Funny considering he's the angriest and crassest of the three Sparda descendants, but he's also the purest of heart. He is unabashedly human and flawed and never pretends to be anything else. Hell, he convinces his idiot dad and uncle to stop fighting and save the world! Appropriate that his DT looks like an angel.
like how they did a slow motion epic shot of nero scratching virgil's hand like him and dante arent able to shug off being impaled and cut 4 million times XD
Never really had a problem with Nero. I did compare him to Raiden when I was a kid. But it was mostly in the since that I would rather be playing Dante, since he was my favorite. Just like how I would rather play as Snake. I know a lot of people hated Nero, but never had any of those feelings.
For me I always liked him just because his voice actor is Johnny Yong Bosch 😂 for y'all who don't know that's Ichigo the New Broly, and the Black Ranger
Agreed throughout. There's also something very charming or differentiating about Nero being a bit of a dumbass. Dante feels much more like he's pretending to be dumber than he is, underselling himself or underachieving and feeding into bad habits he could eventually work out. Whereas Nero is always giving it 100% but just isn't as witty or finessed or reflective. There's memes about it, but he has a jock-y mentality where he thinks only with his heart, and will default to aggression, letting antagonists and Nico get under his skin way quicker than the other two. And rather than this making him callous, the fact he has a very sweet girlfriend who he takes time to call and talk to before the final battle is another unique touch, one that makes him lovable. It's a great way to retain his more angsty self in 4 and keep pushing it forward as he gets older. I'm really hoping that when/if they do a sequel, we get to see Dante, Nero and Vergil rub off on each other more and round each other out. Dante teaches Vergil to not be so serious, Vergil teaches Nero to refine himself, Nero teaches Dante to be more honest with his feelings, etc. People LOVE the fact Vergil will hang around the menu screen getting irritated, so any sort of story interactions like that would go down perfectly.
You Know maybe we can get something like that on the sequel but also we may finallly get Sparda, with thee First half with Dante and Vergil on the underworld finding the tracks of his fathers and Nero on the human world fighting demons while we also get to skip to the past to see the Combat style of Sparda, and the second half with the choice of any of them on every level to see some character development, and maybe one of the final fights of Sparda will be Mundus while the final battle of the family will be some acolytes of Mundus trying to resurrect him again using the bloodline and the captured soul of the "betrayer"
@@トーキ-g8v yeah I see way more love for og Raiden recently as people realize what his role is but I can't deny he's much better as a cyborg who accepts his murderous nature and rage and learns to control it for good. That was a nice way to round out his character than just a message about sequels and free will. No MGR2 tho :[
@@mr.cookey Yes! Though I have to say at this point I think Nico is more of a dangerous presence in Nero's life than Vergil. I have this weird feeling that Vergil would do his best to be a gentleman in Kyrie's house because what Kyrie and Nero has he never had but would probably understand the value of it through the memories of Sparda and Eva.
@@CapraDaAlbaRegia absolutely. But, there is an ever chaotic power called Dante, and i'm sure he's more than capable of making Vergil go nuts in the matter of seconds. And so, the scenario i painted ensures
Nero became my favorite character in 5, and I'm still shook by that fact. He's now this "let's have fun but get it done" boy who gives as much of a damn about killing demons as he does about forcing his new found family to stop being idiots for 5 minutes.
Dante is still my favorite of the whole group, but devil May Cry 5 definitely built on the ending of devil May Cry 4 to make Nero competition for favorite character alongside Virgil and Dante.
@@hariman7727 Dante is cool and all, but when you compare his silly dismissal of everything around him in exchange for pizza and witty jokes to Nero's fully genuine ambition to do the right thing and get the job done, I will say that Nero is my favorite because he is the straight-edged man of the three main characters. I will give Vergil credit though because while he had a purely human form, he was also a bit more honest and opened up to Nero and Trish during the story.
yep he's a teenager that's done right he's cocky and impatient just like any teenaged/young guy but he's not fucking around and would take things into his own hand(s) dante is a little too laid back and his dad is just a very egotistical and emotionally fragile douchebag that just happens to have a big fandom because he got that flashy sword fighting style with his katana
Honestly Nero is the most fun to play for me. Dante is second and then Vergil is third because playing him is gonna give me carpal tunnel at some point
15:41 I appreciate you state this. Both Vergil and Dante have this problem of masking their feelings. Even in dire time, Dante still putting an act when he confront Urizen about their mother and his generic speech about strength, instead of just straight up truly open his heart to Vergil. Nero, with his honest front attitude is indeed perfect to just smack some reality to this wreck of sibling relationship and the fact that it coming from their youngest family member make it even better.
Yeah it feels like after Dante helped Nero in DMC4, Nero helped Dante in DMC5 at the end. Dante has it in his head that he can’t open up to people because of his past and Nero proves that untrue.
I love how he bounces off the rest of the cast in 5, his bluntness really brings their personalities together. Plus the little moments, like how he was willing to help some guy who wandered into his garage without a second thought or when he unknowingly quotes his father before the Artemis fight. I liked Nero in 4, but 5 made me appreciate him.
Fun fact: According to the DMC Manga/Anime, right before the events of DMC5 Nero and Kyrie started a sort of Orphanage/Devil Hunting non-profit, which explains why he was so willing to let Vergil into his house for dinner, he probably figured "Hey, this guy needs some help, he probably heard about us and just needs a place for the night or something, or a nice meal," plus, Vergil did look pretty much homeless in that cutscene, so...
@@WestGarbage6 I'm sure it's not 100% non-profit, though. Weapon maintenance and rent gotta get paid somehow lol. That is a cool bit, though. He's a bad mouthed, gunslinging, sword wielding humanitarian lol.
Nero is what Dante and Vergil could have been if they had a positive influence throughout their childhoods. The dude is emotionally healthy, and thus more mature. You'd think him being an angry teenage punk kid would hinder that image, but Nero makes it work because he's honest with everyone, including himself. Dante and Vergil lost Sparta and Eva, but Nero at least had Credo and Kyrie. They saved him. Itsuno himself said that if Nero didn't have Kyrie, he'd be just like Vergil. Tl;dr Nero is a good boy and I love him.
what makes that last part even more interesting is the fact that Vergil could've been just like Nero, if only he hadn't abandoned Nero and Nero's mother in Fortuna, he had that chance and threw it away
Yeah. There's a good point about how Nero is different from Vergil in the end if DMC4. He has the same lust for power as Vergil throughout most of the game, practically even begging Dante to keep Yamato after their second fight as he needs the insane power boost the sword gives him. But what does he do after saving the world? Offers Dante the return of the sword, effectively giving all that up as he got what he wanted out of it. In the end, he was able to ultimately resist the desire for power that drove his Dad to the depths it did.
If i had a nickel for evertime a charachter with white hair and a sword replaced the main charachter for one entry and was one of the least popular charachters in their respective series only to later get cybernetic enhancements and becoming a fan favorite charachter i would have two nickels which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice.
My favorite thing about Nero is that out of Dante and Virgil; he’s the most relatable character in the franchise from always being the one to never hide his feelings and his goals. He genuinely cares about the last people in his family that he never knew he had. That’s tough but considering his background…..whatever you got left, you got to hold onto.
It is also quite an interesting detail that, while Dante's "Devil May Cry demon hunting branch" is falling apart, Nero's is Thriving. Seemingly implying that Nero is far more effective or preferably for the service than Dante. 🤣
So happy to see this. Nero was so incredible in DMC5 and it’s nice to see such appreciation for the work Capcom did with him. I do think that while he’s more accepted now, he’s still somewhat under appreciated or less represented in the fan base. The vast majority of social media content and art is just Dante and Vergil to the point that you wouldn’t know Nero was so important and central to DMC5. Anyway, great video!
Dante and Vergil just have more to work with. Dante and his supporting group (the ogs) is a much more fleshed out group than Nero, Kyrie and Nico. Not to say they're bad, I love them, it's just a bit more limiting when Nero hasn't/barley interacts with any of the ogs. Kyrie not having a DMC5 model or design definitely contributed to the lack of art. I would be willing to bet we'd see a lot of Nero and Kyrie fanart if they explored her character more and gave her a new design. Nero and his friends deserve more love from the fanbase and especially Capcom, they're all fun characters
Can't help but draw a parallel with Raiden from MGS2. A new protagonist in an established series getting overshadowed by the former protagonist. Raiden was pretty much playing catch up to Snake, for most of MGS2. At every point it shows Snake it shows how cool and powerful he is. From Snake disbanding a room of soliders at the start of the game to Snake having a bigger health bar at the end. Fans all wanted to return to the shoes of Solid Snake, which meant Raiden ended up being despised as an inferior, even to the point in which fans sent death threats to Kojima. Though, eventually, things turned around for Raiden. Metal Gear Rising was a great game for him and with the recent resurragence of that game's popularity, I think it's safe to say many prefer Raiden to Snake, if just for the memes.
I think Raiden was done completely fine in MGS2 and the way his character arc completed at the end was beautiful, I found Rising to be a different direction that while really entertaining didn't feel as deep as MGS2
The saving grace for Raiden is you can say "He's lame on purpose", misguidedly striving to become someone he can never be. He's thematically meant to be an inferior downgrade wannabe. Got me there, Kojima. He sure was. But by the time of Rising, I think most people appreciate him, either for the themes he embodied as that wannabe or the character he evolved into.
It also is similar in that i liked both nero and raiden in mgs2/dmc4 whereas many didn't, and yet never understood why people liked them so much more in rising and dmc5...(in fairness, mgs4 raiden strikes a nice balance i can get behindl
The difference is that in MGS2 Raiden's relationship to Snake feels well written and appropriate to the themes of the game. In DMC4 Nero always felt like a half baked copy of Dante who was created to make the game more appealing to casual fans.
One thing I was kind of surprised you didn't mention was his visual design. I feel like Nero in 4 really struggles to differentiate himself - he simultaneously looks too much like Dante and too much like a standard Japanese teen hero character. There's just not much there to get him over or imply that much about his character. 5 pretty much completely rectified this.
Yes and i think this simillarity to Dante didn't help him at first, just one more way to compare him with the "legend", now his is much more his own character
I always thought his outfit in 4 was weird because he's supposed to be from this isolated mystical cult town and also works directly for the church.yet he dresses like a punk fashion star. I think his alt design works better for the setting because it fits the aesthetic of the area while giving him a unique look.
@@T3chn0logicalTerror The one clue I can give is that as isolated as Fortuna is, Nero was able to get his hands on a music player (punk headphones). My guess is that Nero still had access to outside media and took inspiration from rebellious rock music for his outfit.
Back in the day when DMC 4 got released and i've read about it in a gaming magazine i was so confused while watching the pictures of the game. I never played the games back then, and i didn't understand who is who, because Nero looked like a copy of Dante. I guess they tried too hard to make a character thats similar looking to the main protagonist, so that fans wouldn't be too alienated, but this way he just turned out to be too similar. In 5 he looks way more distinctive, and i love this.
I remember years ago I read someone's fan pitch for DMC5 where it begins with Nero being overwhelmed by some new threat and having to find Dante in Hell for assistance (this was long before the timeline change). A major plot development was that Nero would become corrupted by some kind of demonic force and the writer gleefully stated that Dante would have to kill Nero and finish the fight himself. To not only just kill off a character with such pure design and raw emotion that contrasts Dante perfectly, but also in what would be such a humiliating fashion goes against everything this series stands for. I'm so happy with the direction they took Nero in, he's an excellent character and deserved the best, now if only we could get more of Kyrie... and Lucia....
