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Though
Dante is the star of the Devil May Cry series, he has
also guest starred in a handful of other Playstation 2
games.
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...Devil
May Cry
(2001)
The first time I
played Devil May Cry, I got lost in the entrance hall
of the castle for at least 20 minutes due to the
erratic camera angles. But so long as I got to see
Dante run around, I didn't mind. I could stay up all
night watching Dante practice jumping onto the central
statue's spearhead to release the coveted 100 red orbs
without getting frustrated. The game starts when a
clone of Dante's mother breaks into his office,
electrocutes him, and stabs him through the chest with
his own sword before enlisting his help to stop an
immanent demonic invasion on Mallet Island. Before he
knew it, Dante was facing none other than Mundus, the
ruler of Hell who his legendary father sealed
centuries before.
EQUIPMENT
Dante's
Voice Actor: Drew
Coombs
Vergil's Voice Actor: David
Keeley
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...Devil May
Cry 2 (2003)
I played
this for about 5 minutes in the opening practice area.
I wandered around, I ran up a wall, and I decided that
it was too pretty for me to play at the time. I later
went back to it and discovered for myself what
everybody else already claimed: that the game was too
easy, monotone, and Dante was stripped of his
attitude and flair. In fact, Dante barely ever talked
at all. Many refuse to even acknowledge
this game as part of the series. But still, Dante is
Dante and I'll be grateful for anything with him that
I can get my hands on.
EQUIPMENT
The Japanese commercial for Devil May Cry 2 is
blissfully amazing, and can be found HERE.
Dante's
Voice Actor: Matthew
Kaminsky
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...Devil May
Cry 3: Dante's Awakening (2005)
| Unlock
All Code: On the title screen, hold L1
+ L2 + R1 + R2 and twirl the left analog stick
until you hear a voice say "Devil May
Cry" to unlock all difficulty modes,
costumes, and gallery. |
| |
I reserved
this game and got it the first day it was out but
didn't play it until a month later. Why? It was way
too pretty and I was afraid that my brain would short
circuit from sensory overload unless I found a way to
gradually desensitize myself to the graphics. At first
I just listened to my friends play it, then I took
quick peeks before finally being able to to watch the
gameplay. Eventually I dared to play it for myself and
it went smoother than expected. I was not too
distracted by pretty colors, although I still can't
believe I didn't freeze up the first time I had to
fight the hotness that is Vergil.
EQUIPMENT
STYLES
MISSIONS
BOSSES
After
complaints that DMC2 was too easy, Capcom released
DMC3 with a shifted difficulty scale, so that USA's
"Normal" mode was actually Japan's
"Hard" mode. There were no save points and
the missions could get rather long. If you died, you
had to start over unless you were willing to use a
rare Yellow Orb and resurrect in a previous room. I
never minded starting over. Even though there were no
save points, you could still save the Red Orbs you
collected. So, the way I saw it, starting over = more
red orbs and more Dante, and that is always a good
thing.
Defeat 100 enemies during the final credits to watch
Vergil's special ending. If all else fails, do it in
Heaven or Hell mode.
Dante's
Voice Actor: Reuben
Langdon
Vergil's Voice Actor: Dan
Southworth
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...Devil May
Cry 3: Special Edition (2006)
| Unlock
All Code: On the title screen, hold L1 + L2
+ R1 + R2 + up/left on directional pad + down/right on
left analog stick to unlock all difficulty modes,
costumes, and gallery. |
| | After
complaints that the original USA release of DMC3 was
too hard, the Special Edition was released equal to
the Japanese version in difficulty. An optional
enhanced continue system was added that allowed you to
start from a previous room upon death without needing
a Yellow Orb or, if you had a Yellow Orb, continue the
fight right where you left off. This prompted
complaints that Capcom sold out and made the game too
easy. STOP WHINING YOU @#$& MORONS!!!
EQUIPMENT
STYLES
MISSIONS
BOSSES
There are enough changes between the two versions
of Devil May Cry 3 for me to think twice before
deciding which one I want to play at any given time.
