About

Devil May Cry is a series of video games set in the modern day, developed by Capcom and created by Hideki Kamiya, who is also the creator of Bayonetta. Originally intended to be the fourth instalment in Capcom’s Resident Evil series, Devil May Cry has been cited as the beginning of a sub-genre of action games by the name of “Extreme Action”.

As of 2013, there are five games in the series, though DmC: Devil May Cry is a reboot rather than a continuation. A compilation of the first three games, Devil May Cry HD Collection, was also released on March 28, 2012.

Series Origins

In 1998, after the completion of Resident Evil 3, preliminary work on another instalment of the Resident Evil series began under the direction of Hideki Kamiya. However, it proved to be a radical departure from the original Resident Evil formula and survival horror in general. Rather than abandon the project entirely, the premise was changed and it eventually became the first
Devil May Cry.

Although the series is, without a doubt, different from its original inspiration, its lineage is still apparent, from the recurring boss characters and tendency towards grotesque adversaries, the need to solve puzzles to proceed, to the “This Game Contains Scenes Of Violence And Gore” warning at the opening sequence and “You Are Dead” game over screens. The attacks some of the monsters can perform are also reminiscent of its lineage.

Gameplay

The gameplay of the series focuses primarily on fast and “stylish” combat; gaining a high style ranking requires long attack and evasion strings while avoiding damage. In later games, the system was slightly modified so players had to vary the attacks used, so as to raise and maintain the style rank. The style rank is tracked during combat with letter grades, from worst to best: D, C, B, A, S. They are also represented by words that start with the first letter of the class (or phrases, in the case of Devil May Cry 2), “Dull” for D for example, in the first game. The third game introduced “SS” and “SSS” ranks, which were also used in the fourth. Each level, or “mission”, is also ranked using these letters. The player’s overall grade is computed as a result of his or her total Style along with time and amount of items collected and used.

The game also features puzzle-solving and exploration elements retained from its survival horror beginnings, but these are very downplayed; Devil May Cry games put emphasis on action.

The Devil Trigger ability enables the player’s character to transform into a devil-like form with additional powers, while the character’s strength and speed increase and health is slowly restored.

Dante is generally the playable character in the games, though Devil May Cry 2 featured two other characters, Lucia and Trish, the Special Edition of Devil May Cry 3: Dante’s Awakening allowed players to play as Vergil, and Devil May Cry 4 features a new protagonist named Nero, however Dante appears as a supporting character and is playable through some missions.

Plot

The series centers on Dante’s goal of avenging his mother’s murder by exterminating demons. In the process, he encounters and is challenged by his twin brother, Vergil, who Dante thought was dead. As the series progresses it is revealed that the demon emperor Mundus is responsible for the loss of Dante’s mother and the corruption of his brother.
The chronological order of the Devil May Cry series does not follow the release order of the games. Devil May Cry 3 takes place first as a prequel to Devil May Cry, which is followed by Devil May Cry 4, and then finally Devil May Cry 2. The anime series is set sometime between Devil May Cry and Devil May Cry 4.

Devil May Cry 3

WARNING: SPOILERS

The story of the series begins in Devil May Cry 3 on Dante’s as-of-yet unnamed shop as a mysterious man named Arkham appears to offer an invitation from Dante’s brother, Vergil. An immense tower erupts from the ground a short distance away from the shop and Dante takes the situation as a challenge. Following numerous battles, Dante arrives at the tower’s summit and encounters Vergil, who defeats Dante in combat and departs. Dante eventually catches up with Vergil in the control room located in the tower’s basement. The brothers battle again until they are interrupted by Lady, then Arkham, who has been manipulating them all to reactivate the tower. Arkham intends to steal the Force Edge, Sparda’s sword, and adquire all of his Power.
Dante crosses over to the demon world and catches up with Arkham, and he and Vergil work together to bring him down. Dante and Vergil fight yet again, and Dante is victorious. Returning to the human world, Dante meets Lady outside the tower where she coins the phrase “devil may cry” while trying to comfort Dante over the loss of his brother. They form a friendship and a partnership in demon-slaying, and he names his shop “Devil May Cry”.

Devil May Cry

WARNING: SPOILERS

Devil May Cry 1 begins with Dante being attacked in his office by Trish. He easily brushes off her assault and she claims that the demon emperor Mundus is planning a return. Dante explores Mallet Island, encountering a variety of powerful demons, including one named Nelo Angelo.