MY that would been really messed up and one off the most memorable moments in gaming history if done right but i am glad my boy nero still is fine they really did a good job with him in 5
I'd love DMC6 to bring back Lucia in some fashion to redeem DMC2 a little lol. She has a dope af design and powers, and she would've been a great addition to Dante's team. Hell, it would've been much more fitting to have her bring the Sparda to the order in DMC4 since her design fits their esthetic more.
Great point on all the Urizen fights being winnable. If it's a scripted fight you can't win no matter what, it doesn't feel like you're being bested, but that the opponent is cheating, so if the next encounter isn't scripted in an instance of this trope, but the first is, I can't help but think "Why don't you just do the same thing again and beat me?"
Well, sans the flashback Dante vs Urizen, which gets interrupted no matter what. Suppose it's still keeping in spirit of things, because as a player you technically neither win or lose that fight and since Dante is already the one to canonically best Urizen in a serious duel, while both are at their full power, there's no comparable novelty to fully upgraded Dante beating Urizen in a bossbattle, where the demon king remains seated the whole time.
@@jondoe7036 I think the reason they did that for the flashback is because: if you defeat Urizen as Nero the story ends, with credits and all, but if you beat Urizen with Dante, you are literally creating a time paradox because Urizen will not be alive for Nero to face. However it would be funny if there was a secret "paradox" ending like in mgs3 after beating Urizen with Dante
They've given Vergil the short end of the stick the whole time, he never gets his own story, it's always just a couple different cutscenes and his signature moveset. Vergil got some come up in DMC5, but even playing him there he still gets all the same missions. I'm glad they gave Nero more story in DMC5 though.
I mean, its hard to build up a game central around a character as no nonsense and cut throat as Virgil. Its kinda hard to think of a feasible story where Virgil struggle and in need of doing something to warrant a game centered around him. He is just too cool for that. Doable maybe, but hard. If it was possible at present, it should have been done already. All we can do is hope for the best and wait.
@@bryanmerel I agree with you on some of it, but they could at least give him more badassery. I'm not looking for a compelling emotional narrative, I'm looking for more than 1 or 2 cutscenes, even if it's just more badass action. He barely gets any actual screentime before DMC5 and even then you're still playing through the normal levels with his skin and moveset.
I hope for DMC 6 to make vergil part of the main story on the plot and playable, now that Dante and Vergil rivalry has been finally put to an end, is time to get to know what truely happened to Sparda, Dante and Vergil being in hell now is the perfect opportunity for them to look for their father. Like their father was the one who trained them when they were kids and they seem to not care to know wtf happened to him, like the whole plot of the DMC series is bc he dissapered, if he were with his family their mom wouldn't get kill and they wouldn't get traumatized and separated.
@@tonylinux4638 they totally could, since he's a good guy now. I wanna see the next game center around him and Dante. Co Op sections would be badass, Vergil and Dante two player has been done, but only for Chapter 19 in DMC3. If you use the Doppelganger glitch you CAN have the player on controller 2 take control of Vergil in that game. I've done it.
Honestly as someone who played DMC4 as their FIRST game I thought Nero was great. When you don’t have the context of what previous DMC games were like DMC4 is pretty interesting. I think that’s why they made Nero, to be the stand in for “new” players, kinda like V in DMC5.
Same man. I started with 4 and loved Nero (and not just because he was played by the one and only johnny lol). I was so hyped to hear that he was going to be a main character in 5 because it feels like he's never in crossovers and since 4 wasn't well received it felt like he was forgotten, but I'm glad I was wrong. He's a pretty simple guy whose tough but emotional and I definitely think that helped him be a good starter character for players. He's always been my favorite character.
The thing about Nero being so hot-headed and angry despite having scant justification is... that's how teens and young people are. They don't know as much of the world as they think they do and thus are easily chagrined, and their emotions heavily tinge everything. It makes Nero feel very believable as a kid who has a lot of growing up to do, but has his heart in the right place. And in contrast, it makes Dante even more amazing, because his extended backstory shows he has TONS of justification for being an angry, emo, and/or deeply depressed man after enduring relentless tragedies that overshadow his good looks, godlike powers, and ultra-hot lady friends. Yet Dante manages to carry on with as much glib irreverence and wacky woohoo pizza personality as he can, even if much of it is a facade.
I never felt like Nero was chasing Dante because he was told to, I felt he was just raring to go at anything and once the opportunity presented itself, he jumped at it. It seemed more like a bird getting out of its cage situation, rather than a dog being sic'd at something.
Same, I remember disliking the idea of him during the promotional trailers but that changed when I got my hands on dmc 4, he felt very different to Dante, not as stylish, raw and aggressive,I've always given Capcom credit for that.
Funnily enough I found his character in 4 more charming than his dmc5 incarnation he was endearing but in 5 it feels like he's just a response to DmC Dante's reception and it feels off.
@@cooper2211 same, he's pretty whinny in 5, especially when he hypersensitive about Dante saying his dead weight or how he'll slow him down, I can't remember exactly the term Dante used but Nero made I big deal our of it and it made him seem childish.
@@hamzaisa3130 Very and him getting Devil trigger the way he did felt so cringe it didn't seem badass at all, the design is alright kinda like his other version in the concept art from DMC 4 as well. And him all of a sudden being super attached to Vergil seemed weird.
I'd like to think out of the 3 current descendants of Sparda, Nero embodies what he stood for the most. The legends of Sparda portray him as this un-killable beast of a demon who held back the tides of the entire demon world itself. But as we know, that same beast was also charmed by a human, eventually fell in love, and decided to try living a normal life among humans in the process. Nero embodies the fact that even the great Sparda had a heart. And I'd like to think it's thanks to that inevitable truth, along with his exploits, that make his uncle and father realize that things have to change.
I always tought that Nero's fighting style suited him even at lower stakes. I see it more as a cocky and energetic style than a "frustrated" one as you put it, specially because of some of the lines and their delivery, like he screaming "go down!" And "slam dunk!". Nero is the more straightfoward, honest and emotional of them all. He is a very hyper, all or nothing guy, and iirc Itsuno named his attacks after casino/betting references because he is a very "sink and swim person", so while Dante's style is focused in elegance and fucking around with his enemies and Vergil is absolute precision and power, Nero is about putting all the energy he van muster in every one of his moves.
Personally I think Nero's fighting style is just meant to be explosive aggression. To put it in gameplay terms, he doesn't get many defensive options. No trickster, no royal guard, not even a Devil Trigger for the majority of 5's run. What he has, in lieu of that, is the ability to instantly turn up the heat and ravage enemies the moment he gets an opening. Even while being set back in his power development compared to the Sparda bros, Nero's just got that dawg in him.
@@noxlunesia Yeah I think you nailed that description perfectly! Nero has a theme of brute-forcing his way in his fighting style. His Devil Trigger in 4 has invincibility and damage for a few frames so he can turn an enemy assault into a brutal counterattack, and you can also trigger it from a damage animation to recover more quickly, and his Devil Bringer can interrupt a lot of attacks very easily 5 Developed this style even further by giving him an hyper-armor move and Devil Breakers that counter enemy attacks just by absolutely ravaging them. My man just goes insane at these demons, out of all the hunters, he's the most Doomguy-like
I got into DMC through 4 and have always liked Nero from the beginning. It’s good to see him get better in dmc5 Also I love how in DMC5 bother Vergil and Nero both get so interesting character development. Vergil got stronger by accepting his weaker human side, and Nero got stronger by accepting his demon side. It’s pure kino
Design-wise, I'd also say that DMC5 Nero was a huge step up from DMC4 Nero. I loved his blue-and-red color scheme in 4, but his design was a bit on the cluttered side -- plus, and I don't know if this was just me, I always saw his 4 design as "the Dante we have at home". Cut to DMC5, and there was no mistaking him from anyone else. His clothing was much simpler and more confident (letting the jacket do most of the work), and his generic bishonen pretty-boy face was overhauled into something that was just as appealing while being far more distinct.
You can say his design and fashion "matured". Also, jt is more believable that he was indeed Virgil's son now. There is no denying when they both rock hard in Navy Blue.
Looking back they could've kept Dante's identity in DMC4 a mystery by introducing him in his DT Form. It sell the idea of Nero's role as a man on mission and the personal conflicts he has about his devil bringer by being tasked with pursuing a powerful demon that assassinated their leader. Slowly unraveling clues the demon isn't the big threat. I digress. Devil May Cry rocks and their characters are treasures to be loved
So effectively what they did with Vergil at the start of DMC5? Yeah, that would have been pretty clever way to go about it. I mean sure, everyone remotely familiar with the series pretty much guessed who the enigmatic hooded man was as soon as we first saw him rip Nero's arm off, but hiding his identity at the start was still enough to obscure the full picture and keep us guessing.
I am very proud to say i respected and liked Nero's character since day one. And i started with DMC1, back then i was accepting of the simple prospect of having a different character and especially protagonist other than Dante. There was zero need for a reboot, more specifically a hard reboot, when Nero could have soft rebooted the franchise softly with a more approachable turn than what Donte could ever be( yes, even with what was initially envisionned. Because ultimately, Donte was redundant since day one). Furthermore, even with a few flaws from a writing stand point, Nero still has more interesting room and rentability for growth as a character.
Thats good to know I became a devil may cry fan because of 4 and its pretty much the reasoni loved nero but i didnt know if i genuinely liked him or if i was just new to the series even when i did look into dante and vergil's lore I loved nero the most because of a bit of a hope he gets better than both of them and boy oh boy he did Im glad to know even classic dmc fans liked nero too ever since day 1
Going by the concept that originally Dante was going to be fighting through hell in DMC4 (but was cut due to budget), that would of been alot better of an excuse for Dante not appearing till half way. And I think a much better Starting Incident woulda been to cut to the chase from the start. We obviously know the cult be evil from the start so.... Have Cult Pope declare Nero needs to be Sacrificed to summon Sparda. So it's Nero trying to run away and figure out how to defeat the cult on his own till Dante shows up (a similar story structure as DMC5 heh). The first fight could be Credo instead of Dante too, in non-Nelo Angelo form, to have him be more of a Vergil type rival (and to give more Credo fights, since that fight is Amazing).
So glad to see you back making DMC content again. I feel like people have stopped talking about the series recently and I don't know why that is. People need to be reminded of how legendary this series really is.
Well it's been a minute since 5 came out. Getting close to as long of a gap as between DmC and the announcement of 5. There's only so much we can do with 5
@@MakoTenseii I know, but I feel like the DMC 4 community remained fully committed to that game for over a decade. While I feel like DMC 5 was just forgotten about. Maybe because DMC 4 is arguably the deeper game from a mechanical standpoint. I don't know.
@@SurvivalHorror100 Well, if we are talking about people playing the game, then dmc5 is doing just fine. Same amount of interaction as 4. But like actually talking about it? I mean...what's there to talk about? Everything has already been said several times over.
I dunno about that, i always hear about DMC 5 in someway or another, the popularity is bigger. Quoted song lyrics, memes, some "jojo reference" tier stuff here and there... ect. DMC 5 exponantially made the series more popular than it ever was before. Perhaps it is even as big as P5 made the Persona series more popular than it used to for example by comparison.
