I love how people are judging the entire character and combat system off a two-minute video intro video.(OMG he can't be Dante! Dante had WHITE hair!! And I am unclear on what the term "reboot" means!!!)
! (I especially want to hear from this one.)He says that he hates it cause its bad for his health...quite a simple reason but atleast he specifically says that.
According to the anime he was born with white hair cause of his demon lineage, beside Dante "awakens" his powers for the first time in DMC3 (the game is called DMC3: Dante's Awakening)
The DMC 3 Manga helped settle his age as it has scene with Dante at the age of 8 (when his mother was killed). By considering what's said in the games, his age comes around 18 years in DMC3.
This is DMC, part of the experience of the games comes from playing as Dante so its obviously a big deal if they change him.
Which brings me to the question...why name this new guy Dante ?
Perhaps the "health consequences" would be established. Like it allowed a demon to track and almost kill him. "Health consequences indeed.
He's shrugging off lethal injuries and riding around on demons like skateboards in the opening scenes. Seems to me there's room to maneuver in the whole "super powers" department. His DMC3 "awakening" would appear to only refer to the devil powers appearing after he fights Vergil.
As I said, I don't know the figures. And if the manga is the only place where an 8-year-old Dante appears with white hair, that's easy to ignore; manga tends to exist as its own side-market, and it would certainly have little impact in the west.
But playing Dante didn't take the burn off DMC2's panning relative to DMC1, nor did the Nero/Dante relationship in DMC4 add any spark and zest, or add great things to the storyline; people just seemed to be relatively happy to have any old DMC to play.
My guess would be because Capcom wanted to add enough distance and difference from the the other titles to attract attention, and possibly to attract renewed interest in other markets. Getting people to keep talking and talking and talking about your game--even if it's to bitch about it--is rarely a bad thing. (And if pre-release reviews have tell favorable things about the "why," it all turns to free marketing.) I'm sure NT had a a role in character design, but obviously if Capcom wanted Dante to retain his "Dante-ness," they would have made sure it happened.
Too many people are taking this as personal insult, however. The original title was not awesome because Dante was the character of all characters, his design the design to end all design, and the story was the story to end all stories... Frankly, both Dante and the story were pretty stock, but enjoyable. What set DMC apart was the gameplay. It broke the ice for what 3D action/hack-and-slash could do, and opened the door to your Ninja Gaidens and Gods of War, among others. It's also the only thing people really judged the other DMC's on, too.
I think from a story perspective, NT is likely to deliver much better than the other DMC's, to the point that one would "get the new Dante," or at least forget initial knee-jerk objections. From a gameplay standpoint, however...? As with any of these games, "we'll see."
The proof of the pudding is in the hugely-stylized combos.
I'm saying that--by your logic--any changes made to the franchise are not "legitimate," because Kamiya hasn't been involved. Character design, story, action... So you are in essence making a deal about any changes whatsoever.
Obviously DMC and the genre in general owes a lot to Kamiya (and Mikami), but it seems rather rude to the rest of the team to say "nope, no changes, guys. No deviations. No personal touches. No experimentation. Can't do it!"
DMC2 was a stumble, but nowhere near a "came close to destroying" considering how many copies it sold. One could of course thank Kamiya and the strength of the first title (and that a drop would be expected if your creative direction went elsewhere), but then DMC3 was a solid return to form with a lot of expansion, and even DMC2 brought in a number of elements that stuck with the series from then on. And DMC4 was a strong-enough entry, even if it didn't continue a DMC3 legacy of improvements.
While DMC was all manner of influential, I don't believe Kamiya gets to claim anything introduced in the next seven years be default. Enhanced sales can be attributed to appreciation of the series and its legacy, but it's not like if DMC3 didn't revolve around Dante it would have been a bad game. (And heck, even DMC2's camera issues probably would have been forgiven if it had higher difficulty modes.)
Meanwhile, nothing is clear about the new DmC title from the Ninja Theory perspective, except that they were apparently trying to hang fairly tight to the original image first, and Capcom kept pushing them further away. So now they have a different look and a story that's been signed off on.
Might Capcom be making a mistake is pushing a reboot? Quite possibly. But hey, their series their prerogative. Might Ninja Theory be the wrong match for it? Possibly, but hey their title their prerogative. What will NT do with the opportunity...? We'll see.
Too many people are taking this as personal insult, however. The original title was not awesome because Dante was the character of all characters, his design the design to end all design, and the story was the story to end all stories... Frankly, both Dante and the story were pretty stock, but enjoyable. What set DMC apart was the gameplay. It broke the ice for what 3D action/hack-and-slash could do, and opened the door to your Ninja Gaidens and Gods of War, among others. It's also the only thing people really judged the other DMC's on, too.
I think from a story perspective, NT is likely to deliver much better than the other DMC's, to the point that one would "get the new Dante," or at least forget initial knee-jerk objections. From a gameplay standpoint, however...? As with any of these games, "we'll see."
The proof of the pudding is in the hugely-stylized combos.