Dante is defeated by Nelo Angelo in combat, but Nelo Angelo flees at the sight of Dante’s half of the Perfect Amulet.

Other encounters with Mundus’ demon generals serve to indicate that Dante has become even more powerful than his father since his initial awakening. Nelo Angelo attacks twice more in later missions, and is eventually revealed to be Dante’s twin brother, Vergil.

Dante enters the underworld in pursuit of Mundus, where Trish sacrifices herself to save him. Dante uses the emotions triggered by Trish’s actions to release the power of Sparda that Vergil sought in Devil May Cry 3. Dante and Mundus then battle on another plane of existence. Trish returns and lends Dante her power. Dante then defeats Mundus, and he alongside Trish escape as the island collapses, and later work together in the renamed shop, “Devil Never Cry”, although the name was reverted later.

Devil May Cry 4

WARNING: SPOILERS

In Devil May Cry 4, Lady calls upon Dante to investigate the Order of the Sword, a cult-like group that worships Sparda and has been collecting Devil Arms.

Dante is originally uninterested, but Trish goes on ahead and takes the Sparda sword with her. Later, Nero witnesses Dante assassinate the Order’s leader, Sanctus. Nero attacks Dante and awakens his Devil Bringer arm, only to find that Dante was not taking their fight seriously.

Nero pursues Dante, and along the way comes to realize that the Order is opening gates to the demon world in order to harness its power. After a battle against Agnus, Nero discovers and magically restores the Yamato, which the Order had found broken in several places. Sanctus is revived through demonic power, and he sets in motion a plan to capture Nero and absorving him into the Savior by kidnapping Kyrie, Nero’s love interest.

Nero pursues and fights Sanctus, but is ultimately captured and used to form the core of The Savior, a giant demon in the form of a god.

Dante steps in and destroys all the Hell Gates that the Order has opened, then fights against the Savior. Unable to destroy it from the outside, he leaves that task to Nero to defeat it from the inside. While inside the Savior, Nero kills Sanctus and rescues Kyrie, and ultimately destroys the Savior. Dante entrusts Yamato, which formerly belonged to Vergil, to Nero, and leaves with Trish. Later, at the Devil May Cry shop, Lady pays Dante and Trish for their work. Then, a customer with the password phones in, and the three head out to take on another mission.

Devil May Cry 2

WARNING: SPOILERS

Devil May Cry 2 begins with Dante entering a museum where an important item called the Medaglia is stored. There, also, Lucia, a member of the clan that has for ages been charged with protecting the faithful of Vie de Marli from all incarnations of evil, invites Dante to Dumary Island. Lucia’s mother, Matier, asks Dante to help fight Arius, a businessman who studies and wields demonic power. Dante decides to help.

Lucia confronts Arius, who reveals that she was his creation. Shortly afterwards, Lucia gives Dante the last of the Arcana before leaving. Dante then encounters Matier again and she asks Dante to take the Arcana to save Lucia. Lucia attacks Arius, though he captures her. Dante arrives and trades the Arcana for Lucia, then attacks Arius, who escapes. A large stream of energy strikes the Uroburos tower and a portal to the demon world is opened. Dante and Lucia argue over who will enter, but ultimately it is Dante who enters the portal to deal with Argosax.

After Dante departs, Arius returns, though Lucia goes on to defeat him. Within the portal, Dante fights and defeats the partially summoned Argosax. Finding the portal closed, Dante instead drives further into the demon realm on a motorcycle. In the aftermath of the battle, Matier insists to Lucia that Sparda returned from a similar trip.

Sometime later, in Dante’s shop, Lucia muses about Dante. Outside, the sound of a motorcycle echoes, and Lucia leaves to investigate. The player is not shown whether or not it is Dante.

Similarities With Bayonetta

Being two games developed by the same creator (Hideki Kamiya), Bayonetta has several references to the Devil May Cry series. You can see a list of these over here: http://devilmaycry.wikia.com/wiki/Bayonetta#Devil_May_Cry_references

Also, Bayonetta plays very similarly to the Devil May Cry games in that the player is asked to string together long and stylish combo attacks to defeat foes. Bayonetta is able to double jump, destroy background objects, switch her weapons during play, shape-shift into different and more powerful forms, and slow down time. Gameplay is broken down into multiple chapters. There are also several difficulty modes, ranging from “Very Easy Automatic” (reference to the “Easy Automatic Mode” in DMC1) to “Non-Stop Climax”, and a scoring system that grades the player’s stylishness.