Nero: "You feeling accepting yet?" Vergil: "Of your existence, or of your strength?" Nero: "BOTH you fucking asshole!" This dialogue exchange is so fucking great, perhaps my favourite dialogue in DMC. Nero finally getting through Vergil's stubbon ass head and Vergil slowly acknowledging him is so emotionally fulfilling especially after everything he went through. The emotional delivery of the "BOTH you fucking asshole" shows how much this meant for Nero, as well as how painful it was.
The fact that Virgil DO specifically ask "Of your Existence, or of your Strength?" Indstead of saying "Of What?" Already proven that Virgil does recognize him for both, even if just a weee lil bit.
PS: also, considering this Virgil is the result of the re-merger of V and Urizen, this Virgil probably has already acknowledged Nero the moment he thanked him. This Virgil is far more morally smarter because of V's experiences.
"You feeling accepting yet? Of your existence, or your strength? Of both, you fucking asshole!" I love this a lot. It tells so much about the character, his personality and backstory.
5:00 this is something that was handled so well in Onimusha Dawn of Dreams Everyone who played Onimusha knows Samanosuke is, but Dawn of Dreams gave you time to connect with the new character Soki. And Sam didnt appear at all during the start, at least to a mayor degree (he shows up at the intro for a short while but his identity is kept secret) It's not until super late you find out where Samanosuke has been
@Samuel Anugrah Andre Me too pal, me too. Where is that new Onimusha game that was leaked recently?! Maybe Crapcom will show it at this gamescom or TGS next month.
Gosh It's kinda heart warming to see there are people who knows about the Onimusha franchise and I totally agree with that statement...It's completely possible to play and enjoy DoD without playing prior onimusha games but if you played those games and started playing DoD..You'll be wondering where is Samanosuke and if you're someone who truly did cared about him..You'll immediately notice it when you hear his theme during a certain boss fight and that's such a fan service moment.
I like Nero a lot speaking as essentially a brand-new fan. His desire for revenge transforming into a desire to keep his new family alive, coupled with his angst and pure heartedness really endeared me to him. Your point about his simpler playstyle I think was very on point. I did find Nero easier to use compared to Dante when he becomes playable. Maybe that'll change though. I just started playing this game for the first time yesterday, so this video was extremely well timed for me lol.
I loved Nero right from the start and understood his story perfectly. Granted 4 was my first game offically but I was exposed to Dante through marvel vs capcom so I already had an understanding somewhat of what he was like. And while I ended up loving him too I thought Nero was really fun to play. He's not just on a job he's slowly discovering the conspiracy within that he's never known about. Even if you know who Dante is, why he's doing what he's doing is a good mystery that I was excited to see play out. And though yes you play the game backwards with him they still went above and beyond to make him extremely fun to play especially for a newcomer when I first switched to Dante it felt great. I understood why people loved him and it made it easy for me to get on board too. My only gripe involving his half is that damn forest maze level, seriously developers need to stop making forest mazes so damn convluted.
What the fuck is there to redeem? Nero is awesome. Dude's my favorite character in the franchise, lol. His motivations work, he fits in the setting, his power scaling is all sensical... well. As much as DMC CAN be sensical in that regard. Kids a badass.
5:03 I feel ultimately Dante appearing from the start worked, I did want mmore Dante and that pushed me to see what was going on. But yeah, it did sadly overshadow Nero. It works well now on a meta level now that we have 5, at least, since it became a plot point
My friends like to tease me for liking any angry dude character, and I honestly can't deny it. I loved dmc3 when I was first introduced, and loved dmc1 when I played that next. But I never went all the way with the franchise until Nero was introduced. DMC4 was what made me go all in playing all the modes and getting absorbed with the world and lore in full. I couldn't be happier for 5 to keep him on his path and push him as hard as it did, even if I'll miss his glowy demon arm
While I think it's unlikely Dante will ever truly leave the series, I do hope that DMC6 is a solo adventure for Nero. Let him really take centre stage without his uncle or dad hanging around in the background. And give Kyrie a gun and let her shoot a few demons; I think that'd be fun.
I always loved Nero, he’s an absolutely brilliant character that also compliments Dante and Vergil’s characters. I hope they one day tell us who his mother is.
Nero in DMC4 was just a cheap and lame clone of Dante, while in DMC5, he is an actual character. While I understand they wanted to add a new mechanic while also introduce a new main character for new players, while also keeping Dante's "coolness", the end result just didnt work, and killed Nero...until DMC5. Dante is still Dante, and Nero is, well, Nero, he is his own character, with probably the best backstory, and a lot more relatable than Dante, he is 75% human, and has no idea about his demon heritage, he is just a kid trying to help people, while Dante, as much as we love him, only has revenge or trying to clean up his brother's mess as motivations. While I preffer Dante, I have zero problems with Nero being the new main character of the series. Its similar to Ichiban in the Yakuza series.
To be fair Dante is trying to help people too, as we see in the anime, even if he won’t make money for taking on a case he still helps out. Nero is like a combination of Vergil’s want for strength but has Dante’s empathy for humans which keeps him from going the same path as his dad and instead going down something more like Sparda’s path. Also, Dante is a lot more human than people think he is tbh. Though admittedly it’s best shown in the novels which more explicitly show what he’s like when he’s not hiding behind a mask.
yup, they pulled off the passing of the torch amazingly in DMC 5, Honestly I would be fine if newer entries just added new Devil hunters to join forces with Nero and have Dante/Vergil be post game extra characters.
Great video. Nero was always the highlight of DMC5 for me, whether it's the bombastic Devil Trigger trailer, his UNGA BUNGA fighting style or the way his design got streamlined and improved, I feel like they've struck a very precise balance with this. I especially like that you mentioned that Nero rising from the ashes and landing a hit on Urizen is actually an arc in itself. It usually gets overshadowed by Dante's SDT.
ARE YOU ACCEPTING YET?! Oh yeah, we are. I love the fact that Nero is essentially the "take a third option" of the Sparda lineage. Can't wait to see where the future of this series goes.
The thing that always made me appreciate Nero is, out of all the Sparda children, he was the most human. Sure Dante showed compassion and even cried when he couldn't save his own brother, but you never feel that he could ever die or get severely hurt because we see him get stabbed into next week, and he such an advanced and massive range of weapons and skills that make him practically indestructible. Vergil has little to no emotions, and instead of embracing his human side like Dante, until V he was obsessed with becoming as powerful as he could to surpass his father, eventually becoming a demon himself, and while Dante did get hurt and stood up, Vergil was made to seem unmovable, an intimidating elder brother that seemed to not care for anyone and only had one track on his mind: Power Nero however, is shown right away that he has a family to care for. He wants to help others, especially Kyrie, but he is ashamed of his devil bringer and sees it as something to be wary of, hiding it from everyone. Later we see him nearly die from a stabbing that Dante would've just walked off, blood and all. And the only thing that kept him going was Kyrie, and his father's sword calling to him. The whole game shows that he has way more compassion and care for everyone around him than even Dante, and it's his love and drive to do good that kept him alive and made him powerful. It's the generic "my friends and family give me my strength," but handled well. And even in V we see this even more. Already we see him try to defend Kyrie before getting his armed ripped off as he called out to them to warn her. If it was Dante, he most likely would've just grown his arm back right away, or dodged the grab and one shotted Vergil, who was in a weakened state, but Nero being 25 percent demon, he doesn't have that much power, which the game shows and mentions throughout. And the climax goes back to the whole " my family gives me power" idea, growing his arm back and obtaining more power in order to save his brother and uncle, and even though Dante was tired, and Vergil was just waking up, he still beat both of them and convinced them to not only not kill each other, but get them to work together to save the world. Dante represents Honor, being flashy but also caring and showing that even the most dangerous of people have a heart, Vergil represents the fate of someone who went through hell, and decided to become stronger without ever truly healing from the event, never learning what his fellow sibling has learned, and Nero represents being there for family and friends, becoming stronger for the sake of those around him, and not for himself.
"The time has come, and so have I." *smug* "The darkness of night falls around my soul, the hunter within loses control..." *Jumping off the walls smashing everything while screaming in excitement and finger gunning anyone who makes eye contact*
Nero(specifically he in 5) is one of the character in DMC universe that got swear word pass. it just fits his character without become too edgy or overbearing and i like that about him
I didn't know how to feel about Nero until the moment he went all ballistic at Dante when he accidently hurt Kyrie in the beginning. It was like his character was switched on at that moment
DMC 5 is one of the greatest comeback ever done by Capcom. Both the franchise and Nero’s character is basically a redemption for the fans. It’s great that Capcom went back to its roots again.
@Jett Leon S Hey, variety is not a bad thing. Also I never see it as Westernized. I'm not western myself, and I love both the anime-like style and the style they went for in DMC5. Point is, people can like different styles. You don't have to like all styles, and neither do I - and that is fine. [It does not make a game bad!]
For me it was the lack of moves and abilities in basic gameplay that made Nero less appealing in DMC4. I still don't like playing as him in 4. But thanks to Devil Breakers in DMC5 he became much more interesting and fun to play as. Still, I wish we would get more Dante again... No offense to Nero. Oh yeah and this video was great!
I feel like Nero's aggression works with his angst and punky teen characterisation. Bit of a bully, letting out some steam. I never thought of it more than that, and I felt like it was a good enough reason.
More so than DMC5 just redeeming Nero, I feel like it redeemed 4 and the franchise as a whole. After the DmC reboot, and people's existing thoughts on 4, hopes weren't high for the franchise. I very much agree with what you said on your DMC5 review, that 5 retroactively makes 4 better. DMC4 is nowadays no longer seen as a wimpy farewell for the series, but instead basically like a lower stakes, more fun "beach episode" in the middle for the series.
Don't know if I'd call it a "beach episode" perse. Even with its comparatively lower stakes it still builds on and furthers the overarching narrative by all the underlying connections to Vergil and the introduction of new protagonist in Nero (to whom the storyline is very much do or die situation, even if for Dante it is business as usual for the most part). Which means it's not really an inconsequential romp just to have some fun, which I would asscoiate with a "beach episode" storyline, nor is it a monster of the week type of detour like DMC2.
Don't forget about Nico and V! Dante in 3 had Lady and Vergil to bounce off of and interact with while Nero didn't really have anyone in 4 (it should have been Credo and Kyrie). In five, he has both V and Nico to bounce off of play around with and talk to.
I've never had an actual problem with Nero, I think he's a pretty cool character (helped by being voiced by Johnny Young Bosch) and I like him being the sort of beginner character in theory. Really I just dislike how his addition has put us in this weird thing where your essentially forced to play as characters you probably might not want to play as for the sake of a pretty nothing plot. I'd vastly prefer it if you just picked a character at the beginning of the game and you could play through the whole campaign as them. Makes it feel like Sonic Adventure 2 only the stages aren't as short the change in gameplay goes on for longer than desired.
"You will rise again, this is your legacy~" That scene right before he flies to stop Dante and Vergil will forever be one of my favorite gaming moments, and the moment where I knew that everything that DMC5 was doing, was working towards that one scene.
God, the fact that scene also mentions Credo really made me emotional. They acknowledge the pain and consequences of the previous game and how Nero sees it as a reason to get stronger, to not lose any more of his family.
