DmC: Devil May Cry / YMMV

Accidental Innuendo: Kat referring to the Virility Factory, which she explored in Limbo as a child.
Kat: It's funny, I expected it to be bigger. A lot bigger.
Alternative Character Interpretation:
- While there is no debate that Mundus is an asshole, there were debates on the degree of his villainy. Some regard him as a Necessarily Evil, but nonetheless a Selfish Neutral seeking to profit from his scheme because of humanity's inherent nature, while others see him as only barely avoiding being pure evil (with using humans as livestock) by way of Pragmatic Villainy. The black and gray nature of the game further makes it a contentious issue.
- Is Vergil merely out for power? Or does he, albeit being cold and arrogant, actually care about others? When he proposes that he and Dante rule together, he does mention "protecting" humanity - But is that his true intention, or did he just say it to convince Dante? He does have a few Pet the Dog moments like saving Kat, and in his DLC story, at least it seems like he's running after Kat to save her. On the other hand, he has no qualms causing the deaths of many people, including those who trust him. And while he kills Hollow Kat, that's only after she attacks him, and it sounds like he fully expected her to understand his reasoning for doing what he did.
Anti-Climax Boss: If you play your cards right, Vergil can be the easiest boss fight; only his Puzzle Boss section at the end may throw newbies, but otherwise, he still goes down far too quickly to really pose a challenge as a Final Boss, even at the higher difficulties.
Anvilicious: Everything wrong with Limbo City is literally the result of a demonic banker enslaving humanity through biased media, junk food, and debt. The parallels are not so much drawn as they are gouged.
Awesome Animation: DmC is praised for its stage/level design creativity, something that veteran series fans wish to be implemented more in the mainline games. The demonic city shifting around you in the first few parts, the journey to Bob Barbas' station and his boss fight (which is practically inside a news ticker), and Lilith changing the club into a living Equalizer visual set to the background music, are some of the game's memorable stages.
Awesome Music: "Empty", the final boss theme. It sounds like Tranquil Fury in musical form, an excellent backdrop for the duel between Dante and Vergil.
Base-Breaking Character: The game presents its own unique spin on the classic DMC characters, so comparisons to the originals are inevitable. Whether these comparisons are fair or not is up to the fan.
- This version of Dante is incredibly divisive, and is a major part of what makes or breaks the game. Fans of the original series find him too unlikable, too different, and too edgy to the point of Narm. Fans of DmC feel that the critics dismiss Dante's narrative arc where he becomes a better person later on, and further feel that this Dante is more compelling because he undergoes character growth while the original Dante did not (the latter topic is also largely debated upon). His design is also divisive; some feel that it's a downgrade to Dante's classic look, some feel that it's a good direction that makes this Dante more distinct, and yet others feel that the design didn't change enough and wasn't as unique as it could have been.
- Vergil's Adaptational Villainy is a major point of contention. A lot of the original's fans found the old games' Noble Demon version of Vergil as a more interesting character and a compelling villain than the DmC version whom they see as pathetic and petty. DmC fans feel that it's unfair to judge him against his old incarnation rather than on his own terms, and feel that the critics dismissed the more subtle moments of his character and his ability to Bait the Dog. However, Vergil's arc and Face–Heel Turn are divisive amongst DmC fans as well; some see it as a sensible progression and his DLC was a fun addition, while others feel that it came with too little foreshadowing and made him less interesting.
- Mundus's portrayal in DmC is a major departure from his original counterpart. To fans, it's a good case of Adaptation Expansion to give him much more characterization and plot-relevance compared to the original Mundus (who was seen as too generic for a Demon King archetype and is mostly a background character). Others feel that the corrupt banker re-imagining made DmC Mundus less-threatening than the demon overlord version of the original, and that he ended up overshadowed by his more-charismatic/memorable henchmen like Barbas and Drekavac. A big part of it is whether or not you liked the game's themes considering how Mundus is deeply woven into them.
Best Boss Ever: Bob Barbas is considered as one of the most enjoyable boss fights, not only in this game, but in the entire DMC series. It's mostly attributed to how you fight him in a news ticker graphic seen in television news networks like CNN, and at one point, you're suddenly warped into a fairground where Bob slanders you as you fight a few demons while there's a hovering news helicopter that becomes your in-game camera's point of view.