Additionally, both series have separate gauges for player vitality and magic, with magic being required for special techniques and replenished by executing stylish combos and taunting. Health and magic are extended separately by collecting pieces of different items either purchased from stores or found during gameplay. Healing items of both series follow a similar color pattern: Green items heal health and purple items heal magic. Enemies in both games drop items which are used as currency for purchasing items and new techniques. Also, both series feature unlockable alternate costumes.

Anime

An anime for Devil May Cry also exists. Know as Devil May Cry: The Animated Series, It debuted on the WOWOW TV network in Japan on June 14, 2007, and ran 12 episodes.

The show was produced by the anime studio Madhouse and was directed by Shin Itagaki. Bingo Morihashi, one of the writers for the second, third and fourth games, was also on the writing staff.

A teaser-trailer, released on the show’s official site, featured pre-production artwork of Dante, the primary protagonist and playable character of the video games, and confirmed him as the show’s main protagonist.

A second trailer released at the 2007 Tokyo International Anime Fair showed actual animation from the show and included a character and cast list, featuring new characters, such as Patty Lowell (a young orphan girl Dante saves in the first episode, who also lives in Devil May Cry) and Morrison (Dante’s liaison), and other characters from the games, such as Trish and Lady.

Reception

The series has been a marketing success, selling over 13 million copies as of September 30, 2013 and all five entries being awarded the “Platinum Title” award by Capcom.

The success of the series has led to the creation of comic books, manga series, three novelizations, an anime series, guides, collectibles, publications, and a variety of action figures.

However, Devil May Cry 2 was considered a huge disappointment because of its easy difficulty compared to the original Devil May Cry. Also, Dante’s personality was changed a lot. He became a lot more serious, and that was also not well received by fans and critics.

Online Presence

There is a lot of fanart in Tumblr and Deviantart. The Facebook page for Devil May Cry has over 1.800.000 likes. The Twitter page has over 32,000 followers.

A Devil May Cry Wiki also exists, having over 612 pages about the games, characters (main ones, lesser demons and bosses), items, weapons, locations and music.

Fanart

Cosplay

Related Memes

Featuring Dante From The Devil May Cry Series

Featuring Dante From The Devil May Cry Series is a phrase taken from a seal placed on the cover of the European release of the video game Shin Megami Tensei: Lucifer’s Call to promote the addition of Dante, the main protagonist from the Devil May Cry series into the game. The addition of the seal on the European release, which wasn’t present on the releases of the game elsewhere, became a target of mock by the gaming community due to Dante’s rather trivial part in the game’s plot.

Example

Ur a Faget

Ur a Faget is a bastardized form of the phrase “You’re a Faggot”, an insult used towards another person’s belief or behavior. The phrase first became popular when it was used in a MS Paint comic featuring the main characters from Devil May Cry 3, Dante and Vergil, and has since been used in exploitable images with the viewer looking disgruntled.
The comic itself shows a crudely drawn MS Paint style featuring Dante sending a note reading “ur a faget” to his brother Vergil in an over the top manner.

DmC Dante / Donte

DmC Dante, also nicknamed as Donte, is the name given by the Devil May Cry fanbase to the New Dante seen in the 2013 reboot, DmC: Devil May Cry. This character is notable for its vulgar and agressive personality, which differs greatly from the original Dante’s more calm and cocky attitude.

The nickname Donte is mostly used by longtime fans of the series, due to the fact he doesn’t look or act like the original Dante. In some forums, it is listed as short for “Don’t call him Dante”.

During the game, Dante always shows an agressive behavior and swears on almost every opportunity. When he doesn’t, he tries to be “cool” and appeal to the player, failing most of the time.

The quote “Fuck You!” also became a notable part of the character because of how many times he says it during the game. One notable scene (before a boss battle) is shown below.

This version of Dante also appeared as a character in the PlayStation 3 game PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale, a fighting game similiar to Super Smash Brothers, only that fighters need to use super moves to rack up KO’s and features historical Playstation characters.

While fans reacted negatively to Dante’s look at first, they were surprised as they found out that, while he was still the DmC Dante, his personality from the previous DMC games was left intact, acting and talking like the classic. However, people still wanted the original Dante as an alternate costume or a completely separated character, which never came to be.

References

- http://devilmaycry.wikia.com/wiki/Devil_May_Cry_%28series%29
- http://devilmaycry.wikia.com/wiki/Devil_May_Cry:_The_Animated_Series
- http://www.capcom.co.jp/ir/english/business/salesdata.html