Speaking of "everything DMC5 was doing, was working towards that one moment", it's kinda funny how all the way up there, he finds a phone that works, but it was also the case throughout the entire game.
It would've been really easy for them to make DMC5 something super fanservicey that threw everything people might not have entirely liked away to focusing on this stuff everyone likes. Really glad it was committed to developing what was there instead of playing it safe.
I’m really happy Nero has made a name for himself in the series. I don’t think he’s as popular as Dante and Vergil but is an important and likable character in his own unique way.
this video really nails why the story of dmc4 has never appealed to me even tho i really liked nero from the beginning. there's a weird disconnect and lack of personal stakes to relate to, especially compared to dmc3.
Vergil used to be my favorite dmc character, even after playing DMC5. But over the years, after playing the game multiple times, Nero has really grown on me and now he's my favorite Sparda family member.
I've always super appreciated how all 4 of the playable characters in DMC (6 if you can Trish and Lady in DMC4 DLC) are really well-characterized through their gameplay and abilities. Especially after DMC4, every character feels very well personified even if you don't watch the cutscenes or get any of the lore about them. Dante is stylish and almost too strong for his own good. He's complex, but if you master that complexity you're basically untouchable, and the entire time you're doing cool shit, swapping between up to like 15 different weapons in one combo, and you have a response to every single situation. As you talked about, Nero's gameplay is much more rage-fueled and hot-headed. Every swing feels like you're putting your entire body and heart into it. Vergil's gameplay, especially with the Patience mechanic that 4 introduced, feels cold, apathetic, and calculated, but because of that it's the polar opposite of Dante. You don't have as many moves, but you don't need them, because what you do have is all you need. You don't do shit as crazy and flippy as Dante, you just slash through without any trouble. And of course, V's gameplay is self-explanatory, relying on your pets to do the big damage while you wait for the opportunity to finish them off. It's all so well done. It makes me appreciate the games even more. Dante has so many weapons because they all add to his singular movelist.
It would have been so cool if at the beginning of DMC4 Nero moved and fought in a more controlled and precise way, maybe even mimicking moves from Credo. Also, maybe only using his devil breaker for platfotming. He should still bring his punk flair, but once Kyrie gets snatched we get the ferocious wild Nero we all know and love, who finally uses his arm in combat.
Ooo one thing I love about Nero’s new design is the short hair. It’s enough to separate him from the twins of sparda but the white hair and demonic abilities still are there and also I’m not sure if many would agree with it but they got to reuse the short hair concept Dante again but in a much more clever and useful way
Nero and Dmv V ending : The irony is also that Nero is a more spiritual successor of Sparda, because he love a human. He want to protect his family and use this power for that cause. Unlike Vergil and even Dante who cannot find that kind of love. In this regards, Nero is the true heir of sparda. And i think a part of his power came from here.
If there’s a Devil May Cry character that DESERVES to be in a Marvel VS Capcom game it’s Nero. He’s different enough from his father and uncle to make him unique in a fighting game and it baffles me it never happened so he definitely deserves a spot in MVC with Dante and Vergil as all of them are the big three characters in the series, far too important to not be in a fighting game together
I feel like, the first half of this video kind of made an issue that didn’t exist about Nero’s personality. Devil May Cry is firmly established in “yes we have a story but we know that’s not why you’re here” so any discrepancy any say Nero’s personality and why he’s so hot blooded and rash is thrown to the sideline. Firstly him being handsome, having super powers and a GF doesn’t mean he can’t just be, a hot blooded teenager, a Japanese trope. No teenager needs to explain themselves fully for being a little angstyz Secondly, we as an audience enjoy seeing Nero having fun, being less skilled and lashing out with a blade, there’s no confusion because we know it’s fun and it’s made to be fun, not because it’s deeply integral to some character exploration and plot. I like this analysis but I feel like it’s missing the point of DMC in a lot of ways.
Love this look on Nero. Funnily enough, I learned to appreciate him after seeing that legendary Dango (RIP) Style video where he choreographs the second Dante vs Nero fight to have it end in a sick-ass Double KO, followed by me seeing a guide for him by the one-and-only ChaserTech. And after delving into how he plays, I dug up on his lore a lot more and I was like "yeah, you know what? This angry kid is pretty endearing in a way. Dude just wants to save his girl and all that. Nothing really wrong, the next generation of Half-demon Demon Hunters is gonna be aite". And yeah, really dug his style of just BEATING THE PISS OUT OF DEMONS as his way of styling on them compared to his uncle's finesse, or his father's precision.
When DMC5 was first announced, I didn't know who Nero was so I thought he was Donte until the trailer was over and Twitter educated me on that. When I first got into this series a few years ago and got to DMC4, I knew early on that I loved Nero way more than Dante in terms of both gameplay and character. Don't get me wrong, Dante's great, but I always found that Nero meshes with me so much better.
Jesus thank you for mentioning breaking up the cycle of d and v fighting so we can explore new things in the future. I mention this on reddit and the fans jump down my throat. No we don't need sparda and mundus returning. We need new plot elements and characters
Amazing video! Love that you make videos appreciating the story in devil may cry. A series where most people gloss over the story elements and just focus on gameplay. Obviously gameplay is more important, but people rarely give devil may cry the credit it deserves for crafting such great and interesting characters.
I'd also say that the way DMC5's arc concluded could also make for an awesome sequel featuring Dante and Vergil as the leads as they fight their way through the demon realm, reconnecting as brothers and showing their rivalry in a very different light. Not that it really needs to happen, but I think it could make for a great story if done right.
DMC5 is not only the best selling DMC game in history but the fastest selling. There is no way we are not getting a DMC6 it is to profitable. Especially since Resident Evil is starting to fall off in popularity and Resident Evil's insane success was a big reason Capcom neglected Devil May Cry.
I wonder if they'd have someone other than Itsuno direct one. I like Itsuno's games but he's just one guy - it's gonna be a long time before DMC6 since he wanted to make Dragon's Dogma 2 first, at least.
@Jett Leon S I am late to reply but I have numbers. As you know the best selling Resident evil game of all time is Resident evil 7 in 2017 selling 11 million units. The next resident evil game the Resident Evil 2 Remake in 2019 sold 9.8 million units. The Resident evil 3 remake sold 5.4 million units. In 2020 which I might add was an amazing year for video game sales. Finally Resident evil village in 2021 did sell slightly more at 6.4 million but still a huge drop off from Resident Evil 7. Resident Evil 7 got success from RUclips with people like Markaplier and Capcom thought that short term almost meme status would translate into everlasting sales which as the declining sales clearly show didn't happen. I am not saying Resident Evil is a dead Franchise no one plays I am saying that the sales are dropping which is objectively true. Devil May Cry 5 by contrast was not only the best selling Devil May Cry game but the fastest selling.
This is the same reasons that Cobra Kai works so well. Instead of simply rehashing the glory days, they introduce new elements to the mix that recontextualize and even invite new perspectives on old paradigms.
Back at the start in dmc4. I started off thinking Dante was the antagonist. Like Nero would play through the game with the goal of getting revenge for killing the priest and we the audience would be thinking either it’s a Dante imposter. Possessed Dante. Or is the church evil? And Nero would unveil the truth. But then… they just played it straight forward and held no mystery. It was underwhelming.
Nero is a great example of catering for new fans Instead of simplifying the existing character just make a brand new one with a simpler move set that new players can get around easier
I dunno... I actually liked Nero better back in 4. He really felt more like his own character. In 5, he ends up leaning more towards a Dante-wannabe. A prime example is when he faces Goliath. That whole scene felt WAY more like how Dante would respond to the situation. This did not feel like the same character introduced in 4; How he dawdles around, cracking jokes, rather than showcasing his more blunt, straight-forward nature that he was established with originally.
I was around 10-11 years old when I first played Devil May cry 4. I had never played a dmc game before. Nero was my introduction to the franchise. Even though I didn’t know who Dante was, I wanted to see much more of him after that assassination scene. I loved his sword and attitude. I was so hyped when I got to play as him. After that, I bought and played every game. Nero is great addition to the franchise but he’ll never beat Dante.
Funny considering he's the angriest and crassest of the three Sparda descendants, but he's also the purest of heart. He is unabashedly human and flawed and never pretends to be anything else. Hell, he convinces his idiot dad and uncle to stop fighting and save the world! Appropriate that his DT looks like an angel.
He's like the reverse of the biblical falling. He's no fallen angel, he's a rising devil.
@Moonlight Devil Looking Fly
@@mikedanielespeja6128 God I love this sentence
Aka he’s the most shonen protagonist of all the dmc characters
ex-Nero haters: *he's fly now?!*
Nero, Arbiter, Raiden aka the hated characters that became fan favorites after like a decade
Nero became my favorite charecter since the first 30 minutes of dmc4
like how they did a slow motion epic shot of nero scratching virgil's hand like him and dante arent able to shug off being impaled and cut 4 million times XD
Another banger, thank you king
Never really had a problem with Nero. I did compare him to Raiden when I was a kid. But it was mostly in the since that I would rather be playing Dante, since he was my favorite. Just like how I would rather play as Snake. I know a lot of people hated Nero, but never had any of those feelings.
For me I always liked him just because his voice actor is Johnny Yong Bosch 😂 for y'all who don't know that's Ichigo the New Broly, and the Black Ranger
Agreed throughout. There's also something very charming or differentiating about Nero being a bit of a dumbass. Dante feels much more like he's pretending to be dumber than he is, underselling himself or underachieving and feeding into bad habits he could eventually work out. Whereas Nero is always giving it 100% but just isn't as witty or finessed or reflective. There's memes about it, but he has a jock-y mentality where he thinks only with his heart, and will default to aggression, letting antagonists and Nico get under his skin way quicker than the other two. And rather than this making him callous, the fact he has a very sweet girlfriend who he takes time to call and talk to before the final battle is another unique touch, one that makes him lovable. It's a great way to retain his more angsty self in 4 and keep pushing it forward as he gets older.
I'm really hoping that when/if they do a sequel, we get to see Dante, Nero and Vergil rub off on each other more and round each other out. Dante teaches Vergil to not be so serious, Vergil teaches Nero to refine himself, Nero teaches Dante to be more honest with his feelings, etc. People LOVE the fact Vergil will hang around the menu screen getting irritated, so any sort of story interactions like that would go down perfectly.
Nero wears his heart on his sleeve and is always honest about what he thinks. You gotta appreciate that quality in a character.
You Know maybe we can get something like that on the sequel but also we may finallly get Sparda, with thee First half with Dante and Vergil on the underworld finding the tracks of his fathers and Nero on the human world fighting demons while we also get to skip to the past to see the Combat style of Sparda, and the second half with the choice of any of them on every level to see some character development, and maybe one of the final fights of Sparda will be Mundus while the final battle of the family will be some acolytes of Mundus trying to resurrect him again using the bloodline and the captured soul of the "betrayer"
Man really said to Nero "No thoughts, head empty" 💀
Another thing I liked was that he complains about Nico's smoking but is still willing to pick up her lighter and light her cigarette for her.
Nero's personality is meant to be like a young, punk teen. Think like Josuke from Jojo part 4.
Our boy got the biggest glow-up in gaming history since Raiden.
The gaming community also warmed up to him over time.