Best Level Ever: Mission 13 - "Devil's Dalliance" is consider the best level in the entire game. The player goes through a dance club in Limbo, that constantly shifts the environment, and really lets the dynamic music shine. With a heavy variety of industrial metal and techno songs. It's even better when playing on Dante Must Die or Gods Must Die Mode, because of the more challenging enemy placement.
Breather Boss: Most bosses are this (the Final Boss Vergil is also considered anticlimactic). Certain Mooks and Elite Mooks from the preceding levels pose a bigger challenge than the bosses at the end.
Broken Base:
- Fans are either glad to see a reboot for the DMC series, or hate every last thing that's been changed, compounded by the fact that a lot of the reboot's fans openly dislike or hate the classic series and its characters, especially when it comes to the original Dante's bombastic persona. This extends to the critics. It's not just that DmC broke the fanbase, it also attracted critics with very different tastes and sensibilities who otherwise would never bother with the franchise.
- The Definitive Edition significantly improved the game and it's really the optimal way to play this entry. Problem is, it was never released on PC, which means that Steam and Microsoft Store users can only buy the original release. Considering how a lot of fans wanted the balance changes and extra content on top, PC players being left out to dry has rubbed them the wrong way hard, compared to the console players who can have it for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. This concern has resurfaced after enough passage of time and the success of Devil May Cry 5 felt like a PC port of DE will most likely not happen.
Catharsis Factor:
- Given Dante's more brutal fighting style, this game encourages you to torture the smaller demons. Taking out a larger one with a well-placed axe swing or aerial combo can be incredibly satisfying, especially if you do it without taking a hit.
- Eryx is the most effective weapon against Bob Barbas. Not only is the gauntlet-based weapon required to disable certain "weak spots" on the stage, Bob Barbas' demon form is a giant head, so the game encourages you to literally punch a face.
Complacent Gaming Syndrome: Players would mostly use each Angel/Demon weapon for certain popular combos; Osiris is best known for its Prop Shredder combo, Aquila for its Buy In + Tornado combo (which can cheese some crowded fights), while the Arbiter, even if it's slow and clunky to use, is remembered for its high damage potential, especially the Trinity Smash combo.
Complete Monster: Bob Barbas, owner of the widely successful Raptor News Network, is secretly the face and voice of the demonic regime. Using his corporation as a front for monitoring and spying on the human population to prevent any opposition against Mundus, Barbas also hosts a popular news program where he blames the resistance movement for the chaos and destruction caused by demons. In his spare time, Barbas is the cruel warden of the Central Penitentiary, a domain in Limbo where so-called traitors and other enemies of the regime are condemned to suffer for eternity.
Contested Sequel: Fans of the reboot call it a fun, accessible title with great art direction, a protagonist that actually develops and grows rather than remaining static for most of the time (though DMC1 and DMC3 also contain character development), and a story that's more than a somewhat-confusing Excuse Plot. Non-fans criticize the gameplay, which is much easier than previous titles and sorely lacks the depth of DMC3 and DMC4, a story that's very ham-fisted with its themes to the point of being difficult to take seriously, and that the drastically-altered characterization of the leads (particularly how Dante starts the game as a tool without any of the charisma or likability of the original version barring DMC2, and takes time to become more heroic) all drain a lot of fun from the experience. In short, some consider it worth playing, while others feel it simply doesn't match up to the legacy of the older games, or it could've been generally well-received if it wasn't attached to the Devil May Cry IP.
Critical Dissonance:
- Critics were generally very positive about DmC, while fans of the previous Devil May Cry games did not like the changes made (particularly the characterization of Dante and Vergil). The Metacritic score says it all.
- Veteran fans liked the Vergil's Downfall DLC and the Definitive Edition re-release more than the base game for being closer to the franchise's roots in terms of difficulty and gameplay, but some critics bashed them for the same reasons. It just goes to show how different the tastes of these two groups are and how polarizing the game is.
- If the reactions towards Devil May Cry 5 are anything to go by, it still persists even up to 2018 and beyond when DMC5 and this game are compared in retrospect. It's gotten heated enough to be charitably called a rivalry between critics and fans.
