Reboots are usually done in hopes of reviving a dead or unpopular franchise or adapting something old to modern stylistic standards while accepting that it’s current state is stylistically and/or technically obsolete. Is Devil May Cry incapable of holding it’s own in the market? Is it’s style out-of-place in 2010/2011?

The lead character Dante became quite iconic and a frequent guest of top 10s. When Marvel vs. Capcom 3 chose Dante to appear in the crossover the fandom rejoiced and Capcom knew that they were bringing in one of their major franchises.

I think that a reboot is of no need for this franchise.

And come to think of it, DMC once had something of a reboot to it. Devil May Cry 2 was a sort of a disappointment to the fans of the series for not holding up to the first game. It still had nice sales though. Nevertheless Capcom decided to renew the series by doing a prequel and changing the gameplay by polishing the old system and expanding with new features. It also saw a slight change in visuals. It brought us a younger version of Dante, which while different was still immediately recognizable and introduced a new charismatic antagonist. The cutscenes became famous and later many games were said to be similar to “the over-the-top cutscenes of DMC3”. It relaunched DMC and is regarded as the best in the series.

But the new reboot done by Ninja Theory?

It is drastically different and even unrecognizable.
The iconic and instantly familiar protagonist was redesigned in a very strange way. In fact the only things he shares with the DMC 1-4 version is his name and the colors of his handguns.
Even the trademark sword didn’t make an appearance.

The tone of the game, which was always about Heaven and Hell with direct Divine Comedy influence and usually included epic and gothic settings while using the modern world as a rare backdrop is now distinctly urban. The dark epic tone is swapped for a noir faux-realistic feel.

The monsters are perhaps a play on the puppets seen in DMC1 and DMC4 but in fact look like they were lifted from Silent Hill 2 or Resonance of Fate.

And the over-the-top and many times humorous style which Dante showed us before is swapped for “mental institution” and “patient” setting invoking parallels with American McGee’s Alice and the Address Unknown segments in Max Payne 2. Also it should be noted that Dante’s redesign has been called “emo” and brought some people thoughts of Twilight.

All of this while not negative on it’s own, it is very different from the Devil May Cry familiar to the fans of the series. As a matter of fact, the only things connecting DmC to Devil May Cry are it’s name and the protagonist’s name.

I don’t know why the decision of a reboot was made or whether it was done by Capcom or Ninja Theory, but it is viewed very negatively right now by me and many other people.

The only reason I can imagine the reboot was decided is that Ninja Theory, realizing that as an outside studio it cannot deliver something “too similar to the series” due to lack of skill and experience with this particular series. Thus they decided to “do something different” and avoid comparisons to the previous titles.

But the end result is unrecognizable. And the fans instead of wondering how it matches up to the best of the series are enraged by the changes.
Perhaps if there were even major changes to the gameplay system and framework, but the style was retained it could’ve sold “on name and characters only”.
But as it stands, it only distances the fans, who are even threatening to boycott the game.

Also I see a missed opportunity of mutual promotion between DmC and Marvel vs Capcom 3: Fate of the Two Worlds. The Dante seen in MvsC3 will only serve as a reminder of how memorable and lovable the old design was, while the reboot is something nobody knows and many dislike.

So I could only recommend looking at the actions of game developer Sucker Punch who redesigned the protagonist’s look in inFamous 2 but after meeting mixed fan reactions changed it back to it’s old version.

Also it might be a nice piece of history that Devil May Cry itself came out of a Resident Evil 4 prototype that was considered “too different” for the series and instead made into a different one.

So please, Ninja Theory, listen to a humble and harmless request of a DMC fan.
1) Scrap the current look and style of “DmC” and start over.
2) Change the name of the game and develop it as a wholly different franchise, “inspired by DMC”.

I’ll send a similar copy to Capcom…

Best wishes and respect.

003 Bayonetta vs. DMC3.

I haven't really beaten Bayonetta on all difficulties to compare it to DMC3, so I was saying compared anything else.
And DMC3 is the game that got me to buy a PS2, so I might get subjective (not fanboyishly bashing though, cause Bayonetta rocks in it's right!)

But here's what I can compare.

Story:
Actually DMC is th 3rd game in a series, while Bayonetta is the 1st. So DMC has way more backstory. But Bayonetta (NO SPOILERS) left me surprised an unsure about the script and ending. At one point I was "how the hell did that happen?" and "Why?". But the amount of Capcom game references help it be awesome.
I say equal.