Which is funny 'cause everyone compared him to Raiden back in the day.
"Glow-up" I can't say it better myself lmao
God I want a rising 2.
@@トーキ-g8v yeah I see way more love for og Raiden recently as people realize what his role is but I can't deny he's much better as a cyborg who accepts his murderous nature and rage and learns to control it for good. That was a nice way to round out his character than just a message about sequels and free will. No MGR2 tho :[
I unironically love that we know more about Kyrie's family/friends than who Nero's mother is.
Sitcom centered around Nero and Kyrie's home. Now Capcom, NOW!!!
@@CapraDaAlbaRegia With the occasional Vergil-Dante cameo that ends up in the three wrecking the house(Nero just tries to stop them of course)
I am too desperate for Nero's mom content, i make fanfic out of it 😂
@@mr.cookey Yes! Though I have to say at this point I think Nico is more of a dangerous presence in Nero's life than Vergil. I have this weird feeling that Vergil would do his best to be a gentleman in Kyrie's house because what Kyrie and Nero has he never had but would probably understand the value of it through the memories of Sparda and Eva.
@@CapraDaAlbaRegia absolutely. But, there is an ever chaotic power called Dante, and i'm sure he's more than capable of making Vergil go nuts in the matter of seconds. And so, the scenario i painted ensures
Nero became my favorite character in 5, and I'm still shook by that fact. He's now this "let's have fun but get it done" boy who gives as much of a damn about killing demons as he does about forcing his new found family to stop being idiots for 5 minutes.
Dante is still my favorite of the whole group, but devil May Cry 5 definitely built on the ending of devil May Cry 4 to make Nero competition for favorite character alongside Virgil and Dante.
@@hariman7727 Dante is cool and all, but when you compare his silly dismissal of everything around him in exchange for pizza and witty jokes to Nero's fully genuine ambition to do the right thing and get the job done, I will say that Nero is my favorite because he is the straight-edged man of the three main characters.
I will give Vergil credit though because while he had a purely human form, he was also a bit more honest and opened up to Nero and Trish during the story.
yep
he's a teenager that's done right
he's cocky and impatient just like any teenaged/young guy
but he's not fucking around and would take things into his own hand(s)
dante is a little too laid back and his dad is just a very egotistical and emotionally fragile douchebag that just happens to have a big fandom because he got that flashy sword fighting style with his katana
Honestly Nero is the most fun to play for me. Dante is second and then Vergil is third because playing him is gonna give me carpal tunnel at some point
15:41 I appreciate you state this. Both Vergil and Dante have this problem of masking their feelings. Even in dire time, Dante still putting an act when he confront Urizen about their mother and his generic speech about strength, instead of just straight up truly open his heart to Vergil.
Nero, with his honest front attitude is indeed perfect to just smack some reality to this wreck of sibling relationship and the fact that it coming from their youngest family member make it even better.
Yeah it feels like after Dante helped Nero in DMC4, Nero helped Dante in DMC5 at the end. Dante has it in his head that he can’t open up to people because of his past and Nero proves that untrue.
I love how he bounces off the rest of the cast in 5, his bluntness really brings their personalities together. Plus the little moments, like how he was willing to help some guy who wandered into his garage without a second thought or when he unknowingly quotes his father before the Artemis fight. I liked Nero in 4, but 5 made me appreciate him.
What also helped was Nico, he became her straight man to her crazy jokes.
Fun fact: According to the DMC Manga/Anime, right before the events of DMC5 Nero and Kyrie started a sort of Orphanage/Devil Hunting non-profit, which explains why he was so willing to let Vergil into his house for dinner, he probably figured "Hey, this guy needs some help, he probably heard about us and just needs a place for the night or something, or a nice meal," plus, Vergil did look pretty much homeless in that cutscene, so...
@@WestGarbage6he was homeless tho
@@WestGarbage6 I'm sure it's not 100% non-profit, though. Weapon maintenance and rent gotta get paid somehow lol.
That is a cool bit, though.
He's a bad mouthed, gunslinging, sword wielding humanitarian lol.
Nero is what Dante and Vergil could have been if they had a positive influence throughout their childhoods. The dude is emotionally healthy, and thus more mature. You'd think him being an angry teenage punk kid would hinder that image, but Nero makes it work because he's honest with everyone, including himself.
Dante and Vergil lost Sparta and Eva, but Nero at least had Credo and Kyrie. They saved him. Itsuno himself said that if Nero didn't have Kyrie, he'd be just like Vergil.
Tl;dr Nero is a good boy and I love him.
I guess all that Vergil needed was a hot step-sister and his life would have been so much better
@@Dstryrr Or, you know, any family at all.
what makes that last part even more interesting is the fact that Vergil could've been just like Nero, if only he hadn't abandoned Nero and Nero's mother in Fortuna, he had that chance and threw it away
Yeah. There's a good point about how Nero is different from Vergil in the end if DMC4. He has the same lust for power as Vergil throughout most of the game, practically even begging Dante to keep Yamato after their second fight as he needs the insane power boost the sword gives him.
But what does he do after saving the world? Offers Dante the return of the sword, effectively giving all that up as he got what he wanted out of it.
In the end, he was able to ultimately resist the desire for power that drove his Dad to the depths it did.
If i had a nickel for evertime a charachter with white hair and a sword replaced the main charachter for one entry and was one of the least popular charachters in their respective series only to later get cybernetic enhancements and becoming a fan favorite charachter i would have two nickels which isnt alot but its weird it happened twice.
Omg, how this works so much is borderline scary.
Are you talking about Raiden from metal gear?
@@thelindseys6423 Yes
Raiden is blond though?
@@ElectricBarrier He's an extremely light Platinum originally, definitely white in Revengeance.
My favorite thing about Nero is that out of Dante and Virgil; he’s the most relatable character in the franchise from always being the one to never hide his feelings and his goals. He genuinely cares about the last people in his family that he never knew he had. That’s tough but considering his background…..whatever you got left, you got to hold onto.
It is also quite an interesting detail that, while Dante's "Devil May Cry demon hunting branch" is falling apart, Nero's is Thriving. Seemingly implying that Nero is far more effective or preferably for the service than Dante. 🤣
@@bryanmerel at first i want to say "but dante also has to pay for a his old partner family" then i realized he and Kyrie runs an orphanage XD.
So happy to see this. Nero was so incredible in DMC5 and it’s nice to see such appreciation for the work Capcom did with him. I do think that while he’s more accepted now, he’s still somewhat under appreciated or less represented in the fan base. The vast majority of social media content and art is just Dante and Vergil to the point that you wouldn’t know Nero was so important and central to DMC5. Anyway, great video!
Dante and Vergil just have more to work with. Dante and his supporting group (the ogs) is a much more fleshed out group than Nero, Kyrie and Nico. Not to say they're bad, I love them, it's just a bit more limiting when Nero hasn't/barley interacts with any of the ogs. Kyrie not having a DMC5 model or design definitely contributed to the lack of art. I would be willing to bet we'd see a lot of Nero and Kyrie fanart if they explored her character more and gave her a new design. Nero and his friends deserve more love from the fanbase and especially Capcom, they're all fun characters
@@Miriam_J_ yeah that is kind of bound to happen when you introduce a new character in the 4th game of a series.
@@Miriam_J_ also they've killed Credo without expanding his relationship with Nero almost at all.
@@Ctrekoz Yeah,that was a wasted opportunity by DMC4.They could've easily focused on Credo's relationship to make him more likable
@@infinitedreamer9359 Credo is already my most favorite DMC 4 character 😅
Can't help but draw a parallel with Raiden from MGS2. A new protagonist in an established series getting overshadowed by the former protagonist. Raiden was pretty much playing catch up to Snake, for most of MGS2. At every point it shows Snake it shows how cool and powerful he is. From Snake disbanding a room of soliders at the start of the game to Snake having a bigger health bar at the end. Fans all wanted to return to the shoes of Solid Snake, which meant Raiden ended up being despised as an inferior, even to the point in which fans sent death threats to Kojima.
Though, eventually, things turned around for Raiden. Metal Gear Rising was a great game for him and with the recent resurragence of that game's popularity, I think it's safe to say many prefer Raiden to Snake, if just for the memes.
I think Raiden was done completely fine in MGS2 and the way his character arc completed at the end was beautiful, I found Rising to be a different direction that while really entertaining didn't feel as deep as MGS2
Snake was never that well written anyways. Raiden is better.
The saving grace for Raiden is you can say "He's lame on purpose", misguidedly striving to become someone he can never be. He's thematically meant to be an inferior downgrade wannabe. Got me there, Kojima. He sure was.
But by the time of Rising, I think most people appreciate him, either for the themes he embodied as that wannabe or the character he evolved into.
It also is similar in that i liked both nero and raiden in mgs2/dmc4 whereas many didn't, and yet never understood why people liked them so much more in rising and dmc5...(in fairness, mgs4 raiden strikes a nice balance i can get behindl
The difference is that in MGS2 Raiden's relationship to Snake feels well written and appropriate to the themes of the game. In DMC4 Nero always felt like a half baked copy of Dante who was created to make the game more appealing to casual fans.
One thing I was kind of surprised you didn't mention was his visual design. I feel like Nero in 4 really struggles to differentiate himself - he simultaneously looks too much like Dante and too much like a standard Japanese teen hero character. There's just not much there to get him over or imply that much about his character. 5 pretty much completely rectified this.
Yes and i think this simillarity to Dante didn't help him at first, just one more way to compare him with the "legend", now his is much more his own character
Couldn't agree more. Well said
I always thought his outfit in 4 was weird because he's supposed to be from this isolated mystical cult town and also works directly for the church.yet he dresses like a punk fashion star. I think his alt design works better for the setting because it fits the aesthetic of the area while giving him a unique look.
@@T3chn0logicalTerror The one clue I can give is that as isolated as Fortuna is, Nero was able to get his hands on a music player (punk headphones). My guess is that Nero still had access to outside media and took inspiration from rebellious rock music for his outfit.
Back in the day when DMC 4 got released and i've read about it in a gaming magazine i was so confused while watching the pictures of the game. I never played the games back then, and i didn't understand who is who, because Nero looked like a copy of Dante. I guess they tried too hard to make a character thats similar looking to the main protagonist, so that fans wouldn't be too alienated, but this way he just turned out to be too similar. In 5 he looks way more distinctive, and i love this.
I remember years ago I read someone's fan pitch for DMC5 where it begins with Nero being overwhelmed by some new threat and having to find Dante in Hell for assistance (this was long before the timeline change). A major plot development was that Nero would become corrupted by some kind of demonic force and the writer gleefully stated that Dante would have to kill Nero and finish the fight himself. To not only just kill off a character with such pure design and raw emotion that contrasts Dante perfectly, but also in what would be such a humiliating fashion goes against everything this series stands for. I'm so happy with the direction they took Nero in, he's an excellent character and deserved the best, now if only we could get more of Kyrie... and Lucia....
MY that would been really messed up and one off the most memorable moments in gaming history if done right but i am glad my boy nero still is fine they really did a good job with him in 5
I'd love DMC6 to bring back Lucia in some fashion to redeem DMC2 a little lol. She has a dope af design and powers, and she would've been a great addition to Dante's team. Hell, it would've been much more fitting to have her bring the Sparda to the order in DMC4 since her design fits their esthetic more.