Designated Hero: Both Dante and Vergil are questionable freedom fighters. Dante can come off as a brash Jerkass for mocking Mundus when the latter is mourning the death of his newborn son, and is more interested in killing demons than helping humans. Vergil views humans as lesser beings, doesn't care about Kat's well-being, and tries to enslave humanity in the end just like Mundus did.
Designated Villain: Some see Mundus this way. Banishing Sparda forever and ripping out Eva's heart before eating it may have been horrible fates to inflict, but they were a blood-brother-turned-traitor and a sworn racial enemy, respectively. What makes it divisive was that he did all of those acts right in front of Dante while the latter was still a small child. And doesn't he have a right to be angry when Dante taunts him over the death of his child?
Difficulty Spike: Son of Sparda difficulty is a big spike from Nephilim since enemies are more aggressive and do a lot more damage with some bosses killing you in as little as three hits.
Draco in Leather Pants:
- Mundus is a major recipient of this. Some genuinely believe that humans are better off with his rule than without, completely ignoring the fact that humans were being burnt alive, locked in eternal thought-prisons, slowly poisoned, and casually massacred by him, purely because Dante is initially kind of a jerk. Not to mention brutally murdering Dante's mother right in front of him.
- Vergil gets this more than any other reboot character. His end goals are the same as Mundus' (and therefore can be dismissed with the aforementioned "humans would be better off with a ruler" idea); but how much of his kindness was genuine and how much of it was a facade to manipulate others were left ambiguous; and he's also much more attractive than Mundus.
Ensemble Dark Horse:
- Bob Barbas has a fair amount of popularity thanks to his hammy performance, and for being a memorable boss fight.
- Phineas, for being an example of a kind-hearted demon, which was a major theme of the original continuity.
- Drekavac received positive appraisal even if it's just a recurring mini-boss who has no lines, no backstory, and no characterization.
- The Style Announcer. It's gotten to the point where fans modded the DmC announcer into the PC version of DMC5.
Evil Is Cool:
- Mundus has been considered one of the most badass characters in the game because he reminds you that he's a "god" and has reality-bending/city-manipulating powers to back it up.
- The character that really takes it home is Mundus' bodyguard Drekavac. A mask-wearing badass demon dual-wielding katanas was an instant hit, and the fact that he's wordless only adds to his mysterious awesomeness.
Fan Nickname: See here.
Fandom Rivalry: Though the debates are mostly focused on the lore and story, one brewed with Devil May Cry 5 because Capcom went back to the original continuity rather than continuing the reboot's storyline.
Game-Breaker:
- Aquila if it's utilised properly with a combo. Using "Buy In" can bring a lot of enemies close to you, then following up with the "Tornado" spin attack does wonders for your combo scores and stunlocks most enemies at any given moment, reducing any damage that can potentially come your way. You can steer it so you can pick up more enemies, and depending on the environment and the targets, it allows easy ring outs (A One-Hit Kill for non-teleporters. Witches and Dreamrunners are resistant to the trick for that reason; it can work, it's just not very reliable).
- Sword Illusions for Vergil. They work as great combo score boosters in all difficulty modes. If combined with Demon state to pull the impaled enemy towards you, Spiral Swords to shred nearby enemies, and Rapid Slash to reduce the odds of enemies thinking to block it, only the flying enemies will give you any pause for thought. And just like other ranged weapons, it equates to an "Instant Death" Radius on "Heaven Or Hell" mode.
- Devil Trigger can paralyze enemies. It gets even crazier with certain combinations. Using Devil Trigger and Demon Evade, Succubus can be defeated in 3 hits. Using Demon Evade, Devil Trigger, and Overdrive results in the most anticlimactic boss fights. Even Mundus can be defeated in 11 hits.
Goddamned Bats: A few enemies are irritating to fight against:
- Fire and ice enemies at the same time. As they can only be hurt with Demon or Angel weapons respectively, if one gets in the way while you're attacking the other, you'll be staggered instantly. Remedied to some extent in the Definitive Edition, where both enemy types can be hit with any weapon, but will only take full damage and hitstun from the corresponding color type.
- Harpies do heavy damage, are immune to grabs until they attack, and quickly grow back their wings if you shoot the things off.
Good Bad Bugs:
- A glitch allows Dante to clip through the entire stage and freely fly around.
