For the Devil May Cry series, Dante and Virgil, the red and blue devil twins, like pearls of bubble tea, are the iconic elements of the series, and the entanglement between them is also the foothold of several generations of plots. But in Capcom’s original vision, in this world where humans and demons dance, there should only be Dante’s solo.
Strange brotherhood
As the beginning of everything, “Devil May Cry 1” is also the same as the works of subsequent generations, using the introduction of slaughtering demons, focusing on the entanglement between family members. But unlike later works, the variable in this work is Dante’s mother, Eva.
In the setting, Eva is long dead for years. But at the beginning of the story, a woman with the same appearance as Eva appears in Dante’s office and conveys to him the news that the Demon Emperor is about to awaken.
Out of the responsibility of the demon hunter and curious about the woman’s identity, Dante immediately embarks on a journey.
In this adventure, in order to stop Dante’s advance, all kinds of demons emerge one after another, but it is difficult to stop the demon hunters. Until the Black Knight appears.
This enemy has a strong ability far beyond the other demons and quickly suppresses Dante. In the midst of the struggle, a necklace was revealed around Dante’s neck, and after witnessing it, the Black Knight gave birth to a mutation, gave up the pursuit, and left.
The necklace was a birthday gift from Eva to her son, and it was originally a couple. One goes to his brother Dante, and the other to his brother Virgil. Later, due to a sudden attack by the demon, the mother died, the brother disappeared, and another necklace disappeared.
In the face of the Black Knight’s release of water, Dante was quite puzzled, and with the re-encounter with the other party, he also got the answer – the Black Knight was Virgil.
The opportunity to reveal this answer was the familiar necklace that belonged to his brother after the Black Knight was defeated. This also explains the kindness shown by the other party at that moment.
In fact, the necklace was made by Sparta, the father of the brothers.
As a former powerhouse of the Demon World, Sparta betrayed his origin and fellow race during the invasion of the Demon World two thousand years ago, stood on the side of the human race, and then sealed the Demon Emperor and the Demon World. In the years that followed, he gave birth to two children with a human woman, Eva, and finally mysteriously disappeared. The necklace, on the other hand, is the key to his power sealing. As for the Black Knight, it is a monster that Virgil turned into after being plundered by the demon and brainwashed by the Demon Emperor.
When he was filled with grief and indignation, Dante used the necklace to unlock the seal of power that existed on the blade of force, and then with the power of Sparta, defeated the culprit Demon Emperor, ending the story of a generation.
In this story, the powerful, and tumultuous and cool Dante can be described as the only protagonist on the stage. As for Virgil, it is just an obstacle in Dante’s path, an opportunity to make the protagonist stronger, like a tool man. However, the Waterloo in terms of word of mouth and sales of the sequel has brought a new change to its identity.
The birth of “power” people
After the explosion of “Devil May Cry 1”, Capcom soon launched the sequel “Devil May Cry 2”. However, due to the great difference in style from its predecessor, the degree of completion is not high enough, and the market reaction is extremely negative.
In response to this crisis, Capcom chose to mobilize its headquarters and invest more resources in order to fight a turnaround on Devil May Cry 3. It is also because of this “black history” that many settings of “Devil May Cry 2” have basically been abandoned.
Over three generations, Capcom made many important changes. Like at the plot level, they reorganized the backstory. And the core foothold is the origin change of Virgil.
The story of Devil May Cry 3 takes place a generation ago. At this point in time, Dante, who lost his mother and brother, has grown up. In order to make a living, he set up an office and prepared to take on some commissions related to demon hunting.
Shortly after the opening of the firm, a special letter came to him – an invitation from Virgil. The location in the letter is the mushrooming towers in the city.
At the top of the tower, Dante meets his long-missing brother. Today, he wears a blue trench coat and holds a katana. Waiting for his brother to arrive. And his purpose is very pure, he wants to seize the necklace inherited from his father on his brother. Because only in this way can he unlock the seal and gain more powerful power.
As for the source of this obsession, it comes from the shadow left by the accident in childhood.
In the plot modifications given by the three generations, since the childhood accident, Virgil has not been directly brainwashed, but has experienced hardships and grown up in the demon world. In the process, he developed a completely different state of mind. He believes that his mother’s death and the tragedy of his family are all because he has no power, and this worship of power makes him a “power person”.
It was also around this event that Dante’s image was further fleshed out. In fact, he has always been obsessed with his father Sparta because of his mother’s death, and then hates his bloodline, and begins to become rebellious and confused.
Through this encounter, the two brothers each became mirrors of the other, resulting in subtle changes in their moods.
As for the villain named Akham who runs through and drives the whole process.
This human warlock, in order to gain the power of Sparta, set up a game to use Dante and Virgil, and took advantage of the defeat of both brothers, and achieved a long-cherished wish. But at the final moment, he was defeated by the two brothers who joined forces.