Great point on all the Urizen fights being winnable. If it's a scripted fight you can't win no matter what, it doesn't feel like you're being bested, but that the opponent is cheating, so if the next encounter isn't scripted in an instance of this trope, but the first is, I can't help but think "Why don't you just do the same thing again and beat me?"
Well, sans the flashback Dante vs Urizen, which gets interrupted no matter what.
Suppose it's still keeping in spirit of things, because as a player you technically neither win or lose that fight and since Dante is already the one to canonically best Urizen in a serious duel, while both are at their full power, there's no comparable novelty to fully upgraded Dante beating Urizen in a bossbattle, where the demon king remains seated the whole time.
@@jondoe7036 Right, I'd forgotten about the flashback. Fair point.
@@jondoe7036 I think the reason they did that for the flashback is because: if you defeat Urizen as Nero the story ends, with credits and all, but if you beat Urizen with Dante, you are literally creating a time paradox because Urizen will not be alive for Nero to face.
However it would be funny if there was a secret "paradox" ending like in mgs3 after beating Urizen with Dante
@@santiagopomares6287 Good point, that too.
They've given Vergil the short end of the stick the whole time, he never gets his own story, it's always just a couple different cutscenes and his signature moveset. Vergil got some come up in DMC5, but even playing him there he still gets all the same missions.
I'm glad they gave Nero more story in DMC5 though.
I mean, its hard to build up a game central around a character as no nonsense and cut throat as Virgil. Its kinda hard to think of a feasible story where Virgil struggle and in need of doing something to warrant a game centered around him. He is just too cool for that. Doable maybe, but hard. If it was possible at present, it should have been done already. All we can do is hope for the best and wait.
@@bryanmerel I agree with you on some of it, but they could at least give him more badassery. I'm not looking for a compelling emotional narrative, I'm looking for more than 1 or 2 cutscenes, even if it's just more badass action. He barely gets any actual screentime before DMC5 and even then you're still playing through the normal levels with his skin and moveset.
Hey, I really recommend the official manga "Vision of V" since it's V aka Vergil human side pov
I hope for DMC 6 to make vergil part of the main story on the plot and playable, now that Dante and Vergil rivalry has been finally put to an end, is time to get to know what truely happened to Sparda, Dante and Vergil being in hell now is the perfect opportunity for them to look for their father.
Like their father was the one who trained them when they were kids and they seem to not care to know wtf happened to him, like the whole plot of the DMC series is bc he dissapered, if he were with his family their mom wouldn't get kill and they wouldn't get traumatized and separated.
@@tonylinux4638 they totally could, since he's a good guy now. I wanna see the next game center around him and Dante.
Co Op sections would be badass, Vergil and Dante two player has been done, but only for Chapter 19 in DMC3. If you use the Doppelganger glitch you CAN have the player on controller 2 take control of Vergil in that game. I've done it.
Honestly as someone who played DMC4 as their FIRST game I thought Nero was great. When you don’t have the context of what previous DMC games were like DMC4 is pretty interesting. I think that’s why they made Nero, to be the stand in for “new” players, kinda like V in DMC5.
Yeah same here but playing the games before 4 made me appreciate just how lacklustre they made the Dante levels were
Same, I've always loved Nero. Old fans really like to whine about anything new.
@@Ctrekoz Saying this under a video that talks about Nero's problems in 4 is pretty ironic lol
Same man. I started with 4 and loved Nero (and not just because he was played by the one and only johnny lol). I was so hyped to hear that he was going to be a main character in 5 because it feels like he's never in crossovers and since 4 wasn't well received it felt like he was forgotten, but I'm glad I was wrong. He's a pretty simple guy whose tough but emotional and I definitely think that helped him be a good starter character for players. He's always been my favorite character.
Yeah that's why many people don't dislike the reboot. He's still bad in dmc4.
The thing about Nero being so hot-headed and angry despite having scant justification is... that's how teens and young people are. They don't know as much of the world as they think they do and thus are easily chagrined, and their emotions heavily tinge everything. It makes Nero feel very believable as a kid who has a lot of growing up to do, but has his heart in the right place. And in contrast, it makes Dante even more amazing, because his extended backstory shows he has TONS of justification for being an angry, emo, and/or deeply depressed man after enduring relentless tragedies that overshadow his good looks, godlike powers, and ultra-hot lady friends. Yet Dante manages to carry on with as much glib irreverence and wacky woohoo pizza personality as he can, even if much of it is a facade.
I never felt like Nero was chasing Dante because he was told to, I felt he was just raring to go at anything and once the opportunity presented itself, he jumped at it.
It seemed more like a bird getting out of its cage situation, rather than a dog being sic'd at something.
I never thought Nero needed redeeming. I liked him back when DMC4 came out...
Same, I remember disliking the idea of him during the promotional trailers but that changed when I got my hands on dmc 4, he felt very different to Dante, not as stylish, raw and aggressive,I've always given Capcom credit for that.
Funnily enough I found his character in 4 more charming than his dmc5 incarnation he was endearing but in 5 it feels like he's just a response to DmC Dante's reception and it feels off.
@@cooper2211 same, he's pretty whinny in 5, especially when he hypersensitive about Dante saying his dead weight or how he'll slow him down, I can't remember exactly the term Dante used but Nero made I big deal our of it and it made him seem childish.
@@hamzaisa3130 Very and him getting Devil trigger the way he did felt so cringe it didn't seem badass at all, the design is alright kinda like his other version in the concept art from DMC 4 as well. And him all of a sudden being super attached to Vergil seemed weird.
The more I think about 5 it feels like DMC with a Return of the Jedi from star wars filter attached to it
The ultimate NERO video.
I'd like to think out of the 3 current descendants of Sparda, Nero embodies what he stood for the most.
The legends of Sparda portray him as this un-killable beast of a demon who held back the tides of the entire demon world itself. But as we know, that same beast was also charmed by a human, eventually fell in love, and decided to try living a normal life among humans in the process.
Nero embodies the fact that even the great Sparda had a heart. And I'd like to think it's thanks to that inevitable truth, along with his exploits, that make his uncle and father realize that things have to change.
I always tought that Nero's fighting style suited him even at lower stakes. I see it more as a cocky and energetic style than a "frustrated" one as you put it, specially because of some of the lines and their delivery, like he screaming "go down!" And "slam dunk!".
Nero is the more straightfoward, honest and emotional of them all. He is a very hyper, all or nothing guy, and iirc Itsuno named his attacks after casino/betting references because he is a very "sink and swim person", so while Dante's style is focused in elegance and fucking around with his enemies and Vergil is absolute precision and power, Nero is about putting all the energy he van muster in every one of his moves.
Personally I think Nero's fighting style is just meant to be explosive aggression. To put it in gameplay terms, he doesn't get many defensive options. No trickster, no royal guard, not even a Devil Trigger for the majority of 5's run.
What he has, in lieu of that, is the ability to instantly turn up the heat and ravage enemies the moment he gets an opening. Even while being set back in his power development compared to the Sparda bros, Nero's just got that dawg in him.
@@noxlunesia Yeah I think you nailed that description perfectly! Nero has a theme of brute-forcing his way in his fighting style. His Devil Trigger in 4 has invincibility and damage for a few frames so he can turn an enemy assault into a brutal counterattack, and you can also trigger it from a damage animation to recover more quickly, and his Devil Bringer can interrupt a lot of attacks very easily
5 Developed this style even further by giving him an hyper-armor move and Devil Breakers that counter enemy attacks just by absolutely ravaging them. My man just goes insane at these demons, out of all the hunters, he's the most Doomguy-like
I got into DMC through 4 and have always liked Nero from the beginning. It’s good to see him get better in dmc5
Also I love how in DMC5 bother Vergil and Nero both get so interesting character development. Vergil got stronger by accepting his weaker human side, and Nero got stronger by accepting his demon side. It’s pure kino
Design-wise, I'd also say that DMC5 Nero was a huge step up from DMC4 Nero. I loved his blue-and-red color scheme in 4, but his design was a bit on the cluttered side -- plus, and I don't know if this was just me, I always saw his 4 design as "the Dante we have at home".
Cut to DMC5, and there was no mistaking him from anyone else. His clothing was much simpler and more confident (letting the jacket do most of the work), and his generic bishonen pretty-boy face was overhauled into something that was just as appealing while being far more distinct.
You can say his design and fashion "matured". Also, jt is more believable that he was indeed Virgil's son now. There is no denying when they both rock hard in Navy Blue.
Nero's blue parka is the best outfit in the series. Don't fucking @ me
Nero looks incredible in 5, to the point I wish I could bring his new haircut back into 4
Looking back they could've kept Dante's identity in DMC4 a mystery by introducing him in his DT Form. It sell the idea of Nero's role as a man on mission and the personal conflicts he has about his devil bringer by being tasked with pursuing a powerful demon that assassinated their leader. Slowly unraveling clues the demon isn't the big threat.
I digress. Devil May Cry rocks and their characters are treasures to be loved
So effectively what they did with Vergil at the start of DMC5? Yeah, that would have been pretty clever way to go about it.
I mean sure, everyone remotely familiar with the series pretty much guessed who the enigmatic hooded man was as soon as we first saw him rip Nero's arm off, but hiding his identity at the start was still enough to obscure the full picture and keep us guessing.
Now that TGBS is doing character analysis we need a shadow the hedgehog character analysis
And a Sonic analysis tbh
@@soraingaegis3086 sonic and shadow: two sides of the same coin 1:20:08
Analysis: Shadow is the perfect character and nothing is wrong with him.
@@P0rk_Sinigang your mistaken we must analyze the perfection that is shadow the hedgehog
@@P0rk_Sinigang you're ignoring every game after sonic 06 where he is present
Can we take a moment to appreciate just how good DMC4 still looks after all these years?
I am very proud to say i respected and liked Nero's character since day one. And i started with DMC1, back then i was accepting of the simple prospect of having a different character and especially protagonist other than Dante.
There was zero need for a reboot, more specifically a hard reboot, when Nero could have soft rebooted the franchise softly with a more approachable turn than what Donte could ever be( yes, even with what was initially envisionned. Because ultimately, Donte was redundant since day one). Furthermore, even with a few flaws from a writing stand point, Nero still has more interesting room and rentability for growth as a character.
1000% this!
Thats good to know
I became a devil may cry fan because of 4 and its pretty much the reasoni loved nero but i didnt know if i genuinely liked him or if i was just new to the series even when i did look into dante and vergil's lore
I loved nero the most because of a bit of a hope he gets better than both of them and boy oh boy he did
Im glad to know even classic dmc fans liked nero too ever since day 1
Going by the concept that originally Dante was going to be fighting through hell in DMC4 (but was cut due to budget), that would of been alot better of an excuse for Dante not appearing till half way.
And I think a much better Starting Incident woulda been to cut to the chase from the start. We obviously know the cult be evil from the start so.... Have Cult Pope declare Nero needs to be Sacrificed to summon Sparda. So it's Nero trying to run away and figure out how to defeat the cult on his own till Dante shows up (a similar story structure as DMC5 heh).
The first fight could be Credo instead of Dante too, in non-Nelo Angelo form, to have him be more of a Vergil type rival (and to give more Credo fights, since that fight is Amazing).