Some of the more obvious changes are:
1) Demo Digest: an inbuilt cinematics viewer
where you can either choose a single cutscene to watch
or click "play all" and watch them as a ~90
minute movie. I used to have to play the first release
in Heaven or Hell mode to breeze through missions
quickly in order to get to a cutscene, so this is an
invaluable addition that is alone worthy of the price.
2) Bloody Palace: otherwise known as the Red
Orb shopping mall, this is a 9999-floor dungeon crawl
with progressively more powerful enemies the higher up
you go. Enemies on the top levels are devil triggered
and the rooms with several Hell Vanguards are a real
killer! But you do not have to go up rooms one by one.
The Fire Portal takes you up 100 floors, the
Electricity Portal take you up 10 floors and gives you
a Purple Orb to replenish your devil trigger, and the
Water Portal takes you up 1 floor but gives you a
Green Orb to replenish your health. The enemies on
each floor are not random, so it is possible to map
your way and avoid the more troublesome rooms.
3) Turbo Mode: speeds up the game for 20%
faster gameplay.
4) Jester Boss: you now fight the Jester at
three places throughout the game.
5) VERGIL IS PLAYABLE!! Dante's brother has his
own costumes, his own weapons, his own moves, his own
style, but sadly none of his own cinematics besides a
new introduction. In parts of the game where you would
normally fight Vergil, Vergil fights himself, so
instead of saying "Dante... Dante...
Dante..." at the conclusion of the final duel,
Vergil says "Rediculous..."
Some of the
more subtle changes are:
1) Game is
HARDER: the AI has been tweaked, more enemies have
been added, the passive Dullahans now attack you, and
we have a new boss, so if you play the game at a
difficulty equivalent to the first release (Normal
mode = Hard mode if you go by US version) and stick to
the original Yellow Orb system for continues, it is
indeed harder.
2) Devil Trigger Fixed: the Super Dante costume
devil trigger exploits that allowed for indefinite
Quicksilver ("God Mode") and Doppelganger
("2-Player Mode") has been fixed to drain
the devil gauge. This can be inconvenient for those
that liked the freedom offered by first release's
Super Dante.
Dante's
Voice Actor: Reuben
Langdon
Vergil's Voice Actor: Dan
Southworth
|
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...Devil May
Cry 4 (2008)
For the first time
in DMC history, the game distanced itself from Dante
and introduced Nero as a new main character. But this
was not the only DMC standard this sequel overturned.
It also broke the long tradition of strong,
independent females and brought in an utterly useless
love interest. ~_~; The new mechanism of Nero's Devil
Bringer strikes a tense balance with DMC's traditional
reliance on guns and swords, and I would much rather
it be left out of the game. |
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EQUIPMENT
MISSIONS
BOSSES
Nero has big
shoes to fill and fails completely. There's nothing
horribly wrong with him, but there's nothing
interesting either. He is you average textbook hero
out to rescue his girlfriend. His powers are reduced
to three things: a one-handed sword, a one-handed gun,
and a one-handed demonic arm. He has no potential to
dual wield weapons!! And I NEED dual wield! This arm also glows when
near hidden objects, taking all the challenge away
from exploration. Its powers bring clumsy brute
strength to a game that has always been about speed,
finesse, and timing. Despite this, Nero is considerably
less powerful than Dante. Indeed, compared to DMC3,
this game feels like a toy designed for a one-handed
freak!
The plunge in
difficulty is especially noticeable when Dante takes
over. And that's another pattern it breaks from other
DMC games: you do not play a single character all the
way through. Nero has missions 1-11, 19-20; Dante has
missions 12-18. Without going into too much detail,
I'll run through some Pro's and Con's:
PROS:
1) Graphics are better.
2) Cutscenes are awesome! (*cough*Lucifer*cough*)
3) Gameplay is smooth, fun, and stylish as always.
4) Dante gets a significant power boost from DMC3 with
his ability to switch Styles and weapons on the fly.
5) Nice soundtrack.
CONS:
1) Nero gets the majority of the missions.
2) Romance-driven plot makes me cringe.
3) Missions are repetitive.
4) Bosses are even more repetitive.
5) Only 4 acquirable weapons in the game. (All of them
by Dante - Yay!)