- For another exploitable and interesting glitch, the in-game cutscenes (not the full cinematic ones) would usually deactivate the red/white filter and sound effects of Devil Trigger when they play, but there are actually few moments where you can activate Devil Trigger just before a scripted cutscene starts, and its visual effects would carry over. Examples include the scene where Dante is about to smash a wall in the ending of Mission 18◊, and the scene just after you loosen the Succubus' grip from a rock on Mission 6.
- Want to do your no damage run without restarting checkpoint (which will automatically count as a death) or restarting the mission? Quitting to main menu and then going to continue does not count as death and you can carry on like nothing happened. An easy way to bypass one of the game's more scrappier mechanics. Works even better in the Definitive Edition as load times are much faster.
Ham and Cheese: As shown in this clip, Dante's Spanish voice actor is clearly having the time of his life and treating the game the same way DMC fans did.
Harsher in Hindsight: Bob Barbas calling Dante a "sexual deviant" becomes ironic if you factor in the news from 2017 wherein Bill O' Reilly (who Bob is a parody of) was revealed to have sexually harassed five women, resulting in his firing from Fox News.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In Devil May Cry: The Animated Series, Dante was frustrated on having to deal with the debt he owed while operating his Devil May Cry shop. In this game, debt is the method that Mundus uses to keep people (ranging from average citizens all the way to Heads of State) under his control.
- This continuity's iteration of Vergil, voiced and motion captured by David de Lautour, is part angel. Back in the nineties on Xena: Warrior Princess, de Lautour played an angel.
- Dante says "Not in a million years." when a white-haired wig falls on his head in a jab toward fans who disliked this redesigned Dante. Come the Special Edition of Devil May Cry 4 and the Deluxe Edition for Devil May Cry 5, one of the alternate costumes included◊ is classic Dante with the dark hair and color scheme of DmC Dante. The quote is also mentioned by the classic Dante in DMC5 when Vergil brings out his Doppelganger clone in that game.
I Knew It!: Upon the reveal of Vergil, many fans theorized that he would also be a playable character. While Ninja Theory initially told everyone they had no plans to put such content on the disc, it was later announced that a playable Vergil campaign would be DLC.
It's Easy, So It Sucks!:
- A major criticism of the change in gameplay, especially with how easy it is to achieve SSS rank (points are based on damage, so it's possible to get high ranks just by spamming Arbiter's attacks), Devil Trigger and air combos making most enemies completely helpless (with none of the skill or effort required to achieve this in older entries), and the boss fights requiring less skill and strategy than in the previous entries.
- The hard difficulty modes aren't nearly that challenging when compared to the previous Devil May Cry games. Aside from some Game-Breaker combos that turn DmC into a cakewalk, the game also has a Checkpoint system that allows you to resume from the main menu. Problem is, there are so many automatic checkpoints in a single mission, making it possible to slowly brute force even the most difficult modes such as "Dante Must Die". It becomes less of a problem in the Definitive Edition as dying is penalized and you drop ranks real fast if multiple deaths occur on a mission (i.e. dying drops what would have been SSS rank to a SS, and so on). While this increases the challenge, it can also be rather aggravating to restart a mission after a single death just to get the SSS rank.
Jerkass Woobie: While Dante is a brash hedonistic Jerkass, his life has genuinely sucked compared with Vergil's. He lost his parents when he was seven, was raised in an orphanage run by demons, chased by and battled them for years without a clue why he's using powers he doesn't understand, and to top it all off, no one knows about his struggles with the demons only he can see or do anything about. He was told that he was delusional, and questioned his own stability after some particularly bloody battles. In one of his flashbacks, he's even shown tearing open his own chest to make sure he had a heart.
LGBT Fanbase: Not the game itself, but this continuity's iteration of Dante is surprisingly popular with gay male fans.
Love to Hate: Bob Barbas is one of the most memorable among the DmC cast because of Louis Herthum's performance as a hammy despicable pundit oozing with greasy charm.
Memetic Loser: While his classic counterpart is seen as a Memetic Badass, this game's version of Vergil gets no such respect from fans due to being significantly weaker than Dante and being much more overt about his parental issues compared to the original Vergil.
Memetic Mutation: See here.