Presentation:
This might be IMHO, but I'll go with DMC. It blended epic story telling (Mary's and Arkham's) and cutscene badassery. Dante's cockiness seemed out of place for such an epic journey and that made it even more awesome. In the end he still was just a cocky and cool bastard against a dark world.

Bayonetta. Is a world of EPIC AWESOMENESS. Everything is over-the-top, there's way more humour (which doesn't always work).
And Bayonetta is into posing way more than Dante was in all 4 games combined. It's kind of shallow.

Cutscenes.
They were made by the same guy. But he became famous on DMC3. And many, of so many, scenes of Bayo were almost like reworked from DMC3. Going for examples would be spoilery. And again, DMC had Dante's over-the-top shenanigans and Vergil's slick quiet show-offing, while Bayonetta is over-the-top with everybody.
But still pretty much equal. Except DMC had a little more variety.

Characters.
Dante vs. Vergil, Bayonetta vs. Jeanne. Arkham is Balder, There's a character acting like Jester.
DMC3 has like 4 characters but all are really worked through.
Bayonetta has 7. And out of those a few are awesome and the rest are staples.

Bosses.
DMC3 - had it's share of interesting types. Agni & Rudra are my fave. And they're all actual bosses, who leave you a weapon after yo take them out.
In Bayonetta. I really like Sapientia… But really all 4 Cardinals are more reminiscent of the Colossus fight from GoW2 and the big statue of DMC4. The best bosses in my opinion are of course Jeanne and Golem. Cause they’re more around traditional bosses. Oh and implementing minigames into them was a bad idea IMHO.
And the 4 virtues are… just mean machines. DMC3 bosses were also fun characters, who even spoke sensible words.
But Jeanne saves the show, so I’ll say equal.
Boss characters: DMC3.

Artistic Design.
I can’t really compare.
Bayonetta has way more details and interesting decisions, while DMC3 was little too traditional, but within those constraints it did great.
And design is subjective. I like both, but Bayonetta gets bonus points for details.

Gameplay.
Oh boy. The hard part.
DMC’s combo system relies on timing. You don’t really mix moves in a combo, you mix weapon types.
While Bayonetta is more reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden here.
By the way, DMC had 3 buttons mapped:
1. Ranged, depending on your weapon.
2. Melee, depending on your weapon.
3. Style, depending on the style you chose.

Bayonetta has.
1. Ranged (just guns, no matter what you have equipped)
2. Weapon, equipped on hands.
3. Weapon, equipped on legs.
I never even used the ranged button.

Weapon variety: both are good.
But in DMC you got all the weapons on your first playthrough, and enjoy them to your hearts content, while in Bayonetta I have still to find the ice skates and never had enough money for some. And angel weapons don’t last long enough to actually feel like weapons, and not like DMC3’s stripper pole trick. I find that sad, cause weapons need to be all found.

Also during my 1st playthrough I bought only like 2 accessories. So I haven’t really tapped in they’re abilities, and can’t say whether they changed the game style.
DMC had styles… That really upped the replay value (way to go DMC4 to fuck that up.)
Bayonetta doesn’t, but it has a lot of unorthodox combos and in terms of sheer combo numbers it out-weights DMC.

This one is really subjective on players.
DMC was more about choosing a style and varying weapons.
While Bayonetta has you chose weapons and specific combos and the gameplay style usually goes with the weapons. It’s really like a mix of DMC and NG. But the combos are a lot more difficult to do (cause there are tons of them and some are long). And you can switch between 2 active sets of weapons and still be able to chose anyone from your menu at any time in battle.

Bayonetta has animalities and DMC doesn’t. It’s uses are very interesting, while not as complex as many styles, but all at once really fun. Feels like Okami… Ah, Okami, I love you.

Also Bayonetta has a ton of extra content as concocting (those who played the game know what I mean), costumes, catching crow and the only minigame that didn’t suck – Angel Attack. DMC3 feels cheap compared to that.

What else…

Stylishness.
Funny but DMC3 put a lot more emphasis on that. Weapon and combo variety was the way to go.
Bayonetta has you do more precise dodging into Witch Time and not getting hit. Everything else is mandatory.

OVERALL:
Let’s not deny that Bayonetta is DMC’s gameplay style successor, and exactly DMC3’s style successor. But it added a lot to the main formula making it into something similar, but vastly different at the same time…
I think DMC3 was more polished and the Pure DMC formula, while Bayonetta is more innovative. DMC lacks a little variety compared to Bayonetta and Bayonetta could use more polish, like DMC3.

So my conclusion is… Bayonetta 3: Jeanne’s Awakening is gonna rock your souls.