6) No alternate costumes besides Super Dante/Nero.
7) No alternate characters: can't even choose between
Dante and Nero for missions.
8) Bloody Palace was better in DMC3, where it didn't
have a timer and you could choose your floor.
9) Devil Bringer makes me feel like I'm playing God of
War.
10) No Vergil! (At least not overtly)
Despite all
this, I truly do love the game. It might not live up
to DMC3, but few things can. It's fun in its own
right. Much as I want Nero to drop off the face of the
Earth in DMC5, I realize this isn't going to happen
and I only pray he finds a niche that doesn't take
away from Dante or from Vergil's possible
reintroduction into the series.
Dante's
Voice Actor: Reuben
Langdon
Credo's Voice Actor: Dan
Southworth
Nero's Voice Actor: Johnny
Yong Bosch
|
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...Viewtiful
Joe (2004)
| Unlock
All Code: On the title screen, press L1,
R1, L1, R1, up, down, left, right, triangle and circle
to unlock all hidden characters, difficulties, and a
music video. |
Dante becomes
selectable as a playable character once you clear the
game on any difficulty (or use the cheat code above).
Unlike Joe, he uses a sword and has his trademark guns
for range attacks. Dante's story mode apparently fills
in some gaps between the Devil May Cry 01 novel and
the Devil May Cry game. A personified version of
Alastor, his sword from Devil May Cry, is also a bonus
playable character. So is Trish. The game severely
weirded me out the first time I played it, but it has
grown on me.
There are parts of the game where Dante appears in his
underwear, at which point Trish asks if a girl stole
his clothes and Dante explains that he lost them in a
bet with Enzo. That line spawned hopeful rumors that
the Dante in Devil May Cry 2 is an imposter, fueled by
further "evidence" that the DMC2 handbook
refers to Ebony & Ivory as revolvers when they are
clearly described as semi-automatic handguns in the
first game and the fact that Dante did not have
Alastor in DMC2. Fun thought, but highly unlikely, as
I don't think any amount of exercise can make Enzo
look and fight like DMC2 Dante.
Dante's
Voice Actor: Drew
Coombs
|
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...Marvel vs.
Capcom 3 (2011)
I gotta say
I was very excited about this game since I've always
wanted to play Dante in a pure fighting genre, but my
ignorance about the Marvel vs Capcom format left me
disillusioned. I thought I could be all Dante, all the
time, and was annoyed when I found out it's only tag
team. This is a very chaotic game, with 6 characters
(3 on your side, 3 on your opponent's) juggling screen
time. Whenever characters toggle, their theme plays,
resulting in something closer to an orchestral battle
than a soundtrack. The controls also rarely listen to
what you want them to do. But hey, Dante is Dante, and
I'll take whatever I can get. I usually play a Dante,
Trish, and Amaterasu tag team, and that's tolerable. Defeating the final boss
as Dante unlocks Dante's 3D model which I can rotate
and stare at for hours.
Dante's
Voice Actor: Reuben
Langdon
|
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...Shin
Megami Tensei: Nocturne (2004)
A
revolutionary RPG from Atlus that has not gone down in
popularity even though it's out of print. I've been
told that I'd "probably have to go down on a gay dude to get the game."
I think I'll stick to eBay.
Anyways, Dante makes a cameo appearance here by diving
down from a rooftop and terrorizing you across the
city streets. It is very hard to get him to join your
party, but not impossible, and I will make it happen
even if I have to drink blood out of his boots! He is
a very welcome addition to any party since I hear his
statistics are quite
droolworthy. Dante was summoned by Lucifer to
collect the Candelabrums he gave to a bunch of
powerful demons, and you have to defeat all of them
and accept Lucifer's offer before you can get Dante as
an ally.
A trailer promoting Dante's cameo can be found HERE.
|
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...Capcom
Fighting Evolution (2004)
Dante
appears in Jedah Dohma's ending, but for only a matter
of seconds and you don't even see his face. |
DISCLAIMER: All artwork,
characters, stories, music, video, and books are Copyright CAPCOM
and ATLUS. They are NOT of my
making. No copyright infringement is intended. |
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