Mis-blamed: DmC and its criticized aspects are mostly attributed to Ninja Theory. But as noted by the Executive Meddling entry on the Trivia page, some of the changes made were at Capcom's insistence to Ninja Theory that they "go crazy with it".
Moral Event Horizon:
- Half of the stuff Vergil does is a slow descent across the line; not caring about Kat's safety, shooting Lilith and her child when she was completely defenseless, his plans after Mundus' death, and his "revenge" in the DLC chapter.
- Some say that Dante is crossing it as well when he mocks Mundus about his dead child. Even though he only does it to get Mundus away from the Hellgate, it's rather divisive.
Most Wonderful Sound: The Style Announcer, a deep-voiced guy going "Savage! SSadistic! SSSensational!" when you're doing well.
Narm:
- At the end of Mission 9 after Phineas tells Dante that he still has to discover his full potential, Dante tells him that he just wants to kill Mundus and his forces. Phineas responds by asking who's going to take his place after he dies, in what's intended to be both Foreshadowing and an Armor-Piercing Question. Then the game decides to cap it off by doing a little zoom-in on Dante with a dumb look on his face, leading to much hilarity.
- The voice acting becomes laughable sometimes. Dante's voice acting is often hard to understand, which resulted in comparisons with a participant from Gordon Ramsay's show.
Never Live It Down: Vergil's act of sniping Lilith and her child in Mission 16 is a Wham Episode that's mostly brought up whenever he is discussed, giving the "Sniper Rifle Abortion" fanspeak. It's already shocking on its own because Vergil didn't go along with Dante's plan, and it infuriated Mundus so much. It's also treated as either a proof that Vergil is pragmatic, or a foreshadowing of his Face–Heel Turn..
Obvious Judas: Because of the possibility that this game would retread some tropes used in the classic continuity, especially the overarching Sibling Rivalry between the brothers, fans who played the previous DMC games knew that Vergil would ultimately betray Dante in the end. Vergil's act of sniping Lilith's child made it obvious for some because Dante didn't expect his brother to act like that.
Older Than They Think:
- One detail of DmC Vergil's personality that has been noted/criticized is him belittling humans as stupid, murderous hypocrites who have to be ruled over. Despite claims that this is a distortion of his character, Vergil being a misanthrope was an aspect of his classic iteration in Devil May Cry 3 — He shows disdain for human weakness and is pissed when Arkham calls him an "incomplete being" due to his half-human heritage. In that game, his "might controls everything" ideology hints that he is a young cynic who's willing to embrace his demonic heritage to protect something, which is in contrast to Dante who has an optimistic view of humanity. It's like using the old tropes, but in a new context.
- Some details of this continuity, such as DmC Dante's dark hair and DmC Vergil using firearms, already occurred in the non-canon Devil May Cry 1 novel. Dante, while using the alias of "Tony Redgrave" at that time, dyed his hair brown to keep his past/heritage hidden. Vergil, posing as Gilver, used a shotgun against Dante in one encounter. Some observers even believed that this game would be an adaptation of that novel, but it was eventually Jossed.
- Regarding Poison the Succubus, some people don't realize that succubi who are beautiful by default (just like Morrigan Aensland) are a recent invention. In the original myths and medieval demonology texts, they were hideous beings that used Glamour to appear as beautiful women and seduce men in their sleep. Thus, DmC did a "partial" mythologically-accurate depiction of a Succubus instead of being completely Sadly Mythtaken.
- It was surprising to see Dante's Devil Trigger suspend enemies instead of how it usually works as a straightforward Super Mode in the classic games, but a time-stopping ability has been in every game in one form or another; the hidden Bangle of Time in 1, the Chrono Heart in 2, the Quicksilver Style in 3, and the Chrono Slicers in 4.
- When Devil May Cry 5 was announced, some fans retroactively thought that perhaps the modern-day urban setting of Red Grave City is inspired by DmC and Limbo. However, the entire Devil May Cry franchise had its Urban Fantasy roots way before this game existed, so even if DmC used it a lot, this game didn't "invent" the modern-day city shtick for the franchise. There is also the city of Vie de Marli in Devil May Cry 2, which had a corporate skyscraper that acts as a catalyst for a demon invasion, though that city had an odd combination of being vintage and modern.