So glad to see you back making DMC content again. I feel like people have stopped talking about the series recently and I don't know why that is. People need to be reminded of how legendary this series really is.
Well it's been a minute since 5 came out. Getting close to as long of a gap as between DmC and the announcement of 5. There's only so much we can do with 5
@@MakoTenseii I know, but I feel like the DMC 4 community remained fully committed to that game for over a decade. While I feel like DMC 5 was just forgotten about. Maybe because DMC 4 is arguably the deeper game from a mechanical standpoint. I don't know.
It's almost like there hasn't been anything new to talk about since Devil May Cry 5 released THREE YEARS AGO.
@@SurvivalHorror100 Well, if we are talking about people playing the game, then dmc5 is doing just fine. Same amount of interaction as 4.
But like actually talking about it? I mean...what's there to talk about? Everything has already been said several times over.
I dunno about that, i always hear about DMC 5 in someway or another, the popularity is bigger. Quoted song lyrics, memes, some "jojo reference" tier stuff here and there... ect. DMC 5 exponantially made the series more popular than it ever was before. Perhaps it is even as big as P5 made the Persona series more popular than it used to for example by comparison.
Nero: "You feeling accepting yet?"
Vergil: "Of your existence, or of your strength?"
Nero: "BOTH you fucking asshole!"
This dialogue exchange is so fucking great, perhaps my favourite dialogue in DMC. Nero finally getting through Vergil's stubbon ass head and Vergil slowly acknowledging him is so emotionally fulfilling especially after everything he went through. The emotional delivery of the "BOTH you fucking asshole" shows how much this meant for Nero, as well as how painful it was.
The fact that Virgil DO specifically ask "Of your Existence, or of your Strength?" Indstead of saying "Of What?" Already proven that Virgil does recognize him for both, even if just a weee lil bit.
PS: also, considering this Virgil is the result of the re-merger of V and Urizen, this Virgil probably has already acknowledged Nero the moment he thanked him. This Virgil is far more morally smarter because of V's experiences.
"You feeling accepting yet?
Of your existence, or your strength?
Of both, you fucking asshole!"
I love this a lot. It tells so much about the character, his personality and backstory.
5:00 this is something that was handled so well in Onimusha Dawn of Dreams
Everyone who played Onimusha knows Samanosuke is, but Dawn of Dreams gave you time to connect with the new character Soki. And Sam didnt appear at all during the start, at least to a mayor degree (he shows up at the intro for a short while but his identity is kept secret)
It's not until super late you find out where Samanosuke has been
@Samuel Anugrah Andre Me too pal, me too. Where is that new Onimusha game that was leaked recently?! Maybe Crapcom will show it at this gamescom or TGS next month.
Gosh It's kinda heart warming to see there are people who knows about the Onimusha franchise
and I totally agree with that statement...It's completely possible to play and enjoy DoD without playing prior onimusha games
but if you played those games and started playing DoD..You'll be wondering where is Samanosuke and if you're someone who truly did cared about him..You'll immediately notice it when you hear his theme during a certain boss fight and that's such a fan service moment.
I like Nero a lot speaking as essentially a brand-new fan. His desire for revenge transforming into a desire to keep his new family alive, coupled with his angst and pure heartedness really endeared me to him. Your point about his simpler playstyle I think was very on point. I did find Nero easier to use compared to Dante when he becomes playable. Maybe that'll change though. I just started playing this game for the first time yesterday, so this video was extremely well timed for me lol.
I loved Nero right from the start and understood his story perfectly. Granted 4 was my first game offically but I was exposed to Dante through marvel vs capcom so I already had an understanding somewhat of what he was like. And while I ended up loving him too I thought Nero was really fun to play. He's not just on a job he's slowly discovering the conspiracy within that he's never known about. Even if you know who Dante is, why he's doing what he's doing is a good mystery that I was excited to see play out. And though yes you play the game backwards with him they still went above and beyond to make him extremely fun to play especially for a newcomer when I first switched to Dante it felt great. I understood why people loved him and it made it easy for me to get on board too. My only gripe involving his half is that damn forest maze level, seriously developers need to stop making forest mazes so damn convluted.
What the fuck is there to redeem? Nero is awesome. Dude's my favorite character in the franchise, lol. His motivations work, he fits in the setting, his power scaling is all sensical... well. As much as DMC CAN be sensical in that regard. Kids a badass.
I like how all his moves are about gambling. You really feel like those swings are all-or-nothing, especially if you're using max-act.
5:03 I feel ultimately Dante appearing from the start worked, I did want mmore Dante and that pushed me to see what was going on. But yeah, it did sadly overshadow Nero. It works well now on a meta level now that we have 5, at least, since it became a plot point
My friends like to tease me for liking any angry dude character, and I honestly can't deny it. I loved dmc3 when I was first introduced, and loved dmc1 when I played that next. But I never went all the way with the franchise until Nero was introduced. DMC4 was what made me go all in playing all the modes and getting absorbed with the world and lore in full. I couldn't be happier for 5 to keep him on his path and push him as hard as it did, even if I'll miss his glowy demon arm
For starters, Johnny Yong Bosch was the perfect fit for the Role as Nero in both DMC 4 and 5.
While I think it's unlikely Dante will ever truly leave the series, I do hope that DMC6 is a solo adventure for Nero. Let him really take centre stage without his uncle or dad hanging around in the background. And give Kyrie a gun and let her shoot a few demons; I think that'd be fun.
I always loved Nero, he’s an absolutely brilliant character that also compliments Dante and Vergil’s characters. I hope they one day tell us who his mother is.
Nero in DMC4 was just a cheap and lame clone of Dante, while in DMC5, he is an actual character.
While I understand they wanted to add a new mechanic while also introduce a new main character for new players, while also keeping Dante's "coolness", the end result just didnt work, and killed Nero...until DMC5.
Dante is still Dante, and Nero is, well, Nero, he is his own character, with probably the best backstory, and a lot more relatable than Dante, he is 75% human, and has no idea about his demon heritage, he is just a kid trying to help people, while Dante, as much as we love him, only has revenge or trying to clean up his brother's mess as motivations.
While I preffer Dante, I have zero problems with Nero being the new main character of the series.
Its similar to Ichiban in the Yakuza series.
To be fair Dante is trying to help people too, as we see in the anime, even if he won’t make money for taking on a case he still helps out. Nero is like a combination of Vergil’s want for strength but has Dante’s empathy for humans which keeps him from going the same path as his dad and instead going down something more like Sparda’s path.
Also, Dante is a lot more human than people think he is tbh. Though admittedly it’s best shown in the novels which more explicitly show what he’s like when he’s not hiding behind a mask.
yup, they pulled off the passing of the torch amazingly in DMC 5, Honestly I would be fine if newer entries just added new Devil hunters to join forces with Nero and have Dante/Vergil be post game extra characters.
Totally. Make Dante and Vergil extras (and hopefully include my boy V), in the exact way Vergil in 5 plays everybody's stages
@@TheKocon13 Hopefully in DMC 6 Vergil gets his own levels,
GamingBrit releasing a DMC video?????????????? Holy shit it's Christmas
Devil May Cry 5 is truly legendary.
I don't think he really needed redeeming that much but yeah Nero is great. Love him.
Great video. Nero was always the highlight of DMC5 for me, whether it's the bombastic Devil Trigger trailer, his UNGA BUNGA fighting style or the way his design got streamlined and improved, I feel like they've struck a very precise balance with this.
I especially like that you mentioned that Nero rising from the ashes and landing a hit on Urizen is actually an arc in itself. It usually gets overshadowed by Dante's SDT.
(conspicuously rotates Kyrie in model viewer)
ARE YOU ACCEPTING YET?!
Oh yeah, we are. I love the fact that Nero is essentially the "take a third option" of the Sparda lineage. Can't wait to see where the future of this series goes.
The thing that always made me appreciate Nero is, out of all the Sparda children, he was the most human. Sure Dante showed compassion and even cried when he couldn't save his own brother, but you never feel that he could ever die or get severely hurt because we see him get stabbed into next week, and he such an advanced and massive range of weapons and skills that make him practically indestructible.
Vergil has little to no emotions, and instead of embracing his human side like Dante, until V he was obsessed with becoming as powerful as he could to surpass his father, eventually becoming a demon himself, and while Dante did get hurt and stood up, Vergil was made to seem unmovable, an intimidating elder brother that seemed to not care for anyone and only had one track on his mind: Power
Nero however, is shown right away that he has a family to care for. He wants to help others, especially Kyrie, but he is ashamed of his devil bringer and sees it as something to be wary of, hiding it from everyone. Later we see him nearly die from a stabbing that Dante would've just walked off, blood and all. And the only thing that kept him going was Kyrie, and his father's sword calling to him.
The whole game shows that he has way more compassion and care for everyone around him than even Dante, and it's his love and drive to do good that kept him alive and made him powerful. It's the generic "my friends and family give me my strength," but handled well.
And even in V we see this even more. Already we see him try to defend Kyrie before getting his armed ripped off as he called out to them to warn her. If it was Dante, he most likely would've just grown his arm back right away, or dodged the grab and one shotted Vergil, who was in a weakened state, but Nero being 25 percent demon, he doesn't have that much power, which the game shows and mentions throughout.
And the climax goes back to the whole " my family gives me power" idea, growing his arm back and obtaining more power in order to save his brother and uncle, and even though Dante was tired, and Vergil was just waking up, he still beat both of them and convinced them to not only not kill each other, but get them to work together to save the world.
Dante represents Honor, being flashy but also caring and showing that even the most dangerous of people have a heart, Vergil represents the fate of someone who went through hell, and decided to become stronger without ever truly healing from the event, never learning what his fellow sibling has learned, and Nero represents being there for family and friends, becoming stronger for the sake of those around him, and not for himself.
"The time has come, and so have I." *smug*
"The darkness of night falls around my soul, the hunter within loses control..." *Jumping off the walls smashing everything while screaming in excitement and finger gunning anyone who makes eye contact*
Nero(specifically he in 5) is one of the character in DMC universe that got swear word pass. it just fits his character without become too edgy or overbearing and i like that about him
I didn't know how to feel about Nero until the moment he went all ballistic at Dante when he accidently hurt Kyrie in the beginning. It was like his character was switched on at that moment
"Nero is just a poor man's version of Dante."
>Remake Releases
"I retract my previous statement."
Dante and vergil are still way better. But that is the point he is growing up game by game and I love it
DMC 5 is one of the greatest comeback ever done by Capcom. Both the franchise and Nero’s character is basically a redemption for the fans. It’s great that Capcom went back to its roots again.
@Jett Leon S Hey, variety is not a bad thing. Also I never see it as Westernized. I'm not western myself, and I love both the anime-like style and the style they went for in DMC5. Point is, people can like different styles. You don't have to like all styles, and neither do I - and that is fine. [It does not make a game bad!]
For me it was the lack of moves and abilities in basic gameplay that made Nero less appealing in DMC4. I still don't like playing as him in 4. But thanks to Devil Breakers in DMC5 he became much more interesting and fun to play as.
Still, I wish we would get more Dante again... No offense to Nero.
Oh yeah and this video was great!
I feel like Nero's aggression works with his angst and punky teen characterisation. Bit of a bully, letting out some steam. I never thought of it more than that, and I felt like it was a good enough reason.