The final chapter of the story of the three generations is a fateful duel between the two brothers. With the exchange of red and blue figures, Virgil was defeated and jumped into the demon world.
In this showdown, Virgil made some rather subtle moves. As if before the fight, he put down the Yan Demon Knife he had taken advantage of and picked up the Blade of Force instead. But after the defeat, he threw his sword in front of his brother, and then jumped down with a necklace from his parents.
As a symbol of strength, the Blade of Force is undoubtedly the end of Virgil’s obsession. But what was the motivation for him to become a “power man”? The answer is to protect your family. In moving toward this goal, he mistook the process for the result. The reunion with his brother reminded him of this original intention. In the author’s opinion, the process of him putting down the blade of force and picking up the necklace is the external manifestation of this change of mood.
After witnessing his brother’s departure, Dante was left in tears. This brought up the theme of Devil May Cry, which became the firm’s name. And Virgil was defeated by the Demon Emperor in the Demon World and was brainwashed into a generation of BOSS Black Knights.
If, as originally described in the first generation, Virgil’s final ending is to dissipate death in the demon world, the plot of the 4th and 5th generations will inevitably be different. Because it was around what he did alone that Capcom found a reasonable foothold for the subsequent plot.
Trussing between humanity and power
At the end of three generations, Virgil was liberated from his attachment to power and became more human, but how could the persistent pursuit polished by the years and engraved in his bones disappear so easily?
The plot of the fourth and fifth generations is actually the product of being born around his two very different personalities.
Regarding the fourth generation, after disappearing as a black knight, for unknown reasons, Virgil returned to the human world. In the process of walking on earth, an interesting news reached his ears.
It was a Spartan cult whose first doctrine was the exclusion of demons. As the heir to the Spartan bloodline, Virgil became interested in it and began to explore.
In this process, I don’t know for what reason, he left his own bloodline, Nero, and then turned away.
Capcom does not explain to us the identity of Nero’s mother, but this does not prevent us from speculating. For Virgil, perhaps because of his human nature, he moved his true feelings to have the flower of love, but in order to avoid the mistakes of his childhood, bringing disaster to mother and son, or maybe he fell into the fascination with power again, he will leave again.
Regardless of the process, Nero’s birth can be seen as a product of humanity. And the Yan Demon Knife he left behind also gave birth to greater ambition for the Demon Sword Sect, which in turn left an opportunity for Dante to assassinate the Pope of the Order in the fourth generation.
The background of the story of the five generations is also quite confusing. All we know is that in the quest for power, Virgil’s body and mind have become fragmented. But before he really fell, the long-cherished wish to fight his brother again supported him to make more outrageous moves. He first took Nero’s right arm, that is, the Yan Demon Knife, and then inserted himself to separate his personality, allowing himself to belong to the demon side, setting off a bloody storm. This brought difficult challenges to Dante Nero’s uncles and nephews, and also temporarily ended the story of Devil May Cry.
There are actually large gaps in this legendary story around the two brothers, such as, after 3 generations, what has Virgil experienced? About this part of the story, we can get a glimpse of it in “Devil May Cry – Peak Battle”.
Familiar “invitations”
The story of Devil May Cry – Battle for the Pinnacle takes place between three generations and generations. Compared to the series, the most unexpected plot of this generation is that Dante’s office finally has business.
In the process of dealing with business, he discovers that the demon is searching for something in the city, and in addition, he has received a special note from Virgil.
“Come to church, dear brother, I have left you a special gift.”
Using this “invitation” as an introduction, Dante comes into contact with a mysterious family. This is a special family that has helped Spartan seal demons, and they breed and inherit in the city, shouldering the responsibility of guarding the seal. Again, this is also the goal of the devil’s trip.
So what role will Virgil play in this process? If you extrapolate around the timeline, Virgil at this time should have returned from the demon world. It is worth noting that in the early promotional trailer of this work, there was a silhouette of three people fighting against a certain BOSS.
This statue-like boss, like a generation of demon emperors, is also the culprit of brainwashing Virgil. Following this clue, Dante is likely to join forces with Virgil to “fight” the Demon Emperor again. As for the specific story, it is waiting for the official to advance.
In addition to supplementing the plot of the series, “Devil May Cry – Peak Battle” also restores the various characteristics of the Devil May Cry series on the mobile terminal. For example, in terms of design, it blends a variety of series elements including scenes, shapes, and art styles. In terms of operation, the game also uses a virtual joystick and the design of the right five buttons to restore the stylized rubbing moves. And through a certain simplification, the difficulty of touching the screen is reduced. The operation look and feel of Dante, Letty and Virgil are very similar to the original.
epilogue
The story of Devil May Cry can be said to start with Virgil and end because of Virgil. But beneath this façade, what drives the story to change and develop is still his unique relationship with Dante’s love and killing. With the emergence of the ending of the five generations, their fateful intertwining, which lasted for twenty years, also temporarily came to an end and became an unforgettable memory in my memory.