- DMC5 turned Vergil's regular Devil Trigger into a Doppelganger mechanic, which is retrospectively reminiscent of his DmC counterpart's Devil Trigger mode. It makes sense because the classic Vergil never had a moveset-mimicking Doppelgänger Attack mechanic prior to the reboot, but it's easy to forget that DmC Vergil's Doppelganger actually takes cues from Dante's Doppelganger Style; an after-image being summoned by expending the DT gauge, and the ability to alter the after-image's input lag already existed in DMC3.
Only the Creator Does It Right: Some fans wrote the game off for being a reboot developed by Ninja Theory instead of an in-house Capcom team — despite Capcom being the ones who suggested Ninja Theory develop the game.
Player Punch: At the end of Mission 12, Dante is desperate to help Kat, who is on the verge of being captured by Mundus's SWAT forces and is terrified. With Dante on the other side in Limbo, all he can do is give Kat some instruction on how to act non-hostile when the SWAT team breaks through the door. But as soon as they do, they shoot her anyway on sight (albeit non-lethally, although they enact some police brutality for good measure), leaving Dante to curse his inability to do anything in his current state.
Play the Game, Skip the Story: For most, the gameplay is generally pretty solid and still fun on its own, even if it's somewhat easy for veterans of the previous games. At least, it's considered better than the technically-flawed 2. The level design also receives a lot of praise, mostly because the environment is alive, and the platforming segments can be justified. Unfortunately, many also find the story and dialogue cringe-worthy and laughably bad in the game's general attempts to be "edgy".
Polished Port:
- For the vanilla version, the guys at QLOC did a good job when working on the PC port of DmC: Devil May Cry. The game truly shines in the graphical department when played on a PC, supports 1080p/60 FPS and is incredibly well optimized, running above 60 FPS even on older hardware and close to 200 FPS on top-end machines of its time. It's also great that the game is actually playable and doable using a keyboard and mouse, without control issues of any kind (very much not what you would expect of a spectacle fighting game), so it's comfortable to play for PC gamers in contrast to the PC ports of the first four Devil May Cry games which are criticized for their control schemes not having proper mouse support. ^note
- QLOC also did the Defintive Edition on 8th generation console. Carrying the 1080p/60 FPS with it. Additionally, it features re-balanced gameplay, Turbo mode, Must Style Mode (enemies only take damage and die when at S-SSS), and a new difficulty called Gods Must Die Mode. This version is mostly polished, but still contains some odd glitches and bugs. The game can sometimes crash at random, too. This is rare, but it seems to happen more so on PS4 than XBox One.
Replacement Scrappy: A general complaint about DmC is that Ninja Theory and Capcom somehow managed to make the rebooted Dante a Replacement Scrappy to his classic counterpart. DmC Dante's brash attitude and foul-mouthed behavior have made many dislike him compared to the original.
Ron the Death Eater: Dante gets this In-Universe and out. Some critics, particularly those who dislike the reboot, took some of Bob Barbas' talking points about Dante being a "disgusting, degrading, and generally nauseating" person with "a history of physical violence and a known sexual deviant" at face value. This gets especially ridiculous when discussing the infamous scene in which Dante taunts Mundus over the death of the latter's baby. Dante's detractors argue that this makes him come across as a sociopath, conveniently ignoring Mundus's murder of Dante's mother, his condemning Dante's father to eternal torture and his repeated attempts to kill Dante throughout the game. Compared to Mundus's own trespasses against him, Dante's mocking the death of Mundus's baby^note is far more understandable if not justified than the cruelty Mundus displays.
Scrappy Mechanic: Plenty of them on the vanilla version. Several of these issues would be fixed in the Definitive Edition, along with a complete rebalance of the game via Hardcore Mode. These were done as an Author's Saving Throw to encourage sales of the game among the older fans who they insulted during this game's promotion.
- The reworked Style System makes it easier to reach SSS Rank in combat just by spamming your highly-damaging attacks, compared to the previous games where you need some skill and combo variation to reach it.
- The option to resume to a checkpoint from the main menu allows the player to slowly brute force the notably difficult levels such as the "Must Die" modes, but it and the abundance of checkpoints are some of the reasons why DmC is criticized for being easier than the previous DMC games.