More so than DMC5 just redeeming Nero, I feel like it redeemed 4 and the franchise as a whole. After the DmC reboot, and people's existing thoughts on 4, hopes weren't high for the franchise.
I very much agree with what you said on your DMC5 review, that 5 retroactively makes 4 better. DMC4 is nowadays no longer seen as a wimpy farewell for the series, but instead basically like a lower stakes, more fun "beach episode" in the middle for the series.
Don't know if I'd call it a "beach episode" perse. Even with its comparatively lower stakes it still builds on and furthers the overarching narrative by all the underlying connections to Vergil and the introduction of new protagonist in Nero (to whom the storyline is very much do or die situation, even if for Dante it is business as usual for the most part). Which means it's not really an inconsequential romp just to have some fun, which I would asscoiate with a "beach episode" storyline, nor is it a monster of the week type of detour like DMC2.
The amount of yelling Nero does in 4 does get grating
Don't forget about Nico and V! Dante in 3 had Lady and Vergil to bounce off of and interact with while Nero didn't really have anyone in 4 (it should have been Credo and Kyrie). In five, he has both V and Nico to bounce off of play around with and talk to.
I've never had an actual problem with Nero, I think he's a pretty cool character (helped by being voiced by Johnny Young Bosch) and I like him being the sort of beginner character in theory. Really I just dislike how his addition has put us in this weird thing where your essentially forced to play as characters you probably might not want to play as for the sake of a pretty nothing plot. I'd vastly prefer it if you just picked a character at the beginning of the game and you could play through the whole campaign as them. Makes it feel like Sonic Adventure 2 only the stages aren't as short the change in gameplay goes on for longer than desired.
"You will rise again, this is your legacy~"
That scene right before he flies to stop Dante and Vergil will forever be one of my favorite gaming moments, and the moment where I knew that everything that DMC5 was doing, was working towards that one scene.
God, the fact that scene also mentions Credo really made me emotional. They acknowledge the pain and consequences of the previous game and how Nero sees it as a reason to get stronger, to not lose any more of his family.
Speaking of "everything DMC5 was doing, was working towards that one moment", it's kinda funny how all the way up there, he finds a phone that works, but it was also the case throughout the entire game.
It's a beautiful moment. What truly caught me off-guard was him regrowing a human arm though, instead of the Devil Bringer as I initially assumed
It would've been really easy for them to make DMC5 something super fanservicey that threw everything people might not have entirely liked away to focusing on this stuff everyone likes. Really glad it was committed to developing what was there instead of playing it safe.
I’m really happy Nero has made a name for himself in the series. I don’t think he’s as popular as Dante and Vergil but is an important and likable character in his own unique way.
this video really nails why the story of dmc4 has never appealed to me even tho i really liked nero from the beginning. there's a weird disconnect and lack of personal stakes to relate to, especially compared to dmc3.
Also his voice actor helps a ton. I'm a sucker for his grunts😍, Johnny Young Bosch is a legend.
GETSUGA TENSHO
The scene right after Vergil returns has a great performance from both Johnny and Ruben.
@@ProxyDoug Reuben was born to play Dante
Vergil used to be my favorite dmc character, even after playing DMC5. But over the years, after playing the game multiple times, Nero has really grown on me and now he's my favorite Sparda family member.
I've always super appreciated how all 4 of the playable characters in DMC (6 if you can Trish and Lady in DMC4 DLC) are really well-characterized through their gameplay and abilities. Especially after DMC4, every character feels very well personified even if you don't watch the cutscenes or get any of the lore about them. Dante is stylish and almost too strong for his own good. He's complex, but if you master that complexity you're basically untouchable, and the entire time you're doing cool shit, swapping between up to like 15 different weapons in one combo, and you have a response to every single situation.
As you talked about, Nero's gameplay is much more rage-fueled and hot-headed. Every swing feels like you're putting your entire body and heart into it. Vergil's gameplay, especially with the Patience mechanic that 4 introduced, feels cold, apathetic, and calculated, but because of that it's the polar opposite of Dante. You don't have as many moves, but you don't need them, because what you do have is all you need. You don't do shit as crazy and flippy as Dante, you just slash through without any trouble. And of course, V's gameplay is self-explanatory, relying on your pets to do the big damage while you wait for the opportunity to finish them off.
It's all so well done. It makes me appreciate the games even more. Dante has so many weapons because they all add to his singular movelist.
Great video, even if it was jarring to see the qliphoth chair instead of the plastic one.
It would have been so cool if at the beginning of DMC4 Nero moved and fought in a more controlled and precise way, maybe even mimicking moves from Credo. Also, maybe only using his devil breaker for platfotming.
He should still bring his punk flair, but once Kyrie gets snatched we get the ferocious wild Nero we all know and love, who finally uses his arm in combat.
he was the one who suffered the most of plastic surgery from dmc5, he didnt even got to have his leon hair.
Been almost a year and still No More Hero 3 review has yet to be seen.
Ooo one thing I love about Nero’s new design is the short hair. It’s enough to separate him from the twins of sparda but the white hair and demonic abilities still are there and also I’m not sure if many would agree with it but they got to reuse the short hair concept Dante again but in a much more clever and useful way
Y'know what's funny? Nero looks and acts like Dante from DMC: Devil May Cry except done right. It's like they also redeemed that character as well.
Nero and Dmv V ending :
The irony is also that Nero is a more spiritual successor of Sparda, because he love a human. He want to protect his family and use this power for that cause. Unlike Vergil and even Dante who cannot find that kind of love.
In this regards, Nero is the true heir of sparda. And i think a part of his power came from here.
This is a goat comment, never thought of it that way.
If there’s a Devil May Cry character that DESERVES to be in a Marvel VS Capcom game it’s Nero. He’s different enough from his father and uncle to make him unique in a fighting game and it baffles me it never happened so he definitely deserves a spot in MVC with Dante and Vergil as all of them are the big three characters in the series, far too important to not be in a fighting game together
ikr, Nero needs in to be mvc4,
I feel like, the first half of this video kind of made an issue that didn’t exist about Nero’s personality. Devil May Cry is firmly established in “yes we have a story but we know that’s not why you’re here” so any discrepancy any say Nero’s personality and why he’s so hot blooded and rash is thrown to the sideline. Firstly him being handsome, having super powers and a GF doesn’t mean he can’t just be, a hot blooded teenager, a Japanese trope. No teenager needs to explain themselves fully for being a little angstyz Secondly, we as an audience enjoy seeing Nero having fun, being less skilled and lashing out with a blade, there’s no confusion because we know it’s fun and it’s made to be fun, not because it’s deeply integral to some character exploration and plot. I like this analysis but I feel like it’s missing the point of DMC in a lot of ways.
I liked Nero in dmc4 due to his murderous outrages at times
Love this look on Nero. Funnily enough, I learned to appreciate him after seeing that legendary Dango (RIP) Style video where he choreographs the second Dante vs Nero fight to have it end in a sick-ass Double KO, followed by me seeing a guide for him by the one-and-only ChaserTech.
And after delving into how he plays, I dug up on his lore a lot more and I was like "yeah, you know what? This angry kid is pretty endearing in a way. Dude just wants to save his girl and all that. Nothing really wrong, the next generation of Half-demon Demon Hunters is gonna be aite". And yeah, really dug his style of just BEATING THE PISS OUT OF DEMONS as his way of styling on them compared to his uncle's finesse, or his father's precision.
When DMC5 was first announced, I didn't know who Nero was so I thought he was Donte until the trailer was over and Twitter educated me on that. When I first got into this series a few years ago and got to DMC4, I knew early on that I loved Nero way more than Dante in terms of both gameplay and character. Don't get me wrong, Dante's great, but I always found that Nero meshes with me so much better.
Jesus thank you for mentioning breaking up the cycle of d and v fighting so we can explore new things in the future. I mention this on reddit and the fans jump down my throat. No we don't need sparda and mundus returning. We need new plot elements and characters
Amazing video! Love that you make videos appreciating the story in devil may cry. A series where most people gloss over the story elements and just focus on gameplay. Obviously gameplay is more important, but people rarely give devil may cry the credit it deserves for crafting such great and interesting characters.
I'd also say that the way DMC5's arc concluded could also make for an awesome sequel featuring Dante and Vergil as the leads as they fight their way through the demon realm, reconnecting as brothers and showing their rivalry in a very different light. Not that it really needs to happen, but I think it could make for a great story if done right.
DMC5 is not only the best selling DMC game in history but the fastest selling. There is no way we are not getting a DMC6 it is to profitable. Especially since Resident Evil is starting to fall off in popularity and Resident Evil's insane success was a big reason Capcom neglected Devil May Cry.
I wonder if they'd have someone other than Itsuno direct one. I like Itsuno's games but he's just one guy - it's gonna be a long time before DMC6 since he wanted to make Dragon's Dogma 2 first, at least.
@Jett Leon S I am late to reply but I have numbers. As you know the best selling Resident evil game of all time is Resident evil 7 in 2017 selling 11 million units. The next resident evil game the Resident Evil 2 Remake in 2019 sold 9.8 million units. The Resident evil 3 remake sold 5.4 million units. In 2020 which I might add was an amazing year for video game sales. Finally Resident evil village in 2021 did sell slightly more at 6.4 million but still a huge drop off from Resident Evil 7. Resident Evil 7 got success from RUclips with people like Markaplier and Capcom thought that short term almost meme status would translate into everlasting sales which as the declining sales clearly show didn't happen. I am not saying Resident Evil is a dead Franchise no one plays I am saying that the sales are dropping which is objectively true. Devil May Cry 5 by contrast was not only the best selling Devil May Cry game but the fastest selling.
Well, if I'm honest, nero is my favorite character in the franchise
Based
This is the same reasons that Cobra Kai works so well. Instead of simply rehashing the glory days, they introduce new elements to the mix that recontextualize and even invite new perspectives on old paradigms.
I LOVED DMC4. It was amazing if you just treat it as a B rated action movie from the 80's/90's
Back at the start in dmc4. I started off thinking Dante was the antagonist. Like Nero would play through the game with the goal of getting revenge for killing the priest and we the audience would be thinking either it’s a Dante imposter. Possessed Dante. Or is the church evil? And Nero would unveil the truth. But then… they just played it straight forward and held no mystery. It was underwhelming.
Nero is a great example of catering for new fans
Instead of simplifying the existing character just make a brand new one with a simpler move set that new players can get around easier
The drama doesn't come close to DMC 3 levels, but DMC 5 was atleast a step in the right direction especially for Nero.
I dunno... I actually liked Nero better back in 4. He really felt more like his own character. In 5, he ends up leaning more towards a Dante-wannabe. A prime example is when he faces Goliath. That whole scene felt WAY more like how Dante would respond to the situation. This did not feel like the same character introduced in 4; How he dawdles around, cracking jokes, rather than showcasing his more blunt, straight-forward nature that he was established with originally.
The taunting towards Goliath was pretty reminiscent of when he taunted Beriel in 4
I was around 10-11 years old when I first played Devil May cry 4. I had never played a dmc game before. Nero was my introduction to the franchise. Even though I didn’t know who Dante was, I wanted to see much more of him after that assassination scene. I loved his sword and attitude. I was so hyped when I got to play as him. After that, I bought and played every game. Nero is great addition to the franchise but he’ll never beat Dante.
This never was the case, pal