- Restarting a checkpoint counts as a death, but it's also a hot topic when the game is compared to Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (another Stylish Action game released near DmC) where restarting a checkpoint in that game does not count as dying. In DmC, dying negatively affects your overall Style Ranking post-mission. This is a source of frustration when going for a no death run on the hardest difficulty, more so on the "Gods Must Die" and Hardcore Mode of the Definitive Edition.
- The absence of a hard lock-on function makes the aim for guns, grapples, and dash attacks a bit dodgy. This also makes dash attacks like Stinger harder to execute for series veterans who got used to the classic controls, as you have to tap the left stick in a direction twice instead of simply holding it towards the enemy you're locked on.
- The Devil Trigger is a Game-Breaker. It freezes enemies, giving them no chance to pose a challenge, while also throwing them up into the air, limiting the combos that you can perform.
- The Demon/Angel Weapon system brought at least two concerns:
  - Many players found the Demon/Angel Weapon system to be almost completely unnecessary. There aren't enough variations (no heavy Angel weapons or no light Demon weapons), which wouldn't be a problem at first, but the game's combat favors heavy weapons a lot — the Arbiter pretty much blows away every other weapon in the game, so you only ever pull out an Angel weapon for the stuff that absolutely requires them or if you like spamming a specific combo.
  - These weapons justify the existence of the Fire and Ice demons, which fans perceive as Goddamned Bats that can stagger the character if the wrong weapon type is used. Fighting them limits playstyles and the freedom to use any weapon. While some players consider the gameplay of DmC to be okay or average on its own, the color-coded enemies made the game unenjoyable for others.
- Collectibles such as the Lost Souls and Hidden Keys for Secret Missions counts towards your end of level rank. If you want the best and highest possible rank you need to get 100% collectibles. This is worse in the vanilla version, as there two different key types and each one works for its respective door color. This was alleviated in the Definitive Edition, as you only needed one type of key, and it would work on any Secret Mission door. Another problem is that you can't backtrack to most areas, unlike past entries. Once you go past a certain point or enter a new area, you are locked out. The only way to grab the collectibles you missed are either restart, or repeat the stage on a later run. While this is not as bad as Devil May Cry 4's Red Orb count, it still annoying as not much skill is involved on the player's part, and is just padding for score. It's telling, as any missions or boss only levels automatically gives a SSS for items found, because there are none in those specific stages. The only other positive is once you gotten the collectible(s), you never have to find them again and are permanently saved.
Special Effects Failure:
- Dante's hair, funnily enough. Most of it is textured directly onto his head, with only the top and a little down the back as an actual mesh. Normally, this isn't an issue, but there are some sequences where the two parts of his hair react very differently to certain lighting conditions (such as the cutscene where the Hunter breaks through the funhouse mirror), resulting in scenes where it looks like he's bald except for the longer parts of his hair.
- The coat animations are done by hand instead of the physics engine, resulting in it awkwardly snapping back over Dante's legs whenever he stops. However, this only occurs in segments where Dante is restricted to walking.
- The Classic Skin also has a much lower resolution texture for Dante's bare chest than the rest of the skin.
- The DMC1 skin for Dante, and the DMC3 skin for Vergil, have a weird tendency of letting the legs phase through the coats, and they just look of place with the overall tone of the game.
Squick: The demon Poison physically exemplifies this trope. It gets worse knowing that there's a soft drink made from her abdomen's secretions that's sold to the oblivious human populace.
Tainted by the Preview:
- The initial previews, which focused largely on Dante's redesign, were panned by veterans of the series. It still receives an astronomical amount of taint years later, with several fans refusing to acknowledge its existence. We're talking about even more flak than what Devil May Cry 2 got.
- DmC was initially announced as a Continuity Reboot. It didn't sit well with the classic continuity's fans, especially to those who were anticipating for a sequel to Devil May Cry 4, or feared that the original characters will never return. This opinion subsided over time as Capcom eventually changed their statement and called DmC as an Alternate Continuity, while a true sequel to DMC4 was released later on.
Take That, Scrappy!: Bob Barbas's Raptor News commentaries on Dante could be interpreted as this, which perhaps also contributes to Barbas's Ensemble Dark Horse status.
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Several aspects of the game weren't popular among fans of the original series. These include:
- Dante and Vergil's new character designs and backstories.
- Being announced as a Continuity Reboot, then finalized as an Alternate Continuity.
- The Noisia and Combichrist helmed soundtrack.
- The use of Unreal Engine 3 instead of Capcom's MT Framework game engine.
- Dante being a former smoker.
- The increased profanity.
- The game running at 30 FPS rather than 60 FPS on PS3 and 360.
- No dedicated lock-on button on the PS3, 360, and PC.
- The lack of a taunt button.
- The obvious politicization.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This universe confirmed the existence of Angels who are established as sworn enemies to Demons. It opens up a lot of cool possibilities. Perhaps an angelic counterpart to the Devil Trigger? How does Dante struggle with the idea that he doesn't have a single drop of human blood? Are the Angels present as a force for good or maybe a different breed of evil? Sadly, outside of Eva and the angelic weapons, not much is done with them.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: What upsets many of the old fans is that few of the characters do much to be initially likable. Though they reveal further depths of character as they go on (especially Dante, whose character development is essentially the story's primary arc), their first impressions make it harder to get invested in later on.
Uncertain Audience: A big contributor to the game's divisive reception (more so in terms of plot, tone and characterization than gameplay). DmC has a notably Darker and Edgier tone and attempts to deal with some heavier topics than the original continuity; while the latter games do have some serious and dramatic moments, they tend to be more campy and whimsical. Ninja Theory were specifically instructed to make a "different" Devil May Cry game, but the end result is that DmC bears little resemblance to the rest of the franchise and either doesn't use any of the classic characters or radically changes them. Many fans of the original games weren't onboard because it was In Name Only, while the Devil May Cry title may have been off-putting to potential players who were into what DmC has to offer, resulting in DmC underselling in some markets. After Capcom released Devil May Cry 5, it's common to hear players say stuff about DmC like "It's not a bad game per se, just not a good Devil May Cry game".
Underused Game Mechanic: The first mission allows Dante to launch enemies into unique environmental hazards such as spinning sawblades or rides. Unique environmental hazards aren't abundant in the next levels as they are mostly Bottomless Pits.
- Mission 17 - "Furnace of Souls" is the only level where the platforming is somewhat a challenge and has large walls of flame rises up every few seconds that can harm and kill you when mistiming your jumps. With the flames causing more damage at a faster rate, when on higher difficulty modes. This being late in the game, no other levels have this gimmick nor something of similar platforming challenge.
- Mission 18 - "Demon's Den" is the only level to have one complicated puzzle in the entire game, due to the actionized nature of the reboot.
Unintentionally Sympathetic: Lilith was obviously not intended to be "nice", but after seeing her fearing for her and her babies' life, and then seeing her reaction to Vergil shooting her stomach to kill her child, a few players felt sorry for her.
Vindicated by History: DmC was controversial for being initially announced as a reboot, so fans of the classic continuity feared that the original lore and characters might be replaced. But after Capcom returned to the classic continuity with DMC5, it's now common to view DmC as a decent game in its own right, but just not a good Devil May Cry game, or that it would've had a better reception if it were a new IP instead of having the Devil May Cry name attached to it. It also helps that some interviews had Hideaki Itsuno and Matt Walker (the Director and Producer of DMC5, respectively) think highly of some concepts in this game. Certain mechanics and features from DmC did make their way into the mainline series, ^note so some veteran DMC fans are more forgiving of DmC in retrospect, at least strictly in terms of specific aesthetic and gameplay elements. Furthermore, the Definitive Edition adds a new mode to the game that rebalances the combat to be more in line with the classic series, meaning that fans of DMC in any form will have something to enjoy.
Wangst: Vergil in the Vergil's Downfall DLC. He spends the entire DLC complaining about how everything went wrong, blames Dante for everything, and ends up whining about how their mother loved Dante more than him. Tropes Are Not Bad kicks in here as that petty envy and rage gives him the susceptibility to taking power at any cost, in line with his descent into villainy.
Win Back the Crowd: After the backlash following the game's initial announcement, the next previews slowly tried to win the classic series' fans back by showing off the combat, boss battles, new environments, familiar movesets, and fan favorite characters like Vergil. Some classic fans gave DmC another chance, but the general reception is mostly Play the Game, Skip the Story.

YMMV / DmC: Devil May Cry

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